¡Hola y bienvenidos! 

Me llamo Grace. Welcome to my blog! I'm a 22 year old from Reading, Pennsylvania, and I'm living in Quito, Ecuador for a year of service with an organization called Rostro de Cristo. I'll be using this space to update friends and family about my life in South America. It'll be somewhat of a public journal of the ups and downs that will inevitably come with this year of new experiences.

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What is Rostro de Cristo?

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Rostro de Cristo is a Catholic non-profit founded in 1989 by a priest from Boston named Father James Ronan. As an organization, our core values are a shared experience of faith, serving in solidarity with those on the margins, mutuality, building an intercultural community, living simply, and hospitality. This is the link to the organization website if you'd like to read more! Please reach out to me if you have other questions.

 

Some other things to know... 

I am living in Quito in one home with three other volunteers: Alex, Anna, and Peter. I will probably mention them a lot since we are spending quite a lot of time together. Because of Rostro's core value of community, we share dinner together every night and spend intentional time together throughout the week.

 

I committed to this experience with what I'd call an elementary level of Spanish; I took Spanish classes  throughout high school and a few classes in college, but it's been years since I studied it. One of my biggest challenges in Quito will be related to the language barrier between myself and my neighbors.