Charley & Rachel in Nicaragua: October 2017

Charley has a talk out this afternoon so we took the morning off. I can't remember the last time we had a lazy Sunday morning so it's been rather nice! Plus now it's raining so it feels extra refreshing!

So, it was May last time I posted. It's been a busy few months full of lovely privileges and fun times.

We're still in the kitchen at the Educational Center every Friday. CO's schools have kept the place busy most of the year, and then we had one SKE class to cook for which is always a lot of fun. We also helped out with the graduation, providing a simple meal for the 300 guests that came to the graduation. Pretty much everyone in the class was sent to a new assignment. Now, we're back with CO's schools for the rest of the year.

We had a nice CO visit in July. It was our first and last visit from that CO since as of Sept 1st we were moved into a new circuit, so yet another new CO. We've been here five years now and we've so far had six CO's and three substitutes! And this new one will only be for a year because then it'll be the three-year move around. We're hoping one of these days we might get to keep a CO for a whole three years!! Four new circuits were formed in the country so there was a lot of rearranging done. About 6 or 7 congregations from Masaya have been reassigned, but at least we get to go with the other two congregations we've served in so we'll continue to see all those faces at assemblies. And it will be nice to get to know others from the new congregations we'll be with.

We also had our circuit pioneer session and circuit assembly with branch representative in July. Wonderful weekend. We had the privilege of taking the visiting speaker and his wife around some of the sights of the area on Monday after the assembly. They serve in the Central America branch in Mexico so we're hoping that now that we have a contact there we can make plans to go visit perhaps next year and finally get to see our region's branch office in person. They have a pretty amazing Caleb & Sophia set-up at that branch that I'm particularly dying to see!!

We had fun taking Pioneer School pictures this year. Took three altogether, two of which were for the enormous classes here in Masaya! We had 92 new regular pioneers start in our circuit this past year, so two classes of around 45 were held. Charley had the privilege again this year of being secondary instructor along with the CO for one of the classes. And I even got to be in the class picture this year! Although I've decided it's a lot less work to just be taking the picture because then I don't have to worry about looking nice when I'm just behind the camera!!

In August we went to the English Regional Convention here at our assembly hall nearby. The English and Chinese congregations from Nicaragua & Costa Rica came for it, so it had a very international feel with needgreaters from all over the world. The quality of the talks was outstanding, and the program and videos were just wonderful as you all know. We also had a amazing privilege of having a Governing Body helper from HQ as the visiting speaker. That was a wonderful surprise. We were all very touched that they went to the trouble of sending a couple from HQ for the 700 of us in attendance. It was a like a big hug from NY!

Then in September we had our Spanish Regional Convention. We had a peak of about 2300 on Sunday and 21 baptized. Charley had two talks that he did a great job on (I might be a bit biased of course!). And we enjoyed singing from the new song book for the first time! We had a bit of a moment though when one of the videos got stuck, so the music stopped and the lyrics stopped. We could have sang from memory, but of course now the words have all changed so none of us know the song now! They tried replaying it a couple of times and it would get stuck in the same spot each time, so by the third time everyone had got their songbook or tablet out and we sang it acapella!!

We had a new participant in the Christian Life and Ministry meeting last month. 7-year-old Mildred, whose mam I study with, did the first conversation part offering the WT about angels. I think her mam and I were more nervous than she was. She did an amazing job! So calm and collected! Next up is one of my students, whose mam I also study with. She's 8 and was approved to be a publisher just a couple of weeks ago. She's very brave and quite happily talked out in service the first day we went out. She'll be offering the Awake on preparing for natural disasters so we're all excited for her and proud of her progress.

Charley also enjoyed a week at elder's school in September. We're still waiting for the digital copy of the photograph. It was a big class of about 50 elders from the area and no doubt the effects of that extra training will be felt in the congregations as the elders put into practice what they studied. These gifts in men work so hard and we really apprciate all they do. Most congregations around here have 2 or maybe 3 elders, so they keep pretty busy!

Well, that's a summary of what we've been up to. We're looking forward to a quick trip to Indiana and New York this month. We'll get to spend time with family and take a trip to Bethel so that'll be a wonderful, refreshing break. We're hoping not to have to take a work trip until perhaps May next year. Unfortunately the company I always worked for has been bought out and they didn't keep very many people on, so we'll see what Jehovah works out for us when it's time to work next year. There's a possibility of work with the previous boss who bought part of the business, but it just depends on how well his new venture goes as to whether they'll have any work for me. But Jehovah has never let us down so we're not worried. Charley just got a letter to choose his 10-year Pepsi anniversary gift, which is rather hilarious, because of those ten years only five were actually spent working year-round. The last five we've been here and he's worked maybe the equivalent of six months during all that time!!! But he still gets an anniversary!!