help in field from brothers & sisters from Rivas cong

once again we caught the bus to take us to our territory. today we went south of San Juan del Sur towards Costa Rica also today some from the cong in Rivas were coming out to work along with us, they would meet us at the territory. The bus ride was about 45mins. Some got off at one spot and the others stayed on the bus to end of territory. we worked towards one another



in some areas the houses are close together, at other times there is quite a distance to next house.. . as usual the people are very receptive with bible discussions had at every home.

This family are in my cong hea. Carlos, Sara and their son Diego Caleb. He was very good. didn't complain about all the walking, actually he was having a great time.

We started off walking on a dirt road, but eventually it would become a track in places.

then we came to a river. the brothers were looking for a way to get across, eventually they came up with the solution, take off yours shoes and walk across . . . .



















this river kept appearing. we crossed it 5 times. that was 5 times of taking off shoes, walking across, drying feet (fortunately i had tissues) putting shoes back on, and preaching to the people we met in between river crossings.

what child wouldn't enjoy this kind of morning. Although he didn't get his feet wet, his dad carried him across.

                        then our brothers from Rivas arrive.. .

26 of them came i was told. it was really great meeting them. our group was split up so that we all worked with someone from Rivas.

During the morning, we met this little guy (sooo cute) and his mum. we had a nice bible discussion with his mum, she happily took the literature.
i would love to visit her again, but i have no idea by now where we are. and i'd have to catch the bus which is no problem, but i have been advised not to do anything by myself. return visits out this far are not normally done buy the cong. . . Most don't own cars in the cong, as far as i know only two brothers own a vehicle hea. everyone else get around by bike or taxi or walk or bus.

Hopefully we get to do this territory again and talk to this little guy and his mum.











by 3pm it was time for the brothers from Rivas to leave us.  the brother and his wife on the white jeep offered for me to go home with them rather than catch the bus. yay . .

Days like this make me really enjoy being here.

to Rivas for witnessing with the english group

    the english group go to Rivas on Tuesdays to do english territory. it is 26km from San Juan del Sur. I went along this wk. we caught the bus at 8am. Another witness couple were already on the bus, Abigail & Dale from the States. others will travel over by car.

 along the way the bus stops to pick up people going to work, children going to school and anyone else needing to be somewhere. it didn't take long before the bus was full jam packed and it still kept stopping to pick up people. this ladies bag was in my face, well . . . not quite but just about.
I placed some mags with the man in front of me. I just tapped him on the shoulder and passed the mags over to him, he took them and started reading them. he didn't even turn around.

 There is a wind farm along the border of Lake Nicaragua.. The company I worked for in NZ built 3 wind farms in NZ so I was interested in seeing the wind farm here.

when we arrived in Rivas we made our way to the local park for the group. we were there by 9.15am.

Group foto before we headed out although not everyone is in it and it includes a couple just joining us for the morning who are in a spanish cong in Rivas.

During the morning i wanted to go to the ladies. MC told me the best place to go is at the bakery, but you have to buy something before you can use their toilet. It was the cheapest option, as other places have a set price, so we used the bakery toilet.

we met the group for lunch at this cafe. Most of us ordered pupusas (food from El Salvadore)

After lunch, the afternoon group met back at park. I went with MC on 2 of her studies. They are both spanish studies. One is with a couple of guys who work in a bicycle shop. They build them and sell them. We went to their shop. we are given a seat, we sit and have the study. Both guys have the study, normally Paul would be here but he couldn't come this week. Also one of the guys wife sat in. I enjoyed these 2, they seemed to have the 3 H's.

The next study was with a young lady in a hairdressing salon. Same scene there, we arrive, are given a seat and the study is conducted. the other hairdressers are sitting waiting for customers. eventually a couple of guys come in. One gets his haircut, while his friend waits he comes over to where we are studying and listens. It was a pleasure to have been on these studies. 

(reminded me of Mrs Kumar, keep it up Davi)

its was then time to get a few groceries and get our bus back. The bus didn't get as full on the trip home. i actually fell off to sleep and woke as we were getting into San Juan del Sur . . . .

