Salvation and Suffering

(I chose the title because it sounds epic. Not because it has any direct relation to what's been going on with us.)

Greetings to everyone. We hope that everyone is enduring the North American winter. Firstly we would like to introduce a road sign which, we believe, should be in every road in the world (where appropriate, of course.)

This sign was strategically placed on a heavily trafficked road near a cluster of bars. The sad thing is that just after taking this picture there was a stumbling drunk not 5 feet from the road. Everyone who drives here says that the drunks are the scariest things on the road. Not behind the wheel mind you, but the ones walking. There is no predicting what they will do.

Public inebriation is something that you encounter often. During Christmas day there are loads of them about, it should be interesting to see what new years is like. It is of interest to note that 95% of all drunks here can speak some English, “Give me moneys!”, “I luf you!”, etc being some of the more notable lines that are used. They also enjoy touching you, grabbing you on the arm and not letting go. Fortunately, they never do this to Vanessa but, I on the other hand, am a magnet! I think I have discovered my second super power (closely following my ability to attract mosquitoes, not sure what that's about either). Fun stuff! I now know why I've avoided bars to this point in my life!

We've been quite busy. We've recently completed our District Convention (They have them in the winter here. Someone told me in order to avoid the heat.) The drama was excellent. They put a lot into it just like at home. After the program though Duane Lindela, a missionary brother, showed us the prototype for the idol in the drama. He said it was rejected because it looked too much like a pinata.

It even had little plastic eyes that moved and if you look close enough you might see that someone scribbled a heart on it with an ink pen. Maybe they figured they could use it for target practice after the convention or something. Actually, hunting isn't very common here. No one owns guns. We love to tell them that almost everybody in Virginia does! What's the ratio in the states, something like 5 guns to every person.

Painting the Kingdom Hall

The Kingdom Hall is finished. It is so nice. It really stands out on the street now. And since so many people go on foot, they'll really take notice of it now. I wanted a picture with Shane turning to smile at the camera like the rest of the brothers, but he refused and insisted to keep working. He said he just wont tolerate anymore jokes from Shawn about him with his hands in his pockets! So, there you can see him on the scaffolding reaching up where no one else could. He subsequently got shingles and stopped working for the next several days. Likely excuse.

We're headed to Texas for a couple of days at the beginning of February to try for some of the things that we'll need to get our residency. Not that we're going to stay here forever but it will open up some doors for working down here on the branch and on an assembly hall project. It will be the first real assembly hall to my knowledge. There currently is one at the branch, but it's part of the branch so we won't count that. It will also reduce our expenses for obtaining visas. The way it stands now we have to leave the country every six months to renew our visa. Under the residency plan we can stay here for 10 years for something like $120. Obviously that excludes living expenses.

Our next entry should be interesting because we're taking a couple of days and going to the Isle of Ometepe. Two volcanoes that formed an island in the middle of a huge lake. Think Hawaii only smaller. :) We're going to sleep in a kingdom hall, (hey, saves on hotels!)(oh, and I mean sleeping in the auditorium not an apartment or anything) and spend some days swimming in lagoons and protecting our possessions from monkeys that, when looking for food, take your backpack off of you and destroy everything in it or so we've heard! Should be fun! We could sure use that US gun ratio during a monkey attack couldn't we!

Update on Katalina: The 50 year old woman from the last entry has decided to move, temporarily, to Managua to work. We find this out and, undeterred offered a study to the person that offered us the news. This lady, the daughter of Katalina and mother of the small child in the picture, also agreed to a study and chose the same chapter on what happens when we die. She spoke very favorably about the study with Katalina, evidently they were talking, and we're going to return for the first study this week.

written by

Shane Perry on December 29, 2008 from Jinotega, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Shane and Vanessa's Nicaraguan Adventure

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Sorry about the comment about the hands in the pockets. I actually felt bad after reading that. Now you know the secret to not getting shingles, always keep your hands in your pockets for pictures. They say a camera, when your hands are exposed,can take away your immunity to shingles. Actually isn't there a vaccine out for that now? Something you may want to stock up on in the states. Actually now that I look closer at the picture you may want to keep your mouth closed when painting I hear accidentally exposing your tongue to red paint can cause shingles. On a less sarcastic note, where would the new assembly hall be? And when would they get started? The Isle of Ometepe sounds interesting, sounds like some place you could practice your klingon. Its good to here you guys are still doing well!

written by Anonymous on December 29, 2008

It must be really rewarding to be able to help fix up the kingdom hall to improve it's image in the community. Maybe someday we'll be able to do the same here!
We've been having some really good experiences lately also- one from the tract campaign is a lady that Steven Woodfin turned over to me- he had placed the tract, when we went back the next time, we gave her a Teach book and she agreed to study. When I went back, though, she had decided not to study because she saw that the book said that she wasn't going to heaven when she died...we talked about it a little, and when I left she didn't tell me not to go back, so I did, of course! Two visits later she's much nicer and open, and her 11-year-old daughter is there also. The daughter answered all of the questions about the Bible before the mom could even think about it, and showed me her children's Bible. She opened it to the section on Revelation, and said "I understand everything else, but I don't understand this." It just struck me as amazing that she had read the whole thing, and thought about it long enough to want to understand the part that she couldn't understand. I told her that even though it looked scary (mostly there were pictures)- that Revelation is really a happy book about the future. So I'm coming back with a Great Teacher book for her tomorrow.
We also go the french-speaking refugee family that we call on at home, and they had a friend visiting- I wish you could have seen his face when he read about God's Kingdom ruling in righteousness forever- it's like their faces were beaming. Hopefully when he goes back to Indianapolis we can find someone to call on him, also.
THanks for the update :) Hope all goes well with getting the residency permit...

written by Sara Reimold on December 30, 2008

Hope you guys are still doing well. We had a really encouraging visit by the circuit overseer. It is 7 degrees out today. Schools were canceled due to cold weather. How are things there? I was just a had a question that popped into my head during the song tonight. You two sing very well and pretty loud in English. Do you sing as loud in spanish? Sorry just kind of a random question.

written by Shawn on January 15, 2009

The word on the singing is, we still sing loud. We can tell this by the wide-eyed kids who look back at us from two rows up. And singing in Spanish is hard. They had to cram in more sylables when they translated it or something. Sometimes they even blend two words together completely. We´re getting used to it. Everyone sings pretty loud though, but sometimes they dont sing the same notes we do. The whole cong. goes down for a note and we both go up. Fortunately, there are two sisters here from Spain and they do the same as we do. So, no man is an island!!! uh okay, that was dumb, oh well.

Thanks for writing

written by Perry´s on January 20, 2009

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