The "short" version of a long story

Well, it's been a hectic couple of weeks, therefore the silence on the blog front. But we're still alive and doing well.

I said I had a story for next time so here it is. It's probably not that exciting, but I was happy about it. During our CO visit week, I had mentioned to the CO's wife and the wife of the CO-in-training that they'd be welcome to come for dinner any day after the convention since they pass our house on their way home. They said Ok, thanks, but I got the impression they wouldn't be taking me up on my offer. Well, on Saturday night the CO's wife calls me to say that they want to come Sunday after the convention to visit us! However, our original beach plans were to leave Sunday morning and come back Monday afternoon! When I told her she was like, oh ok, that's fine, some other time, don't worry, enjoy your trip, etc. So after I hung up, I was really upset about this opportunity we were about to miss out on. What a privilege to have them over, and not just one couple but two! I managed to finally get a hold of the hotel we had made a reservation at, and change it to a Monday arrival and called the CO's wife back about 9:30 pm to tell them to come over the next day!

So, the next day we had them over for dinner. I got ripped off buying tomatoes from the grumpy old lady that I don't like to buy from. But she was the only one open so I had to pay her price! So we had spaghetti (my usual for guests since it's easy!) and I made an apple crisp for the first time which came out pretty well! And about 45 minutes before they got here we realized we'd forgotten to make any bread. But Charley, the wonder-baker, had two beautiful loaves ready by the time dinner was done!!! We had a great time with them, and it was just so nice to be with couples in special full-time service hearing their stories and stuff. Good times! The couple in training will be in Guatemala by now and starting their first congregation visit tomorrow. She emailed me that same night to thank us for dinner. I'll have to get in touch to hear their experiences from their new assignment.

The apple crisp I made

With the CO & his wife, and the CO in training & his wife.

Last time I blogged I think it was our anniversary. We did end up taking our trip to the beach but it turned into quite the adventure. Although we saw a lot of the beach, we didn't really end up swimming in the ocean or enjoying the scenery!

We left on a Monday but around noon that day our troubles began! We got lost to start off with. We were using our GPS but didn't realize that the cigarette lighter in the truck wasn't working, so our GPS soon died on us. So we got turned around. Then to make a very, very long story, very short, we had trouble with the truck and ended up broken down in a somewhat isolated area. Maybe one day I'll share all the absurd details of that disaster!

But anyway, it was stressful, but faith strengthening to see how Jehovah took care of us. Complete strangers did all they could to help, bringing us dinner and breakfast since we ended up sleeping that night in the truck at the beach! Then the next day, Tuesday, they brought a mechanic who turned out to be a Jehovah's Witness. He worked on the truck all day and got it somewhat running, but not enough to really take it very far. But he took us to his house and we had lunch and dinner there, and then they kicked their son out of his bedroom and we spent the night there too! They were the only Witnesses in this small town, and the only house with running water so we really lived it up there. I even got to watch my hometown team, Newcastle United, play football on TV!

On Wednesday, they had a guy come with a computer to connect it to the truck to find out where the problem was. The brother hid us because he said if the mechanic saw us he'd probably want to overcharge us! But in the end we met him, since it turned out that his dad who is also a mechanic and came with him, is also a Witness! So he charged us a very reasonable rate. But we still ended up staying the night, but by now at least the truck was parked at the brother's house. On Thursday he spent some more time working on it, and got the battery charged since the alternator wasn't working.

I prayed A LOT over those few days, and managed to keep pretty calm really. I felt the calming effect of Jehovah's holy spirit for sure. It's funny because I'd been praying to Jehovah to help me work on patience over these last few weeks and had made a conscious effort to improve, and had made quite a bit of progress. It's just as well that I did, since I don't know if I'd have survived this experience otherwise!!  

The other somewhat stressful part was that we were supposed to be picking up a couple arriving from the States on Thursday night, and as of 4pm Thursday we were still in this little town almost 2 hours away from the airport with a truck that wasn't really running properly! We managed to get a hold of some friends down here near the house and they said they could go pick them up.  Of course, since they were staying with us, we still needed to get back to the house to let them in! As it turned out, the truck was running enough to get us to El Crucero about an hour away from where we were. And from there we borrowed our friend's car who lives there, and drove straight to the airport, just in time to receive the couple waiting on us!

The next day the brother who had just arrived went with Charley back to El Crucero to take the brother his car back. They had to charge the battery again on the truck, drive back to the beach to pay the brother who did all the work on the truck, and then come back home. The next day we took it to the mechanic to get it worked on and get some parts replaced.

