A harrowing account in which we are almost mauled by bulls, where we meet a Water Nazi, more adventures with power outages, cat pee, and theocratic gems! (Yes, really!)
This month has certainly been a busy one, but it has been quite colorful and exciting, as usual.
INVASION OF THE BULLS
A few Sundays ago was some giant pagan party in Granada. They were celebrating the birth of some saint, and they expressed their adoration by lugging around mannequins dressed as 16th century maidens with faces full of thick makeup, followed by 5-piece bands tooting their horns all over town. Ah, but the real action would begin later that evening, with the annual “Running of the Bulls”, an adventure very similar to the one in Spain that you always hear so much about.
After the meeting (English) that morning, some of the brothers told us to be careful, because at around the time of the Spanish meeting (5pm), they would be letting the bulls out and it would be dangerous to be on the roads at that time. Seeing that we’d have to come from all across town to attend the Spanish meeting that evening, we had to be even more vigilant. We didn’t really think about it much, though. I remember that I was starving to death and was more concerned with lunch than with any pesky getting-gored-by-bulls business.
Later that evening, however, we got a small taste of the weird craziness in Nicaragua, yet again. We were walking down the street, in our usual route to the Kingdom Hall, when at the end of the very narrow street we saw a bull tied up by some people, who were standing a good 10 feet away from him and holding the ropes. One man would very courageously dart towards the bull and smack him on the nose and neck, with a long rod, to get him worked up before they’d let him go. 
Of course I seethed at this, seeing the poor bloody state the bull found himself in, and shook my head and commented to Marlene how amazing it is that certain people can actually function biologically without even a tiny minuscule brain in their heads, when the bull finally had enough and burst forward a bit and knocked the man down (the man on the right side of the photo above).
The bull sort of stood over him and lowered his head, and all we saw were some jerky movements from the bull, doing who knows what to the man below. (We later found out that the man was seriously injured. I tried a little bit to feel sorry for him, really I did, but it didn't work very well.)
Anyway, while all of this was going on, we heard a loud collective cry come from the crowd around us, and we saw that a different, larger bull was running down the street, dodged the first bull trying to murder his not-so-smart victim, and was charging toward us! People started fleeing down the street, and as we saw the bull running toward us, I grabbed Marlene and jumped into an open doorway lining the narrow street along with about a half-dozen other people. It was thrilling to see the bull run past the doorway, but not the good kind of thrill. More like the “I-can’t-believe-how-close-we-got-to-getting-the-business-end-of-those-horns” thrill.
The next day we learned that the bulls that had been let loose had seriously injured 14 people and had killed a horse.
Now the horse, I felt sorry for.
THE WATER NAZI
Living where we do now has been so convenient in certain respects. We have two little “ventas”, little shops that are actually peoples’ homes where they sell different goods. Soft drinks, soap, toilet paper, cookies, etc. The one directly next door, our neighbor, is where I would buy my nice little returnable 2-liter Coke bottle from. The one next door to that was kind of ignored, until a couple of months ago when they started selling the 5-gallon water jugs. (Before this, I’d had to go to a store about 4 blocks away and lug the water back, which is no big deal if it’s not 105 degrees out, but unfortunately it usually is.)
Anyway, once I found out this neighbor was selling water, I happily went to her for all of our water-drinking needs. At first, I got a very hearty welcome from the lady, whom we shall now call the Water Nazi, because that’s what she is.
She smiled and said, “We’ve got many more things, too, so come back for whatever you need!”
I took that as a nice little customer-service pitch, smiled, and went happily on my way. I didn’t know at the time that she had, in fact, issued an order.
About 2 weeks ago, I suppose, she finally had enough. She spotted me buying my usual Coke from next door. I went home, dropped off the Coke, and took the empty water jug to exchange at the Water Nazi’s place. As I walked up to her window, she LITERALLY said, “No water for you.”
“What?” I said, cocking my head to the side in confusion.
“We don’t have water for you,” she said. “All we got is Coca Cola. But wouldn’t you know, you already got it from the other store, so I guess you don’t need to come here.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times. But nothing really came out. She saw my hesitation and plowed ahead.
“There’s something you don’t know,” she said, pointing at me. “Your neighbor? The one selling all the Coke? She’s a thief.”
“A thief?” I asked.
“Yes. A thief. She sells her Coke for 21 cords, and I sell mine for 20, but you wouldn’t know that, would you?”
Now at this I started to get a bit upset. Number one, because she was talking to me like some idiot, and number two because she was flat-out lying.
