Pray for Scarleth

Scarleth Chavez, Linda's full-time interpreter and my main help during the fun time of Friday nights has been hospitalized. She wasn't well before we went out yesterday, but said she didn't want to skip a day with our group here. When she got home last night she ended up having to go to the hospital because of a sharp pain in her stomach. She is bloated, and it causes too much pain for her to walk or even sit up.

Tommy and Tim took the 3 men (Heath, Big O, and Stephen) for a fun day in Granada because they will be flying out tomorrow morning and have had 2 extremely long days helping us in 2 villages. They will visit monkey island via boat and do some zip lining through the rain forest of a volcano.

Linda spent time with Jennifer in Leon. They got to catch-up on their personal relationship and also talk about some administrative things. Jennifer and her husband, Larry, are both New Song board members.

Leo and I were going to bus out for baseball practice, but with Scarleth's health we decided to stay in Leon. Leo stayed the entire night before and almsot all of Thursday. Oscar and I stopped by and got to visit her for about 30 minutes around lunchtime. I went and ate lunch at Oscars house and watched a movie with him. It was my first time inside his house and meeting his wife, Jennifer, and youngest child, OJ.

Please pray for Scarleth, they still aren't sure what is going on, and they are talking about taking an ultrasound or possibly her needing surgery.

Wednesday at La Isla

I finally made it back to La Isla for the first time since January. It is the poorest of all the villages we work in, and I am so glad I got to go back and visit. On Fridays about 15-20 youth come from there, so I get to see some people, but not any of the young kids or over 25 year olds. This is Pastor Pablos community and we are really trying to get a church or organization in the states to adopt the community.

We walked around and visited with people and came across a 16 year old mother with a very sick daughter, 17 months old. The baby looked more the size of a 6-7 month old baby, and was in very high need for attention. She has some kind of leg disability, and is in pain all the time. She has hardly any strength, and cannot even support her own head at 17 months! We spent some time praying for the mother and child, and then Pinnacle and Tim got Oscar to make contacts and got the mother money for seeing a doctor later in the afternoon.
We also visited the house of 3 of the youth group sisters, and Pastor Pablo home. I got to meet his 2 sons and wife for the first time. I had some toothbrushes and toothpaste donated from my dentist in Boone, Drs. Mayhew and Conn that I got to give out in La Isla.





From there I headed to Candelaria to meet up with Leo and start our first April baseball practice, Leo’s first paid practice. We got mesh shorts and hats from 2nd hand stores in Leon this morning and now the whole team has the correct clothing for practice. We still need more gloves and tennis shoes or even better cleats. About 3/5 of the boys wear their school shoes for practice.

Pastor Heath led the evening service, and spoke on forgiveness. A message that the villages need to hear every day because so many people there hold grudges toward each other. The smallest things that they need to let go of and move forward they hold down inside and allow it to make them miserable. Daniel played some great praise music and the Pinnacle group got to say their goodbyes. Tim played Casting Crowns-Your Love is Extravagant on guitar and Big O sang followed by an upbeat song Pastor Jose did to close out the service.

Tuesday in Candelaria

Jennifer, Steven, Pastor Heath, and Pastor Tim (Big O) all got in around 9:30 last night and after a lot of delays and layovers they were dead tired. We got up with them this morning and headed out to Candelaria around 10. They all had packed 2-50 lb trunks a piece with clothes, shoes, craft materials, and 5 more brand new sewing machines for the sewing ladies. Freddy drove for us and we organized all the trunks and stacked them in the, starting to become organized, bodega.

Then Big O, Jennifer, Scarleth, and I met with some of our potential youth leaders about howto do some better things for Fridays to help with attention and getting more of the youth involved. All the pastors from Tommys leadership meetings met with Pastor Heath, Steven, and Oscar. During this time the Gables had meetings with the engineers for the Dental Clinic and some possible future projects like the stage.

We all took a break mid day to drive to Chinadega for lunch at RostiPollo and to prepare for our evening meetigs. We also went and looked at a property with a few buidlings under constrution that Tim's group or Pinnacles group in July might use. It is only 15 minutes or so from Candelaria and has a huge center room with a room full of bunk beds and 3-4 showers on each side, for men and women.

