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!

Maybe the next one will have pictures!

So, almost 3 months have gone by and what a lot of changes both on a personal level, and on an organizational level. We live in such exciting times in Jehovah’s organization. And we’re just doing our little bit to try and keep up with the chariot.

The projector that we bought on our last trip has been such a wonderful blessing for the congregation, and not just our congregation, but the projector now lives at the hall so all three congregations benefit from it. I mentioned in my last blog post that we showed the August broadcast. The turnout wasn’t all that great though. So in September we had it right after our Sunday meeting and almost everyone, including students, stayed to watch it. That was all it took! Of course, Nicaragua was featured in the September broadcast, and just 30 minutes down the road too, so that really was exciting for the local friends. I think the August turnout wasn’t that great partly because so many just didn’t understand what this “broadcast” thing was all about! But once they saw September, now they’re always asking when the next one is, and you can just feel the buzz in the hall every month when it’s time! Jehovah really is richly blessing his people in these last days and providing just the encouragement we need. Up until now the song at the end of each broadcast was in English, with Spanish subtitles. But imagine everyone’s surprise and excitement when November’s song was SUNG IN SPANISH!!!!! Very thrilling! Not sure if that was just a one off since they were making an appeal to inactive ones. We’ll have to wait and see what December brings.

I also mentioned our little trip away to Managua to the English congregation where we got to spend the weekend with a couple of Geordies serving there. We had a FANTASTIC time with them! So very encouraging to see the “not-so-young” making such sacrifices to serve so far away from home in such a very different culture. The first thing they said when we walked through the door was, “do you want a cup of tea, kettle’s on”. Ahhhhhhh I felt like I was back home, except for the sweltering heat!

In October we had a lovely Regional Convention. We had a peak of about 2400 which is pretty much the max amount that will fit in the assembly hall. On Saturday we had 30 baptized, including a couple in their late-50’s from our congregation. Charley had the privilege of giving two talks and did a very nice job, although I may be a little biased on that score! Between the two talks he also had 4 participants, 3 of whom are in our congregation, and two of whom I don’t think have been on an assembly program before so that was exciting! Charley interviewed our dear sister Francis who was in the hospital a while ago with the threat of getting her leg amputated. In the end they only took off three toes, but it’s a long, slow recovery. She also suffered the murder of her husband about 18 months ago, and since they didn’t have children, she’s been left alone to support herself. Of course her spiritual family has taken care of her, and her example of faith is of great encouragement to us all in the congregation and circuit.

Also in October the youngest son of the family that we were first came to visit here in 2010 got married. I got talked in to taking his wedding pictures and it was so nice to spend the day with them all. It’s like being with family when we’re with them since we know them from back in Indy. Also, the next day, another of their son’s, and his wife, graduated from the first class of SKE held here at our Educational Center, behind our assembly hall. It used to be the Nicaragua branch, but now has been repurposed. There were 22 graduates, including 4 single sisters. It was my first theocratic school graduation ceremony live, so it was all very exciting!

We’re also enjoying the privilege of working on Thursday’s in the Educational Center kitchen. I’m not sure how much of an asset I am, but Charley has experience from his Bethel days, and I’m learning to make myself useful! I really enjoy it. We worked for a few months in the assembly hall, and now since about 6 weeks ago we’ve been in the kitchen. There is currently a class in session, so we get to see the students briefly for an hour after lunch when some come to do their work assignments in the kitchen.

And it’s funny how sacrifices always lead to unexpected blessings. At first, I wasn’t just super excited about the idea of volunteering one day a week at the assembly hall/educational center. But we decided we should go ahead and apply. Of course, I’ve really enjoyed it, and as a result of it we are living in a lovely new little house!

As I mentioned in my last blog post the house we were living in went up for sale. It took a little longer to sell than expected, but last weekend we made the move. The house we’re in now belongs to the couple who take care of the assembly hall. I don’t think they’ve ever actually lived in it, but they built it to have available whenever they may need it. Now, if we hadn’t started working there, (and if I didn’t talk such a lot), they would never have known of our need, and we’d never have got the chance to live in this house. It hasn’t been a week yet but we’re pretty much settled in and absolutely loving it! We live right next door to the owner’s fleshly sister and her family, who are also witnesses. And in true Nicaraguan style not a day has gone by that they haven’t brought us something to eat or drink! And they have dogs who are really sweet, but pretend to be vicious when people they don’t know come, which makes us feel safe. And it’s at the end of a dirt alley where there aren’t really any other houses, but lots of trees, so it’s sooooooo much cooler than the other houses we’ve lived in here. It’s smaller, but we feel so at home in it.

