Mini Marimba and More

So, the last weekend that our friends were here we went to the English Special Assembly Day just down the road. It was lovely to hear the program again, and hear all the variety of accents there - British, American, Scottish, Australian, German, Canadian, Pacific Coast of Nicaragua which is like sort of Jamaican in a way!

Anyway, we had a really nice time seeing old friends and making new ones. There were two baptized, both from Managua English congregation. 

I didn't take any pictures, but here are a couple that Blake let me have!

Assembly Hall here in Ticuantepe, Nicaragua. Just about 10 minutes down the road from our house.

Debbie (in front) and her husband Pat (not in picture) stayed with us for the weekend. They live out on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua now, Pearl Lagoon. Next to Blake is a Scottish brother who serves with his wife in Jinotega. We actually stayed in his house when he wasn't there! Our friends Aaron and Tasha that came earlier in the year rented his house while him and his wife were in Scotland for a while. It was nice to actually meet him!

We stayed talking really late after the assembly, and before we knew it the brothers from our previous congregation were calling to ask if we were on our way to Masaya. They had a going away party for those of us who left the congregation, and for Blake & Madalyne leaving too. These things never start on time, but the day we're 45 minutes late, they have hired musicians there waiting to start the Marimba dancing for us! Whoops - I felt so bad about that! But seriously, these things NEVER start on time, EVER!!!!

We had a really good night though. The kids did the dancing this time (see Marimba by adults last time if you weren't following the blog back then) and the music afterwards was really good too. I danced until I was sweating buckets!!

Jael & her little cousin were the youngest dancers - and he was the star of the show!

Xiomara & Josue (I think)

Tamara and her partner

Hilary & Edward who managed to smile once I think!

My little Laynori and her cousin. She dedicated her first dance to me - cute!!

Isn't he the cutest?!?! He kept putting his hat back on the wrong way!

Jael looking like a little model

Tamara too!

Secrets between cousins!

Sign quoting 1 Thessalonians 3:9

Most of the dancers, plus a few wannabe dancers!!

Me and my Laynori! She joined the Theocratic Ministry School - can't wait to go visit to hear her first talk!

Xiomara - she just recently gave her first talk and became a publisher

Pressure of dancing over = Hilary smiling!! And check out that pot of rice!

And then it was time for the rest of us to dance

 Madalyne and I with the Lopez family. I got that sweaty head from too much dancing!

They had all these balloons up with the names of everyone leaving. This was my favorite spelling - Retchel & Matthews. They should have just stuck with the Spanish translation of my name. And I'm not sure what they think Charley's name is - Matthews Matthews?!?! 10 out of 10 for trying though!

So, that was our lovely Adios from our previous congregation. We miss them, and they claim to miss us! I think especially in the ministry midweek they miss our support. It's been a bit overwhelming getting to know our new congregation and new territory - both of which are bigger than what we'd been used to here. But there is a lot of interest in the new territory so we've been having some really good calls with people.

Time seems to just be flying by. July is shaping up to be a really busy month. We start out going to help with a Kingdom Hall construction in a coastal town called Casares this coming Wednesday. Then we have our Circuit Pioneer Day (Charley has a talk and I have a demo) on Friday, then our Circuit Assembly that weekend. And our friends Brenda & Caleb are heading back to the States for a couple of months at the end of July so we've been organizing some social events with them - things we've talked about doing for a while but never got around to like making lasagna and having a movie night at a friend's house. And on the 15th Charley starts Pioneer School for two weeks. Before we know it, we'll be into August!

But it's good to be busy. I still haven't handed over all of my studies from our previous territory so for now I spend the mornings in our new territory, and afternoons in our old one.  It's hard to leave some studies. Mirna was telling me this week how much her Bible study is helping her, overcoming certain fears, understanding the truth, she really seems to appreciate what she's learning. And Carla really enjoyed Chapter 6 in the Bible Teach book. Learning the truth about the dead has been a real eye opener for her and provided her comfort. She's also learning the order of the Bible books. She learned the first 7 so far, and that was a little project she began of her own initiative. Dulce has been trying to read the Bible daily, and says she prays a lot and feels ever closer to Jehovah. I hope that she might make it to at least some of the Circuit Assembly next weekend.

I'm starting to feel like I recognize all the faces in our congregation now, and can almost put names to them all, although there are still some I keep having to ask again! But it's only been about three weeks - 100 new names and faces is a lot to remember!

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all doing well. Enjoy District Convention season - I'm jealous that it's not that season down here yet - not until December!!! 

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Get ready for a lot of pictures!

So, now I'm going back again to the trip we took to Ometepe Island. I already shared quite a few pictures, but there are some many good ones I just have to share more! And some of them are pictures that Blake took. Most of Blake's pictures that I'll be sharing are the funny ones - he's much more imaginative than I am! 

I'll start with some of mine and a few stories to go along with them.

We had only been walking for two minutes when Madalyne, trying to avoid that puddle you see behind her, skidded into it instead and got herself nice and wet and muddy! As you can see, she was upset!

This is Charco Verde (literally Green Puddle). It was a lovely place to visit and they only charged us foreigners 20 cordobas (about 80 cents) to get in.

As we followed the trail around Charco Verde it led us to this beach. We spent quite a bit of time there thanks to Charley and Blake, who decided to swim out to that island you see out there! After we played in the lovely warm water for a while, we sat and played cards while we waited for them to swim back.

This was Charley & Blake's floating device which they made good use of when they got tired.

Another view of Charco Verde with one of Ometepe's two volcanoes in the background - I get them mixed up!

Now a couple of Blake's pictures so that you can see us all together.

This was at the top of a hill we climbed. You can't see the lake or the lagoon very well but they're back there! 

Bunch of posers, eh?!

