HIV/AIDS Workshop-Final Week

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Joel & Kim
On Tuesday, after arriving in Quito on Monday evening around 8PM, we left for our final workshop in Tena.  Our plan was to travel all the way to Tena on Tuesday, but we had a slight delay because of a mudslide.  We ended up just staying in Baeza overnight and leaving early in the morning on Tuesday for Tena.   This week, our friend and fellow short-term missionary, Mandy Hjelm came with us again to help translate.  This week we discussed infection and co-infection with HIV/AIDS and with this I did a general overview of infection.  In this, we discussed bacteria, germs, viruses, protozoa and fungi.  We also discussed adherence to HIV/AIDS treatments.   Since a lot of medications given for HIV/AIDS treatment are many and complicated, it is not always easy to adhere to the plans given.  I tried to simulate this by giving the kids ‘medications’ (which were really chocolates) to simulate taking medicines during a 24 hour period.
The 3rd thing we talked about was a general overview of the most common Sexually Transmitted Diseases.  Of course I showed the pictures of each disease, which did gross the kids out, as well as the professors, but hopefully was effective.  To help the kids understand a little bit more about transmission of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, we played a game where each kid received a cup full of candies.  Two volunteers received the same cup, except with instructions not to share their candy with anyone but each other.  Another kid received a cup with instructions not to share his candy at all.  One kid had a different candy which was supposed to simulate HIV or another STD.  During the game, the kids were supposed to trade candy with each other and then write down the names of the people they traded candy with.  After about 10 minutes, we had the kids sit down.  We asked the kids with a different type of candy (in this case we used gummy worms) in their cup to stand up.  We told them that the exchange of candies was supped to simulate having sex.  Anyone that had a gummy worm had HIV or another STD.  Then we had each person stand up that had traded candy with anyone standing.  Eventually everyone was standing except the 2 volunteers (simulating fidelity) and the other (simulating abstinence).  I thought this was a really cool game and I think the kids really enjoyed it.
SO…what are my thoughts about the workshop….
I think overall, the workshop went well.  I think I may have overestimated the amount of information that the kids understood about infection, bacteria, viruses, etc…I think we realized that for the majority of the people attending, even the professors, this was the FIRST time they were hearing about infection, how it’s transmitted, what germs are, etc…
Although their information was limited, they really WANTED to know EVERYTHING about what we were teaching.  That is different from the States.  Although the amount of information that is known about infection and things is higher, the majority of people don’t want to know EVERYTHING.  They just want to know what they need to know.  Mandy and I talked about this and she is the one that brought it up.  It has been a very interesting thing to ponder.
I now understand why the outline for the class was so basic.  At the beginning, I was trying to figure out how to fill 5 hours with ‘what do the initials HIV and AIDS stand for’ and ‘what are HIV and AIDS’.  Now I understand that starting from the beginning is where I should have started.  With basic information.  If I am asked to do this again, I will try to do this.
WHAT DID I LEARN…
I have always wondered in all my years of school, if professors ever learn anything…  I hope they did, because even during this four week workshop, I learned A LOT!
I never would have thought of myself as a professor or teacher.  Nobody really prepares you for that although it is kind of a natural part of the RN or Nurse Practitioner responsibility.  I learned that I am actually pretty good at it.  Not to toot my own horn for sure, but I really tried to put in a lot of activities and games that would help kids learn.  I learn that way, and I am guessing I am not the only one.
However, I realized I have a lot to learn!  I think this is an important part of being a teacher.  It’s good to be open to what you CAN learn and what you can be TAUGHT!  I realized by trying to make the kids come up with their OWN ideas, I was going against the grain a little.  I’m OK with that, but I also need to be aware of this in the future.  Just because we LIKE thinking on our owns as Americans, others in the world may not be as accustomed to it.
All in all, I really enjoyed my time in Tena and I really felt I was HELPING.  That makes me feel useful.
Here are some pictures from our final workshop…