“No she doesn’t,” I said. “She charges me 20 each time I need one.”
The Water Nazi just snorted in disgust and looked away. “Maybe she charges YOU 20, but she charges everyone else 21, and that isn’t right.”
“I see,” I said.
“So,” she said. “If you want to buy your Coke from me, then I’ve got plenty of water. But if you don’t. . . .”
“All right,” I muttered. “I’ll buy the Coke here then.”
“What?” she said.
I frowned, trying to figure out if she had really not heard me or if she just was having a little fun.
“I said, I’ll buy my Coke here.”
“I heard what you said,” she said.
I just looked at her for a moment. “Can I have my water then?”
“Simon!” she barked over her shoulder. Immediately a pudgy little boy came forward with a jug of water. “You can have your water,” she said.
I paid for it and left.
Am I ashamed of giving in to the Water Nazi? Perhaps a little.
But you try lugging that 5 gallon jug of water in 105 degree heat with 98% humidity, not even being able to see because of the sweat pouring into your eyes and making your hands and arms all slippery. Not to mention the very likely possibility of stepping into one of the thousand holes in the street, falling, and making yourself look like a moron, lying in the middle of the street with a broken jug and water splashing everywhere!
So the Water Nazi must have her way, don’t you see?
MORE SWEATY, MOSQUITO - FILLED FUN!
Yes, we’ve continued to have the wonderful, exciting experiences of not knowing when the power will shut off as we lie down to sleep. It’s a lot of fun, really. You start to hesitantly put your head on the pillow, peering at the light that tells you the air conditioning is on, willing it to continue. And then finally, you close your eyes, slowly let out a sigh of hoped-for relief, and then the world blinks out. And you lie there, amazed at how fast the room gets hot, not even being able to imagine what air conditioning feels like. Putting the thin sheet over you feels like you’re wearing a bear suit in the middle of the Sahara. So, you get out of bed, crack open the door to perhaps have a bit of a breeze through the night, and hear the ticking of the clock in the next room as the minutes drag by. You finally, FINALLY drift off to sleep, and practically at that exact moment the electricity comes back on, which wakes you up to a nice surprise.
“Ah!” you say, and you hastily get out of bed to close the door and to turn the fan closer to the bed so that the whole family can get maximum air flow (yes, the doggies just LOVE to cuddle when the electricity goes off! Never mind their 100 degree little furnace-like bodies!), and you lie back down, a smile on your face as you wiggle in bed, trying to get the most comfortable position for sleep, the wonderful, cool air washing over your body, thinking that bedtime is the nicest part of the day, licking your lips as you think about dreaming of nice pizzas and frolicking through fields of wild flowers, and then. . . .
Blink! The world turns off again. And you want to tear your hair out from the roots and scream. And so you get up again to open the door, finally drift off to sleep, and wake up with a dozen bites on your legs and arms, and they don’t all look the same.
But that only happened a few nights.
Right now we’re good.
DOGGIE HEALTH
As you know, this has been an ongoing issue. The poor dogs are always biting and scratching at themselves, the poor things. We really shouldn’t have brought them with us, but we didn’t want to give them away permanently, and we couldn’t see just “lending” them out for a year or more. There are limits to how much we will milk our friends and family, you will be happy to know.
But Marlene, who’s been experimenting with all sorts of drugs and potions for them, has recently found that fish liver oil is helping them out quite a bit. (Yes, she’s gone through so many trials and errors that she is now at “Fish Liver Oil”.) It’s good for human skin and, we’ve found, good for doggie skin. They don’t have nearly the same amount of hot-spots they used to, and the skin irritation is going down little by little, with occasional flare ups. There are some other things Marlene puts on them, though, that are essential, but we’ve just run out. Her brother is working on sending us some stuff, which is fantastic.
A strange thing, though, was that a few nights ago, during the nightly before-bed Tick Inspection, we found two ticks on Savannah. Now, finding 2 ticks on her is rather unusual in itself, but the weirdest part was that they were on top of each other. Now, I’m not one to impute bad motives on anyone, but it really did seem like they were copulating on top of our poor little doggie. Either that, or they were involved in an epic, desperate fight for death and glory, Tick style.
Either way, they both ended up being uprooted from their wild hairy world and flushed down the toilet, where they met a watery end.
