Time notoriously flies here in Quito and as are most of my blog posts, this one too is long overdue...three months to be exact...but I guess it´s never too late to post happy news. Although this is not new news for many of you, I realize that perhaps the news hasn't arrived to some of those who read my blog.
Three months ago today, my girlfriend Eliana and I were engaged!! It was a lovely Christmas eve and the final gift that she opened was a giant box with me inside. For those of you who haven´t heard much about Eliana and her 6 year old son Kaleth, here is a brief paragraph that I wrote a while back about them...
"Eliana and I met at a workshop at our church in Quito and have been dating for 2.5 years here in Quito. Eliana is from Meta, Colombia and came to Ecuador with her family as a refugee almost 7 years ago. Kaleth is 6 years old and was born in Ecuador 7 months after Eliana arrived to Ecuador. They've been living in Quito for the past 5 years and have been a part of the Mennonite church for the past 2 years. Eliana was baptized in 2012 as a member of the Mennonite church. She is caring, generous, hard-working, fun-loving, energetic and compassionate. She is passionate about women's issues, politics, nature, nutrition and cooking, caring for others especially children, music and dance. Eliana currently works in Quito at a copy/graphic design shop where she helps with the finances, sales and customer service. Kaleth is energetic, friendly, intelligent, outgoing, funny and caring. He is passionate about riding his bike, playing soccer, being outdoors, puzzles, making crafts and learning to read and write. They are both working on learning English so that they can communicate better with all of you :)"
We are very excited to become a family and share our life together! We are planning our wedding for July 26th in Quito with our local friends and second family at Quito Mennonite. Following the wedding, we'll be turning in US visa paperwork so that Eliana, Kaleth and I can hopefully go to the states together by summer 2015. We realize that many family and friends won't make it to the wedding in Quito, so we plan to have a celebrate states-side at some point. Until going to the states, the plan is for me to continue working with MMN and the local church/refugee project.
Here are a few pictures of the future Shenk Tejedor family!
