Whirlwind Visit to the Windy City

The last time we parted, dear reader, Marlene and I were anxiously anticipating our visit to Chicago. At the time, we believed that there was absolutely nothing that could dampen our enthusiasm here in Granada while we worked in service and looked forward to our vacation.

And, with a little help from some alcohol-based sleepy medicine, we were right!

About two weeks before we left, we were sitting in the living room watching tv when all of a sudden the power went out. We just shrugged in the dark and turned on some candles, which are strategically placed throughout the house for just these such “emergencies”. So we turned them on and placed them on our kitchen table and pulled out the old Scrabble board and began to play, all the while confident that the electricity would come back on in 20 or less minutes.

But for some reason, it didn’t. As the night got further and further along, we began to be somewhat perplexed and irritated. At about 10:00pm, after waiting for it to come on for a few hours, we went to bed. We positioned the fan to be directly on us so that we could be quickly cooled off whenever the power decided to come back on later that night.

As the hours dragged on, we found ourselves unable to sleep. The heat was oppressive, at least in the high 90's. The windows were open, but there was no breeze. The door needed to remain shut because of the mosquitoes who busily hunt for human blood in the night. It soon started to feel more and more like a tomb.

We sweated and shifted in the bed, trying to find cooler areas that our bodies hadn’t yet touched. Unfortunately, the dogs seemed oblivious to our predicament and snuggled their furnace-like bodies close to us as usual, but were met with firm denials.

Around 3 in the morning we finally fell asleep from utter exhaustion, dreaming of fans and air conditioning.

We woke up at around 6:30 in the morning, and the power was still out. Thankfully this did not affect the water flow, like it used to in Santa Teresa, so we were still able to shower and get ready for the meeting in generally the same way we always do, except we couldn’t use the hair dryer obviously. We went out in service, confident that it would be back on by the time we got home.

Only it wasn’t.

At this juncture, I’ve decided not to bore you with a day-by-day account of this ridiculous situation, only to say that we did not get power back for a whole week. When the second night started out much as the first, only hotter and sweatier, we decided to take a few “helpful” sleep droughts, my choice being a nightcap of NiQuil. It sort of worked, sinking me into a dreamless sleep, but the entire next day I was swimming through life, and it was just very, very irritating. But alas, it was the only way we could sleep and sort of function the next day.

The problem with the electricity, it turned out , was that the transformer down the street had burned out. From day 1 to day 5 we called the electric company several times, and they always told us, “We’ll be out there today to fix it, there is a work order already in effect.” Of course, we soon learned that it was really only a lie.

What had happened was that once the transformer blew, the electric company saw it as a wonderful chance to get a ton of money that was owed to them from the neighborhood. Most of the people on our block hadn’t paid their bills for many months, some of them owing up to 10,000 cords (around $500). Taking into consideration that the average person takes about 5 or 6 months to make that amount of money, the company wasn’t expecting them to pony that up any time soon.

So, they sent a representative to the neighborhood who almost got mobbed by a crowd of about 50, and told them that unless they paid up certain percentages of the total owed, they were going to have to do without power.

This really irritated us since we had nothing to do with it. But thankfully, at the end of the week the people had worked out payment plans and had paid off a percentage of their bills and the transformer was replaced.

When the repair people finally arrived, their truck was met by cheers and people jumping up and down. When they hopped off the truck they were literally hugged by little kids.

We really must say that having no power for a week was probably the worst it has ever gotten for us here in Nicaragua. But while all of this was going on, we drew great encouragement from reading the yearbook. I remember that during one of the worst days, we remembered the experience of a couple in Samoa who had to sleep on a flattened cardboard box in a one-room house with another family. So we figured it could be a lot worse.

During the power-outage-misery-week the Lau family returned from the States, and we were able to meet up with them for lunch in Managua. It was very nice to see them again. They got us come edible goodies which were greatly appreciated, and told us that it was going very well in Chontales. They are serving primarily in the group there, and to hear them tell it, it is very productive and enjoyable to work in. We do miss being around them and hope we can go up and visit some time within the next month or so.


CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

You may remember from the last post that we were majorly stressing out over the fact that our tenant in New Mexico was moving out and the ugly possibility of being unable to stay here in Nicaragua loomed on the horizon. Of course, we prayed to Jehovah about it repeatedly and hoped that he would do something about it, since we were not able to.

We also mentioned our worries to some friends in New Mexico. Strange to say, they almost unanimously expressed that “Oh, we hope it works out so you can stay down there,” but also said in different ways, “But we really hope you don’t find anyone to rent your house so you are forced to come back and be with us again!” (You selfish people know who you are!) Actually, we appreciated those sentiments because it shows that we are at least a little bit missed. It was also good for a laugh.

We were in constant contact with our property management guy in New Mexico, and we agreed to try and get someone in fast. We lowered the rent by a bit, and were pleasantly surprised to get a couple with a small dog almost immediately. They ended up moving the weekend after the previous tenant left, and we had no gap whatsoever in the income coming in from the house. Jehovah truly answered our prayer for help.

CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY

The weekend before we left for Chicago was the circuit assembly for our previous assignment in Teresa. We were no longer assigned to go, but when we heard that Santa Teresa was having 9 baptized, we felt impelled to go.



We were thrilled to see everyone again, and were happy to hear that the congregation is going strong and smooth. They made us promise to go and visit soon.


OUR TRIP TO THE WINDY CITY

Two days before we left for Chicago, we went to Managua to get our exit visas at the mall. (They have a little immigration office there.) It went by without incident, and we went to the pet store to get some treats and vitamins for the doggies to have while we were gone. Of course, as it inevitably happens whenever we go into a pet store, we wandered over to look at the puppies for sale. There was a tiny black thing that Marlene fell in love with and asked to hold.

My brain was instantly filled with traumatic flashbacks of when we got Molly. We went inside a pet store by the house in New Mexico to get some cat food and Marlene asked to hold a tiny Shih-Tzu. The little thing was beautifully colored but ran around the holding area like the Tazmanian devil on stimulants. We walked out of that store with some cat food and a puppy that was so expensive that my stomach still hurts when I think of it. And yes, Molly is still a little Taz, but we love that little rat.

Anyway, while Marlene was cooing over the little fluffy black dog, she asks, “I wonder how much it is?”

“You know we already have two dogs, right?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And you know we have to pay an arm and a leg to get them out of Nicaragua when we go back home, correct?”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

But she still buried her nose in the little thing’s neck, smelling it and running her fingers through it.

I reached out for it and said, “Here, let me hold it.”

She reluctantly handed it over. It immediately growled and bit me.

Of course, I was deeply offended and handed the monstrous thing back like it was a dirty, smelly rag. “Put it back,” I said.

After whispering soft reproof in the puppy’s ear, she slowly put it back in its cage with a pained look on her face. Then she looked at me.

“It bit me,” I reminded her. She nodded and walked away.

That was a close one, but she later realized that Molly would have terrorized the poor thing, and Savannah would have been very resentful and would probably have attempted to murder it before too long, which is really true. Savannah has no conscience whatsoever.

Finally, on a Wednesday, it was time to fly to Chicago.

We were very excited as the plane touched down at O’Hare. As my sisters, Lizette and Sandra, picked us up amid cries of intense happiness at seeing our wonderful faces once more, I was inundated with very strange emotions. I expected it all to feel very alien, to be overwhelmed at the modern world in which we now found ourselves, but strangely enough it seemed to me like we hadn’t missed a beat. Nicaragua felt like a dream from which we had just woken, filled with wonderful scenes and vague memories of nocturnal terrors in pools of sweat with mosquitoes buzzing about. It kind of amazed me at how seamless the transition to our past lives was.

Anyway, Chicago was hot upon our arrival, at least to local standards. It was like a cool spring morning compared to Nicaragua.

We soon made it to my family’s house, which was filled with family (my little nieces had made a very nice banner welcoming us back) and glorious, glorious chinese food. A banquet, really.

It was too much food and I really do think I ate 4 heaping plates of it. My stomach, not accustomed to anything except for chicken with white rice, accepted the edible happiness at first, but grumbled for a few days afterwards. I, however, repeatedly and very sternly told it to shut up and shoveled more and more unimaginably delicious meals into it.

