First Days in Quito

This is a good thing to try if you want to break out of a routine.

They had the apartment ready for us when we got here the night of October 13. It is spotless and freshly painted and has plenty of room for the three of us. It has 2 bedrooms, a private bath with a shower, and a combined kitchen and living room. It does not have heat since it is perpetually spring here. This week it has been a rainy spring however. We are glad that they had told us to bring long sleeved shirts and jackets. Most mornings have started partly cloudy, but thunderstorms and rain have rolled in by early afternoon. Layers of clothes have felt good. Today, the rains have held off, and it is really nice. Even now, the thunder is rolling over us.

The setting for Quito and the Seminary (Seminario Teológico Nazareno Sudamericano) is beautiful: mountains on two sides of the city form an avenue about 30 miles long for about 2 million people. The clouds roll over and around the mountains giving us an ever-changing view. The campus is on a hillside, so the buildings step down like stairs. The classrooms and cafeteria buildings are below the tabernacle-gym, then the apartments which are above the mission and district offices. This is the headquarters for one of the Ecuadorian districts and the North Andes Field of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The view out of our apartment window and from almost anywhere on campus is of the huge mountain across the city to the south. [When I first wrote this, I thought it was southwest. I’m still trying to get oriented.]

Pam and I have a private tutor that works for the Seminary and its Nazarene International Language Institute. She works with us five mornings a week from 8:30 to 12:30. She is very considerate and extremely patient. We are definitely learning fast, but we have a long way to go before we will be able to really talk to anyone intelligibly. Nine weeks may not be enough, but we’ll see. It seems like it is all we can do each night to write a short page in our diaries in Spanish. With Spanish/English dictionary in hand, we struggle to write elementary sentences.

We did get out on the town, though, with the university students from Olivet, Mid-America, Ambrose Univ. College (Calgary), and Univ. of Missouri. Wednesday evening, we went downtown to the National Folk Ballet. They are a dance troupe that preserves the traditional and indigenous dances of Ecuador. The music was beautiful (think El Condor Paso), the costumes were very elaborate and extremely colorful, and the choreography was complex and sometime acrobatic. One number was a May pole dance. At least a dozen dancers wove and un-wove various patterns. At first, they did simple weaves and undid them. Then, they braided a very complex pattern with spirited dancing that seemed impossibly complicated, but they reversed it with just as much speed and grace.

Yesterday, we went to a centro commercial or shopping center. It was very much like any in the States. Actually some of the stores seemed to be multi-nationals like Payless Shoes, but there was no large anchor department store. A modern supermarket grocery store was maybe the largest single store. The food court had a great panoramic view of the international airport a couple of miles across the valley.

We have enjoyed a few meals so far in the seminary cafeteria with the seminary and NILI students. Rice is part of virtually every meal. Soups are often served. The meal last night (evening meals are at 8:00) was a lasagna-like baked dish served with rice and salad. Muy bien. Breakfasts are light, and lunch is usually the big meal of the day.

Stephen spends each morning while we are in class with Harrison, an Ecuadorian who was an athlete in the Army before answering a call to prepare for the ministry. He is obviously and by all accounts an outstanding young man. Stephen seems to have quickly accepted him as his new "staff." They have been out kicking a soccer ball on the school's soccer field and shooting baskets in the gym. They also just watch the traffic on the busy street beside the campus as well as the planes taking off from the airport.

We met a student in the NILI program from Phoenix. Wednesday, he gave his story in chapel, and we learned that he became a Christian through the Madhouse basketball program which is run by Jerry and Cindi Steele. He graduated from Olivet last year and is considering law school.

We really appreciate your prayers.