In other animal-related news, we have this really annoying cat that likes to jump across to our roof in the mornings and pee on it. Then it scratches at something, dirt or leaves I guess, to cover it up like a litter box or something. We know it scratches because we can hear it. And by “we”, I mean all of us. Savannah goes nuts, staring up at the ceiling, growling and barking, trying to climb up the walls. On several occasions, unfortunately, the pee has leaked into a corner and run down the wall, which makes for a very stinky and disgusting environment. Marlene has done a great job in getting most of it out, but you know what cat pee’s like. Or maybe you don’t. In any case, it’s really, really bad.
On one occasion, the stinky pee got onto one of my ties that had been hanging up and touching the wall, and we took it to the drycleaners here in Granada. When we went to pick it up, I pulled it out of the garment bag and carefully sniffed it. The counter person looked at me very strangely, and so I said, “It’s just that it was really, really smelly.”
The look on her face got a bit stranger, but she didn’t say anything.
HOST VISIT
This past week we had the wonderful privilege of being the host visit for both the Circuit and District overseers and their wives. Actually, both brothers are district overseers normally.
There are only 2 districts in the entire country, and these two brothers are the 2 district overseers. There are currently not enough brothers in the circuit work, however, so the district overseers have to do circuit overseer work parts of the year. At this time, brother Luis Balladares was serving as the circuit overseer while brother Arnoldo Garcia was in his normal D.O. capacity.
This is just one example of how urgent the need is for qualified elders to be here. The branch is doing a wonderful job with what they have, but they really don’t have as many tools to work with as they really need.
The week, as you would expect, flew by really fast. We had the privilege of hosting the two couples for lunch on one of the days, and it was really nice because here, the lunch hour ranges from 12 noon to 2pm, so you have plenty of time to get to know them. The nice time cushion is very much deserved, though. The traveling overseers here in Nicaragua have such a huge job, and not a lot to do it with. They don’t have cars, unless they buy one themselves, which most of them can’t afford, so the majority of them travel by bus, boat, horse, and feet to get to where they need to go. And the circuits are very expansive, with congregations either being nestled into a nice sized city, or a 10 hour trip by horse and boat away.
The two couples were so nice to be around, very down to earth and humble, and not afraid to get their hands dirty in service, walking and sweating along with the rest of us. We had a ton of support in service, too, the majority of the publishers were out the whole week.
PIONEER MEETING
As you know, there is an annual pioneer meeting for all of the pioneers in the circuit right before the circuit assembly. This one was wonderful!
We had an attendance of 194, which included regular pioneers, special pioneers, and missionaries. 
The thing that stuck out the most to Marlene and me was how much they emphasized that we have a dual role as pioneers. One is, of course, taking the lead in the preaching work and setting an example of zeal and skill in our teaching. But even MORE important, we were told, was our other role of strengthening our congregations. Working with the brothers and not just with other pioneers, attending the meetings for field service whenever we can, even if we have other arrangements. And working with the group in door-to-door work and not breaking off to do studies or return visits after only a short time.
The whole meeting was very encouraging and was very direct in asking us to evaluate how we are doing in our work of encouraging our brothers and sisters, if they feel refreshed by being around us. It also emphasized always being positive and upbuilding, and not negative or having a complaining spirit.
CIRCUIT ASSEMBLY
The next day, of course, was the start of our Circuit Assembly, this past weekend. We got to ride in a chartered school bus with the rest of the congregation, which was a nice way to get to know everyone a bit more, and it was impressive to see everyone working well together in our cleaning assignment. This time around our congregation was assigned to the cleaning of the bathrooms. Which is definitely NOT anyone’s favorite assignment, of course. But everyone showed such a willing, enthusiastic spirit and we finished it in a short period of time and it was done very well. It was really a great example for us to see.
The program itself, of course, was extremely encouraging as well. One aspect that was particularly encouraging was that, although many people take discouragement and become bitter and angry because of it, we need to conquer the evil with good things. Keep working for Jehovah, letting your faith be tested and proved by endurance. Jehovah puts very little value on untested faith. But when we are tested, and we endure as we depend on him for strength, now THAT is valuable to Jehovah, like refined gold. Because he knows then that our obedience is not just there when it’s convenient, and that our serving him isn’t based on mere emotion or because everyone else around us is doing it. But that we serve him out of genuine love, and when he sees that we won’t stop, no matter what, he is moved to help us even more.
That is very encouraging for us, because there are certainly many, many challenges that can frustrate us and can make us desperate. At times we need to wait for Jehovah to fix a certain problem that we can face here in our assignment, but sometimes we are tempted to just take it into our own hands and fix it ourselves, because we want it fixed NOW. But if we do that, what have we really endured? What patience have we shown? What dependence and trust in Jehovah is there?
