You may have thought I was dead...

Hello All,

I hope that everyone is doing great! I really have no good way to apologize for the lack of post in the last two months. But I do apologize. I have been extremely busy and traveling just about constaintly. Since my last post: two week medical project in Ambato, 3 days in Baños taking care of Patti (Susana´s daughter) after her hysterectomy, 6 days in Cuyabena in the Jungle, 3 days sick in Quito, 9 days visiting families on the Rio Napo (near Peru) in the Jungle with a pastor and some of his friends, 4 days traveling up the Ecuadorian coast from Guayaquil through Ruta del Sol to Canoa, 7 days with Chris Bair and David Steinour (friends from Penn State) in Quito, Baños, and Puyo, and now a few days trying to figure out what to do next. Just about every day for the last week my plans have changed. As of now I am planning to leave on Tuesday on a bus bound for Lima(Peru) , Santiago (Chile), and finally to Buenos Aires (Argentina). It is supposed to take 7 days with a day stop in Lima. From Buenos Aires I am hoping to visit Iguazu Falls (on the border of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina) and then travel back through Paraguay to Bolivia to Peru and then to Ecuador. If I am able to do all this in about two and a half weeks it will be amazing although I am sure I will very exhausted of traveling. I have less than a month left here in South America before I arrive home on the morning of the Penn State-Ohio State game.

My time here has definitely been a once in a lifetime experience. For the last 5 months I have been free to travel here meeting countless Ecuadorians, missionaries, pastors, volunteers, and getting to know some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. God has also used this time to show me many of my weaknesses and depencies that I often don´t realize when I am living at home. For example, I take for granted being able to express myself and talk deeply to friends at home. Here it has been alot harder to do that because of my still faltery Spanish skills. But this situation has made me ever more aware that my comfort and joy should come from the Lord and not from other people. We as humans will continually let down and be let down by other people because of the sin in our lives. While it is extremely important to encourage others and recieve council and joy from our friendships, ultimately our true joy, comfort, council, etc... should come from our relationship with Christ and the word of God in the Bible.

I simply have to much to tell all here in the blog, but I hope I can talk to you all when I get back. I´ll be putting up some photos here soon too.

Grace and Peace in Christ,

Owen