An Incredible Day

The home I grew up in. (That's me on the porch!)

Today is an incredible day! Today is the day that my dream starts to become a reality. I suppose I should start from the beginning. My name is Robert Porter I am a founder of a small company called Rio Anzu LLC. When I was a one year old my father Michael Porter bought a ranch in the province of Napo, Ecuador. I lived there until I was eleven years old, and it was amazing. I think almost everyone feels that where they grew up is the best place to grow up. I can tell you that where I grew up IS the best place to grow up. I loved it. I loved every minute of it.
During the time we lived in Ecuador a woman named Martha Pauchi came to live with us. Martha was like family to me. When we moved away we lost contact with her. Sadly in 1998 there were a lot less communication mediums than there are now, and she lived in too rural of a location to send her conventional letters. I thought about her all the time, and wondered what had happened to her.
I went to high school, then college, then graduate school. As the years went by I racked my brain to figure out some way I could give back. My life since leaving Ecuador has been very blessed, and I have had great opportunities to grow, and learn.  Opportunities that I know my friends from Ecuador never had. Finally one day I was talking to my older brother William, and my father Michael. We were lamenting the fact that we had not been back to Ecuador in almost eighteen years.

Soon this will be a kitchen

We decided we were done waiting. We decided we would start a school in the area where we grew up. That was a year ago. We have made plans, and revised plans, and scrapped plans, and started all over with our plans more than once. We have learned a lot.

This January I finally traveled to Ecuador. One of the first things we did was find our friend Martha. Tears were shed, manly tears on my part, and we told her what we wanted to do. Amazingly Martha had inherited a plot of land positioned between two rivers that is perfect for our project. She was so excited to be brought on board as a partner in our venture. We came back to the US and started putting things into motion. I enlisted my brother-in-law Benjamin Pratt to be our in country director. Dove into my savings and sent him to Ecuador.
All of this brings us to today. Today is an incredible day! Today as I sit in Provo, Utah writing this blog post Ben along with Martha's family are laying the foundation of our first building in Ecuador. I have had incredible days before in my life, but this one nearly trumps them all. I look forward to posting pictures of the progress as the work goes on. Also you can check us out on facebook for more tidbits. https://www.facebook.com/RioAnzuLLC/ Lets go change the world!