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new camera

i decide to buy a cheapie camera. i thought anything
is better than nothing, although for the majority of the time here I've been using my phone....so i get this camera...not bad i thought for US$63, lots of great features, 16mp. . .
so i get some shots with my kool camera and then it's time to charge the battery, so i plug it in to do that. when i go to use my camera again, i turn it on to take a shot and this is what comes up on the screen  . . .part of the screen is permanently white and the other part is dark, sad camera. (i think i did something wrong).

 i decide to take a foto with it as it is and the foto comes out fine, i figured out how to use it, you focus on the subject which u can see partially thru the dark part of the screen and take the shot. u use that line in the middle as your sort of halfway guide. the foto comes out fine. . . sweet as. .  its like all things 'hori', they do go, you just gota know how to do it  . . .
I will probably use my fone most of the time. because, what if a thoughtful brother or sisters sees me using my camera and says, 'here Connie, I'll take it, you jump in the foto . . . shame . . .

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some scenes from last wk

the people are friendly, but u do need to be careful.... they will rip u off.... they are very poor. there is no welfare system ..... so they will do anything for their next dollar....

apart from that, they are genuinely friendly. they will say 'buenas dias' as you pass them in the streets...a common greeting here is just 'buenas'...when we visit homes in the territory, we call out 'buenas' at their door or gate. the householder will invite u in, get a seat for u and then we'll sit and discuss the purpose of our visit.

this group of brothers and sisters are waiting for the bus to take us out to the bush where our territory was for the morning, the group on this morning was at 6.30am.....

on the bus....the road became a dirt road and because it had been raining, it was very muddy, i thought we gona get stuck for sure and we'd all have to get out and push but nah....all gud....about 10 of us got the bus, and two cars came out as well.  A brother with his wife in their jeep/truck and another family of 5 who were visiting from the states came out in their van type car....

group foto before we started our territory which was doing the houses along the road from where we got off the bus. The morning started off sort of dry, but it started raining and the road became muddy.

you cant really tell, but the road is really muddy. . . wish i'd had gumboots . . .

This is Suleika (waving) my partner for the morning. She and her hubby are specials who have been assigned to the cong here. They also substitute CO's. we were invited into every house we came to. at one home the lady expressed a desire for a bible, Suilaika gave her the bible she had . . . it didnt have her name in it and looked new . . .the lady contributed for it  .  . . made me feel like I could carry with me a bible for placing as the people here really love and respect it and enjoy reading it with you if they have the time . . .

I took these px with my fone, but by the middle of the morning it was flat....aarrrghhh....which was such a shame because we saw some monkeys in the trees ....heaps of them...... guess to the brothers here it's not unusual to see them, but for me, i could have watched them for the rest of the morning....

when it was time to leave the territory we all piled into the 2 vehicles that had come out. 17 of us in 2 vehicles....that was my 1st day out in the ministry with the cong .....

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the lifestyle of the people is casual. to me they seem pretty laid back....it is common to see people carrying their goods around calling out to people to buy them, they come to your door offering their wares.  goods can range from food that they've prepared to sunglasses, pottery items, jewellery, cold drinks, water, pots & pan , produce...this lady just came to our home selling remote controls ....we didn't need one, as Paul had brought one previously. 

Many of the homes are painted in bright colors.

                   

 this blue house with the motorbike outside is where I live with MC & Paul Hunter. we live on the bottom level and another witness whanau from Australia live upstairs with their 2 pre-school children.



our kingdom hall is about a 6min walk from where i live. It serves the Spanish cong and the English group.

Alot of the homes are not painted so brightly, will post px of some pronto . . . .

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Another day in ministry i had the privilege of working with a group on the stand. It was saturday so many of the children from the cong were out. The sis with hat on is reg pio Gabriella and the children are Pedro & Marianita. They are brother & sister. The zeal of these kids is encouraging.  while someone stayed with the cart others would preach to those on the beach or along the road. i was on stand briefly and spoke to a guy who took a couple of books that he remembered seeing when he was young. he also wanted a bible, but we had no more by then, but we encouraged him to approached the stand next time and hopefully he would receive a bible . . . .

by the end of the morning most of the literature was gone. we refilled the cart with books from our bags. another cart was out this morning also, situated at the park in town . .

amanda 13 is in this shot, she is cousin to the other 2 children

another day in field . . .on our way to our territory

in Nicaragua

unfortunately i am having sum trouble wit charging my camera battery and my phone is flat so i couldn't take any px of the bus trip from CR to Nica which includes the border crossing....so I will still write and you can imagine ...ok so we caught bus from Costa Rica. I was seated next to man, however, wen we were on our way people moved to other seats where no one was so i did to and had a whole seat to myself all the way. along the side of the road were little coffee trees growing and some big ones. They were everywhere. I was told that Costa Rica is THE best place in the world for coffee. I didnt really have time to investigate this for myself. When we arrived at the border everyone got off the bus but u could leave your bags on the bus. Everyone did, so I did..  You get your passport stamped for leaving CR, then its back on the bus. We drove over the border into Nicaragua, while doing this a border officer was on the bus collecting our passports and entry forms into Nicaragua. We had to give to him. When the bus stopped all had to get off the bus but this time we had to take our bags as well. Our luggage also that was in the storage cabin on bus had to be taken off and inspected by officers. So we waited by our opened bags for someone to come and inspect them. I would have liked to have got a foto of this scene. Then it was back on the bus and we were off.

