Finally some pictures with this post

We just got home from our second School for Kingdom Evangelizers (SKE) graduation and I thought I'd post an update. There are pictures at the end if you'd prefer to skip all the words and look at them instead!

It's hard to believe 2015 is gone and we're already well into the first quarter of 2016. It's been a good year so far. We started off the year with a month's visit from Charley's mam, Katie. She really enjoyed her first trip to Nicaragua, and we had a great time with her. We got to take her to the mountains, the beach, the largest freshwater lake in Central America, the laguna, out in service, to an English circuit assembly. It was a busy but fun time. She was also a big help around the house doing most of the cooking while she was here!! I enjoyed that!!! Masaya (where we live) reminded her a lot of rural Indiana and Kentucky where she spent her childhood. She said she felt like she had travelled back in time. That pretty much sums up life around here. It's like the United States 40-50 years ago! 

I also got to make a quick trip to Indianapolis. I took advantage of the chance to travel back with Katie and spent 5 days in Indy for a wedding of a dear friend. Charley stayed here and enjoyed the peace and quiet without me around constantly talking! 

And this month, just like our brothers and sisters around the world, we are busy inviting people to and preparing for the Memorial. Our territory is not that big, and our congregation has supported the campaign very well, so we covered our territory in a week like most here in the city. But there are so many people live in one house here that you can keep going around the same houses and finding more people who haven't seen the invitation. It's also been nice to make use of the video. People tend not to say "No" when you ask if you can show them a video. It adds a nice new aspect to our ministry. Not everyone here has a phone or tablet that they can show videos on, but those who do have made good use of it and I think people in our territory have enjoyed it.

We're also having a blast still working in the SKE kitchen on Thursdays. Our meeting schedule changed this year, and now our midweek meeting is on Thursdays, so that makes for an interesting day!! We finish up half an hour early so that we can shower and get ready at the Educational Center. Then we go directly to the meeting from there! I'm usually exhausted by the time I sit down at the hall! We're thinking about getting a car since that trip on a Thursday when the rainy season begins won't exactly be fun! Cars are more expensive here than in the States, but hopefully we can find a little, cheap, reliable one to use on days when the bike just doesn't quite provide us with what we need!

This week was the last week of the current class, so we worked our normal day on Thursday, and then we also worked Friday to help with a special, final lunch for the students, instructors, and educational center staff. It was SO much fun! Charley was assigned to cook, and I was assigned as a waitress!!! I have NEVER waited a table before, so it was quite the learning experience. Of course our customers were very polite and not demanding at all, and we didn't have to worry too much since we wouldn't be getting any tips!! But of course we wanted them to enjoy the experience so I was nervous. We got a little training in the morning, and it all went very smoothly. We served soup, then salad, then shrimp scampi over linguini, then cupcakes and cake pops. The kitchen cleaned and removed the tails of 400 shrimp! Then I spent most of the afternoon helping wash the piles and piles of dishes!

It was exhausting, but we all had a wonderful time and the students really seemed to enjoy the treat. The tables were all beautifully decorated by some of the other kitchen volunteers. It's all volunteers in the kitchen now, no more permanent kitchen staff living there, so it takes a lot of coordination but it's all gone very well. Such a special privilege to be able to work there and see the students enjoy what we prepare for them. It also nice getting to interact with some of the students since we don't normally get to spend much time with them. Nice to put faces with the names we see on the fridges when we deliver their breakfast pack each Thursday afternoon!

The graduation ceremony was a treat. Excellent talks by the instructors and other brothers. And some wonderful experiences from the ministry and personal comments from some of the students. So encouraging to hear the sacrifices that they made to be able to attend the school for two months. One single sister sold all her stuff, including her bed and her beloved bike, since she was coming from the distant Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in Puerto Cabezas and wanted to be available to go wherever she was assigned without necessarily having to return for her stuff. As it turns out she was assigned elsewhere, nowhere near there, so I'm sure she's glad that she made that decision. So nice to see our single sisters reaching out and being put to good use in the organization.

