ONE YEAR!

Yesterday (September 25th) was a special day, as it marked 1 full year of life here in Nicaragua! This past year, as you have seen in previous posts, has been very exciting for us. A few experiences have had to be endured. Many, many more have been enjoyed, but it’s all been very exciting.

We are presently as busy as we have ever been since we got here, which is not very unusual. But, as usual, some unusual things have occurred. Or something like that.


BUSY SEPTEMBER

This month has been very busy since a new service year is upon us and we are trying to get a good head start on our hours. We’ve been a little bit sidetracked by colds and other unexpected necessary things, but it’s not looking too bad. The weather plays a big part sometimes, because you are literally just too exhausted and burned out by the heat that you can’t do any more. (The average weather this past month in Granada has been a heat index of 104 degrees with 98% humidity during the day. The nights have been very refreshing, though, at a burr-inducing 97 degrees.) The lack of rain during this rainy season has been a huge blow to everyone. Incidentally, the lack of rain has affected all the bean and rice crops, has resulted in less vegetation for cows and stuff, and so the food situation is getting more expensive (Marlene and I were shocked to discover, after some calculations recently, that we are actually spending more money on groceries here than we did back home! And we ate more back then!). We’re hearing talk of a declaration of a hunger emergency early next year.

SPIDERS GIVE MARLENE BAD DREAMS,
SPIDERS HEAR MARLENE'S LOUD SCREAMS.
SPIDERS MAKE HER FEEL SUCH DREAD,
AND I MUST KILL OR ELSE BE DEAD.

(Yes, the above does sound rather creepy, doesn't it? But I promise you that I'm not typing over the keyboard, staring off into space with wide eyes and drool dripping down my chin, a curious full-toothed and red-lipped smile painted on my vacant face. . . . .I save that for when Marlene accuses me of doing something.)

The other night I was doing something in the living room when Marlene screamed for me to go in there. I got my handy R.O.U.S.-killing sandal ready, but she told me that there was a TARANTULA in the room. Molly had spotted it first and had barked at it, which made the tarantula actually jump and run. (Very strange, I didn’t know spiders could hear, but I guess they can.) When I came in, I could very clearly see it crouching against the wall. It was quite big and furry, with alternating black/brown and yellowish streaks. It had two little black eyes. (Well, I guess they could be hundreds of eyes, I don’t know, but they looked like two little black eyes, and it was looking at me. I think if it had eyelids, it would have narrowed them at me in hostile suspicion. But it didn’t, so it merely looked at me either in extreme hostility, fear, curious interest, or total indifference. I can’t really say.)

Anyway, I’m not ashamed to say I was somewhat frightened (they are poisonous, you know, and quite large!), but I took my usual three practice swings and finally smacked it. As is usual in these strange-creature killings, I didn’t get it right away and it squirmed away and ran. I chased it on all fours, my mind not really thinking anything through, and I finally clubbed it about 5 times, churning it into a disgusting greenish/brownish gooey thing. It was very, very disgusting.

Marlene was quite congratulatory. She may have even clapped her hands. I think I blushed a little. It felt pretty good.

However, the very next morning (!), I pulled a pair of socks from my usual open-air socks container/basket/thing in the corner, and put them on. Immediately I felt a very sharp pain on the instep of my right foot, and I felt something moving quickly across the arch of my foot. I quickly stepped down very hard and felt something go squish. It turned out to be a little furry spider. I very strongly suspect that it was related to the tarantula I had killed the night before. It was similarly furry and dark colored, and it had 2 black eyes too! The way it bit and ran, I don’t know, it just seems to me like it was intentional. The spiders know that I grab some socks from there every morning. And they were the gray ones, my favorite ones (they’re quite comfortable).

I can imagine that upon seeing the disgusting, gooey carcass of a mother the night before, perhaps taking in the scene from a dark corner of the room, they decided to exact a little bit of revenge. I don’t presume to know how that particular spider got to be picked. Perhaps they cast lots or perhaps he was the most angry and hotheaded one of the group. But regardless, it had sneaked into my sock, waited until I had put it on, and then bit and ran. His fatal mistake was that he had waited too long. If my sock had not been put fully on, perhaps he would have had an opening and could have made it out. But the sock was tightly on my foot, and there was no escape. Although I have to imagine that he knew it was a suicide mission all along. That this one was “for Mother”, as they say. It’s quite heartbreaking, really.

Well, the unfortunate result was that my foot began to swell up during service that morning until I eventually got home and put ice on it. It was really a nasty little attack.


ISLETAS ADVENTURES

Last weekend we had the nice privilege of being invited out to the Isletas again. This time we were able to take along three other companions: Edith, Cindy, and Fransisco (Cindy's younger brother), all very good friends of ours who support the English group. Neither of the 3 had ever gone out to the Isletas group before, and after the September issue of the Watchtower that includes an article on the group and the floating Kingdom Hall, they were very excited to find out that we could take them along (space on the boat is limited, but we managed to squeeze everyone in).



As is the arrangement for guests to the group, it was a whole-day deal. Service starts at 8:30-ish, lunch is at noon, and the meeting is at 2pm.

