I chose the above title because the classic line perfectly describes our general feelings on our assignment here in Nicaragua, 3 ½ months in.
Some days, we absolutely love it here and just laugh in delight at our wonderful lot in life and still can’t believe we are here. We are in a real preaching paradise and we often feel that we really are doing our utmost in service to Jehovah, and that is truly a beautiful feeling; it really feels like we are living the best times of our lives in this terrible dying system. Then, there are the other times, when we feel exasperated and just fed up with all of the challenges and are ready to just come home and be done with it all. As if we are living in a real-life preview of the Great Tribulation.
Now you may have noticed that, in the past, I have written mostly of the wonderful experiences that we have had. I assure you I have not sugar-coated life here, that we really have had some excellent experiences in our new home. But I must admit that I have refrained, at least on this website, from sharing too much of the negative things about life here (some of you have had to put up with my venting from time to time, sorry). And that is only natural, isn’t it? I’m sure half of you would simply delete my announcement of a new post if you knew it would be nothing but whining and complaining about how hot it is here, and how gigantic the bugs are, and how it is just not what we expected. That would get quite old quite fast, right? So, in order to be encouraging and positive, I have left it out, for the most part.
But it is good, from time to time, to reflect on the challenges of life here, to get the overall picture of our condition.
First, I present to you 5 of the biggest challenges we face in Nicaragua:
1. Trash.
The land of Nicaragua, although very beautiful, lush, and green, is a filthy trash heap in many areas. The people simply do not know how to use a trash can. I don’t know if they just were not raised to be clean, or if they simply don’t care. But we often get upset when we see a child unwrap his or her lollypop and toss the wrapper on the ground without a care in the world and its mother not showing the least disgust in this child’s manners. And why should she? She tosses her cup on the same ground when she finishes drinking her corn juice. The Watchtower we are currently placing, on page 18, is especially timely as it talks of how Jehovah is going to bring to ruin everyone who ruins the earth (Rev. 11:18). Ah, that is truly a wonderful prospect! (And yes, I know, it is our responsibility to show them what Jehovah feels about this and we shouldn’t condemn them to the second death just because they are lacking in cleanliness. I’m just telling you how I feel about it.)
2. Treatment of animals.
Many of the people here are simply appalling in their treatment of animals. They will throw stones at dogs if they feel like it, they will beat their horses mercilessly if they show any fatigue in pulling a ridiculous amount of weight (many of the horses here are missing flesh on their backs or are very bloody and raw), and they string pigs up on branches as they slit their throats. (This last one, I know, is somewhat necessary if one wants to eat pig flesh; and I must admit that I myself enjoy a morsel or two of pig from time to time. However, the looks of glee and humor on the faces of everyone as we hear the terrorized screams of the poor animal just make us totally sick.) The treatment of the animals here really, really affects me in particular. Once we were walking down the street and I saw a boy throw a rock at a dog quite hard. I went up to him, furious, and said, “Why did you just do that?” He just shrugged at me and said nothing. I asked him (and be assured that I was as kind as I could be when I asked him), “Would you mind if I threw a rock at the back of your head? Do you think that would bother you at all?” The boy, I must admit, showed some alarm at this prospect, and I told him that I would, of course, not subject him to this cruel punishment, but that he should remember that dogs feel pain just as he does, and just as he does not want to be hurt, he should not hurt defenseless animals. After walking away from him, I realized that he might have understood that I would physically hurt him if he injured a dog again. It was not my intention, but oh well.
3. Bugs, bugs, bugs!
I know, I know. We are in a Central American tropical country, and bugs must be expected. And I don’t mind seeing gigantic insects. During the last cleaning of the Kingdom Hall, we saw a giant insect that looked exactly like a leaf of a tree. It was gorgeous. Bright green, with veins running through it just like the delicate stems on a leaf. But we have a problem with the insects when they are in our home. Not because we get grossed out by them or anything, but because we have giant ants which are constantly biting the paws and tummies of our dogs, so they are in constant itchy craziness. We’ve tried several topical creams and such, but they don’t seem to work. Oh well. There really isn’t much we can do about this one. (Some of the friends have e-mailed us instructions regarding certain cleaning solutions for the floors, and we are presently attempting them. We will let you know how it goes.) But we DO realize that we are actually pretty fortunate in comparison with others. The R.O.U.S’s are not around anymore, really, and some of the other friends are reporting an increase of mice and rats, which hopefully we don’t have a problem with.
