LA PAZ, CARAZO

Beginning in October, Nindirí has been invited to participate in a KH build in La Paz, Carazo.  Here, even when RBC existed, it never did in Nicaragua.  What we have are construction groups who settle in an area 2-3 months and work with the local congregation and surrounding congregations to complete the KH.  Each day, two different congregations are invited to support the work.  So far, we have gone three times.  I have attached some photos showing progress.

Taken Sept 11, 2015.  Only dirt.  The men spent all day digging a 6 ft. deep trench in a square around that high pile of dirt you see. 

Taken Oct 23, 2015.  That dirt trench is now the retaining wall that you see surrounding the KH.  Lots of progress, right?!

Because of budget concerns, just about everything is done by hand on the site.  And if you're looking for an RBC safety video, better you just turn your head and forget about it.  Shoes are whatever fits and hard hats are optional.  For instance, that trench I mentioned above could've been done easily with a backhoe, but we don't have one...we used manual labor.  On my first build here, men were manually mixing concrete all day...truly back breaking labor, but thankfully, I see that on this build, the one machine we DO have is a small mixer.  

Another big difference is comfort.  If you come to work, you arrange your own transportation and bring your own everything.  There's no snack girl walking around every hour giving you Gatorade and cookies.  And even though it's over 90 degrees, everyone is completely covered because 20 minutes in this sun EVEN with sunscreen, and you're toast.

There's also a slight difference in the spiritual ambiance.  The day does NOT start with a prayer or text consideration nor does lunch.  It often seems kind of thrown together, but then again this  IS Latin America.

To give you another example of things done by hand, we even made our own concrete...well, to be more specific, we make our own sand to mix with concrete bags.  On Friday, my job was separating gravel from concrete.  These sisters in the pictures show you how. 

Gravel was poured into screen netting first.

Then the gravel was immersed in a barrel of water.  By agitating the gravel, we separated the large bits from the sand.  The sand fell to the bottom of the barrel and as the water level rose, we scooped the sand out for later use. *My thanks to my Vanna White-ish model, Cathy Solowiejko from Pan Casán, Granada, for helping me demonstrate this.  She was a super fun partner to have on Friday!*

In the wheelbarrow is what we started with.  The other pile is the gravel and a pile behind me (which you can't see) is the sand.

 The really exciting news though is that when they're done with La Paz in about three more weeks.............THEY'RE COMING TO NINDIRÍ!!!!!!!  Yeah, we're up!  The congregation is in a buzz about how we're going to provide housing and food to the team coming, but I know that if we have a good attitude, Jehovah will bless our prayers for help.  So my hope is that a VERY SOON future post will have these kind of pictures from my local congregation.

Just as a reminder, this is the land we've purchased as the site for the future KH in Nindirí

RAVE REVIEWS FOR RURAL

After our convention, we planned to take advantage of state vacation days here in Nicaragua.  Specifically January 1st.  Two congregations from Masaya (Coyotepe and Faria) came to assist us and we spent all day working our rural territories.

This is how they came and we piled about 10 more in the back to get to rural.  It's pretty common for large groups in Nicaragua to travel this way

Lunch break!  The sister in the black/white stripes, Marbel, was my partner for the day, and I made new friends with her family.  Her hubby's Puerto Rican and they were truly a joy to get to know better

These planters made makeshift seats for most of us at lunch.  I'm sure we were a spectacle for the territory!

All in total we were over 60 and really appreciated the help to really thoroughly work some of our rural.

CANOPY TOUR AT MOMBACHO

My Missouri friend, Tami, and I preparing for our ziplining adventure.  Don't we look tropical?

If this isn't a fun-loving face, what is?  Or bat crazy...jury's still out

It's not what it looks like, I promise

My parents are here right now visiting from Missouri, USA, and we've been doing a lot of touristy stuff.  Today, we went with Va Pues tours out of Granada to Volcan Mombacho.  We left the house at 8am and did a hiking tour of the first crater (there are three) of the volcano.  We finished about 11:30am, grabbed a coffee at their cafe (they grow coffee on site) and then started our ziplining adventure.  Here they call it a canopy tour.  Only Tami and I participated in that part while my parents waited in the cafe.  We were finished with everything and home by 1:30pm.  My parents paid $40 apiece for transportation up/down the volcano and a guided tour of the crater in English.  Tami and I paid an extra $20 apiece for the ziplining part.  I had gone before just to do the crater tour with Mombotours, but I really think VaPues was a better deal--they were definitely cheaper once the ziplining was added in.

Ziplining was.....well.....an adventure.  They had us do all kinds of crazy combinations along the way like superchica (Superwoman), an upside-down monkey looking thing, rock & roll where they move the line while you're on it etc.  The instructors were really nice, made us feel safe (it was our first time), and had great English.  We got to see howler monkeys up close and really enjoy the lush volcanic landscape.  It was a nice change from the hike because it had rained and was slippery, so my attention during the hike was almost completely on the ground, and I couldn't focus on the landscape around me much.

