...and then we slept with chickens on a bus

Our great adventure to Ecuador was one of those things where you have a basic idea of the plan and a few ideas of how it will come together. But in the end it's really not much like you thought it would be at all.

We started out our trip by going to Piura. Jose has family there and we have connected with a Missionary there too. Our main purpose was to really just visit and see what it's like there. Piura is a region but there is also a city called Piura. That is where we went. After living in a big city it's easy to forget that Peru is a developing country. In Lima we have many modern conveniences that are similar to America. Fast food, better roads, etc.. There are still dirt roads in many parts of Piura.

(houses outside the city of Piura)
We still aren't sure if the city of Piura is where we will end up or if we will be going to another area. Jose's family was telling us about an area close by that is full of witch doctors. There are several parts of the region that don't have even one church. The word of God is so needed there. It's hard to know where to start.

After we spent a few days in Piura, Jose's dad wanted to go to Mancora. There is a famous beach there and people come from all over the world to surf. We stayed there a couple days and really just got to relax. Which was nice. It's amazing how hard it can be to relax when your not used to it. But once we did it was heaven. The boys loved playing on the beach chasing waves and then running away from them. Collecting rocks and seashells. One day I want to live on the beach.


After our mini-cation we took an 8 hour bus trip to Ecuador. The trip up was fairly uneventful. In Ecuador Jose and Victor attended a conference in the evenings. Saturday we went to the market and walked around. I'm noticing that if you want to experience the real culture of the towns here you go to the market.
 

Sunday night we took a bus back to Piura. The bus left at 8pm and I was feeling under the weather. I knew we were going to cross the border around 2 am and I needed to be able to get off the bus and walk up to the window with Jose so I was trying to rest. After we were on the bus for awhile something woke me up. It sounded like...a chicken? no, several chickens. And it was. A lady with a cage full of chickens got on the bus at the second stop and stayed on all the way to Piura. I'm a light sleeper. When I'm sick I'm a very light sleeper. So every time I would start to drift off one of those chickens would screech and all the rest would start to chatter at each other. Then the lady who brought them would "sh-sh-sh-sh" as if they were a fussing child. It was ridiculous.
Once we go to the border we found out that the system was shut down and we had to wait for 1 hour for them to turn it on. I was feeling so bad at this point that Jose told me to take a Dramamine. If I had ever been wild I don't think I would have gotten too much into drinking and drugs because I'm a very cheap drunk when it comes to meds. One Dramamine and I can barely stand up. Within 30 minutes I can pretty much fall asleep wherever I am. So, I waited awhile and took it at about 2:45. There I am standing leaning against my husband in line to get my passport stamped and slurring my words, trying not to fall asleep until we get in the bus. When I realize, I have to do this again in an hour when we get to the border crossing into Peru. Thankfully Jose was able to do it by himself. I was in a Dramamine induced coma by that time.

From Piura we took another bus which was much nicer and more comfortable to get home. The trip was Monday night-Tuesday morning.

Now we have 90ish days to get our visas or leave the country again. Please pray that God would provide the finances for the visas. The trip we took was an adventure, just not something I want to be doing every 3 months.  Thank you all for keeping us in prayer while we were traveling. We saw the hand of God in many ways.