The water was a little rough that day, but the sun was shining and it was a little cooler out on the water.

Danny (a brother from the group), Francisco, and I were assigned to tackle the mountainous area that my parents preached in when they visited us back in February.

It was a little bit more arduous this time around, since the 2 younger brothers seemed to be having an argument along the road as to who was the fastest among them. At least that’s what it appeared to me. Either that, or I am getting old.

Anyway, we got to preach to a few houses, and time really flew by.

One pretty funny thing was that at this one house, we came upon a man in a hammock underneath a little shady booth. He sat up to receive us, and we quickly began a very lively discussion. At the same time, the daughters were pulling up little stools for us to sit on while we talked. One daughter pulled one up and Francisco promptly sat down. In my tired state, I almost admonished him for not giving the seat to me, his older companion, but I thought better of it. Then after a considerable period of time, another daughter pulled up a stool on my right, and Danny quickly sat down. I tried to give him a look, but I couldn’t really manage it well. So I just stood there. And stood there.

After a time, I started to look around, wondering when my seat would appear. But it didn’t. Then I noticed the daughters looking at me strangely, and when I would catch their stare, they would quickly look away. But, for some reason, it wasn’t that "Oh-my-he-is-so-handsome-I-can’t-meet-his-eyes" stare, it was more of a "What-a-weirdo" stare. Then I looked down at Danny and Francisco, trying to fix a disapproving look on them, but they looked at me funny too. Finally, the man in the hammock said, “Well, aren’t you going to sit down?”

“Well. . .” I said, looking around. I backed up a bit and almost toppled over a stool that had been placed directly behind me about 15 minutes before, when all the stools were being handed out. I think I was drinking some water at the time and hadn’t noticed it. I quickly sat down and pretended to reorganize the magazines in my backpack.

Time really flew by and all of a sudden it was time for lunch. So we three brothers picked our way down the mountain and met up at the floating Kingdom Hall, where the other group had already arrived and were busy cleaning the hall of loose leaves and stuff. The elder who is assigned to the group, a missionary named Mark (his wife’s name is Allison), tied the Kingdom Hall to his boat and towed us out to a rather secluded, shady area of the lake. It was very nice, although the water was still a bit rough. But we were out of the direct sunlight and there was a nice cool breeze coming off the lake.

We were all having a nice conversation and I asked Allison if anyone had ever fallen into the water. She mentioned that one brother had fallen in a long time ago, but that no one had fallen in a very long time. I nodded my head and continued eating my sandwich.

A short while later we heard, of course, a very loud splash. Mark had been trying to hop from the boat onto the Kingdom Hall, but because the water was so rough, the hall bobbed to the left at the last moment and he missed his footing and fell in!

He was soaked from head to toe, although he fortunately didn’t hurt himself. He quickly went out to an isolated place in the rocky hill above us to wring out his clothes. The humidity didn’t help him dry out very quickly, but he was much better when he conducted the Watchtower study a while later. I was privileged to give the talk, although the undulating waves under the Kingdom Hall made it quite unsteady and I had to suddenly grab onto the podium a few times to keep from falling backwards into the water, and I also got a bit queasy at times. I heard once that smiling stifles the urge to vomit, so I might have appeared to be smiling at inopportune times during the talk.

After the meeting, there was some work to be done in cleaning the surface of the hall and locking up the chairs and podium. After that we dropped everyone off at their respective islands and docks and finally made it back to the main dock. At this time everyone was dead tired, it was about 7pm or so, and we eventually made it back to the missionary home.

When we arrived, we were invited to stick around, as they were having company. We all eventually went out to a pizzeria in town. It was kind of a neat experience being with so many full time servants at one table. There were 2 missionary couples, 2 circuit overseers and their wives, and another needgreater couple serving in nearby Masaya. All in all, it was a wonderful experience and we laughed harder than we had in quite a long time. We were also all able to share certain experiences which were very encouraging.


TREATS AHEAD

We are having a lot of activity coming up. We are really looking forward to this weekend’s meeting in Spanish, since Frank (the elder from Teresa) is coming up with his family to give the talk at our congregation. I’m sure we’ll get to catch up and have a nice dinner with them or something.

Then next week will be very busy since we have the circuit overseer’s visit. The new circuit overseer’s name is Aaron Perkinson, and we got to meet them at that dinner last weekend. They seem to be very nice and enthusiastic. Many in the congregation are a little nervous about the arrangements to work with them in service and show them hospitality, since no one knows them and they want to give off a good first impression. The couple seems very down-to-earth, though, and I’m sure they will be very comfortable.

About 2 weeks after the circuit overseer’s visit we have Pioneer School. We are looking forward to that so much, and we are ticking off the days left before we can go. We are just really excited about it. I think that will be the highlight of the year for us.

The weekend after Pioneer school ends is the English District Convention, so that will be a nice treat as well.

(As you have probably noticed, there were barely any pictures this time around. The reason is that our camera broke! But we are remedying the situation, so the next post should be picture-filled.)

So, that is it for now. I will most likely post again after the English District Convention to catch everyone up to speed on how it went. In the meantime, we will continue to have wonderful super-heated fun in the sun!