There have also been a couple of construction projects going on that we’ve been to on numerous occasions. One Kingdom Hall is now finished, and the other will be done before the end of December I think. It’s hard, physical work in the sun, but it’s always a fun time working with brothers and sisters from different areas.

Our congregation also continues to grow. My study, Sonia, became a publisher at the end of September. She is doing really well and already conducts a Bible study with a lady she found door to door. Her little boy, Max, also loves the ministry and always looks so cute with his hat and briefcase! She also gave her first talk on the TMS this week. I was her householder and she did a GREAT job! About a week after she became a publisher, another lady, 70-year-old Miriam, was approved too. Then two weeks ago Pablo became a publisher. He used to have really long, long hair and a beard, but it’s all gone now and he looks really happy to be part of the congregation. He even went to the construction project this week too. And then just this Tuesday night, Isaias was approved to be a publisher! So we’ve had 4 new publishers in just the last 3 months!

Well, I’m sure there are many more stories I could tell, but I think that’s more than enough for now. I don’t think blog posts are supposed to be this long, so if you made it to the end, you’re a true friend! 

"...test me out, please..."

So, since my last post we've been back to the US to work and we have been back in Nicaragua for almost a month already. 

Our trip to the States went very well, although work seemed to take up most of our time on this trip. This is the first work trip we'd done since Sept-Nov 2013 and we worked more hours in less time. I felt like we didn't get enough time with our family and friends, but we at least got to see most of them for a little bit.

When we were planning this trip we were trying to decide how long to work this year. We still have some savings, so we weren't completely broke yet, but looking to earn about a year's worth of expenses if at all possible. At first we talked about 2-3 months, but then we felt we were relying too much on ourselves and decided to put Malachi 3:10 into action. So, six weeks it was.

It truly was amazing to see how Jehovah lived up to that promise. After all was said and done, and we got back and did our calculations, we earned as much in 6 weeks, and perhaps even a little more, than we did in 10 weeks in 2013. Charley had two particularly busy weeks at Pepsi. And my old job had a big project going on (even some at work said they thought a higher power was at work in the timing of this trip!) and they gave me full-time work for the entire time we were there. And with the sale of the tract holders, and the generosity of our dear friends and family, we were able to earn enough (if we stick to last year's budget!) to last another year down here. Plus, me working full-time meant I had very little free time for shopping, so that saved us money too!! And I was able to stock up on new service clothes thanks to a fabulous sale a friend of mine had the day after we arrived (all the sweating down here makes you burn through your tops in a year). And my sister-in-law loaned us her amazingly economic car so we saved a fortune on gas too!

So, once again we saw Jehovah's hand at work in our lives. I'm sure we'll be seeing it again in these upcoming weeks or months. Unfortunately, the house we live in is up for sale now, and in the first week on the market two people came to see it already. The brother who owns it just isn't going to be able to come back and serve here, and they want to help out elsewhere, so the house is an unnecessary asset for them now, which we totally understand. So, we'll see what happens! But we've already had two offers of places to move to, so we're not worried. We know that Jehovah will take care of us. I'm actually rather impressed with how calm I've been about this whole thing! The Rachel of 5 years ago would have been panicking, but I've learned such a lot being down here, and from Charley and his endless patience and calmness, that I'm really not worried about it at all!

If anyone is interested in buying it and renting it to us though, let me know!! Haha!!

Thanks to everyone who bought a bag while we were in Indy. All of the bags were sold and with the funds we bought a projector for our hall and even have some left over for some other Kingdom Hall expenses. We've shown the August broadcast, and hope to be showing the September one this Sunday.