Mudslide looking down

Bringing the mud out to put in trucks to carry it away

Another mudslide picture

Mandy and Kim teaching during Week 4 of the HIV/AIDS workshop

Activity during week 4-kids exchanging candy

Activity with kids exchanging candy-simulating STD transmission

More pictures from the activity from Week 4


Simeon with friends he made from the workshop

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Waiting for Ecuador

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Joel & Kim

We are sitting in Miami International Airport waiting as a part of a 9 hour layover.  Simeon is definitely enjoying the escalators, elevators, moving sidewalks, wheelchairs and golf carts.  It has been a wonderful week of being in beautiful Charleston, SC with friends and family.  Though being the pastor for a wedding was involved, this has definitely been a nice little vacation for us.  We can’t thank our good friends (and newlyweds!) Zach and Maureen Smith enough for their love and hospitality in bringing us here and for Maureen’s family in letting us stay with them in the house they rented.  It has been very special for us and a time that we will always remember.

As we are heading back to Ecuador, we are jumping right back into things.  Tomorrow morning after going to devotions at IPEE, we are heading back to Tena for Kim’s last HIV/AIDS workshop for this session of workshops.  After this time in Tena, we will drive directly to El Chaco where we will be having our first meeting that is a part of the Field Study that is an investigation on the different ministries with children that can be found in IPEE’s churches.  This week we will be visiting churches in the Amazon District as it made sense to set it up this way with our trip to Tena and its proximity to the Amazon District.

Our time has been nice here in the States and it definitely makes us miss our friends and family even more.  However, I must say that we are excited to get back.  We love Ecuador and our work there.  It is so exciting to be in God’s will and to see how the future will unfold for us.  It’s neat that we feel this way.  That we don’t have difficulty heading back to our country of service, but instead are filled with excitement.  We just thank God for putting that burden on our heart and for guiding us this way in our lives.

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Kim is flying!

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Joel & Kim

We did want to make sure everyone knew that we recently found out that Kim will need to travel to the States two times over the summer months for one week at a time each time.  She will be taking a couple classes that are required for her because we have recently decided to apply to become Long Term Missionaries with the Covenant and these classes are prerequisites in the application process.  She’ll be taking a History Class in Chicago in June and a Theology Class in St. Paul, MN in July.  We hadn’t planned on her making these two trips so we don’t have those flights budgeted.  We had thought that maybe we could get those flights using miles.  Would you possibly be willing to share miles with us so that we could make these trips a little more cost effective? We have frequent flyer programs with Continental, Delta and American Airlines.  Specifically, American Airlines has a special going on now through the end of March for those who are sharing miles.  If you are interested in this, please let us know immediately.

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A Wedding in South Carolina

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Joel & Kim

The Delp family traveled to Charleston, SC this week for the wedding of Zach Smith and Maureen (Mo) Murphy.  They are good friends of ours from Chicago.  Kim and Mo had worked together at the hospital in Evanston.  They attend New Community Covenant Church in Chicago.  For the wedding, Joel officiated, Kim read scripture and Simeon was supposed to carry a ring.  We say supposed to because he didn’t quite make it down the aisle; he probably got a little scarred by all the people.  We had a blast spending time with Mo and Zach and Mo’s family as they let us stay with them in the house they rented for the week.  Kim’s parents also came down to spend a couple days with us in Charleston so it was great to see them too.  Here are some pictures so you can get a glimpse of all that we did:

Simeon and dad playing in the leaves at the White Point Gardens in "the Battery" in Charleston

Simeon enjoying the ocean.

We had beautiful weather for the rehearsal.

But not so great on the wedding day. We ended up inside. Here are Zach & Mo exchanging vows.

The Ringbearers: Louis & Simeon

Prayer with the parents after the Cord of 3 Strands Ceremony.

Family photo after the wedding.

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March 2012 Newsletter Released

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Joel & Kim

We just put together our latest newsletter.  Please click the following to download it:

MARCH 2012 NEWSLETTER (CLICK HERE)

There is a lot to update you on the from the last time we published a newsletter before Christmas.  Everything is going well; we just are very busy with a lot of trips driving all around Ecuador.

