July 1 - 7, 2012

Sunday, July 1, 2012

The team split into 3 church groups to share messages and testimonies. I went to La Quimera church and delivered meat for the Feeding Center for Sunday’s lunch. There was a celebration for birthdays and Pastor Brian had asked me to take some pictures.

There were 2 clowns there to do the message and they did a great job. Everyone laughed and paid good attention to the story. After church, there was a trampoline and a bouncy-house thing. The kids absolutely loved it. I got to meet some nice people who don’t usually come to the church. It was a really nice time. The clowns made some balloon animals and gave me a bear. I got my picture made with them. I had to leave before the piñata and food, but I really enjoyed myself.

We had a great lunch of grilled chicken (our normal Sunday dinner) and then had orientation for the team. It was Charlie’s birthday, so we had chocolate cake. It was a nice afternoon. I got to take a nice nap.

The team split into 3 church groups again for evening service and I went with one group. I really enjoyed the service.



Monday, July 2, 2012

The team went out to do Fiestas, School visits, Street Evangelism, etc. I ran errands with Lesly most of the morning. On the way back to the team house, we stopped and picked up Manuel, Jaasiel and Jorge, who were walking around town for exercise.

After lunch, Mayela and I went back to town to look for picture albums (for the Feeding Center). I picked up some paper for my printer, markers, notebooks for Bible study and some wire for sewing class. We also went to one of the fabric stores and spent a lot of time (and money) on fabric to make the banners for the churches. Bismark, who has waited on me before and knows a little English, had a lot of patience cutting out all of the pieces of fabric that I wanted. He gave me a discount, too.

We all went to Poneloya Beach to see the ocean and then to Suyapa restaurant for dinner. It was a nice evening. Everyone loved the view and the food.

Back at the team house, I worked on the banner sketches some more, assigning colors to the pieces according to the fabric choices that I had made.

I started thinking about how bad I had been over the last year about not exercising, so I got out one of my workout videos and declared July a definite starting point to changing my lifestyle back into one of healthy choices.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The team went out on Fiestas and such again in the morning. I walked 2 miles and stopped on my way home at my favorite Libreria to buy some large pieces of paper, pens for Bible study and graph paper for sketching.

When I got back to the team house, I got my shower and ate oatmeal. I ran Auxiliodoro to the Monte Horeb Feeding Center, since she was picking up her weekly veggies and was needing a ride. Then I got a little bit of laundry done before the cleaning ladies got here. The electricity was off and on all morning, but I finally got my one load of clothes washed and dried.

I made an excel spreadsheet for Lesly for her recordkeeping and then I work on the computer most of the rest of the morning.

In the afternoon, I went with the team shopping downtown. The Cathredal is closed during the day because of construction around the grounds. We did find some souvenirs and then had ice cream at Eskimo. It was a fun time.

I typed up over due blog notes and posted them. I get very behind when there are teams here and so much going on.

The office computer had a major melt down which gave Maylea a minor melt down. Very thankfully, Jeremy’s wife Kelly is a computer tech and she got it hooked up to use Charlie’s laptop (with a smashed screen) as the processor and using the desktop screen, keyboard and mouse.

Mayela spent the night to be able to print out the picture book of Feeding Center kids for the team to take home.



Wednesday, July 4, 2012

It’s Independence Day in the states, but we didn’t miss fireworks too much, since they set them off down here all the time for various reasons. The sound of them sets off Buster the dog, who barks like crazy and then attacks the plants, trees and bushes, sometimes pulling them up completely from the ground.

I talked to one of my sisters and my mom in the morning after my morning walk. I also called Kellie at FBCR to discuss dates for my flight back to Nica after the GIC (missions conference) in Oct.

I got cleaned up and ate my oatmeal. Bah. Mayela and Lesly and I went to town to look for more photo albums, which are very hard to find here. The traffic was horrendous, much worse than usual. There was some big-wig political person downtown, so they had many blocks barricaded from traffic. Since León is mostly one way streets, that made it crazy to try to get around. We finally found a place to park (a God thing) and walked to the different stores. We found a few photo albums at one store, but could not find any more.

I got back on the computer for a while and then got ready for Bible Study at La Quimera. Tina, Erin and Hannah from the team went with me and Estefanie (translator) for the class. We stopped at Maxi Palí for cookies for the class. The girls got to see the new grocery store this way. They liked it.

There was a big storm that blew in at the beginning of the Bible study class. And I mean it BLEW in! Strong winds were kind of scary. It started raining and blew in through the metal lattice work that is the top of the walls. The sound of the rain on the tin roof was very loud. We went ahead anyway and drew our chairs up really close together and Estafanie had to yell her translations. But we had a great share time. The rain ended about the time we were leaving to come back to the team house. I was glad not to have to drive through any storms. It had also rained and blew in León, but had quit by the time we got back.