Big O led a group of about 25-30 youth aged Candelarians with Scarleth translating. Pastor Heath and Steven had a group of about 25-30 older church members with Oscar and Franklin translating, and Jennifer and Linda each had their own small groups of about 5 elders. The night was very good to say the least, the breaking up for different messages was much more effective and having the members of each group in a circle where they could stay focused on the speaker helped too.

Lazy Monday in Leon

We had planned to have a halfday to catch-up on computer work etc until the group from Pinnacle Chruch of Waynesville, NC arrived around 2, but they were delayed. They didnt actually make it to Leon until 9:30 tonight. Scarleth and Leo rode with Freddy to get them and Oscar did his finance day for NewSong.

Once we heard they would be late the Gables took a family beach day, and I did some computer work and cleaned my room. I had a lunch meeting with Preston and Sandra about the things they need me to help about getting their house setup and kept clean from now til their return the first week of July. They have some beautiful furniture in the house now, and I can't wait to see what it will look like after another week of their hard work in early July.

In the afternoon, I went and visited my lady friends at the post office and shipped out some shirts. I am trying to get their internet back working, I found out last week they have been without it for 3 months. It is a DSL connection and I have everything working on their end, but Enitel needs to fix the line and will not answer phones or call us back. From the post office, I went to see my other favorite Leon women at Comedor Viky.

I eat there almost everyday either for lunch or dinner. They have great unbelievably cheap Nica food and cold fresh fruit drinks and the sweetest wait staff ever. The owner is Viky, probably about 50 and her daugthters and nieces are the waitstaff. What I love there as much as anything are her granddaughters. They have morning class so when I go in for lunch they are always stopping by for lunch and waiting until their mom gets off work. Evenling is 12 and my favorite little girl, not in the villages, is 4 year old Alhejandra. While I had some orange juice and pineapple juice, I talked with the girls and their mother. They told me their favorite colors and what they enjoy at school and in their free time.

I found out where they live and rode my bike there later in the afternoon. I took Evenling a pink jump rope because she told me it was her favorite color and sport. I had a clapper for Alhejandra and a hair kit for them to share. Viky showed me her entire house and I found out they have a DVD player. Tomorrow night Wednesday evening I will go there and watch Finding Nemo with them in Spanish.

The rest of the evening I got to do more computer work and chat with some friends, a few that I haven't had any conatct with in 6 weeks, so that was a blessing. Jennifer and the men from Pinnacle got to La Pasada del Doctor around 9:30 so we breifly met the team and let them get to sleep, they have been up for about 19 hours today!

Hope all is well, sorry I havent been able to update in past few days with country visiting and other timetaking events. We will be in Candelaria from about 9-6 tomorrow to make up for some days missed and to let the team see the schools.

Sunday at the Volcanoes and Horseback Riding

We had a nice included breakfast at our hotel and then we drove to Mom Bachu volcano and nature preserve. It has 2 craters and you can hike both of them, we did the smaller of the 2 in about an hour, the other takes 4.5 hours. We didnt see any crazy wildlife, but the views were unreal. It was really cool seeing the lake from up there when just the day before we were looking at it from the boat and cutting in between all the islands it made from its last eruption.

From there we drove to Catalina and rented some horses to ride down into the lagoon. We were told it was a round trip down and up of one hour, but it actually took just under 3 hours! Needless to say all 3 of us and the horses were exhausted after. On the trip we saw a couple monocongos monkeys. It was cool seeing the monkeys the day before on the island, but these were just climbing around the trees, could have been anywhere else and were yelling at us and watching us ride.

We drove back, well Tommy did 2.5 hours and I slept sitting up almsot the whole way back to Leon. When we got back, Linda had already returned from Costa Rica...about 4 hours before planned so I headed home and let the family grab dinner and spend some time alone.

1st Time to Granada

After skipping out and doing an administrative day last week when the Gables and 3 girls went to Granada for a fun day, I jumped right in when Tommy and Tim asked me to come along this weekend.

Linda is still in Costa Rica with Marcela for leadership conferences and Oscar has Saturday School. One of the youth girls turns 15 tomorrow, which is the most important thing that happens to a girl in Nicaraguan culture, so there is no evening church. What a great weekend for the Gable father and son to bond and they wanted me there to.