If you're trying to decide whether to visit Volcan Mombacho or Volcan Masaya, I'd definitely pick Mombacho.  It's a totally different experience.  While Masaya is desert-like and hot, Mombacho is windy, brisk, and lush.  It's very green and parts of it are a cloud forest.  And they're both active, so don't think that in visiting Mombacho, you're missing out on seeing an active volcano.  You'll be able to experience sulfur-filled fissures and thermal holes.  Check out pictures from my first visit to Mombacho here.

Oh, and if you're thinking of skipping the tour companies and hiking up Mombacho yourself....may God be with you.  It is straight up the entire way and then when you get to the top, you have to hike around an entire crater.  That's just not my idea of a vacation.  I have a friend who did it and it took her 4 hours to get from Guanacaste (where the welcome center is located) to the first crater.  Ouch!

For information on booking with Mombotours click here.  Right now, Va Pues doesn't have a working website but if you're in Granada, their office is in Central Park directly south of La Catedral (big yellow church on east side of park).  They share an office with Paxeo and BiciMaximo.

CALLING POTENTIAL NEED GREATERS

Can you imagine this being your need-great territory?  San Juan del Sur calling....

Some of the sights you'll see if you choose to serve in Bluefields

Circumstances are always changing, and it may be that you readers are looking for opportunities to serve where the need is greater without a really long commitment.  Right now, Nicaragua has multiple exciting opportunities available during Memorial season.  Here, just like in the U.S., we always do a campaign three weeks before the Memorial.  However, there are some congregations that are just too tiny to reach all their territory but still end up with HUGE turnouts each Memorial.  Think about what the attendance could be with just a few more helping hands!  So if you're weighing your options and have only maybe 1-3 weeks that you can spend away from home, please consider us *me on bended knee begging*.  Every place I mention I have contacts in I can connect you with for questions on lodging and prices.  Here's some places to think about:

SAN JUAN DEL SUR ENGLISH

I know not all my readers are Spanish-speakers or are possibly bilingual.  If that's your case, you've got a great opportunity.  In a prior post (here) I told you there's a new English group in San Juan del Sur.  This year, they'll be doing their first Memorial.  Wouldn't it be exciting to be a part of history?  There's a TON of foreigners who live in San Juan del Sur and oh, did I mention you'd be right on the beach?!  One of the prettiest beaches in Nicaragua.  Look on the map below and you'll see it's location on the southwest coast of Nicaragua.  Currently, there's a ton of Australians in SJDS serving in English so you'd get to see our international brotherhood firsthand as well as make a big impact on a brand new congregation.  

MASAYA SIGN LANGUAGE

Nicaragua uses their own sign language but if you already know ASL it's supposedly veeerrry easy to pick up NSL as they only have about half the signs.  There's quite a few in the congregation who know ASL also so you'd have support to help you if you got stuck.  There's three foreigners serving there already so you wouldn't be alone.  Although their congregation is in Masaya (see map below and look between the 2 lakes) their main need is in my city of Granada.  That's part of their territory, but they only have one publisher (my roommate) living here right now.  That means all 100 deaf in the community are her responsibility to invite.  Nicaraguans can't always afford the bus transport between the two cities to be of regular help.  The two cities are about 20-30 minutes away from each other by bus.

BLUEFIELDS SIGN LANGUAGE

This is also a new group that's sprung up recently.  Bluefields is on the eastern coast of Nicaragua (see map below) and supposedly is gorgeous; I personally haven't seen it yet.  It's a really unique place because the residents are black and speak Creole English.  So if you only know ASL and English; it'd be a perfect match for you.  It's a very different feel there--more Caribbean, less Latinoamerica.  You'd be getting to see a very special place in Nicaragua while serving a new group that needs a lot of help and frolicking on the beach at the end of a long day in service.  Doesn't sound too bad, huh?

LA SAVANA SPANISH

La Savana is a small town located about 20 km outside of Somoto (see the northwest part of map below).  There's a couple in my congregation who just went there to serve in December for a month and said they had GREAT response; so great they themselves are going back during Memorial season.  The congregation is only about 12 publishers with 6 students who regularly meet with them, but they have a HUGE territory.  You would have an opportunity to speak to people who quite possibly haven't heard the Kingdom message in years.  Another benefit is back, being up north, you'd be in a cooler area of Nicaragua.  Something to think about as March/April starts our hottest time of the year.

EL ALMENDRO SPANISH

You can read about the special pioneer couple already serving there in this former post of mine.  But just to refresh your memory, El Almendro has only about 6 publishers and a very large territory with great response.  My friend Yahoska has dozens of studies; so many she only studies with them about 15 minutes at a time or does group studies to get them all done.  And her husband Jairo is the ONLY brother there.  If you're a brother reading this, just imagine....EVERY public talk, EVERY part on the service meeting, EVERY WT study...it's just you!  Can you imagine the pressure?  Wouldn't you love to help him?  :)