'El Pan' January 2014 and Revival

Right at the beginning of the New Year holiday, one of the young ladies from the church, Gabriela,  wanted to show us her home town and asked us to make the trip with her.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to travel because I’d been feeling so poorly but God granted me a really good day.  I had plenty of energy and even climbed up to the summit overlooking the town.

The name of the town is "El Pan" which is literally translated as "The Bread".  I think it would better be interpreted as Bread Basket because it was named when it was a center of commerce for the area.  As it was explained to me, the lands became a victim of politics. It was divided and distributed out to different owners and no longer produces as it did before.

First thing on the agenda was to visit her favorite restaurant where she is good friends with the owners.

 Specialties of the house.

Here we are, Gabriela and little Benjamin and me striking a pose.  He is a happy baby.  We were there for his birth.

After lunch it’s to Grandmother’s house we go!  Her home reminds us of our own grandmother’s homes back in New Mexico.

 

 The oven in the back yard is reminiscent of the ornos here in New Mexico.  Grabriela’s Grandma no longer uses it though.  She had a bad fall some months ago and it is very hard for her to get around.

At this time of year is Carnival.  In Cuenca, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s celebrated with the practice of soaking each other with water.  As we drove along the  narrow streets we are confronted with water balloons, water guns  and men with hoses looking for an open window to claim an unsuspecting victim.

As leave the town, we take some time to climb up to the summit. 

View from the summit.  Can't believe I made it to the top! And it's raining!

Further down the road a backdrop of the valleys, mountains and cattle grazing. 

Downtown in El Pan. Passing by the open restaurants you will find that tortillas are popular.  It is more like a fat pancake, not like the tortillas we would think of in New Mexico.

Cooking Tortillas

Revival meetings for the Church

In March, the church in Chinle, AZ invested in our little city and sent Dan Felix to help us with a revival service.  The church loved him.  He fit right in to the culture and speaks Spanish very well.  

Pastor Rueben from Quevedo and Pastor Anibal from Duran brought his daughter Priscilla and a disciple from his church to help us with outreach. It's a mighty long drive for them.+

Outreach team. Pastor Rueben and Pastor Anibal are first and second from the left under the tree with a young man from their church, in the back row, Priscilla and Liseth sitting in the front. Second row, sorry no name for the young man, Yurak, Marilyn, John & Mike.

Prayer for healing

Altar Calls

We had very good attendance for all the meetings.

  
Dan posing with a black swan.  It's funny, right after this picture, that swan jumped out of that pond and attacked him.  We had a good laugh watching him being chased by the swan.

He really was amazed at our mountains.  
We have to drive through them to get down to the coast.

We took a drive down to the tropics and stopped for some fried plantain with cheese

Hey, did the Blues Brothers come to town?

Argentinian Parrilla

A treat to see these twin alpaca babies along the highway. 

I guess we tired him out!  I told him we had furniture!!!

 Done for this post.
Hasta Luego!  God Bless You