4. Pigs disguised as men.
I get quite apprehensive and disgusted when we pass by a group of very obviously drunk men. I don’t care much at all when I am by myself, but when Marlene is with me, I get hypersensitive. They all leer at her, make little catcalls here and there. It just strikes me as such a gross lack of respect for the woman’s husband who is walking right by her, piercing them with razor sharp stares. They make outright propositions to her, and it just makes my blood boil. Marlene thinks it is just a male-ego thing and that’s why I can’t stand it, and it might have certain elements of that involved. But one man came up to us not too long ago, completely smashed out of his mind, and said to her, “Oh, please, come here and teach me about the Bible.” He started to reach for her, and I stood in front of her to face him and smiled, saying, “Perhaps another time when you are more disposed.” Of course, he didn’t hear a single word I said, but kept reaching his grubby, dirty, shaking fingers towards Marlene’s arm, and I really hoped that either she would move further back out of his reach, or that he would pass out, because if he laid one of those fingers on her, I very likely would have done something and we would have had the unbearable shame of being called to Bethel and being asked to leave the country. Thankfully, Marlene moved pretty far back and nothing happened. I’m not sure why I get so angry about this, but I am just completely and utterly disgusted and infuriated by it.
5.1. Food, glorious food!
I don’t list this as a number, because I feel somewhat ashamed of myself in saying that this is a big challenge and it makes life in Nicaragua difficult. But it does. It really does!
I am speaking of food, or lack thereof. Don’t get me wrong. I love rice. I love beans, especially when they are refried and creamy. I love chicken. After all, I am Mexican and I grew up eating these wonderful things. But there IS such a thing as too much of a good thing. Now, Marlene does her best. She is very creative with food. She mixes it up and give me delicious pasta with meat sauce, homemade hamburgers and fries, grilled chicken breast, chicken fajita type things, and chicken soup. But there is not much to work with here. And, after a while, you really start desperately missing Olive Garden, Applebees, even Wendy’s and McDonalds.
We have cable tv, with quite a few American channels. This means that we get all of these commercials featuring juicy cuts of sirloin steak, wonderful fat cheeseburgers, and mouth-watering pizza (Marlene is so awesome. After I whined about missing pizza, she made me one from scratch!) When these commercials come on, I have to immediately change the channel. Otherwise I might start to cry a little bit. Now, I am not a glutton. I do not have an insatiable greed for food or drink. But I do believe that food and the ability to taste is one of Jehovah’s finest gifts to the human race, and I fear that I am wasting it here among all these chickens and stale-tasting beans. And every time I think of those wonderful honey barbequed chicken wings I used to buy from Wal-Mart of all places, well, my eyes just water a bit. I truly, truly miss them with all of my heart.
Ah, that feels good to get off my chest, but now I am very very hungry.
Now, on to 5 blessings that make us want to pitch camp here until Armageddon.
1. The country.
Yes, many areas are trash heaps, but many areas are so beautiful it takes your breath away. An example, with some nice pictures included:
A couple of weeks ago we were out in service, and Everet, the Spanish speaking elder, invited us to go to Granada with them the following day. We agreed, since we have always wanted to go, and so the next morning we started out early. Our first stop when we arrived in Granada was Kathy’s Waffle House, which is geared toward American tourists. Yes, that means it is a little bit pricier than what we are accustomed to paying (“$4.00 for a breakfast? Are you nuts? What do I look like, Donald Trump?”), but the food was DELICIOUS. It is basically an IHOP type place, and we had some nice eggs, ham, pancakes, potatoes, blueberry waffles, good Nicaraguan coffee, and a colorful assortment of fresh fruit.
After breakfast, we went down to the docks and took a wonderful boat ride to the Isletas de Granada. 
These are tiny little islands that were formed when the twin volcanoes in the middle of gigantic Lake Nicaragua exploded thousands of years ago. It was such a neat thing to cruise by some of these islands. Some of the richest families of Nicaragua have bought some of them and have built mansions for themselves. They were very pretty. We passed by an old Spanish fort built in 1524 overlooking the lake, with cannons lying about. 
The boatman pulled us in and we were able to explore it on foot. It was really an amazing view. The waves of the lake crashed against the walls of the fort, and you could swear that you were out in the middle of the ocean somewhere. 
After the fort, we traveled to another small island that is called “Monkey Island”, for a good reason. There are about a dozen monkeys inhabiting this small piece of land, and they are well taken care of by a family that owns another island nearby. This, of course, does not stop them from showboating for the tourists in hope of getting a banana or two thrown their way. It was so cute to see one of them actually peel the banana and eat it.
