Meet Paolo and Steven

This is Paolo (left) and Steven.Paolo is a gentle spirit. He wants to please, he's kind and has a great soft smile. Paolo is a great friend to all his classmates. He's one of those kids that is just all around great. Steven, on the other hand, is crazy! Not crazy, in a bad way. Just so excited, so hyper, so not-listening-to-me ever. Steven will be in line one minute and the next second he will be climbing a tree dragging some poor innocent girl with him. He screams probably once every 7 minutes. I have said to him, "CALM DOWN" so much that I overheard him saying it to another student - he has no idea what that means because his English is not very good!

These two kids are so different, but I love them both. I love Paolo because of his meek, gentle spirit. I love Steven because he loves life and lives it to the full. They are both cool kids.

We have coming up Nicaraguan Independence Day. At our school, they celebrate this big time. I mean BIG time! David and I are learning a traditional Nica dance about corn - they'll be pictues later! My kids are also learning a corn-Nica-traditional dance. It is one of the funniest things I've seen. The boys are going to have pretend machete's, so right now they are practicing with rulers. Giving 6 and 7 year old boys pretend machete's is not the best idea. Instead of dancing they act like they are cutting off each other's heads.

Here is a video of they boys dancing. If you look closely you can see Steven in the far back not dancing, just turning in circles!

Our blessings

We are still figuring out life out here in Nicaragua. There are quite a few things that we still are learning about. One of them being -how to pay bills. We get our water bill and electricty bill just laying on our table. How it got there? I'm not quite sure! But anyhow, you can't pay them on line, we are gone most of the day, so we can't go to ask the office how to pay it. So we were stuck!

We eventually figured we'd just do our best. So we gave some money and hoped it would cover the bill. Come to find out our school is beyond fantastic! The apartment complex overcharged us -which again how would we know! So the school (and many other people) fought for the apartment complex to lower the bill. And they did!! (The lowered it about $10) When do you ever hear that happening?!?

Also our shower head (Widow maker) has not been working - so we've been taking cold showers for a month. David mentioned it to one of the school employees and guess what!? He is helping us get a new one!

We are beyond blessed to be in a place with SO many people willing and desiring to help us! They show us how to be true servants.

Our Night

We have been really blessed to come into a fantastic community here in Nicaragua! There is a great sense of fellowship, genuine care, and respect for others. We have met tons of people here. Some of them are in ministry, some of them have normal jobs, some are with a non-profit organization. Some are from a conservative background, some are from a more charismatic background. Somehow, the Lord has blessed this group of people with unity and it's really cool to see and be apart of.

Tonight we hung out with a lot of these people and did this!

This is our friend Rebecca hitting a pinata!

And now, this is what David and I are doing!

He's sleeping -because he's bone tired and I'm bloggin! :)

One of my greatest loves. . .

is fans here! I love them! It is absolutely wonderful here when you have a cool breeze and fans going! But sometimes the power goes out - like today for about 3 hours and the fans do this:

That's my fan motionless. It was a bit sad and I was even more sad when my kids where cranky, hot and not listening!

But have no fear, it eventually came back on!

Nasty Feet

Nicaragua is great! We really do love it here, but there are some things that take some getting used to. One of them being - my feet are almost always disgusting. It's too hot to wear anything but sandals, so my feet are always in contact with the elements! We are in the rainy season right now, but apparently in the dry season it is really, really dry and dusty. If my feet are nasty now, I can't imagine what they will look like then!

Everyday when I come home from school, my feet have dirt, dust and mosquito bites all over them. I have to wash them when I come home and then again right before I go to bed. I don't know about you, but going to bed with dirty feet is close to terrible!

Check it out.

2 posts in one!

Well, our first week of school is over! This week has been both great and also hard! For me (Kristina) 1st grade has been pretty good, not too different than kindergarten! The hard things are the lack of English my students have and just the difference in Nica and American culture. I spent most of the week repeating myself extremely slowly (with hand motions) so they would understand what I was asking! I also had to learn how laid back the Nica culture is, even in school. The concept of students walking in a line is not the norm here. Oh, but it will be in 1st grade!!!

David's week was a bit exhausting! He is teaching 2 classes of Economics, 2 classes of Geography and 1 Bible Ethics class. He loves the Economics and Bible class; the Geography is bit less exciting. He's got some awesome students and then some students that test him. The first week/year of teaching is always trying, and it's not different here in Nicaragua!
You can pray for us to have strength, patience, joy and endurance to get everything done (plans, making test, interacting with students, teaching in the heat, etc.). Also pray for us to have a deep love for our students.

Here's a pic of David on Friday after his last class!! It's sums up how we were feeling! ( I don't know how to turn the picture yet)

Tonight, we got to celebrate a new teacher's birthday! Apparently, for all birthdays the teachers go to TGIFriday's. So, it was super fun to have yummy American food. Here is the birthday girl, Melissa, and another teacher, Joel.

And here is David and I eating a delicous chocolate, heavenly dessert! :)

Looking at this picture, I feel like I look a bit sweaty, so please don't judge me - it's hot here!

Schools In!

David and I start school tomorrow!! We can hardly believe it! If you get a moment, pray for us! We are a bit nervous (and excited too!)
Pray that we:

• will start Monday and this week off well- with good discipline, procedures etc.
• form good connections with our students!
• present the Truth in a clear, engaging way.

Thanks again for all you do and support! We could not be here without you!

Our School

We have been at our school (NCA) these past 2 weeks furiously learning about the school, Nicaragua, and teaching in general. It has been overwhelming, but also really good! We really love NCA - it is extremely nice for Nicaragua - more on that later! Here are some pictures for you!


This is David's room. I think it's one of the nicest one in the school. It has really tall ceilings and tons of windows. The windows are fantastic for a breeze (there's not AC), but terrible for the mosquitos. His room basically backs up to the jungle!






This is a picture of the hallway in the high school area. It took me a while to understand that these are hallways - even though they are outside!





Here is just a corner of my room. It's pretty huge - which is way cool!
As you can see, it's pretty much like a school in the states, just with mosquitos, breezes, and occassionally a bird in your room!