Finances

We just really want to thank all of you for praying with us about the financial needs we have had come up in the last several months. We have spoken specifically with some of you, but in our mass-communication, we have been vague about the actual amount that we need monthly in order to maintain our current way of living (which, like many of you, is simple and without a lot of extras).

Because of my lowered salary in transitioning to part-time, a growing little girl, car expenses, planning for another baby (no news yet!), and some unexpected expenses at school, we can no longer keep inching into the red every month.

Our goal in raising extra funds was $1000 more per month for the next year. In just the past two weeks, the Lord has used people who see His purpose in our ministry to give us half of that. We are completely grateful and already feel a huge burden lifted. Thank you.

If you would like to help us reach the goal, please e-mail one or both of us at:

joy_greer@hotmail.com
josh_greer@hotmail.com

There are a couple of different ways to give, so we can help you decide which is the most convenient for you.

Please pray with us about this next year - it's going to be so different from the last 2 1/2 years we have experienced at the Academy. Also, I will be starting classes for my Masters in Biblical Counseling - this is going to be another packed one for sure!!

Student Council Responsibilities:

• Planning for the Harvest Festival (one of the largest events at the school)
• Planning for Junior/ Senior Banquet
• Quito-Cup (another large event, which is a soccer tournament for teams from all over the city)
• Concessions for all home soccer games for two seasons (about 5 months of the year)

Sports:

• Josh is praying about whether or not he will coach JV Boys Basketball for a 3rd year
  
• Joy will be coaching Varsity Girls Soccer for her 3rd year

Relationships:

• Pray for our relationships with the students we are involved with, both in discipleship and in leading them to the Lord
• The Community group that we are involved with did great last year - pray that we will continue to grow as we have, and that this group will be a catalyst for healing for a lot of people

There are so many praises and requests, I could write a book!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog - we appreciate your interest in what the Lord is doing in and through us.

Ciao!

Where are we?

We are about halfway through our travels, and already starting to get a little sad about leaving! It's such a blessing to be able to see our families, and to share our little Ecuadorian jumping-bean Isabella with them :)
She is loving all of these new places with so many things to experience for the first time.

Some firsts:
Orange Juice (of course they have that in Ecuador... she just never has had it)
slip n' slide
Starbucks (not coffee, iced tea)
french-kissing a dog (GROSS!)
eating dog food (MORE gross!)
candy
jumping on a trampoline
riding a carousel and several other whatever-go-round kiddie rides (sooo cute!)
the GOOD cows milk
playing in a waterpark
sleeping for 14 hours one night, 13 the next
eating steak, sweet corn on the cob, rice-a-roni...

It has been so much fun seeing Bella experience all of these typical North American things (ok, maybe dog kisses aren't typical, but common in my childhood experience!)

Summer travels...

Well... school is finally coming to a close. It was a big adjustment for the AAI community, with school being extended one month longer than last year to comply with the mandate from Ministerio de Educaccion (department of education).

So... today was my last day of actual classes. I will miss these kids. I'll cry later. I'll continue to be at school every day for the rest of the week, wrapping up paperwork and classroom cleanup. Josh is trying to do a lot of prep in the IT Dept. for when we return, as well as dealing with the everyday challenges. He will be done on Friday. He leaves for Denver on Sunday to attend an international IT in education conference with 15,000 people! Jessica, Bella, and I get on the 9:15am flight on Tuesday for the States. Josh meets me in St. Louis a day later. In our 5 weeks in the states, we will drive from St. Louis, to Danville, IL, to Green Bay, WI, to Mackinac Island, MI, to Speculator, New York, and back to St. Louis. At least most of that time we will be traveling with our family we miss so much.

We can't wait to spend some REAL quality time with our family and friends. We are exhausted in every way, and can't wait to recharge.

