Dear Family and Friends,
As we look to the Lord for our help and strength, we pray you are doing the same. Isn’t it assuring to know that our Lord is always with us? We praise God for His continued work in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Keep leaning on Him daily as you serve the Lord wherever you are.
Carnival Vacation
We are not very excited about carnival in Ecuador. Carnival begins in late January or early February and lasts until about the 15th of February. The main idea of the holiday is to throw water at people. It’s like a huge water fight that accelerates and is full blast the last three days of the ‘season.’ Since we are not really into the holiday, we went 
with Darwin’s parents to a piece of land they own about an hour from Cuenca and camped there for one night. The view of the mountains was amazing!! (Note the Photos!) We drove to a couple small towns the next day which was a little bit of an adventure. First, there was a big puddle of water and mud that we swerved through and then, the bridge we were going to cross had broken down. Therefore, the people had made small wooden bridges across the river in another area. Because Kirsten was a little nervous about riding over those bridges, she got out of the car 
to take pictures instead. We enjoyed our time in the warmer climate, and we came back with some sun tans and mosquito bites. We had a great time together. The third day of vacation we went to a huge, beautiful waterfall. We couldn’t even get a complete picture of it because it was so tall. The water was freezing, but that did not stop Luis and Silvio (Darwin’s brothers) from getting in for a minute. We will be putting more of our pictures on the blog this week for you to enjoy. Keep checking for them at www.pacchateam.blogspot.com .
Darwin and Kirsten Paccha
Darwin is a 2009 graduate from AFLTS.