One thing that we wanted to let everyone know about is that we recently found out that Kim will need to travel to the States two times over the summer months for one week at a time each time.  She will be taking a couple classes that are required for her because we have recently decided to apply to become Long Term Missionaries with the Covenant and these classes are prerequisites in the application process.  We hadn’t planned on her making these two trips so we don’t have those flights budgeted.  We had thought that maybe we could get those flights using miles.  Would you possibly be willing to share miles with us so that we could make these trips a little more cost effective? We have frequent flyer programs with Continental, Delta and American Airlines.  Specifically, American Airlines has a special going on now through the end of March for those who are sharing miles.  If you are interested in this, please let us know immediately.  Our phone number is in the newsletter.

Bendiciones (Blessings),

Joel, Kim and Simeon

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To Charleston, South Carolina

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Joel & Kim

Our good friends, Zach and Mo

We are heading to the States on Tuesday, the 20th and will be returning 6 days later.  Our good friends Zach and Mo (short for Maureen) are getting married!  Yeah!!!  And the whole family will be helping out.  Joel will be the pastor leading the wedding, Simeon will be a ringbearer (please pray for a successful walk down the aisle!!!) and Kim will be reading scripture, as well as doing many other things for sure.

We are so excited to have this opportunity to be with our good friends on the big day and be such a big part of it.  It’s such an exciting time and they are just perfect for each other.  They are members of New Community Covenant Church in Chicago.

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IPEE Radio – HCRI

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Joel & Kim

Did you know that the Covenant National Church of Ecuador has a radio station?  Well, it does. It’s call letters are HCRI.   And you can actually listen to it online here:

http://www.radiointeroceanica.com/

We, as the FACE Board of Directors, are actually the managers of HCRI and so we took time on Friday and Saturday of this last week to actually go to the Radio Station, located in jungle, to have a two day meeting there.  It was a very productive time as we discussed many of the issues relevant to HCRI.  I very much enjoyed learning about the Radio Station and its ministries and getting the opportunity to meet with the staff.  There is a lot of hard work that is done there to make the broadcasts possible.

Here are some pictures from our time there:

The Radio Station room where the broadcasts take place.

The HCRI Staff and the FACE Board of Directors meeting.

A photo of everyone after the two day meeting was done.

Simeon thought he could help with the "broadcast difficulties."

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A Workshop to Remember…

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Joel & Kim

I’m going to preface this by saying how much I actually HATE and despise bugs, snakes, spiders, bats etc…

If you know me very well, you know this about me and it has actually created a little anxiety in my being to think sometimes that I am not so very far away from all of these when we go to the jungle.  This was never more real to me and a great reminder as it was this week DURING our workshop…

The first part of the workshop went well.  At 10:30 AM like every week, we took a quick break for a snack.  During this break, someone came and fumigated the hut where we were and the surrounding areas.  I didn’t think much of this since I see people fumigating here all the time.  When it was time to start again, the director asked me if we wanted to wait a little longer?  He went in and checked for ‘fumes’ and thought it was OK, so I said OK!

After about 10 minutes or so of teaching…

COCKROACHES started coming out of every part of the hut!  The walls, the ceilings etc…One fell on me and then another…NOW remember, for the average person in Ecuador, this is not that big of a deal, a little inconvenient, but not a big deal.  It is for someone who doesn’t like bugs!  LIKE ME!  I think the students got a kick out of me dancing AROUND the roaches, flicking them of a letting out little screams…at least they saw the real me I suppose-a frady cat when it comes to bugs!

To top the whole cultural experience off, after a few minutes of the roaches coming from everywhere, the chickens that live in the village where we are teaching, all came into the hut and started eating the roaches-a fine meal I guess!

Chalk one up to being forced to deal with your fears in front of 50 teenagers!  I didn’t deal with it very well, but at least we got through it!  Definitely a workshop to remember…

P.S.  The roaches here are not like the ones in the States.  They are BIG!  Not like the size of a plate big, but big nonetheless!

