Tiempo por un poco Espanol!

Hola, buenas noches!! Este es Natasha hablando y estoy muy emocionado para decirles acerca de nuestro dia!
As I'm sure you can tell, today we had our first Spanish lesson! Our grammar and pronunciation are definitely far from perfect but we are on our way to having some great conversations with the people of Ecuador.
We've been in Quito for two full days now and it is already starting to feel like home. Our first day here we went on a little tour lead by Matt and Marlo our host couple here in Quito. It included a trip to the Basilica, a cathedral modeled after Notre Dame, the governors building, and a couple rides on the lovely, and always overstuffed, trolley. Our team is staying in an apartment, owned by the Youth World organization, complete with a roof deck and a beautiful view of Quito where we spent some time yesterday relaxing, jamming and soaking up the sun.

Today was our first real work day. Following our Spanish lesson we headed off to an orphanage in Quito called Ganas. Ganas is an orphanage that takes in kids whose parents are in prison, so as you can imagine most of these kids come from rough and often abusive homes. Ganas is not a Christian based orphanage however a couple, who are also Youth World workers, named Renee and Casi are extremely involved, bringing in lots of Christian volunteer groups. The children and the other workers at the orphanage are constantly seeing God's love shine through these people and it is making a huge impression on all of them and leading to some awesome questions and conversations.
While most of the kids were in school we helped out by painting the dining hall of the orphanage. After a couple of hours of painting we were able to go and play with some of the kids. What started out as a little awkward and uncomfortable for us quickly ended in a room of little boys and our team running around in a small room, screaming and laughing with Amanda standing in a makeshift fort, wrestling boys left right and center screaming "MI CASTILLO, MI CASTILLO!"(my castle). Safe to say it was a great experience full of joy to end off a busy day full of flying emotions.
With a relaxing evening ahead we have nothing to do but finish our spanish homework, play a couple card games and look forward to all of the adventures and blessings tomorrow holds!

Thank you for all of the prayers, they really are fueling us! One prayer request we have is for two of the kids who actually left the orphanage to return to their mother in prison. It was a very emotional time for Casi and Renee so if you could pray for them as well as safety for these two kids that would be wonderful.

Hasta luego!