So the program really encouraged us to just keep praying about the matter and leave certain things in Jehovah’s hands, and to be confident that, once Jehovah is satisfied that our faith has been proven, he’ll do something. And that all of this is a golden opportunity to prove to Jehovah what our motives for serving him are.
A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE IN OUR MINISTRY
I saved this for last because it’s really something extraordinary.
As you know, Acts 10:34, 35 says that “God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”
The faithful and discreet slave class has often referred to this scripture when it encourages us to seek out all sorts of people in our ministry, to not deny someone the right to hear the good news based on their appearance or lifestyle. Our obedience to this was recently put to the test, and the following account has by no means told its final chapter.
It all started when Marlene was visiting an interested young woman (I wasn’t with her then.) While speaking to her, her friend “Perla” came out and joined in the conversation. It turned out that “Perla” was actually a man who, obviously a homosexual, had gotten a “gender reassignment” surgery a while back and lived his life as a woman. He dresses as a woman and behaves as one. During the course of the conversation, he asked Marlene why it was that God would destroy him for being homosexual, if God was the one that made him that way. Marlene later told me that he began to cry as he expressed his fear and confusion. She kindly assured him that, although Jehovah condemns such a lifestyle, he doesn't hate the actual person and hopes that he can change to become approved by Him. After the conversation, she told him that she would come by again to speak with him, and he readily agreed. Under pressure from his friend, he begrudgingly admitted that his real name is Cesar, and Marlene said that that was what she would call him from then on.
We spent a few days the following week looking for him. Although he has the habit of often being at his friend’s house, he seemed to disappear. We were told of two different houses where people were sure that he lived, but he had moved out of both places. Of course, we took this as yet another indication of Satan trying to cut across our path, but we kept at it and asked around for him.
Finally we heard that he was always at this particular corner selling food in the mornings, and that was where we found him. The conversation started easily enough, speaking about the wonderful hope that Jehovah gives us for eternal life on the earth. Marlene then brought out the Young People Ask Book, volume 2, which she had promised to bring him, and showed him the Table of Contents. When he saw the chapter on homosexuality, he pointed at it and said “I want to read that!” We then got into another conversation about his situation, and it was very obvious to us that he has a sincere heart and wants to be pleasing to God, but thinks that he is who he is and he doesn’t know if he can change that. He also seems to be accepted by most of the community as being a woman, and so that is an added incentive to staying the way he is.
As we spoke to him about what God feels on the matter, he agreed with us that these feelings are an effect of living so far below our perfect origins, and also living in Satan’s world. We read to him 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 which shows that some of the Christians in the 1st century had practiced homosexuality before coming into the truth, but had been able to change because of help from Jehovah. We told him how, in Jehovah’s eyes, homosexuality was no different than a man or a woman committing fornication or adultery. He agreed that, just as a person who has strong tendencies to commit immorality doesn’t have an excuse to engage in it, a person who has homosexual tendencies doesn’t have to give in to them either.
Instead of painting Jehovah as a cruel God who implants wrong desires in the heart of a man and then punishes him for acting on those desires, we told him, “This is the kind of father we have. Look at what it says here in Isaiah 41:10: ‘Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. I will really help you. I will really keep fast hold of you with my right hand of righteousness.’”
He was very moved by that scripture and broke down over it. We assured him that as long as he asks God for help and makes every effort to obey his righteous standards, he can be clean and upright in His eyes. He really seemed to appreciate what we were saying. To us, he absolutely has the 3 “H”’s required of a sheep-like one: Hungry, Honest, and Humble.
Time will tell if God opens up his heart and makes the seeds of truth grow. But we won’t give up going by and talking with him. This week we will attempt to establish a study with him using the Bible Teach book.
A BUSY TIME AHEAD
Well, that is all for now. We are looking forward to starting off the new service year at full speed towards our yearly hourly goal. Marlene and I have been invited to go again to the group at the Isletas, which you have surely read about in the recent September Watchtower!!! Hopefully we will get to be on the floating Kingdom Hall and get some pictures this time, since we will both be there.
Also, we have received the wonderful privilege of being invited to this year’s Pioneer School. That takes place the last two weeks of October, so the almost-2 months that remain will be full of anticipation.
We sincerely hope that Jehovah continues to be with you, our dear friends, and we mention many of you by name in our prayers. Please do the same for us.
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