Week Two (and a half) update

The last few weeks in Nicaragua have been very good to us.  We've seen lots of Granada sunrises, thanks to Abel, who has decided that 5:30 seems like a really good Nicaraguan wake-up time.

  

We made a trip down to San Juan del Sur, a popular little surf village about an hour and a half from Granada.  The kids had so much fun playing on the beach for the day.

Mmmmm.... Sand is yummy!

We've had snuggly mornings, just like at home.  

 And Sean has been busy with language training and getting ready for a few teams that will be coming down and ministering in some villages in and around Granada.  Last week, he and the big boys went to a village across Lake Nicaragua.  To get there, they had to put the truck on this conveyor-type barge and be pulled across the lake a few hundred yards.  Here's the truck that crossed before them.

And here's their truck (and Kellen) as they crossed.

Once they got to the other side, there were SIX pastors who had assembled to meet with Sean.  The needs in this part of Nicaragua are so great, and these men were all very anxious to see whether we could help in some way.  

Kellen and Wyatt in front of one of the village churches.

Some of the natural beauty of Nicaragua.

Sean and Eric Weber of Open Eyes Ministries/Global Infusion have been out several more times this week making preparations for a team from Knoxville that will be coming in tomorrow.  They're out again today, along with Kellen and Wyatt, at yet another village.  This one required them to park and take a small boat to a very remote island - I suspect there will be some great stories from this newest adventure, but they'll have to go in next week's update.

How can you be praying for us?

• We hear the weather is pretty bad in Knoxville; pray for safe travel for the team that is coming in tomorrow.
• Pray for wisdom and God's direction as we sift through the many, many needs we encounter here in Granada.  
• Pray for the health of our crew:  we've shared a stomach bug and are having an issue with a small mite/bug of some sort that we would like to GO AWAY!

Week One update

Before church on Sunday, January 13

It's hard to believe that this time last week we were en route to Nicaragua.  It seems like we've already been here longer - in a good way. The places are familiar, we're getting use to the near-constant "glistening" (yeah, sweating), and all of us are communicating far better - and faster - than I could have ever imagined.  

 We've come a long way from a pretty bumpy start.  In the first 48 hours here, the refrigerator went out (naturally just after a trip to the  market), the TV quit working (yes, we sound like spoiled Americans for complaining about that, but Cade REALLY wanted to watch his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVDs :)), and we couldn't get the wifi working, despite several service calls.  (After a few days, they got someone to climb a pole and they found the problem out at the street.)  I told the big boys that was how they were being called to suffer for Jesus. No wifi is about as much suffering as they can imagine.  

The biggest curveball, though, was this: when we got here, we learned that our friend, Julio, that we had planned to rely on for translation and transportation, has gotten a full time job!  We're so grateful for this blessing to him, but were a little concerned about what that would mean for us.  

Our - host? Friend? Mentor? Boss??? I'm not really sure what to call him - Eric Weber of Open Eyes Ministries put Sean in touch with another translator.  (We are staying in Eric and his wife Melissa's house in Granada for our first couple weeks here, and we are working with Open Eyes Ministries' contacts to establish a feeding center just outside Granada, as well as assisting Eric with some teams coming in from the States in the next several weeks).  Sean met with this translator named Lennon on Friday morning, and it was totally orchestrated by God! Within a few hours of their meeting, Lennon took Sean to meet with his pastor, who is the Regional Director for churches in this part of Nicaragua.  He is helping us make inroads in several villages here with great needs.  In fact, Sean, Kellen, Wyatt and Lennon are headed out today to a very poor village outside of Granada to meet with the folks there and determine how we can help them.  So in addition to helping Pastor Andreas set up a feeding center in his church, we've got a few more projects starting to shape up.  God is good!

Yesterday, Julio and his family picked us up and we went to a church here that's about half American and half Nica.  We enjoyed it so much!

Everyone is welcome at El Puente, including pheasants! 

Kellen and Wyatt sat with their friend Marcos, son of our friend Julio

Elliott always makes new friends wherever she goes!

Abel is always a big hit.  Nica women LOVE babies.  Cade is a little too shy and pretty much sticks to his mommy, but Abel likes the attention.  Here, Julio's wife Karina is introducing Abel to some of her friends.

The worship leader and a band member

The worship band plays under the canopy.  The Word was delivered by an American and translated by a Nica, from the red/white covered tables.

As a footnote, today is our Anniversary!  Eighteen years of marriage.  Had you asked me 18 years ago if I thought I'd be spending an anniversary in Nicaragua, I'm sure I would have said "never."  What I should have said was "only in my dreams!" 

How can you be praying for us?

• Sean is meeting with Pastor Andreas as I type about the feeding center we are planning to start there.  Please be in prayer for all those pieces to fall into place.
• As we make new inroads with villages in need in this area, please pray that God provides wisdom and means so that we can help them, and favor so that they will be receptive to our help and to the Word of God.

Cade is TWO!

Our precious Cade turned two on Thursday.  Because it was 90 degrees here in Nicaragua, he got to spend his birthday playing in the park, eating watermelon, and dining outside.  He couldn't have been happier! 

There was a little teensy mishap, though.  Cade loves to swing (what kid doesn't?).  He was swinging away, singing happy birthday to himself (adorable!) and apparently mommy got a little carried away with the pushing.  You have to see the video - especially the slow motion part.  Whoops... 

I tried to make up for it with a birthday cake.  Chocolate fixes everything, right?  I wasn't sure that we'd be able to pull that off, but we found a cake mix, guessed at the measurements (they were in metric), and baked it just right in an oven whose temperature gauge reads only "1-5." We all thought it was yummy, especially the birthday boy!  

So now we've celebrated the first of four birthdays we'll have here in Nicaragua, and it was perfect in every way!

Getting there is half the fun...

Ready to load the truck for the airport

Customs in Nicaragua, about 10:30 pm EST

Getting to Nicaragua with 5 kids is just about as much work as you'd think.  ;-) All in all, the kids did great.  It was a long day, no doubt, but I couldn't have asked them to be better.  Especially considering the fact that just a few days before we flew, the 3 little ones each had ear infections - Cade's was so bad that one of his ear drums ruptured.  Poor guy.  

Because of their ears, we were extremely concerned about how the babies would do flying.  Thanks to lots of folks praying at home, the take-offs and landings were all completely uneventful.  Abel and Caedmon got a little restless by the end of the flight from Atlanta to Managua, but I guess that's to be expected.  They finally fell asleep during the van ride from the airport in Managua to the house in Granada, and so did Elliott.  Of course they woke up once we got there, around midnight, and cried for quite a bit before going to sleep.  Sean and I really couldn't do anything but look at each other and laugh. It's all part of the adventure, right?  

Hello from Nicaragua!

We've been gone quite a while from the blog, and lots of exciting things have happened since then!  Most notably, our darling little Abel joined our family in June.  I believe our crazy crew is now complete.  ;-) 

I've been prompted by several folks to dust off the blog and start posting more regularly because our now-complete crazy crew is temporarily far, far away!  We'll be spending roughly 3 months in Granada, Nicaragua working with Global Infusion to help spread the love and compassion of Christ to those in need.  Many of our friends and family have asked me to keep the blog updated with news and information about our work and our lives down here, so I'm going to do my best to do that.  Bear with me.  Internet service in Nicaragua is pretty much what you'd expect it to be... I think it's taken me an interrupted hour to get this much done (interrupted both by hit-or-miss internet service and the previously mentioned crazy crew). But I'm glad to do it, and to have the ability to reach out from this corner of the world to our friends back home.  So stay tuned!

The Giffords with Global Infusion President Jonathan Haward