Some were sent back to their current assignments, others were sent to new places. This class (Class #52) had 9 couples, 2 single brothers, and 3 single sisters in it. They were all either from Honduras or Nicaragua. We also received greetings from classes 50, 51, 53 and 54 being held in Mexico, Panama and Guatemala. They are all also graduating this weekend or next. It's kind of neat to think that a Gilead class graduated this weekend too! We got to enjoy our own mini-Gilead graduation here!!

And now for 500 photographs of recent events!!! If you want to see them larger I think you can click on each picture if you're reading this directly on our site www.indybrits.com Until the next time...

SKE Graduation - Class 52 - Nicaragua. Charley ran into an ex-Bethel buddy for the second time at the graduation. This time it was a brother who is still in the States, and whose sister-in-law was graduating from this class.

Pictures from the special lunch we helped with for the SKE students on Friday

The beautiful decorations, and the beautiful waitresses of course! And some of the fabulous food!

Family Worship with my study Sonia and her son Max. We learned about Samson, and made (and ate) Memorial bread!

Some pictures that my mother-in-law took of all the fabulous flowers we see around us here every week

My regular pioneer acceptance letter from 1996 - March 1st was 20 years pioneering for me. Looking forward to the next 20!

Our new little house that we love so much. Katie got some great shots of it!

First day of the Memorial campaign

Isaac's chicken on his hat - you know, as you do!

Sunday meeting with my cousin Wendy and her hubby and little girl (Hollister had vanished) on my brief visit back to Indy

Flores and Matthews families at my in-laws house

Vicky and Erica - a dear mother and daughter in my mam and dad's congregation

And my lovely, great-aunt Glennis

Goofing around in the photo booth at the wedding I went back to Indianapolis for

My dear friend Katrina on her big day! Her husband is originally from Liberia so the guys all wore traditional West African wedding outfits. Very cool indeed!

With Katrina and her beautiful bridesmaids

Some of the groom's family in their traditional outfits

Been a long time since I've had to put that many clothes on for field service!!

Some of our young girls did some traditional dancing for my mother-in-law on her last day here

Katie's new Nicaraguan grandchildren!

Visiting the Robleto's who we used to be in Indy with, and who we first visited when we came to Nicaragua for the first time almost 6 years ago

Delicious lunch with a couple from England who serve in Spanish down here about 45 minutes from us

Taking Katie and a family from our congregation to Granada, a popular tourist destination here.

Relaxing at the Laguna de Apoyo

Katie at the English circuit assembly with a sister who serves a couple of hours north of here (far right) and the one sister who was baptized at the assembly that day. So nice to see older ones coming into the truth like that.

So, this is a funny story. To cut a long story short, we don't have water every day here, so we keep this trash can full of water for the days we don't have any. Well, while Katie was here we had two weeks where we only had water for 2 days of each week. One day the water came when we were out in service so she decided to help do laundry for us. She used the water out of the bucket to fill up the washer since that was quicker, and then planned on filling the big trash can back up. Well, before the washing could be done, or the bucket could be filled, the water went off again! That afternoon it came back, so she continued with her project, but apparently there is no check valve in our system, so in the end the water went out again, while the hose was in the bucket, and it sucked all the water back out so we ended up with NO water at all, less than we'd had at the beginning of the day!!!! It's amazing how we all managed to shower with one little bucket of water the next day. And then in the evening the next day it came back!!! Good times!!! 

Katie surveying the beach at San Juan del Sur

The hotel we stayed at. That's our little house there on the left. Beautiful place!

At the meeting with two of our students

My 91-year old study, with her niece and friend at their first meeting. She even commented!!

At Masaya volcano

Delivering breakfast at the educational center

Katie was a huge help in the kitchen at the educational center

Waterfall near Matagalpa, a few hours north of where we live

Selva Negra, Matagalpa

The mountains of Jinotega, where our friends Aaron and Tasha live

Katie finally got to ride on a school bus! Not the most comfortable 2 1/2 hour ride for those of us with long legs!!

Charley and Katie on our faithful little motorbike!