The team did not have any services to go to at night, so we hung out at the team house and visited. I was so glad to get to visit with Ric for a while.



Thursday, July 5, 2012

Charlie and Gannon joined me on my walk this morning. Since they are big strapping men, we walked down the highway. I’m not allowed to walk down the highway by myself anymore for safety reasons, but it is the route that I prefer, so I was happy to have them along as my personal bodyguards! We walked down to German’s house and I introduced them to his wife. As we were coming back to the team house, we met a big herd of cattle being herded down the road. I grabbed a few pics. I used to see lots of horses and cows and pigs along the streets on my walks when we lived in Poneloya. I miss that sometimes.

The team went out for Fiestas and such. I got cleaned up and worked on emails and messages for a while.

Mike needed to take the car back to his house for Sherry to drive, so he had me follow him in the Explorer to his house and bring him back to the team house. I had been looking at airfares on the computer before we left and was ready to purchase some when Mike interrupted me to pick him up. When we got back and I got back on the website, the fares had dropped. Cool! With using my skymiles, I got my ticket for just $80, so I was very happy! I confirmed my flight details with my sister. We’re all set for our Sept adventure!

Mayela and I visited the Noah’s Ark Feeding Center. Pastor Pedro was on a retreat, so we didn’t get to talk to him, but we checked out records and spoke to some of the workers. I video-ed a song by the kids to put on my FB page. It’s The Lord’s Army in Spanish. I loved that it’s the same song as the States!!

I got all set up for the Sewing Class and Estefanie came early to help me. This was her first time translating for the sewing class since the very first one. Now we have machines set up in our own little sewing room. She doesn’t know how to sew, but she is a great translator and ready to help out in everything! I’m blessed to have her working with me. We made hair scrunchies and headbands. One of the youth from the team, Gracie, came in to work with us, too. She made a headband and I put her picture on FB.

The team went to church for the last night and I stayed back at the team house to rest and see if I could help with dinner.


Friday, July 6, 2012

The team left about 6:30am for Fun Day. I walked about 4.5 miles downtown and back. I just went to exchange some US money on the street corner. There is a guy named Luis there that I used twice in one day when driving by. He saw me coming and said hi, so I walked over to him and asked his name. I got back to the team house and had oatmeal and showered and got ready for the day.

Mary rode with Lesly and me to get the Feeding Center cheese at the Terminal market. We met Mayela there (she arrives on a bus from Chinandega). We all went to Palí to pick up the week’s meat for the Feeding Centers. Mayela and I stayed in the car while Mary and Lesly went in. It’s a long wait for all that meat to be packaged up and I was glad to let Mary go in this time.

I forwarded the info for School Supply Sponsorships to Donna, who will work on wording some documents to share with people. I did more airfare research and finally bought my tickets for Oct 2012 thru Jan 2013. I got a pretty good deal.

Mary and I went to town in the afternoon by hitching a ride with Lesly’s taxi. Mayela hitched a ride to the bus terminal, too. I got my haircut and then Mary and I went to Eskimo to eat icecream. Then we walked around just a little bit looking at souvenirs because Mary wanted some Nica t-shirts, which are pretty cheap.

I made some macaroni in my little hot-pot. It was very tasty. We relaxed until the team got back from Fun Day. They weren’t hungry for dinner before leaving Managua, so they waited until they got back and ordered pizzas from Hollywood Pizza (which is very good here). I visited with the team and enjoyed a slice of pizza, too. I will sure miss Ric and his team when they leave. They are always such a blessing to us.



Saturday, July 7, 2012

Highland Baptist Church team left for the airport at 8:30am. It was too hot by then to walk, so I washed my sheets and had oatmeal for breakfast.

I spent the biggest part of the day drawing out the full-size patterns for the banners. I was really excited to get that part done. Jaasiel and Mary helped to cut out some of the letters. It will be a big job to cut out the fabric pieces, but if I take everything in steps, it will be done before I know it. This first batch is the most time-consuming. After that, all the decisions will be made and it will just be a matter of reproducing them.

Beth’s team from Westside Baptist Church in VA arrived about 4pm. They got settled in and had spaghetti dinner.

Mike, Sherry and Manuel came by and I measured some pants for Manuel so I could hem them for his exercise/dance class.

I got my shower and hemmed the pants and watched part of a movie and went to bed. I’ve been really tired lately. Maybe because I’m walking in the mornings again. The heat here zaps you more than you know. I could really use a nap now and then!

It’s been a really busy summer and the teams have been great. After this coming week, we have 1 week off from teams. We will do other ministry type stuff during that time. Then we have 1 more team for the summer. It’s flown by. There have been over 9,000 Salvations this summer since June 9. Awesome.

God is so good! He is so faithful!