I think Charco Verde was my favorite thing that we saw on the island. It combined hiking and beach and was cheap to get in and just generally beautiful.

We had planned to go to the meeting in Altagracia, but thankfully on our first day there we saw the hall, and a brother appeared from nowhere and in conversation we found out that they were having their Special Assembly Day at the hall that Sunday. So we went to the morning session of that. All four congregations on the island were there, plus the one in San Jorge which is across the lake where you get the ferry over from the mainland. There were about 500 in attendance and it was so nice to get to experience that.

The Kingdom Hall in Moyogalpa where they have their assemblies

The back of the Kingdom Hall has a built in stage, and then they put up a huge tent for all of those in attendance.

They have the cutest little baptism pool.

We meet Bianca and her brother Jonathan who had just arrived from Maryland that week. They were both going to live on the island for a year, but after buying tickets, Jonathan got invited to Brooklyn Bethel! So he came with his sister for a week to help her get settled in, and then off he went. So, now we have someone to stay with on the island!!!!

 After the morning at the assembly, we drove around the Concepcion Volcano and saw some nice rural scenery along the bumpy, dirt road.

San Marcos Kingdom Hall with Concepcion Volcano in the background

Concepcion Volcano

I hate traffic jams

Isn't that an awesome house? And it's hard to tell, but we zoomed in on the picture and I'm almost sure that man was reading the paperback New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.

There was some religious festival being prepared for in Altagracia and all the streets were decorated. They got mad at us because we drove through a little bit of it on one street but there wasn't much we could do about it! The truck doesn't fly.

After the assembly we went to Playa Santo Domingo near where we were staying. We'd heard an awful lot of praise of it's white beaches. Needless to say we were a little disappointed to see what "white" was! Apparantly white is anything lighter than black! But it was still a very beautiful place.

When the sun started to set everything turned pink and purple

The water was so still that day. It was like being in a giant swimming pool. (Photo by Blake) 

On our last day we met up with Jonathan & Bianca and went to el Ojo del Agua (Eye of the Water) which is a natural springs. The water is pretty chilly but super clear. We had a really nice time chillin' there. This is one of Blake's pictures too.

Franci enjoying the water (picture taken by Blake)

The water did funny things to Blake - this is not edited, that's exactly how it looked to the human eye too!

The advantage of the truck was being able to carry lunch around too. Here we all are having lunch. Thankfully Charley didn't park 10 feet further forward because a few minutes after arriving a HUGE limb fell off the tree above!

As for the story I alluded to in a picture a couple of posts ago, here's a reminder...

So, we got to our hotel the first evening and everyone chose their room. We had three rooms in a row. A fourth one on one end was the daughter and son-in-law of the owner, and then, Franci & Veronica, then me and Charley and Blake & Madalyne at the other end. The first night we were getting ready for bed when Madalyne knocked on our door and asked for Charley's help. Between him and Blake they killed the scorpion you see in the above picture which Madalyne found in the bathroom. Despite her horror, she managed to sleep in the room after that, although not very well.

The next night, they walk into their room and spot another scorpion on the wall. Now Madalyne really starts to panic. Blake kills it, and then goes around with a little flashlight checking all the little nooks and crannies to make sure there are no more. Lo and behold, he finds......................A SNAKE!!!! Didn't turn out to be poisonous, but still, a snake! At this Madalyne decides to quit trying to be brave and to share the room that Franci & Veronica are in. I say I'm going to go for the owner who lives in a house a few feet away. It's pitch black and raining. Thankfully the son-in-law heard us all outside and came out to see what was going on, and he went and got the owner. They killed the snake and carried it off.

Then the owner offers to show them another room which is connected to his house. They walk in there, and Blake says "No, we can't stay here" and points to a scorpion 4 times the size of the ones they'd been finding! Even the owner said it was big and he'd have to kill it.

Blake decides to go ahead and sleep in his original room that night but pulls the beds and tables away from the wall a bit. In the process of doing that, he finds the snake's head that the owner chopped off, complete with tongue hanging out! Sweet dreams!!

Also, while they were taking care of the snake, the son-in-law stood on a poisonous tarantula that was just outside of the rooms and killed it. Blake decided not to tell Madalyne about that until later!

The last night Blake is about to go to sleep when he looks up and sees something peeking down at him, and then run across the wall into another hiding place - yes, a third scorpion, the biggest of the three! I think he killed it - I can't remember the rest of that part of the story actually! 

So, Ometepe Island is a BEAUTIFUL place - in the daytime! At night - well.......it's ok!

In the meantime, none of the rest of us had any problems really. We had some ants but we were like, well, yeah, ants, they're everywhere! Sunday morning we're getting ready for the Special Assembly Day and Madalyne hears this banging noise coming from outside the room next door. Charley was banging his shoe on the wall (I was drinking coffee in the restaurant so I missed out on this part!) because the ants had made themselves at home in his shoe. It was full of ant eggs, which look like little grains of rice. The next day they had moved on to my camera bag but I discovered them before they settled in too much!

If you ever come to Nicaragua though, you must go to Ometepe. I know, I make it sound so appealing don't I!?!?! But really, I loved it and would go back, just perhaps not to that hotel!

And to finish off on a happier note, here are Blake's funny pictures from the trip!

I think Madalyne copied the smile better than I did!

See little gray sculpture in the middle - do we look alike?!

Concepcion Volcano ready to pop!

It's all about the Powerade

Strike a pose!

Can you see the eruptions of the two volcanoes?! Bet you didn't know they had Powerade inside them!

Chillin' at the hotel

Well, here ends the longest blog post ever!!!!

Next time maybe I'll catch you up on our day to day activities with our new congregation. Oh, and some photos of the lovely going away party our previous congregation had for us!