District - Blogabond

Jameel and Tina's Visit:
We had some guests from Hampton, VA. They lived here back in 2006 for 6 months. We had never met them but we had a great time together. They knew a lot of people and it was fun watching them get to see everyone all over again. This is a picture of our group on a Friday night. Jameel is in a light green shirt in the front row.

And this is Tina and me in the backyard making up some Chicken Cacciatore for lunch. The chicken posed for the picture too. We really enjoyed having company. It encouraged us so much. So, who of you coming next...???

This is also a picture of Tina with Aida. Aida is 80 years old and was baptized last year. She is a wonderful sister. She still is finishing the "God's Love," book. And we love to go to her house and sit on her big porch outside in the fresh air and study with her. It is a good witness to everyone in town because she lives right on the main street across from the park and nobody walks by without greeting Aida and taking note the fact she is studying the bible.

We also did a day of preaching at a small community about hour on foot from here. We had a great time. The people there were so friendly. They dont get many visitors. Shane met a man, Norman, who felt like anyone can interpret the bible however they want. But Shane showed him an example from the reasoning book about how to use the bible to interpret itself by comparing context and other verses about the same subject. Norman was really surpised with the example and he wants to talk more. I guess were gonna have to make the hour trip again!

A Pet:

We have a cat. He's not actually ours. He's the neighbor's. They named him Mimi and then discovered what gender he was...(why does that sound familiar Bailey?) We arent really sure we would even want him. He has fleas and parasites to be sure. But most times he is really friendly and he eats cockroaches. I say he's friendly most of the time because he bit Shane last week. He's probably got rabies too. Ah well. Its nice having the company. :)

A Roomate:

We didnt know we were renting out a space in our house. But we are, to a trantula. This is Shane trying to herd the cattle-sized beast away from our bedroom. Shane's flipflop is a size 13. So you can tell it was a big one. We havent seen it since. It ran up into the rafters of the house. Another reason we always sleep with a mosquito net and one eye open.

The District Convention:
Last weekend we had the District Convention in Matagalpa. Thirty four people were baptized. These three girls below are from our last congregation in Jinotega. It was so great to see everyone all over again. It makes us not feel too far away.

I´m really proud of this girl Denexi. She is 13. She was wonderful to go in the ministry with. She takes it very seriously and cultivates her RVs and conducts several bible studies.

And this is Dora. She is here in San Jose with us. She was baptized on Saturday too. That means we have 6 baptized members in our group now!! She was all smiles and it made us proud to be able to give her a big hug afterwards.

Dora´s husband and three sons are studying the bible and make the meetings. And her brother in law and sister in law are studying as well. We made pizza last night and had them all over for dinner.

We stayed with Duane and Kim Lindala in the missionary home again during the convention. It was great. They take good care of us. We also got to have dessert with Ken and Sharon Bryan from the branch. They have been in the country for a very long time and told us stories of how the country was when they came and how when they started preaching they had no idea how the long term effects would be. Places they just 'blitzed' so to speak door-to-door thirty five years ago now have large thriving congregations. And some of the oldest members still have the Paradise Earth book that they originally gave them. It sparked Shane and my interest to reach some of the more remote communities in our area even just one time during the time we live here and see what becomes of it down the road. We are planning some days with Jese and Mayling Montes where we are going to go and camp out and do a several day preaching trip. Shane wants to rent a horse or mule or some thing to carry our stuff. That we will for sure get you some pictures of.

And this is the new guard dog at the missionary home. The branch says that is the first line of defense against being robbed. She had a good bark and is learning how to protect her family. Duane and Kim are getting a new assignment to Chinandega. They start it first week in January. We are hoping to get to go see them after they have settled in a bit. We will be a bit further from them than before. But distances here are really just something you get used to. Nothing is really convenient or close. So we dont mind traveling. I want to go see a volcano over there that colapsed from the rains of a hurricane a few years ago.

Back in San Jose:

When we came home from Matagalpa. Micah and Angie Monk came with us. That´s them in the picture above. They were checking out the town here to see what they thought about moving over. Sad part is a they were considering renting that beautiful fully furnished house that i mentioned in the other blog. That would have make the move really easy for them, but the landlord just told us this week that she's not gonna be leaving it very soon after all. So we will see what they end up deciding to do. It would be nice for our sake to have more help and company, but we are happy to just wait and see how Jehovah directs everything.

The other Dora in the congregation and her husband Julian brought us some fresh corn off their farm. Shane could not get any happier as you can see. Since it was still hot from when she boiled it, he popped it on a plate and slapped some butter on it and chowed down. I got him to pause for a second so we could get a picture.

This is how they dry the beans that just came in for the harvest.

A view from a hike we took Friday morning.

And heres a picture of Shane this morning with his fresh picked fifty pounds of coffee. He didnt pick them himself. He´s not the true Juan Valdez yet, but he is getting close. He bought them from Julian. Shane is sorting and drying them on the front porch for 15 days (Or 5 days if the sun comes out). They he will have them roasted and ground. It will yield 40 pounds of coffee. Never thought we'd buy a whole years worth of coffee all in one shot!

The King´s Visit, 2009 District Convention and Micah and Angie

San Jose de los Remates, Nicaragua

Heading South?