We ended another service year thankful to Jehovah for the privilege of serving him full-time. We spent the last day of the year at the Laguna Beach Club, our local "beach" with some other need-greaters and their visitors. All nine of us there that day are in full-time service, and we calculated 135 years of full-time service between us all, so that was pretty cool!

Charley finished up his 10th consecutive year as a regular pioneer, so now I've had him as a pioneer partner just over half of my pioneering career. We also had a wonderful circuit visit after we got back. Unfortunately, due to changes in the circuit, it was our first and last visit from that particular couple. But we're glad we at least got to know them and hope to keep in touch since they're not too far away. They were super cool, really enjoyed our week with them. And he got our SKE application forwarded on to Mexico, so we'll see if anything comes of that. In the meantime, there's plenty to do here.

We also had another ministerial servant appointed - 2nd one of our young ones appointed this year. So, now we're rather spoiled with SEVEN ministerial servants in the congregation. They are a HUGE help to our body of elders, since the body consists of two!

We'll be off to Managua English congregation in a couple of weeks. Charley is going to give the talk, and we're going to stay the weekend with a Geordie couple (from the NE of England) who are serving there, so really excited about that! It's the closest we'll get to a trip home to England anytime soon!

Well, that's the last 2 1/2 months in a nutshell. It's good to be back into the swing of things, with new goals for this service year, primarily that of dedicating more time to our studies to help them make spiritual progress. Going for quality rather than quantity. 

Hope you're all having a good start to the service year. When I get some pictures uploaded I'll make a separate post of those. For those who follow us on Instagram, you'll have seen all the pictures already.

Goodbye for now!

Sale!!

Just a quick post for those of you in Indy.

I'm having a sale tomorrow on my parent's front porch from 2-6pm. Selling bags and tract folders, both handmade in Masaya, Nicaragua.

Bags are $15 and I have about 30. Tract holders are $4 and I have hundreds of them in about 15 different colors/shades.

Here's a picture to give you an idea. If you're reading this in an email, you can hit reply if you need the address or any other details.

Introducing........Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner

Well, another month has flown by. Just 5 more weeks and we’ll be in Indianapolis seeing all of our family and working. Looking forward to the seeing people part – the working part, well, it has to be done!

Since my last post we’ve been as busy as ever. For a month now we’ve been going to the assembly hall on Thursdays to help with maintenance and cleaning. I have to admit I wasn’t too excited about the prospect, but I’ve really been enjoying it. Twice now we’ve got to paint, which I like, and clean windows which was kinda fun too! This last week was the first week we didn’t get to work together all day, but it was nice getting to know the young sister I was working with who has been going weekly for about 18 months now. And they have a mango tree on site with HUGE mangoes. The assembly hall overseer’s wife picked about 3 dozen on Thursday so we got to bring a dozen delicious mangoes home. I’m loving mango season this year – really got addicted to them!

Working at the assembly hall, cleaning out bat poo, and then painting the frame for the suspended ceiling. Behind the assembly hall is the former branch, which is now an educational center. The first Nicaragua class of SKE is taking place right now, with two more to come this year.

We were also thrilled this month to get JW Broadcast in Spanish. It’s so exciting to know that so many others are getting to enjoy it now. Nobody (except one family) in our congregation have internet, and I think only two families even have a computer, so we had a couple of families over to watch the May broadcast. They thoroughly enjoyed it. And now that’s it available to download in JW Library it becomes portable, which is even better!

We don’t have any way to watch videos easily in the Kingdom Hall, so, on this trip back I’m bringing some handmade Nicaraguan bags to sell, with the idea that the funds will purchase a projector. Yes, this is a shameless plug for selling bags! I’ll also be selling tract folders that a brother makes. Closer to the time I’ll post on the blog and Instagram to let everyone know when and where they can come buy them if they want to.

Watching the May broadcast on www.tv.jw.org

This month also meant a lovely 5-day trip to Jinotega to visit our friends, Aaron and Tasha, who are serving up there. We used to be in the same congregation in Indianapolis and I’ve known them both for years, since before they even knew each other, so visiting them felt almost like a visit back home. We really enjoyed the days spent there. There are four congregations in Jinotega, in the city, but each one has an enormous rural territory too. Aaron and Tasha, along with about 3 others, are working a couple of small rural communities every week and have a ton of studies out there. They had the first Memorial in the area this year and 50 attended, including one lady who walked an hour and a half each way to get there, walking home by herself in the dark. Since then they’ve had Sunday meetings and every week at least a couple of studies from the territory have come. So Charley gave the talk in the group on Sunday at 2pm, then we hopped on the bus to go to the 5pm meeting with the congregation in the city.