After we got back to the mainland, we drove around looking for a place to eat lunch, and happened upon an old hotel. We stopped there for a bit, because we noticed that there was a large spider monkey tied to a tree by a leash of some kind. We went up to say hello, and were surprised at how friendly it was. It wrapped its arms and tail around us, and climbed up on Marlene when it saw that she had a lollypop in her hand. The little thief promptly stole it and then lost all interest in us as it climbed up the tree and starting crunching away at the candy.
2. Theocratic blessings.
We recently had the annual pioneer meeting in the congregation, and it was a pleasure to listen to the elders as they outlined the blessings the congregation enjoyed as it had 18 regular pioneers (13 of them foreigners). I remember that at the special meeting for needgreaters back in November, the brothers told us that Bethel saw that the congregations that had foreign needgreaters in them frequently enjoyed a faster pace of growth from the field. The elders at our annual meeting reaffirmed this. They also talked about how important it is to be discerning in the field, to be flexible, and to be observant of the circumstances. This is especially applicable here, where the householders very frequently invite you to come into the home and speak to them at length about the Bible. You can’t just say, “Here are the magazines, have a great day.” You really need to be ready to converse on a variety of topics and show multiple scriptures to prove a single point. It is so much fun!
After the pioneer meeting we were treated to gigantic “Nacatamales”, which are kind of like Mexican tamales (which I love!), except that they have giant portions of fresh pork on bone, rice, onions, raisins, and a whole mess of other things, steamed in a sleeve of dough wrapped in a huge banana leaf. Marlene is not a huge fan of pork, but I really enjoyed it.
We also received recently an e-mail from Bethel telling us that our “missionary” visas were approved by the government! That was very good news and we went to Bethel last Wednesday and hitched a ride with the brother to the Immigration Department. Of course, it was packed with people fleeing the country to work in Costa Rica, among other things, and so it was probably about a 2 hour deal. But now we are officially Nicas!
This is especially encouraging because Marlene and I are hoping to eventually move to an area of the country that has a greater need (with our new visas, we don’t have to leave the country anymore, which means that we can move farther into Nicaragua without having to worry about crossing the border every 3 months in order to renew our tourist visas). The brothers at Bethel told us to stay put in Santa Teresa for a short period of time while we get acclimated to the country, and then let them know if we would be willing to accept another assignment. We are thinking that, in time, we would like to ask to be assigned to Jinotega, up north in the mountains, because they are sorely in need of help (especially in the northern part of their territory) and it is much cooler than it is down here. It is a relatively large city with all the conveniences we would like, but it has a very rural “cowboy” town atmosphere, we are told. We are planning a visit to Jinotega, and depending on our impression of it, we would ask Bethel what they think. But they have already hinted to us that Jinotega would be a good assignment. Also, Nicaragua is frequently receiving Gilead trained missionaries and they are often being assigned up north.
After the Immigration deal, we asked the brother to drop us off at a mall in Managua, and we had a very nice meal at a Mexican restaurant, and then caught a movie at the theater. All in all it was a very nice day, and a good break in the routine.
3. Field Service
Obviously, this list is not in the order of most importance. Our ministry is the number one reason we came down here, and it continues to be the number one source of joy in our lives. We can very clearly see the angels guiding us. An example:
On Thursday Marlene had a study and a promising return visit to make, and she very graciously invited me to come along. The study was only about a 10 minute walk from the place we met for field service arrangements, but the return visit was roughly 7 miles away.
In the States, this would not be a problem whatsoever, and we would be able to catch a nice Starbucks break in between. Here, however, you tend to look off into the far distance, imagining the long trek along dirt roads and muddy paths through fields, and then you look down at your poor feet, wondering if they can take it. (Even though I smile enthusiastically whenever Marlene says “I love walking here! I have lost so much weight, isn’t it wonderful?”, inside I am groaning and wondering how in the world I wore holes through yet another pair of socks.)
Anyway, on this particular morning I nodded and said, “Great, honey, that would be wonderful, but could you maybe call the return visit to make sure she is there first so that we don’t make a huge unnecessary walk?”
“Sure”, she says. “You just put minutes onto your phone the other day, right?”
I stare off into space, trying to remember when I put that dollar’s worth of minutes on my phone. Yes, it was only 2 days ago, and they last 3 days before it “expires” whether you use them or not (those thieves! But that is another topic…)
“Yeah, we’re good,” I say, and off we go to her study. Her study, incidentally, is a wonderfully sharp young woman who asks a lot of questions and works her way through the logic of Bible truths. She is such a joy to study with.
