Generosity of the friends

We had some awesome friends come from the states to give us new sound equipment.  THey also brought items for the kids here, reading glasses and other items that were much appeciated.  Here ae a few pics!

Musing on the walk to the meeting

Sometimes I just have to sit back and reflect on just how special the friends here are.  I think about how difficult it would be for me to serve here with out the right gear -for example good quality hiking boots.  Our territoy is very rugged but with my boots I don't feel the rocks heat rivers etc.  The sisters here are always laughing and smiling but its not until I say hey are you shoes comfotrable that they tell me with a casual smile no not really.  They never ever complain.  I was walking with a sister the other day and it was paticulally hot and I wondered why she was walking slower and slower.  She finally asked to stop in the shade.  I thought she was tired but it turns out that the gound was so hot it was pactically melting the rubber on the bottom of her shoes!  We had to wait for them to cool!  She never complained and I neve would have know if I had not asked.  Often times the sisters carry cazy glue or a piece of string because they know eventually their shoe is just going to open all the way up.  We all laugh and make the shoe "talk" then tie it back up and keep on going.  They have such a geat sense of humor.

A few weeks ago, there were no buses running due to a holiday so I got to see what some the friends do everyday.  With no bus, we walked to the terrtiory about 13 miles away.  We are in dry season so we only have water every other day.  So the night befoe we went to a neighbors house to get water from the well to bathe in the moning.  We all woke up at 3AM to cook and get ready and leave the house by 5.  When we walked out, it was pitch black dark.  We walked by the light of the moon until the sun began to rise.  Then, the most amazing thing happend.  We had the moon high in the sky on our right and on our left was the sun rising over the mountains with all kinds of pinks, reds, and oranges.  We arrived several hours later all smiles and ready to preach.  It was so nice to see eveyone getting to service anyway they could.  Some of us on dusty roads by foot, some on motorcycle.  Others still by horescart.  And my pesonal favorite the bicycles.  The family head will pedal with his wife balanced on the bar holding a baby while the older child stands on pegs on the back wheel!  THis is for miles!  Once at the hall we all wash off the dust and laugh and talk and you'd never know.  Despite all odds the friends here love our great God Jehovah!

A few student pics

Here are a few pictuers of some of the students  and their parents.  They are doing very well attending the meetings and other events, commenting and always progessing.  I'm very thankful for their patience with me and my language barrier.  Some walk for miles and miles despite pain and health problems to make sure they are at all of the meetings.  I try to keep my number of students to no more than 16 so that I can appropriately prepare but there is a tremendous need.

Hi Everyone!!!!

Dear sweet intrenet ! Oh how I've missed thee!!!!  I'm sorry for such a long gap in writing.  So here are my excuses: 1) I've been super busy in the ministry 2) I can't find an intenet signal to save my life and 3) My dear sweet laptop finally died.  I have so much stuff to catch up on (taxes and othe boirng stuff ) so I'm hee in Ganada fo 2 days chained to my friends laptop.  While I'm super thankful for the use of it, it's a bit frustating because neither the "r" o "4" works without me having to go back and manually cut and paste it everytime so please excuse any typos!

The harvest ran long but we got through.  When I arrived back in Nicaagua, I was suprised to find many of the friends waiting for me at the aiport with welcome home banners and hugs.  They even through me a suprise welcome home party which I thought was very sweet.  Here are a few pictues fom the party.  Notice how much trouble they had spelling my name on the cake ha ha.  My name is Kimberly but my name is difficult fo many to ponounce so they call me Kin, Ken,Kimber, Kimberling and other variations :-)

Beet Harvest

I'm here working in the States for the beet harvest again.  This year, there are about 25 of us here!  The harvest has started off slowly because it's been unseasonably warm-- to warm for processing.  Ironically, after many days in the 70s and 80s, yesterday it began to snow!  Here are some pics of us hanging out with friends in the local congregations at picnics and visiting their meetings....

Get To Know Our Needgreaters- Marissa

Get To Know Our Needgreaters-Manuel & Marissa

Where are you and your brother from? We are from San Jose, CA in the US.

Why did you choose to be a need greater? An elder in our congregation is now serving in Granada, Nicaragua along with his wife, and they invited us along with a few other brothers and sisters to come for a visit to experience life as need greater.

Why Nicaragua? That is the place where we were invited to go. So we said yeah why not!

Have you served anywhere else? No. We have done seldom worked territory before, but we have never had a chance to get a taste of what life would be like to serve as a need greater.
How long will you be here and how long have you served thus far? We stayed in Nicaragua for 5 weeks. We hope to return again though.

How did you prepare to come? We talked with other brothers and sisters who had already had the privilege of visiting Nicaragua before us. We also talked a lot with the brother who invited us. All the brothers and sisters gave us very good advice on what to expect in Nicaragua, such as what the climate would be like, the cuisine, all the bugs and mosquitoes.

Were you worried about anything before coming? Although we are very young and this was our first trip without our parents we were not really worried at all. We made the trip with a very close friend of ours whom we have grown up with, and the three of us made sure to watch out for each other the whole time. We also we prayed to Jehovah that his Holy Spirit would be with us on our journey and trusted in him. Knowing that our fellow brothers and sisters would be there to greet us also gave us a calm heart.

Have you had to overcome any challenges to get here or while serving here? Financially, it was quite an expense but thankfully we all had our parents who helped out with our trip and actually paid for the majority of the trip. But even then it was a bit of a struggle, but Jehovah always provides, and somehow he made it so that we were able to make our trip and help serve with brothers and sisters in Nicaragua.

Do you have any highlights or good experiences from being here? Too many to count!! One highlight in particular though was being to attend the meeting on a floating kingdom hall with a missionary couple. That was an amazing experience.  Doing service in Granada in general was always a delight. It was very, very hot there, but the people for the most part were always very nice and receptive. That is very different form the States, because we do not always get very nice responses. It was so nice to be able to speak with so many people who were actually open to learning about the bible.  One of the greatest blessings was creating relationships with different brothers and sisters in Nicaragua. We know feel that we have a home away from our own home. We consider the brothers and sisters in the Granada English Congregation to be our Nicaragua family. It’s such a blessing to have that feeling.

How has being here brought you closer to Jehovah? There was less distractions while we were staying in Nicaragua, we were always in service and always with the friends. That definitely brought us closer to Jehovah.  All our days there revolved around our service to Jehovah. We enjoyed a lot of spiritual and uplifting conversations with the brothers and sisters there. After we came back from Nicaragua Manuel decided to become a full time pioneer, a big part of that decision was because all of the encouragement he received from the brothers in Nicaragua, and he will be attending Pioneer school this July.

What do you do in your free time? We have busy schedules, we do a lot of service as Manuel is a full time pioneer, and I am in my second year as serving as a continuous auxiliary pioneer. But when we are not in service, we are just like any other teenagers. We hang out with our friends, listen to music, and go to the movies a lot.

What advice do you have for others thinking of coming? Bring lots of mosquito repellant!!lol. Bring good walking shoes! Try the fritanga! Stick close to the friends. And most important pray to Jehovah before making your decision. And Enjoy yourself!

Fiesta!!

After all of that preaching, we know how to have a good time!  Here are some pictures of parties, gatherings and just hanging out :-)  We are always having get togethers- usually with lots of food, dancing and loud music.  At other times, we get together and just watch movies, play cards and relax.  By no means are we all work and no play!

We love to eat!

 I think one of our visitors brought a Wii on this evening

 Playing a game where a blind folded person has to feed rice pudding to their partner at lightning speed.

 Visiting an island called Ometempe

 Cooling down outside after dancing up a sweat with friends!