MEMORIAL 2015

I hope everyone had a great Memorial and campaign this year.  It's so much work and preparation getting ready for this most important event, and I just wanted to share some Nindirí activities with you.

Thanks to Jehovah we were able to finish our territory this year with the invitations.  And it seems like it paid off because we had a larger attendance this year than last.  Nindirí had 252 in attendance and our rural group had 80; grand total of 332!!  Not bad for 100 publishers!  We're especially excited about our group (San Francisco's) potential considering only about 20 publishers are assigned there.

Since our cleaning is all manual and we're always open to the elements, it's an all-week activity.  We had cleaning days Monday and Thursday afternoons and Friday morning.  What you're seeing here is over 100 rental chairs being washed by hand.  Then each one had rough parts sanded down (by yours truly) and a final wipe down.  Then, as usual, we flooded our hall to get a good scrub done.

These are some of my students who attended.  There's one young girl missing from the picture.  Also, three of my former students attended so maybe there's still hope there?!  Let me tell you about the young lady on the far right, Erania (she brought her friend with her standing on my other side).  We've been studying over a year and this is her first KH visit!  When I invited her to the Memorial, she said she had a school activity planned on the same night that counted for half her class grade.  We read Matthew 6:33 together and had a long talk about faith and putting Jehovah to the test.  When I checked in with her again last Sunday she told me, "Yeah, I'm coming!"  I asked her if she had worked things out with her teachers, and she waved me off with her hands and said, "Jehovah first."  Do you know how much it warms my heart to hear expressions like that from my students?!  

 Just a sampling of Nindirí's beautiful youth.

 My baby Samir's 1st Memorial with his matchy-matchy parents.

One of my elders and fellow pioneer, Alexis, and his wife, Carla, and I.

So my takeaway this year?  We're still growing and there's still so much work to do here which makes me feel REALLY excited.  Also, don't give up on my students.  Sometimes it's like Jesus´ parable from WT study from a few weeks ago....it just takes a while to see the growth because it's been underground until now.

MEMORIAL SEASON 2014

Was it the last Memorial ever? Time will tell but I wanted to share some shots I took during another eventful Memorial season.  With 1 day to spare we finished our VERY large territory. Our congregation of about 91 publishers had a combined attendance of 323!!  I say combined because for the first time ever, our rural group that's trying to form, San Francisco, had a Memorial.  They have 19 publishers and had 82 attending!  In Nindiri we were 241.  Needless to say we were pleased since the year before they told me there was about 250.

First day of invitation work we were like ants invading the neighborhood

Cleaning day the Sunday before. There's me, um, talking and not cleaning. Hey, I did SOME work, I promise.

Some of the hard-working brothers who dedicated so much time to making sure San Francisco had a dignified place to celebrate their Memorial. Many years ago a loving sister left this piece of land to the congregation with the faith that one day there would be a group in her territory and they would need a KH. Won't she be happy in the new world to know her dream came true!

For the 1st time, I had the privilege of preparing the unleavened bread for the emblems. Unfortunately, I found out about my assignment the day before. It was a little stressful, but everything came out great.  Even if my bread was more like a pancake than a cracker. Oops!

My student, Jamileth, came for the 1st time in years. She brought her husband, little brother, and daughter.  She was very happy to attend. About 7 years ago she was an unbaptized publisher. We've been studying about a month and she's determined to get herself back on the bandwagon. I'm very proud of her.

UN HOMBRE MURIO POR TODOS

Little girl, Jandra, me, and Pilar.  I found my dress at a second-hand shop in Masaya market for  a little over $3!

I hope all of you had a beautiful Memorial this year.  This year was much like last in our setup.  We were the 2nd Memorial again starting at 7:15pm and had seating both inside and outside.  We were able to see and hear the speaker thanks to a projector.  Here, the sun sets year-round at 6pm (thanks to being so close to the equator) so we're able to get started pretty early.

The weather was a little better this year although I certainly wasn't expecting that.  Around 3pm I was in my room sweating and noticed my temperature gauge said 93 degrees.  I moved it into the living room, and it went up to 95.  I moved it outside and it went up to 97.  With about a million percent humidity.  But I endured!  I didn't put on the A.C. and by the time I went to the Memorial, just as it was starting this amazing breeze started up, and it was actually really comfortable.

I wasn't able to help with set-up or cleaning this year because I've been sick the past few days.  I have barely a voice and when it's early in the morning or late at night, it's really painful to talk and swallow.  Apparently, it's allergies.  Again.  Thankfully, I was so busy with the campaign I already had my hours last Friday so I was able to take some time off to recuperate guilt-free.

Best news to report from the Memorial?  A student of mine came!!  Three of my students said for sure they wanted to come and lots more from rural.  But rural couldn't ever work out transportation, and I feel sick about that.  However, my student, Hazel, came with her brother-in-law, Roberto.  It was her 2nd time to a KH and his 1st.  They said they wanted to come back for the Special Talk!  I'm so happy because I was really praying for my students to come, and in general it's been a struggle to get Hazel to come to a meeting.  She's my most progressive of all my Bible students and an absolute gem.  She came over to the house when my parents were here, so they got to meet her, and she felt so happy getting to know my house and family.

Hazel, Roberto, and I

All in all we had 294 in attendance from our 99 publishers.  Best report I heard came from Malacatoya.  It's a group, not a congregation, just a little further out than our rural territory.  They have 18 publishers and had 179 in attendance including 1 deaf they interpreted for!  Isn't that amazing?!  There's still sooooo much work to do here.

Brett & Kathy, publishers from Illinois that now serve in my sister congregation, Granada Norte.  Norte hosts Malacatoya group.  They also are the only foreigners in their congregation so have been a great support to me especially when it comes to getting a hold of English literature.

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?  :)