So, that's the short version (I know, it doesn't seem short!) of what happened on our trip to the beach. We did see the ocean, enough to take some pictures, but didn't exactly spend time at the beach. Our two-day relaxing beach trip, turned into a four-day adventure. Although we did get plenty of rest. I got about halfway through the Proclaimers book over those few days since there wasn't anything to do in that small town we were in. But it really was wonderful to see how Jehovah took care of us, how he provided us a place to stay, food to eat, and how united our worldwide brotherhood is. We also learned an important lesson, when in trouble, no matter how isolated of a place you're in, ask if there are any Witnesses in the area. If we'd done that on Monday, we may have been home sooner than we were! But we made some new friends who we've promised to go visit again under better circumstances! Maybe we'll just get the bus there next time!

Just to make this post even longer, here some pictures from our "vacation". Definitely the most memorable anniversary so far, and hopefully we'll never have another one quite so adventurous!

The middle-of-nowhere town we ended up vacationing in!

Our generous hosts (you can tell which is the mechanic!), with some other family members.

The chickens running around the brother's workshop

Their dog, Esperanza

Their hilarious little grandson

Their son drives a mototaxi. There are a lot of these down here. 

I think that's the starter he has in his hand, part of it anyway!

Their pigs were hilarious. I swear they were posing!

And there cute cats who were our best friends at meal times!

Their chickens lay tomatoes - strange, eh?! HAHAHA!!!

Our mosquito protected bed

The beach. I thought the clouds really stood out that night.

Sunset at the beach

One of the tons of crabs that suddenly came out of their holes

More sunset - obviously

Another crab, unsure whether to keep coming out of his hole or not!

We had a great week with the new couple that arrived. This is their first time in Nicaragua and they hope to be here for a year. So, together we learned how to get the bus from the house to our territory. It turns out that it's cheaper than we had been told it was, and really rather easy. We're going to try and get the bus more often since it's cheaper than the gas we use getting there, and there is a bus that takes us right into a street in our territory.

We found the new couple (I'm not using their names since they prefer to remain anonymous on the worldwide web) a cute little house to rent. They have the sweetest landlady ever. She furnished the place completely in like three days, and she comes every day to have someone make another improvement or addition to the house. So they're right close to the territory of the congregation we're at, and are serving with us in the same congregation. They seem to be settling in well, and we're really enjoying having them.

Their landlady also put a futon in their living room, which we have already made use of! We got the truck fixed, but then it needed a couple of other things doing, so it's back at the mechanic again. So to save trying to get home at night on Saturday after the meeting, we just went to their house and slept on their futon. It's noisier living in the city but we slept well. Until the dogs started barking outside the door at about 5am! It made me realize how quiet it is where we live!! But I imagine we'll be spending quite a bit of time at their place. They're very hospitable, and it appears we'll be taking advantage of that!!!! 

Our ministry is keeping us really busy although we missed almost a whole week when we went on our little adventure! But I have about 11 Bible Studies going now, and a couple more in the works. It's really easy to start conversations, and start studies, so our service days are getting longer and busier. We started a new evening arrangement on Friday and had a really good time. There's almost always someone at home during the day, but you find a different group of people in the evening who perhaps don't talk to us as often. I have two people to call back on next week, actually the only two people I talked to that evening. One of them has a question she wants to me to answer, the other I'm going to demonstrate the study in the Teach book, so we'll see what comes of those.

A funny little story from the other day. The new couple that came, he also has blonde hair and blue eyes, so he stands out around here too like I do. His wife could almost pass for being from here, but he definitely never will! So, we were on our way to their house to eat lunch, but we weren't with them. We stopped to buy some tortillas on the way near their house, and I asked them first if the other chelito (they call white guys chele or chelito, and white girls chela o chelita) had been by getting tortillas already. They said he hadn't. But really, they're not the only place that sells them, so who knows if he'd gone to a different one. So we bought 10 tortillas. By the time they came to the house we'd already made and eaten our lunch (they gave us a key!) but they arrived just with some bananas. I said to him, Oh good, you didn't get any tortillas. Turns out he was going to buy some, but the lady at the tortilla stand he went to told him that the other chelita had already bought some!!!! We thought that was pretty funny!!!! Or at least I did. So being easy to identify has it's advantages sometimes!

Well, that's the gist of what we've been up to. Feels like we've hardly been in the house this last couple of weeks, I guess because we haven't really! Hopefully this week will prove to be a little calmer! Today has gone well so far. Maybe next time I'll tell you all about the eggs that were more chicken than eggs and that completely ruined my desire to bake that day. Or maybe you don't really want to read about that!