The following day we set out for the district convention which was to be held in Bloomington, a charming town with hundred-year-old houses about 2 ½ hours away.

The district convention deserves its own subheading and a long-winded account, but I will refrain from doing so only because many of you have not yet attended it. So I won’t spill any secrets and I won’t talk about the wonderful possible new release(s) that may or may not have been presented. But I will tell you this:

Do. Not. Miss. Friday.

And the drama was so beautiful and SO timely. The faithful and discreet slave cares so much about us and hurries to help us in any way that it possibly can. And if that drama doesn’t move you and help you young ones in the congregations, I have no idea what will.

While at the convention, we ran into many of our oldest friends. They were very happy to see us and we were thrilled at the news of new congregations and the unrelenting growth of the circuit. All in all, the program was wonderful.






We also had a nice treat in that Marlene’s brother, Sal, came up from near St. Louis to visit her. She had not seen him in about 6 years, and I had never met him. She described him as an impossibly tall, intimidating person (thanks for the confidence-builder, honey), but he turned out to be impossibly tall and very, very nice. He and Peggy were very easy to get along with and we had a bunch of easy laughs. We were sorry that we couldn’t visit with them longer.



The Monday after the convention, once we returned to Chicago, was spent in a nice reunion with the girls that visited us in March. We met up with Briana, Lidia, Ashley, and Tahlia, as well as other friends. We met David, a very nice brother from near Wisconsin who was visiting, and Luis, Lidia’s husband, who turned out to be nothing like what I had imagined. I don’t know why, maybe it was from talking to him briefly on the phone while Lidia was here in Nicaragua, but I imagined him to be a stuffy-lawyer type of a person, but he turned out to be a very kind, encouraging, and easy-going guy. And we got to walk around and eat in the city, which really is just beautiful.









The rest of the week was spent lounging around with family, going out in service with a friend, dinners and more dinners with old friends and family, shopping for absolutely necessary things, and more and more eating. We were very happy to meet up with family that was also visiting from Texas, who I hadn’t seen in about 15 years. And we also got to spend time with some very good friends that we had missed.



We also got to show some friends a slide-show type thing we had put together of our adventures in Nicaragua. They laughed at the cool little animals we see here from time to time, and were impressed with the way people respond to us in service.

And the showers! The hot water was amazing. Our shower-times went from 32 seconds flat to a leisurely 10 or 15 minutes. You people have it made. You can’t hear me, but I am grumbling as I type this.

Our family was very accommodating. Actually way too accommodating. They made sure that we were very comfortable and VERY well fed. They bought us some much needed clothes and never complained about having to share us with way too many friends. Of course, we always appreciate them, but we were just so taken aback from how they treated us and we keep asking Jehovah to reward them for their kind hospitality.









While we were up in Chicago, we got to talk to the Morales family up in New Mexico by phone. It was so encouraging to talk to them, and we were very happy to hear that they are building an extra room in their house. I think that Daniel always had the plan to do it, and now that we are coming up in December for a month, they tell us it will be ready for us. They are so awesome. I just really hope they don’t hate us after being around us for a month, which is definitely a possibility. Marlene is an angel, but I have to admit that I am an acquired taste.

During this trip, I was also trying to look into buying a guitar because I now have some time to learn it and I have always wanted to. My dad, very surprisingly, still had a guitar he had bought for me when I was probably 12 years old (I was a very impatient child and quit after a short time. Marlene still thinks that I tend to be an impatient child, but we will see!). Lizette bought me a really nice guitar case for it, and so now I’ve got it down here in Nicaragua. Hopefully I will be able to learn it in the next year.

So, with sad hearts mixed with excitement, we boarded the plane and headed back to Jungle Land. The day we left Chicago we had to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to make our flight, and when we got home it was pouring down rain like a monsoon. We were so tired that we basically just lounged around and waited for it to get dark. I think we made it to 6:30 pm before we fell asleep. And as soon as we did, the inevitable happened.

The power went out.

Welcome home.