So, after the study, we start off on the long dirt road that leads to Los Potrerillos, which is a tiny village on the way to Los Encuentros, which is a far away village where Marlene’s return visit lives. About two thirds of the way to Potrerillos, which means too far to turn back, I try my phone. Surprise, surprise, I get the nice message from the robot on the other end telling me that my minutes have expired and could I please pay more money so that I don’t lose them permanently?
“Honey,” I say. “It looks like my minutes have expired. I guess I was wrong and I put minutes on it three days ago, not two. We will just go to Potrerillos and recharge the minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” she says cheerfully, practically skipping the whole way. She loves these long grueling walks under the hot sun. It’s masochistic, really. I don’t get it.
So we finally arrive at Potrerillos, and we visit a young woman who happens to be one of Marlene’s return visits and also owns a shop where, apparently, you can choose from an assortment of canned goods, bell peppers, and cats.
Most shops recharge minutes on phones. This one, unfortunately, does not. But, I am told, there is one that does recharge minutes just a little ways down the road.
We finally find it through some overgrown vegetation, but the woman who does the recharging had gotten sick that morning and was at the doctor’s office.
I frown at this, and consider taking a taxi to Los Encuentros, since it is a good 3 or 4 more miles away. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any taxis that pass through here, so we just start walking. And walking. And walking.
I try not to grumble too much, and I really do succeed at it. Especially when Marlene pulls out a nice roll of Oreos that she brought along.
(Actually, on some level I really do enjoy these long walks, as they give Marlene and me more time to just talk. It draws us closer together as we are able to talk about a variety of things, instead of sitting in front of a television and pretending to be spending quality time with one another.)
So, we finally make it to the tiny house past a gigantic chicken farm, and walk up the path, completely worn out. A nice elderly lady walks out and invites us in. Marlene asks for the young girl and the lady says, “Sorry, she is in Jinotepe today. She won’t be back until Sunday.”
Beautiful, I think to myself. Just wonderful.
Anyway, we don’t want to waste the opportunity and so we share something from one of the magazines with her (yes, this was a selfless act, although I cannot deny the fact that we also welcomed the rest before our long trek back).
She accepts it and listens graciously, but isn’t really jumping out of her shoes, you know? So, afterwards, we make our way to the gate to leave, and she starts talking about how much the young girl, Valezca, needs to study the bible since she is 13 years old and is getting to be that age where she wants to hang out and go to parties by herself. Anyway, we get to talking about the girl, and it turns out that her situation is very much like the situation of many children in Nicaragua. She has two parents, but they are too poor to take care of her and so they put her up for adoption. The elderly lady is really a foster mother of sorts. The children that are put up for adoption usually live in an orphanage, but since this lady’s daughter works for Family Services, the lady takes in some of the children from time to time in order to care for them in a more personal way, until they get adopted. The problem is that most families in Nicaragua are just as poor as the parents, so the children don’t frequently get adopted by anyone.
The elderly lady is currently taking care of a 10 year old boy that she has raised since he was 3 months old. The conversation finally turns to us, and she asks us if WE have any children.
I immediately see where this is heading, so I say, “No, we don’t have the circumstances right now to where we could care for a child.” (For those of you that know us well, you already know that our circumstances consist of the simple fact that we don’t really want any. At least not until the New World.) She says to us, “Oh, but you are a nice couple and you could really take care of her!” We kind of just back slowly away, being nice, and say something along the lines of “Let’s just see if she likes to study the Bible or not.” (I suspect that she does, since the lady told us that this girl walked the 7 or 8 miles to Santa Teresa to look for our house, but couldn’t find us.)
So, we make our way onto the path leading out of town, and I say, “Well, let’s start back,” already dreading the walk and completely convinced that this was a colossal waste of time and a huge unnecessary toll on my innocent feet. Even Marlene looks a little discouraged, but we trudge on.
Almost immediately, however, a young woman comes to the side of the road out of her tiny house, and motions for us to walk over. We do, and she asks us, “Are you Jehovah’s Witnesses?” We nod our heads, mustering smiles as sincere as we can make them, and she proceeds to tell us that she was studying in Masaya and attending all the meetings, but that she unexpectedly had to move to Los Encuentros (I think it has something to do with her family needing her there), and she has been looking for Witnesses so that she can resume her study and meeting attendance. Now our smiles are truly genuine and we have a nice conversation with her. We are going to start the study with her this Sunday and she has already expressed the desire to walk back with us after her study so that she can attend the meeting at the Kingdom Hall.
