Merry Christmas and last pics from Ecuador

Hello again everyone. I just wanted to post some lyrics to a favorite Christmas song, along with a link to watch a video of it on youtube. I've also got the last pics from Ecuador.

Chris Rice \ Welcome To Our World

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home
Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence

Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z1mRFpeJPk
Just click on this link or type it in and check it out! It's a perfect song about Christ's birth and really makes you think about his incarnation (the fact that he as God came in flesh to rescue us.) How beautiful! Having a baby really has put things in perspective for us this Christmas. I guess the fact that Christ came as an innocent baby hasn't quite hit me this way before. Now, seeing Evan makes me think of and remember that Christ was for one time as Evan is now. That is really quite humbling and quite amazing that the Father decided to send his Son in this way. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and I'll wish you all a Happy Holidays as well (all those politically correct people probably don't realize that holidays comes from holy days!) Pretty soon, we won't even be able to say that. Despite all that, I hope you enjoy wonderful times with your families and will be able to reflect on Christ and how he came to this world in this season.
Finally, after much adieu, here are the last pictures I'll be posting from Ecuador. These pics were taken the day before we left as we walked around a market area...
Here's a nice 50s model GMC pickup.
We are going to miss markets. There are always so many colors, sights, smells and sounds.
Here's a bowl of aji, which is a hot pepper. They make a sauce from it, also called aji, but it isn't too spicy. They mix in a lot of other ingredients to it. I don't know about you, but I kind of like shots like these.
Here's an indigenous woman from the Otavalo area. The folks from Otavalo are good with textiles and are also good at business. They have a big Indian market there and I'm sure we've posted pics from there before.
Here's a typical lunch in Ecuador, especially in the mountain or Sierra region. In the foreground is a locro de papa, or potato and cheese soup. Working our way forward and clockwise you will see choclo con queso or corn on the cob with cheese, then in front of that is the aji I had written about earlier in this blog with a pic. Then, there is a piece of avocado and lastly is a cup of jugo de mora or blackberry juice. Ecuador has really good food and we are missing it now but then we were missing many American foods when we were there. I guess that's the way it goes.
This was the last picture taken in Ecuador on the way to plane as the sun was coming up. It's kind of surreal being gone from Ecuador and now posting the last pics from there. We are already missing it but we know that God has us here for now. Wherever we are, we want to serve Him and know Him. Things in the ministry are coming along here. We had a Christmas party in our home for a few of the families we've been visiting. That went well. We're also gearing up for a few upcoming events, in particular, the first service on Jan. 25. I ask you to keep us in your prayers, the ministry and all folks that we worked with in Ecuador.