In Nica the bus route took us past Lake Nicaragua. it is the 2nd largest lake in latin america, however, its not like our lakes around Roto's . This lake is home to fresh water sharks. it has two volanoe's in it and lots of islands.
Along its banks are wind turbines. I really wanted to get px of those.
We got off our bus not far from San Juan del Sur and caught a taxi the rest of the way home.

The drive to San Juan del Sur is pretty. finally we were home. first thing i noticed about Nicaragua is the heat...it is hot. San Juan del Sur is surrounded by hills and forests and of course the beach is 2mins from where i am staying.

When we got home, i unpacked and rested up abit.  English group had their mtg that night. Paul & MC are in this group so I decided to go with them. Mtg is at 6pm. The hall is less than 10min walk. I will post some px of the hall & cong asap. MC and I walked home from mtg, Paul had his bike. while we were walking there was a power cut in the street. Everything went black (it gets dark early here, about 6ish) I felt abit nervous as the people here are in the streets until late because its sooo warm at night. We kept walking, fortunately it came back on before we got home.

Today (thursday) I spent the day on bible studies with MC. we did 4 together. we walked to them and that was abit of walking. i bought an umbrella before we set off, i think this will be my constant companion. during the day the sweat was pouring off me, then after field we went for a swim, then home. Paul & MC then went to do one of Paul's studies and MC also had another study to be done before we all went to the spanish mtg tonight. 2 of MC"s students came to mtg, and since I had just met them today it was nice to see them again at mtg. we walked home and one of MC students walked with us, no power cut tonight. Tomorrow the group is at 6.30am, i will go, hopefully it wont be too hot at that time. Once again I am tired as, sleep time for me.

in Costa Rica

before i could leave LA, the guy who was processing my boarding pass said i had to buy a ticket to leave  Costa Rica to anywhere in the states as i don't have one yet and they dont allow you to enter the country if you dont have a return ticket.  I told them I have a bus ticket to leave the country the day after I arrive, but it is with my friends in Costa Rica. That wasn't good enough, so i bought  the cheapest tkt he could sell me. he told me that after I go thru immigration & customs in Costa Rica to go to the airline and tell them about my bus tkt and ask them to refund my tkt straight away...when I got to CR, i wasn't asked at all if I had a return tkt. I was passed thru immigration and customs No Problemo...Paul and MC were there to meet me. I told them what i had to do, so we went to find the airline office. it was closed...we stood around wondering what to do, MC looked online for a phone number for the airline. She found one just as someone came along to the office.
We were told to wait for 5mins and some staff would be along to help us, so we did and some staff came. They served me, refunded my $ back onto my card and we were done....whew...

we left the airport to catch a bus bak to our hostel
for the night. we got a bus we thought would take us where we wanted to go, but no. as we were going Paul said 'this doesn't look like where we should be'
we came to a stop at a bus junction, everyone got off except us. MC queried the driver about where we thought we were goin. He said he would take us but we had to pay again...so we did, then we sat waiting on the bus. eventually people came and got on and we were off back the way we had come from and eventually we came to our stop near our hostel.

                                                                                 we dropped off my bags and then we were out the door again on the hunt for a charger & card reader for MC's mac. This took us on a big walk thru the streets of CR. The drivers here i would describe as crazy and in a hurry. They always tooting their horns. u must be especially careful crossing the road, its best to run across. we managed to find the card reader but not the charger. we then had a crazy ride in a taxi to the bus station to pik up our bus tkts...from there was a short walk back to hostel. Paul went to grab Pizza, we went back to our room.

 tomorrow we need to be at the bus stop by 6.30am. we should be home (Nica) by 2-3pm, hopefully we are as Paul has an elders mtg at 4pm...

I am looking forward to arriving at my destination and getn settled. ....I really appreciate Paul & MC meeting me at airport today..... its 7.30pm, time for shower and a moe ....