It's true. You can see it on Google Earth. There is a large population that lives in the "Valley of Pantasma." And to us it always just looked like a normal valley. But some photos on from space show it is actually a huge old meteor crater. There are lots of people who live in it. One guess was 50,000. But there is no congregation there. The main community, Praderas has several thousand people, a wide dirt main street and bars on both sides. It's like an old west town especially on the weekends. They get to be a wild bunch. And Shane is on everyone's 'Best Frien' list. I guess he looks like the kind that just might be able to buy them a drink if they could just lure him up to the bar. Anyway, that's all happening on main street.

Meanwhile, in other parts of town many studies have been started. The other congregation in Jinotega has been helping our congregation to work up there. Two very zealous publishers, Coni and Darline spent almost two weeks there this month. They really did a lot of good and next weekend we get to follow up on their new studies. Here's their picture where they stayed the two weeks.

There used to be a small congregation in Pantasma. While a special pioneer couple lived there in the main town it did well. But after they left the publishers there struggled to keep going spiritually. So now they are under the care of our congregation. And Jinotega is 2-3hrs by bus from Pantasma so they dont get to the meetings very often.

We were very impressed by a young teacher, Berania, and her kids who studied for several months before the other pioneer couple left. She had continued reading all the literature they left with her and is determined that she wants to serve Jehovah. When she works out of town on the weekends a few hours away in Wiwili, she goes to the meetings there. Prayer time in class is still done here, so she has taught her students that they should pray to Jehovah.

Pantasma is the largest population in Nicaragua without a congregation, we were told. There was talk of having a memorial up there. Not sure whether they're going to do it though. But either way, we're enjoying getting to work up there.

Shane's first public talk.

Well he did it. He gave his first public talk. No, he doesn't know I'm writing all about this, and if he did he wouldn't let me. But I'm the wife, it's my job.
It was great. Thanks to loads of practice and some proofreading from Andrew, he delivered it really well.
And most importantly everyone said they could understand him.
One sister even told me that if she'd known Shane was going to give the talk, she wouldn't have come so late! Haahaa.

One very big surprise is, Alejandro, the non-witness husband of a sister showed up right as it started. His wife, Marta, wasn't even there. She's in Costa Rica right now. We've never seen him at a meeting and he's refused a study once that we know of. But he said something about having promised it to Pablo (Shane) that he'd come. All his kids attend meetings so while there mom was away last week we took dinner over to visit. Shane dropped the hint about his talk then but didn't say more than that. Cant wait to hear what Marta says when she finds out.

An update on Bentura and Pastora

Bentura is the 50-something yr old man who Shane is studying with. We wrote about him in our last blog. So, for an update, Shane thought he was going to lose the study. Bentura said evenings after 5pm are best for him. One day about 2pm we were in the neighborhood and his sons trotted by on their horses and said their dad was at home today and we should stop. Shane had been planning to go at 5pm, but thought 'why not stop in and say Hi'. We pulled the bike up to his pasture and Shane saw a man duck into a roofless block shed in the middle of the pasture. Shane called out and no one came. He opened the gate and walked through the pasture and called out again. No one came. It was strange that someone standing inside a barn with no roof couldn't hear Shane's calls. Shane left the field and came back to me worried that Bentura was hiding from him. “No, dont think that. He wouldn't do that,” I said optimistically. Shane walked to where he could see the back side of the barn. And there was Bentura, hiding, with a guilty and irritated expression on his face. “Why not come back after 5pm!” he shouted. Shane agreed, apologized and we quickly left. When we came at 5pm we were both kind of worried. We didn't want the poor man to feel hassled and we hated to think he was just studying to be kind and didn't know how to tell us to move on. So we went in and there was Bentura with a big handshake, smiling and in clean clothes. We apologized, but he said he didn't mind our visits. But that when we had come earlier he was sweaty from working and covered in horse manure. He felt ashamed to discuss the bible like that. He is a very humble man. It is such a good lesson for us. The study has gone just fine since then.

Ray and MaryAlice Bloxsom were here. We had a great time seeing them. They seemed to have a great time. It was great getting to catch up on how everyone is back in Virginia. Their week here went by too fast. Wish we could have spent even more time together. As it is, we shamefully admit that we even invited ourselves over to a dinner party where we knew they were going just to spend more time with them!
Here's a picture. Sorry some of us have closed our eyes.

This last picture has nothing to do with anything. We just thought it was funny to see it so crazy loaded down with green plantains, (aka, giant bananas). You could tell it wanted to roll over really badly. Thought the kids might like it.