Afterwards, the long walk didn’t seem so long and our step was light. We just marveled at how Jehovah really does lead us to sheeplike ones. We talked about how, if we had found somewhere to add minutes to my phone, we would have learned that Marlene’s return visit wasn’t there, and we would never have gone out there. But because we had no way of knowing, we made the long trek and were led to a person that practically begged for a Bible study and directions to the Kingdom Hall.
This is not the first time something like this happens, and we are sure that it won’t be the last. Even later that same day, as we walked to our meeting, a lady stopped us on the street and asked if we were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and when we said yes, she commented on how much she loved reading the magazines and asked us if we had any. We didn’t happen to have any with us, but after the meeting we went by where she was staying (she was just visiting from Managua), and dropped off some magazines that we had gotten from some of the friends.
This type of experiences convinces us that this is the reason why we are really here. Not to be on vacation, not to have an easier life, or to have a nice experience to look back on in a few years, but because we really are needed!
We are no one special. Those of you who know us very well also know that we aren’t even particularly great teachers; we are so extraordinarily ordinary! But, we are simply here, ready and willing to work. Which means that Jehovah has two more tools with which to cultivate the ground and reap the harvest of those who still have the opportunity to get into his organization before Armageddon. It really is such a great privilege!
4. Quirks.
In our day to day lives here, there are little quirks that just delight us or disgust us, make us laugh or make us scream, but they are all pretty special.
For example, on the same day that we found that study out in Los Encuentros, we went to the meeting. Unfortunately, we only had half power (which is quite strange. In the States, you either have power or you don’t. But here, sometimes you have half). Which basically meant that there was not enough current to power everything. So, although the sound control worked, the microphones and CD player did not. Although half of the lights came on, the other half did not. So, we all did the best we could, and sang without the music, which was quite nice to hear once we all got in tune. In spite of not being in the best circumstances, the meeting was a wonderful success and we all enjoyed fine association afterwards.
This little experience is not very significant, but that is what life is, in a way. Many little insignificant things add up and make an experience. They are things that we will not easily forget, and that draw us closer together as brothers and closer to Jehovah.
5. Time.
There is so much more time here. And, since time is our most precious commodity, that is a very good thing. We find that just by spending the morning in service each day (about 4 or 5 hours, starting at 8:30am), we can easily make our time as pioneers. Granted, I go out 6 days a week and Marlene goes out 7 days, but it is not a burden, since we usually get home by noon or 1:30. The rest of the day, after lunch, is free for whatever we want to do. That typically involves personal study, preparing for the meetings, secular work for me, etc. It is not as hard here as it was in the States to keep our family study regular, as well as Bible reading and personal study (we are really enjoying the new arrangement for studying as a family on the same night that we had book study). The result? We find that we are more spiritually “tuned” here. We find ourselves speaking less and less of empty worldly things, and more and more of spiritual treasures we find in our reading of God’s word, in our personal study in the Watchtower CD Rom, etc. And all of this helps us stay more positive in general. I just hope that the good habits we are acquiring and/or refining here will stay with us when we leave to go back home eventually.
So, that is all for now. The purpose of this particular entry was to provide you with a balanced and realistic view of what life is like here. I realized a short time ago that I was making it all seem like rose petals and teddy bears every day, that even stepping on a live cockroach was a source of laughter and that there was no problem. The reality is far different. I hope that you have gotten the sense that there are, indeed, many challenges, some of them frustrating and others which make us sad and make us miss home more than ever. There are, however, many blessings that make us so very happy that we were able to take advantage of favorable circumstances and move to where the need is urgent for more workers in the harvest.
In a little less than two weeks my parents are visiting us from Chicago. We are really looking forward to it, and have the trip all planned out. I don’t want to give too much away because they will definitely be reading this, but some of things we will show them will be things that we have seen and loved, and others will be completely new to all four of us. And, of course, we will show them how joyful field service here can be. Although we probably will not make them walk as much as we usually do.
Two days after they leave to go back to the States, we will have our circuit overseer’s visit. So after that I will have a new entry on the website here and let you all know how it went.
We love you all a ton, and we hope that you all continue to keep us in your prayers, so that we all can continue to be as busy as possible in Kingdom interests until the very end of this old system.
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