Back in Canar

We are back in Canar after spending the weekend in Cuenca. We could've stayed here this weekend, but we decided we needed a little L&I (as opposed to R&R). Our weekend was spent during Laundry and Internet. We hadn't done much laundry for two weeks, so we were in almost desperate need of a laundromat. I tried to do some things by hand, but Canar was so wet and cold last week that even the smallest things took forever to dry. I wasn't even going to try blue jeans and sweaters! So we found a laundromat and in an hour and a half everything was clean, dry and folded. Now we look and smell a lot better! There was one casualty, though, in our laundry efforts. Somehow I lost my Grand Tetons t-shirt. I must've left it in the dryer or something because I can't find it anywhere. I'll just have to go shopping, I guess.
We also spent a lot of time on the internet since the hotel in Cuenca had wireless and we don't have that here in Canar. Brian didn't have a chance to check his e-mail all week, and he had over 75 work-related e-mails that needed his attention. So he spent several hours responding to those, Rachel spent a few hours on YouTube, and I was able to download pictures and make some Skype calls.
In addition to L and I we also walked around the colonial city of Cuenca quite a bit. We even took a 1 1/2 hour tour on a double-decker tour bus. We spent all of 30 seconds on the top level before it started raining, but we still got to see many of the city's sights (see our pictures on Facebook).
Sunday afternoon we took the 2 hour bus ride back to Canar and are here now for a few more days. Brian is very excited about the Quichua de Canar project. If all goes well, the translators will be giving him the completed text when we leave on Wednesday. They started the New Testament 19 years ago and finished it about 9 years ago. The main translator, Reinaldo, wasn't sure he had the energy to begin the Old Testament at that point. But after reading a translation book, was re-energized to continue translating. Now they are days away from finishing it. Brian has been helping them with word breaks, sub-titles, spell check, and all of the other last-minute details needing attention. It's exciting to think that within a year, this Bible will be translated for the nearly 100,000 Quichua de Canar speakers.
We have quite a bit of traveling in the next couple of weeks. Wednesday we take the 4-hour bus ride back to Guayaquil, where we'll spend the night. Thursday we fly from Guayaquil to Mexico City, where we'll spend 3 nights. Brian will be meeting with people from the Mexican Bible Society regarding several projects in the country. Then for 5 days we'll be working with the Purepacha translation, which Brian has never been to before. Then on to some R&R for a week, and finally to Chiapas around November 16. As always, thanks for coming along with us on this journey and we pray that God is blessing you wherever you are! Donna