Whitefield Academy Ecuador Mission Team: January 10, 2019

Thursday was a day full of construction work, teaching, visiting the equator, viewing the basilica downtown, dinner at Pims, and pizza back at the seminary.

This video shows the process of plastering the walls. First, a plaster mix has to be made from three parts sand to one part cement. After adding water to make a thick consistency, the plaster is thrown with a trowel at the wall. Once the wall is covered well, the plaster is scraped with a long straight edge. A second coat is added by throwing a thinner plastic mix at the wall with a shovel. After this is again scraped down, the wall is finished off by filling in holes and rubbing smooth with a wooden board. It is a long and messy process.

Isabelle and Chris taking a break from construction.

We are working on the second floor of the school building this week. The foundation is hoping to finish the first and second floors of the building in order to move classes in for the next school year. Pancho and Pitty will be visiting the states, including Atlanta, in early February to meet with donors and do fundraising to finish the building. Please pray for the Lord's leading on their trip!

The students really rose to the challenge of teaching English this week as well. We were planning to focus our efforts on construction, but the school is in the process of hiring a new English teacher. To fill in the gap, students volunteered to teach in pairs. It was challenging because they did not have lesson plans or much preparation. But all the students who took on teaching duties loved meeting the children and enjoyed receiving hugs and high fives. The Whitefield students taught everything from abc's to subject verb agreement to past tense verb structure.

Lexi and BJ team up to teach third grade.

Following a productive morning of teaching and construction, the team headed to the seminary for showers and then to the Equator. Hudson quickly became an egg-master, balancing an egg on a nail. We walked on the equator and felt the difference in balance and muscle strength when standing on the equator. One student was most impressed with the demonstration of how the water circles in different directions down the drain when in the southern hemisphere vs. the northern hemisphere. When directly on the equator, it doesn't circle at all!