MORE THOUGHTS FROM NICARAGUA:
Today I took the time to sit and jot down a few notes from some of Norma’s e-mail that she sent to family and friends. As I looked at them I realized this might create some interesting thoughts to use on the blog.
Hopefully we will have captured some impressions that you our friends and family will enjoy and will discover some areas in which you can pray for us
Norma: We have been spending our evenings this week after leaving the Nehemiah Center with Maria’s children Jose Ismael and Cesia. They come to the house where we are being hosted, by Ali and her twelve year old daughter Franchesca who live in Maria's neighborhood. We're having some good laughs together, much of them on us (Dock and me) with how strange we do and say things. ha! :) These kids are a riot.
We have given printed materials/info on the Nehemiah Center. We're sorry that we will be gone by the time she's back from her trip...but it's likely a good/God thing that she takes the initiative on her own to connect to the Center. She is excited about the possibilities of partnering with the Nehemiah Center, especially and for starters, in the two areas of 1) church growth/pastor & leadership training and 2) the possibility of joining the ACECEN -- Association of Christian Schools in Nica -- to get some teacher training, help with curriculum, have a network of support/accountability, including legal advice, and have other educational tools made available. When she returns in May, she will set some appointments to get that started. In the meantime, Dock and I hope to schedule a time to meet with Pastor Vicente and his neighbor (and Ezra Team trainer) Henry Cruz to talk church growth and leadership training based on integral faith. Maria said it all sounds like a God-send and in good God-timing -- that the school and the association of seven churches already have gotten a good start training teachers, pastors and church leaders the last few years in the Bible Institute. She says, "Now we can go farther."
Thanks to all, in reality, we are doing great! God is so good to let us be here, doing what we're doing. We see his hand in things every time we turn around. Very few issues or problems have come up...well, maybe one was the other morning Dock woke me up to say, "Just shake your clothes out before putting them on. I found this 4-5" spider inside a shirt...." Ha! Made me feel like a kid back in Oklahoma or the Ozarks! :)
I didn't sleep well last night either. The rainy season that usually starts in May is forecast to start now and my arthritis is acting up the last couple of days and nights. You'd think that living in a hot sauna like this (88-100 degrees) would help arthritis, but I can't really say it's helped that much. Once it starts raining, that should be better and I'm looking forward to it. We were in a big meeting outside yesterday here at the Center with our fellow missionary and Nica pastor friends when it rained 24 big drops! Just enough to bless us with cooler air and chase the Nicaraguans under the cover of the porch. ha! There's only two seasons here..not four. This is the end of the 6- months of summer which is called the dry season. May 1 starts winter with 6 months of rain.
Finally...we have some internet this morning here in the Center after an outage yesterday of a couple hours. We had an on-again-off-again situation at the house where we're staying...until about Thursday of last week and since then ...nothing. We can walk a few blocks from the house to the internet cafe and pay a little money for some minutes, but the computers and systems are older and slower..plus we get interrupted with a dozen marketing banners popping up within a 10 minute period.
We got a cool streak of weather last night...down to 88. :) It felt so good. Ali got up "freezing." :) Humidity is 55% all the time and sometimes higher. But I've pretty well gotten accustomed..you sweat it out! I'd say (regarding the big brown Nica spider) that he was potentially very dangerous...dangerous because if I saw him moving, I'd probably hurt myself running away! He was not poisonous and Dock had killed him by the time I saw him. He was just an overgrown Grandaddy Long Legs! (that's the spider, not Dock)...just like everything else down here in the tropics is huge. Ali's oregano plant is 3.5 feet high! Her two poinsettia plants (trees) are 10-12 feet tall. Some mangos are the size of small watermelons and watermelons are monstrous.
Dock, Those are but a few impressions of many that have made up a part of a beautiful journey this far.
We continue meeting with new people and agencies everyday. It is truly amazing how God is at work here in this beautiful land.
Thursday of next week, we will hop on a little jumper plane, and head for the far north Atlantic, in Puerto Cabezas. I have been asked to speak twice in that area and we are supposed to check on an orphanage and a medical outpost while there. We still have over 20 days left, and we want to take advantage of every single moment.
For me, the most difficult and most trying moments have to do with washing my clothes in an outside washer with a concrete rub board. Ha. Not really complaining, but It’s been awhile since I have actually washed my own clothes.
Please keep us in touch and in your prayers. There will surely be more exciting things to come. Dock and Norma.
No comments:
Post a Comment