Our Big Backyard (and other various thoughts and pictures)

One of the best parts of living here in Shell is the close proximity of our house to God's creation- from the volcano visible from our driveway on clear days to the sights and sounds of the jungle. The kids love exploring outside. The latest craze in our outdoor experiences is the tadpole population living in the old hot tub here on the MAF base. All of the kids in the neighborhood are often found catching and examining these little creatures. Here are some pics from a couple Sundays ago of the boys playing out back.




Here's a picture of Jadyn lounging poolside a few weeks ago when our family went to a pool in Puyo for the afternoon.


Do you remember December 15, 1999? Ron Dayne had just won the Heisman Trophy, gas cost about $1.30 a gallon, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" was the most watched telvision show in the U.S., everyone was stocking up their pantries with hamburger helper for the end of the world that was just 17 days away, and nobody in our family had a diaper that needed changed. For the next 8 years and 4 months, that didn't happen again. Until last week. Luke is diaper free during the days now and even has had a couple of dry nights. He is still learning some proper etiquette boundaries, though. Like . . . peeing outside by a tree is often alright, but pooping on the sidewalk by the carport- not so much.


In the 11+ years I lived in Lancaster, I rode the bus a total of 0 times. (In fact, aside from trips to the dentist as a kid in Rochester, I don't think I've ever rode the city bus). But here in Shell, we ride the bus often. Not all the time, but more frequently lately. And it's so easy here- no need to look for a schedule of stops and times. We can just walk out to end of our driveway and within 5 minutes there's a bus that will stop and take us to Shell or Puyo.

The kids are taking SAT's this week at school. No, not those SAT's. Their Standard Achievement Tests for each grade level. The one positive of this is that Jodie has had to spend a lot less time on lesson plans. A big negative is that Micah has to take these tests on his birthday.

That's right, our Micah bear is 7 today!! We're so proud of our special guy and we love him so much. Happy Birthday Micah!!

A year ago today...

When I woke up on April 13th, 2007, I probably couldn't have located Ecuador on a map. Also, my spanish vocabulary consisted of "no" and "piso mojado", I didn't know much about Nate Saint other than there was a movie about him, and I hadn't spent much time thinking about the possibilities of moving our family to another country to be involved in MK education. When I got home from work that day, Jodie asked "What would you think about being a missionary teacher with MAF?" and as they (I'm not really sure who "they" are, but I digress) say, "The rest is history." Wow, what a year it's been! I think our family has experienced just about every emotion possible over the past 12 months. We've been stretched in ways I couldn't have dreamed of last April 12. But it's been so humbling to see how God has guided us and comforted us and allowed us to be used to serve the missionary families and local -Shellers? Shellians? Shellites?-. The whole process has been such a God thing- amazingly so. I can only imagine what our lives might look like on April 13, 2009.

Taco A Mockingbird

April is Read-A-Thon month at NSMS. The students and teachers are attempting to read 100,000 pages collectively. Jodie had her class over for a reading and taco eating party (the kids voted on the menu. Normally you don't think of curling up with a good book and a taco- but hey). Although nobody in her class is reading Harper Lee's classic about Atticus and Scout Finch, there were appearances made by Encyclopedia Brown, Frank & Joe Hardy, the very hungry caterpillar (in Spanish), and others. Here are some pictures.










Shea and Micah are also reading lots of books this month. Shea has been re-reading many Magic Tree House books along with C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle. Micah's interests have leaned more toward non-fiction including books about storms and Ben Franklin. Not to be outdone, Jadyn and Luke are also reading lots this month. The other four of us have all taken turns reading to them. Some of their favorites are The Bearenstein Bears and Lily the mouse (Jadyn) and books about airplanes (Luke).

3 down, 1 to go

Today was the last day of the 3rd quarter at school for Jodie, Shea, and Micah. Today is also our 8 month anniversary in Ecuador.

Here's are some highlights and pictures from recent weeks.


Celebrating our first Easter in Ecuador was a blend of old and new. In Ecuador (and probably all of South America), Easter and holy week do not have any of the Spring-themed "fluff" that we associate with the season in the U.S. There's no Easter bunny, plastic eggs, or those little Peeps marshmallows. So we imported some of that with us. Our family painted Easter rocks and eggs and on Easter morning the MAF missionary families had a brunch and egg hunt. Our church had just one service on Easter Sunday, and it was at 5 a.m. So, I was the only one to attend church on Easter Sunday. Here's some pictures of the kids decorating their rocks.





These are Jod's students at Prairie Days- a class project where the kids each researched and led an activity for the other school students about life on the 19th century U.S. prairie.



Edgar and his daughter Sharly are friends of ours that we met at Edgar's bakery. Unfortunately, the bakery closed down last month, but they live in Shell and we're still able to see them from time to time.


I've been helping out at "Spotlight" most weeks. This is a club to help people learn English. Beth, the boy's teacher, usually leads but wasn't able to be there a couple weeks in a row. I was the only native English speaker last week and we had 13 Spanish speakers- more than the normal turnout and more than half were young children. It actually went alright, but I was glad to have some "help" this past Thursday.

I'm really enjoying teaching Phys Ed at NSMS this year. It's a neat way to keep in touch with the school and gives me a little outlet away from home. The kids (3 classes of 1st thru 8th graders) are a lot of fun and I've enjoyed getting to know each of them and their personalities. I'm still getting used to being called Mr. Richardson, though.

Look for our April newsletter in your mailboxes (the ones on your front porch or by the street) this month.