One of those days

I woke up this morning feeling kind of blah. Every once in a while, I get a little homesick and just feel disconnected. I miss home and friends and family. I came home early from school and took a nap. I felt better until taking a shower and all the power went out! :( This is me trying to brown some meat with only a candle to see by!

David promised the lights would turn on soon and he was right! Not 5 minutes later they did come back on!

Days like this are hard, but we are praying for the Lord to refine us and mature us. We want our joy to not be dependent on circumstances, but upon who He is! Easy for me to say, hard for me to live by -at times.

Things I love

We are forutnate to have a lot of American products here. But there are a few things here that are different, but I think are way cooler. They are (in no particular order)

This is how Nicaragua does dish soap. I haven't seen Dawn or Joy, but who needs it, when your soap can come in this cool container. We don't have hot water here and this stuff seems to clean things super good. I'm a fan.

Bug spray in general is wonderful and this is not just Nicaraguan, but this stuff can save my life and ankles many-a-days.

Chiky's are these wonderful cookie things. They are like heaven in cookie form. I could eat the whole package in one sitting - don't worry though I don't!

Milk in a bag - enough said.

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.