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!

The Widow Maker

Just wanted to share with ya'll a picture of our shower head. It's called the widow maker. Isn't that a lovely name! Here's a picture of it:
It looks fairly normal right? Well if you look at the back of it, you'll soon see why it's called the WIDOW MAKER.
Those are electrical wires, just hanging out! Here in Nicaragua, there are not hot water faucets, everything is cold. Usually there is only one faucet, not two. So in order for there to be hot water from the shower, you have to turn on the widow maker - the water runs through a heating coil of some sort and then you get hot water. But, we've been warned not to touch the the shower head (Widow Maker) or we'll get an electrical shock! How crazy is that!! Needless to say, we have not been touching it!

And because people have been asking - here's a picture of David cutting up a 80 cent pineapple and me loving Coca-Cola Light.

About Nicaragua

We learned quite a bit about Nicaragua today and wanted to share some of the history/facts we learned. Thomas, NCA's computer teacher and a true Nica, shared his knowledge with us!

• Nicaragua has 17 districts. They don't call them states though, just districts. We live in the district of Managua.
• There are 2 autonomous regions on the Eastern Coast, that aren't districts. Why? I don't know!
• The people that live on the Eastern Coast look more Jamicain/African than the people living on the West Coast. The West Coast population look hispanic.
• The town of Managua is the capital of Nicaragua, but is not set up that way. The majority of towns in Nicaragua have a central square, but because of the earthquake that hit Managua in '72 there is no town square. Managua used to be just a fisherman's town, but somehow became the capital! I can't remember why!
• Managua is notorious for having no street names. So giving/getting directions is very confusing. They will say things like, "Go to the place where the statue used to be and it's 4 blocks a lago (the lago is north!)". I should say it's probably just confusing for me, everyone else here seems to know what they are talking about!
  

So there you go! Just a few random facts about Managua, Nicaragua

We're Here!!!

Hi friends and family!!

We finally made it to Nicaragua! I can hardly believe we are here!

We flew out of DFW on Tuesday and arrived later that day. With all of 5 of our bags weighing the maximum, we wre a bit worried about getting there, but with the help of Landon Maples we made it! If you see Landon at Woodcreek tell him we say thanks!! He helped us so much!

After arriving there, we went to our apartment, which is really nice! We have a bed, a couch set, a kitchen table, a fridge, a stove and oven, a microwave and even a George Foreman grill! What more could you ask for!

Our adjustment has gone pretty smoothly! I have definitely had my moments of tears, but the Lord has been very faithful to us.

We were able to set up our apartment to make it more like home and to go grocery shopping - both very good things!

Below are some before pictures of our apartment. Look for the "after" pictures soon!

This is our kitchen area!

This is looking from the hallway to the front door!

This is looking out our front door!
I hope this gives you a little bit of what are life looks like!
We love ya'll and miss you a ton!
P.S. Jeremy and Michelle, I love the digital picture thing!! Love it!! It brings me great joy to see all our friends and family!!

What's in a name?

You may be wondering where we got the name of our blog!? Well, let me explain. There are many, many Russells. There are the New York Russells.There are the Oklahoma Russells

There are the Texas Russells (which I don't have a picture for!) You know what Tracy and Orell look like!

And now there are the soon to be Nicaragua Russells!

So there you have it! The explaination of the name behind our blog!