The two meetings - above with the group, then below in the Kingdom Hall

I really fell in love with Jinotega. We’ve been before, but this was the first time we’d had chance to go out in service. We did a long day on Tuesday with them, doing their return visits and studies in the small communities of Santa Carmela & Las Latas. It surprised me how many people live out there, but Aaron and Tasha can’t stop to talk to everyone door to door, otherwise they’d never get their studies done. The weather is a lot cooler which we also really enjoyed. And the town has most of the conveniences of a bigger city, but without the hustle and bustle of a big city like Masaya, where we live.

This past weekend was our pioneer session with the pioneers of the circuit and our circuit assembly. There were 289 in attendance at the pioneer meeting. Lots of encouragement to keep up with Jehovah’s celestial chariot. It was an encouraging day. Then we all stayed afterwards to help clean for the circuit assembly. Ours was on Sunday. We had about 1920 in attendance and 6 baptized. None from our congregation this time. It was so nice to see almost everyone from Pioneer School and catch up with them. Seems like everyone is still hanging in and pioneering.

All but one of our regular pioneers. Two of them just started this month.

A couple of points I really liked from the circuit assembly. The CO made a good point, that we shouldn’t confuse our freedom to make decisions, with the right to decide what is right and wrong, a right that only Jehovah has.

The brother who gave the baptism talk used an excellent illustration about a butterfly. He told a story about a man watching a butterfly trying to get out of its cocoon. It was struggling to get out of a tiny hole, so he decided to use some small scissors to cut it open. But the butterfly came out with a big, swollen body and small wings and all it could do was go around in circles. He said the fight they make to get out, is what forces the fluids out of its body, into its wings, making the body smaller and the wings big and strong. But since the cocoon was cut open, the butterfly couldn’t do anything.

In the same way, he said, newly baptized ones will face challenges, but they have to be allowed to work through them, otherwise they’ll be weak spiritually and just go around in circles. He said that we have the help of the elders, but Jehovah hasn’t given them the scissors to cut us out of every tight spot we find ourselves in. They will give us scriptural advice, but we have to fight, and if we do, it will make us stronger spiritually.

The only pictures I took at our assembly. Don't we have the cutest little girls in our congregation?!

Well, that gets us all up to date again! We have friends coming to visit next month, so before we know it we’ll be heading off to Indy, where we will hopefully see a lot of you. 

Oh, and the title of this post. Here is Gordon. If you google his whole name, as spelled out in the title of this blog, you'll understand why we chose that name for him. He's our new pet!

Some photos now

Ok, so our internet is behaving better today so here are a few pictures that I wasn't able to include in my last post.

Here is a collage of our dear little Rosely who got baptized in February and auxiliary pioneered in March. She's 12, although she looks a lot younger, but in many ways she is very mature for her age.

And here are a few other pictures from our circuit assembly that day.

Now some random pictures!

We ran out of dogs in our territory!

Roxana's first official day out in service. She's about halfway to getting auxiliary pioneer hours this month!

With my cousins, Wendy & Stuart. We haven't been in the same country together for 10 years. We still aren't in this picture obviously, but we thought we'd at least get a photograph together. I'm not as tiny as I look!

And this is my cousin Wendy's little girl, Josslyn, in her newest Nicaragua dress that my mam took back for her. Isn't she an absolute doll?!?!

Now for some pictures from the Memorial.

Some shots from all the prep work the day of the Memorial.

We were kept well fed with snacks and then a sister showed up with lunch for everyone, right when we were about to give up and go home to eat! Also notice the brothers carrying a cactus they cut down. They're using their belts!! 

The night of the Memorial just as it was finishing. 473 in attendance for 2 congregations

Some of our studies and faithful ones at the Memorial

Now I leave you with the link for the photobook I made of my mam and dad's month they spent here.

Click here to view this photo book larger