First Week with Groups

A youth group from Geneva,IL arrived late last Saturday night for 13 days of intense work and fun. This particular group has been coming to El Refugio since it's conception 11 years ago. One of the founders of El Refugio, Rick Borman, is from this church originally. When the Youth first started coming down, they were working on just getting the camp functional. When we are not hosting North American teams here, we serve as a retreat and conference center for many Ecuadorian church groups. Because we make no profit from these groups, the projects on property are usually sponsored by North Americans and completed by Geneva and other N.A. work teams. Geneva also hosts a VBS for the kids in Calacali, the town next to us. It's population is about 2,000 and we get about 100 kids for VBS. This year, Geneva's projects included: a climbing wall made from old HCJB radio antenna, clearing brush for hiking trails and pouring the foundation for an amphitheater in the hills. While there is much work to do, we do have fun as well. The first day Geneva was here, we took them to church in Quito and had lunch after. Then we went to the basilica for a tour. It's pretty high up and not quite complete, resulting in me staying on the third level drinking a cafe mocha. We also went to Mitad del Mundo (the center of the Earth) and posed for pics on the equator. Otavalo was another fun day. We drove 2.5 hours to take them shopping at the largest outdoor market in South America. Tomorrow morning we leave at 0400 to go to the jungle for two days. The camp ran out of water today and the girls were complaining that they needed to shave. We informed them that they would fit in quite nicely in the jungle if they didn't.