Dating Seminar

This year, Josh and I had the privilege of leading a a two-day dating seminar for the seniors for the third time. We completely scrapped everything we have done the last two years, because we felt like the needs for this year's senior class were unique. Some of them are completely checked out at this stage of their high school career, but we felt like most of them really listened and heard what we had to say. The main piece of wisdom we really wanted them to take to heart was that dating without the purpose of finding a spouse is completely selfish. That's a hard truth for many of today's young people to swallow. We pray that they would be involved in dating that is God-honoring, and with the aim to find out who they would like to marry.

Goodbyes...

Jessica with her great friend Abby - starting the goodbye process with 2 weeks left

Girls I have coached in the last two years of soccer - you will be missed!

It's that time of year again. Graduation... we just had the Baccalaureate service this past Sunday. Greg Collard, mentor for many kids at school, spoke about not wasting your life, and never knowing when you are going to die. It sounds like it could have been a little depressing, but he presented it in a really impactful, yet hopeful way :) It's hard to say goodbye to so many who were on my team - such beautiful, talented young women! I hope that maybe they experienced the love of Jesus this year...

Beach

A couple of weeks ago, Josh, Jessica, Bella, and I went to a little beach town called Jama. It's a crazy drive to get there through windy mountain roads, people passing on turns, and roads ending without any warning. Such an adventure :) We had a pretty good time - it was just nice to have some fresh air to breathe. The sun didn't show up, but the creepy crawlies sure did! A snake fell out of a tree a couple of inches in front of my face, which resulted in lots of screaming and falling backwards up the stairs onto Jess. We didn't notice any bugs, but all of us got eaten alive the first night! We got smart and drove 30 minutes to a bigger town to buy bug spray. We had a great time just playing board games, reading, napping, snacking, and enjoying the beautiful view!


From the first night -Owie!! I felt so bad

Sweet :)

The tide only went out around 4pm






Luckily these were too big to get in our rooms :)

Class Sponsoring

We finally got them to sit still for 1 second ;) We are sponsors for the class of 2012. We have a big year ahead of us, with several huge events to put on. It will be a challenge, but they are more than capable. We love them!!

Yay!

It's official! My dad is coming down to live in Quito and work at Alliance Academy for a year. It's been a long process for him, trying to figure out where the Lord will be able to use him the most. He had a couple of options in the states as well, but we are excited to see what is in store for him here. We have been blessed to be able to see our family a lot in the last 2 1/2 years while we have been here in Quito. My dad Rick will wear many hats in working at the school... dorm kid mentor and authority (he will be living in the dorm at school), teaching Bible classes to teachers for CEU credit with ACSI, educating teachers about a couple of pieces of software that aren't really being used to their full potential, and helping out Josh here and there in the computer department... AND being a great dad and papa to his kids. Full plate! We know he will do just awesome here. He will likely be with us on the weekends, which will be a blast :)

Beautiful Bella on Mother's Day. The best gift ever. :)

Pico y Placa

This last week was the first week of Pico y Placa, a law that prohibits cars with certain license plate numbers from driving at certain times on certain days. The stated reasoning is to allow for better traffic flow (however, there are those who believe it's purely a political move) For, us we can't drive on Fridays from 7-9:30 am and 4 - 7:30pm. If we do and get caught, the consequence is $80 and our car confiscated for one day... the fines/confiscation times go up with each offense.

So, Josh and Jess get to school pretty early on Fridays, and we come home right away when school gets out. It could be worse - in Bogota, Colombia, where they have done this for years, there are two days with pico y placa :)

So... is it working? This was on front page of Wednesday's El Comercio newspaper... you tell me!

Crime

Two families in the AAI community had their homes robbed yesterday in the area we moved from in October. We dropped off our friend Sarah Brown at her home in that same area yesterday afternoon, and this is what we saw parked across her street. While crime is very high here, this was a first for us!

Here we go...

Well, I have never thought of myself as someone who is great in corresponding with people :) We have been in Ecuador for over 2 years now, and all the while, I have be awful at being consistent in updates and such. So, we'll give this a go... Hopefully this will help you see our lives more clearly and more often :)

Joy