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HIV/AIDS Workshop-Week 3

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Joel & Kim

It has been a busy and FULL week, but we are back in Quito and just reminiscing about this week’s workshop over breakfast.  It was definitely a different sort of week for sure.  This week, instead of our friend and fellow short-termer Mandy Hjelm translating, we asked Josh Swenson, another short-term missionary if he would be willing to come and help us out.  He agreed, so this week was different in that sense.

This week, we talked about prevention of HIV/AIDS as well as the rights and responsibilities of those with living HIV/AIDS.  I have to admit, this was a tough week, preparation-wise as I mentioned in another post.  As a representative of F.A.C.E and in-turn, the national church here (IPEE), I naturally asked what they wanted me to teach in terms of prevention.  Most of the current literature and research really pushes condom use and I just wanted to know what the stance of the church was on that.  They really preferred me pushing abstinence and fidelity in marriage-so that is what I did.  I’m not sure why this week was so much harder to prepare for, maybe because the current information I was looking for was all over in English, but difficult to find in Spanish, also, in discussing the rights of patients living with HIV/AIDS, I had a hard time finding info directly for Ecuador.  Whatever it was, God worked through it and the presentation was completed.

One important thing that I really wanted to ‘drive home’ so-to-speak, but the responsibilities of people, living with as well as not living with HIV.  These teenagers, as many teenagers are around the world, I’m sure don’t think directly of the consequences of their action.  I really wanted to stress with the gentlemen their responsibility to protect not only themselves, but the women they are with.  I also wanted to stress with the ladies, that they need to protect themselves because although they would like to think that maybe the men in their lives are thinking only of them, in reality, they aren’t always thinking of how to protect the ladies.  I have noticed that many of the girls in the workshop are very reserved and quiet.  During this class, one girl even said “we don’t have a guy in our group, how are we supposed to answer these questions?”  This made my heart hurt and I really want these girls to be able to think and make decisions for themselves, especially when it comes to sex.  I really stressed to them to think about what they will say and do in risky situations.  I also stressed that they don’t HAVE to have sex just because someone wants them to.  They can say NO!

OK, back to the rest of the workshop…

We discussed prevention and responsibilities and then did a couple of activities.  One activity was to have students come up with phrases or “lines” that people may say to try to get them to have sex.  Then we had them divide into groups and come up with responses to these phrases and situations.  For instance…one example of a line that someone gave was “don’t worry about getting pregnant, you can just have an abortion.”  2 of the students came up and acted out the situation.  They did a really great job and gave great responses such as “I wouldn’t want to kill my baby” or “that is murder”.   However, other groups had a really difficult time with this.  Josh told me that this kind of learning is very difficult because a lot of the education is more ‘whatever the teacher says goes’, they don’t have to think of things themselves.  This is where one of the girls said that they didn’t have a guy in their group to help them.

Another activity was we had cards that said, ‘no risk,’ ‘low risk,’ ‘medium risk’ or ‘high risk.’  We then showed different examples and the students had to decide what type of risk it was.  The winners got homemade chocolate chip cookies!

Here are some pictures of the workshop day…

The director of the bilingual school (the one that is working with FACE on this project) came for 5 minutes and took a quick picture with the students and teachers.

 

Kim and Josh teaching

 

 

Game time during week 3

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Happy Birthday Simeon!

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Joel & Kim

We have been so busy that we have been remiss to let you all know that Simeon turned 2 on March 5th!!!  Yeah!  It was a fun day as we had a monkey themed party because Simeon is a monkey but he also loves them and loves making monkey noises.  Here’s some pictures from the fun day:

The birthday boy in his monkey outfit.

Of course a monkey themed party just wouldn't be right if there wasn't a monkey cake.

Simeon got a lot of cool toys but in the end the balloons were the most fun.

Simeon and his good buddy Caleb had a great time!

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