FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

For all you potential need greaters thinking about Nicaragua, check out the new page "Nica FAQs".  It's located between the title and this blog post.  Just click on the title and you'll see the page.  I'm open to suggestions if any burning questions have been left out.

URGENT NEED FOR CHINESE

This could be your new home!!

Just wanted to share some exciting news a friend of mine told me about.  You may have read in the news how Nicaragua has started a project to open a canal connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean.  It'll be another Panama canal, so to speak.  Well, this presents us Witnesses with an amazing opportunity.  

You see, China is financing the work and has sent hundreds of workers to the Nicaragua/Costa Rican border for a five-year long project.  In response, we already have friends here from Pennsylvania who have learned Chinese and are ready to meet the spiritual needs of these workers.  Could you come too?  The ones I know of are working from San Juan del Sur which is right on the Pacific, has great surfing, and a Spanish and English congregation already established for your meetings.  There's also a Chinese group in the capital, Managua, for you to send your addresses to if you can only come for a short time.

SUPERMAN NEED NOT APPLY

FYI guys, I recently added a page to this blog with a long-ish summary of my journey to becoming a need greater.  It holds the same title as this blog post and can be found just under the title next to the word "home."  Check it out and let me know your comments.

LIVING THE YEARBOOK

We often joke here appreciatively that we are literally living the Yearbook because we are fortunate enough to serve in a place with amazing experiences on a fairly regular basis.  This is a long post, but I know these experiences encourage all of us, so I wanted to share a couple with you that have recently happened to me.

I've started to do business territory with a missionary sister on Thursday mornings.  It's a new field for me, and frankly, I've been really intimidated because we're not just trying to reach the owners of little Nica pulperias, we're trying to reach bank and university presidents!  It's been surprising, though, how many of them not just take the mags each month but set aside a few minutes to study each week!

So a couple weeks ago we're trying to reach the president of a national bank for his weekly study when his assistant, Ana, comes out to apologize and say he won't be able to study this week but we're welcome to leave something for him.  Well, our directions from the branch are clear that if we leave literature, it must be in a sealed envelope, and we didn't have one with us, so my partner explained we'd just come back next week for him.  Well, Ana is still standing there looking  like she wants to say something and finally squeaks out really embarrassed, "You don't even have anything for me?".  She added that she knows we drop off the mags to her boss because when he finishes, he always gives her the copies, and she and her hubby read them together with their Bible.  So we gave her the mags for this month and she added she specifically wants to read about the family since she has two small children.  The next week we came with a packet for her with lots of magazines on the family and a Bible Teach book.  She said her husband used to study and liked it but had to stop when he started working.  She adds, "Do you accept visitors at your church?  Because we really feel the need to be meeting with someone, and your church is only two blocks from my house."  Thankfully, she lives in the territory of my partner so (after we picked our chins up off the floor), they exchanged information to follow up on Sundays when they're as a family (also a meeting day).  

Here's the second experience.  A few months ago a sister from English Cong told me about one of the money collectors on the bus who used to study in Costa Rica and wants to restart.  She wanted me to follow up since I speak Spanish.  No problem, I'm thinking.  Which bus?  Well, the LaVilla/Mercado bus.  But there's about six of them, and she's not sure which one.  Which money collector?  She doesn't know his name, but he's young and caramel-skinned....as they all are.  So I'm thinking that I'm NEVER going to find this individual, but she keeps following up with me, so finally one week we're working the territory near the bus hub when I see a money collector who's friendly with me.  I ask him offhand thinking he's never going to be able to help me, "Is there a relatively new bus collector on this route who's just moved from Costa Rica?"  

"Yes," he tells me, "his name is Yalmer, and he's sitting in that parked bus right there on the other side of the parking lot."

So I go over to the bus and talk to Yalmer saying, "You don't know me, but about a month ago you spoke to a JW and indicated you'd like to study the Bible, is that correct?"

He tells me calm as can be, "Yes, I've been waiting for you."

So we sit in the bus and do a review of the first four chapters of the Bible Teach book--all he's studied so far.  Yalmer not only answered everything correctly but had Bible texts memorized to support his answers.  So I tell him, "Well, that brings us to chapter 5 on the ransom.  How sad I didn't meet you sooner so you could have attended the Memorial with us."

"Oh, I went!" he tells me.  "I had gone in Costa Rica before and knew more or less it was this time of year so was keeping an eye open for invitations.  I saw one for Masaya (a town about 15 minutes from us), so I went there."

So now we study every week in the 30 minutes he has between bus tours, and he's just soaking the information up!  

Now tell me you don't see Jehovah's hand or angelic direction in our work......

PURA VIDA

As we talked about, every 90 days I have to leave Nicaragua to renew my visa.  Because of my location, it's easier to just jump the border to Costa Rica for a bit.  Usually, I come and go in a day and just hang around the border offices, but this last time (mainly because of the troubles I had during my last visa renewal; see here for a recap) I decided to spend some time in CR.

There was a couple, Ron and Chris Carr, who actually met me through this blog, that I stayed with in Grecia.  They came up to Granada during March (I think) for THEIR visa renewal and gave a me big favor by hosting ME while I was in CR.  The best part is that I was able to be there during the English Special Day Assembly in San Jose, and it was amazing.  They had a speaker named Bro.Curry from Panama Branch be the guest speaker, and he was probably one of the best speakers I've ever heard.  There was this talk he gave about the difference between law and principle and what they have to do with the conscience---wow!

The day after, Chris arranged for me to meet some other single need greater sisters around my age and we lived it up in Alajuela.  I was finally able to get decent meeting/service clothes and most of all SHOES!!!  It's so hard to find tasteful dress shoes here.  It's all just sandals or like prom shoes, so I was able to get three pairs in CR.

Overall I have to say I'm happy I didn't spend time in CR until now because, honestly, I may have never left. It is DEFINITELY NOT a developing nation as is Nicaragua.  It is 1st world all the way, and was an excellent break from "roughing it" here.  Here are the highlights:

• using a comforter at night (brrrr it was probably 10 degrees cooler than Granada overall)
• eating strawberries and Cadbury chocolate (found everywhere!)
• being in a house with a front yard
• drinking out of the tap (no parasites there)
• constant water and electricity daily; they only have outages when a pipe bursts or during a storm
• eating Tex-Mex
• meeting new friends :)

Click here for more great photos.

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.