We drove a little over 2 hours to Granada and took a boat into the worlds largest lake. It is the only lake in the world with freshwater sharks, but we didnt see any this time. We did boat to a little island where 4 monkeys live. We pulled up and got one of the females in the boat with us and played for about 10 minutes. From there we boated around another 30 minutes and got our hotel.

We walked around the center square and people watched before a great almost American dinner. A place owned by an American man called Roadhouse had big screen TVs and the best Nicraguan hamburgers ever. We got to enjoy the first half of the UNC basketball elite eight game and then did some more walking around. We went to a place that had live music and salsa dancing for the night and then took it to bed.

One thing I found myself thinking about and missing tonight is all my football boys, as the banquet for our 3rd national championship rings took place in Boone, NC. I am glad my parents got to attend, and I got some pictures and photoshopped a picture of what my hand would look like with all 3 rings on one hand.

Lots of Games and Tim Speaks Friday

All the kids were out of school Friday in all 3 villages so we got them picked up around 4 pm so we could enjoy some daylight before our 7:00 youth group.

Baseball practice had about 40 players because the boys that usually just come on Saturdays due to afternoon classes got to come today. Edwin and Leo are doing a great job with so many new kids, and some with very little skill, but they are having fun. I am overseeing the rules and keeping attendance for practices. Starting next week, April 1 I will be paying Leo $200 of my funding a month as head coach and some other mission work tasks he will pick up. The rules include but are not limited to: 100% attendance at Sunday School, perfect attendance in school, proper practice gear everyday, prayer before and after every practice and game, no cussing, and respect for authority. The kids love the time with Leo, but are also leanring valuable lessons in discpline, character, and being on time. In weekly Sunday School they are learning Bible stories and more about character, love, and respect.

Tim, Scarleth, and I setup for youth night during baseball practice, and then once all the kids were there around 4-4:30 and baseball was over we took the field to play kickball, soccer, and volleyball. It was a lot of fun with 16 people from La Isla, 14 from Santa Matilde, and around 20 from Candelaria.

By 7, when we started youth group we had about 110 people there. We had a whacky talent show with kids doing the fart noises under their armpits or knee pits. Tim did a backflip off a table. Daniels daughter, Junieth, and I did some burping and Tommy did his best toilet noises with his hands covering his mouth. Probably not our proudest moments, but the kids were having a lot of fun.

We had some great worship songs, and then we let Tim talk the full 40 minutes about his growing up in church, then making his own decisions, and now his walk with God. He shared about his dad being a pastor, but by high school enjoying sports and parties. He shared about his 7 months in Iraq during the start of the war as a Marine, and time he has spent raising his daugher by himself. He then shared some great verses from Psalms chapter 18 and told the youth about how much better his life has gotten and improves everyday now that he is walking with God.

More Baseball Players

Thursday we had even more kids wanting to play baseball now that Leo has made it open for all ages...Edwin, a 19 year old that plays for Candelaria's Sunday Adult League team, is helping out with all the kids especially the ones under age 10. They are really enjoying the tee because the limited number of gloves leaves so many kids watching. Leo can teach fielding with the older guys while the youngsters take batting practice with Edwin. About halfway through practice they switch.

Tommy and Tim had their Leadership meeting with Oscar interpreting and 2 new pastors have started coming that we will begin picking up on our way through Chichigalpa every Wed-Fri afternoon.

Alfredo and I fnished organizing the trunks in the bodega and then swept out what seemed like 50 lbs of dust. I found a box full of old coat hangers that Linda thought were in there for my room in Leon, and we found 2 nice dry erase boards we plan to hang in the church next week. Paula, Nidia's mother helped us clean and assemble many lawn or poolside chairs that had just been tossed into the walkway of the Bodega.

WEDNESDAY

Last night i got a video done for Melissa when she donated 2 bikes to Nidia and her 3 brothers...Herman can fit on Nidia's and Jose and Wismon share the other. The Patrana's are her favorite family and we took the bikes out Sunday. Melissa wanted to deliver them herself but they were not assembled in time before she left Saturday...click here to play the video or right click and choose "Save Target As..." to save it to your computer.

This morning I helped video tape a drama at the house I stay in for Yader and 3 of his classmates...It was a school assignment and the final product was a 7 minute video about something with a cat and 2 gang bosses and their 2 servants.

We had our staff meeting with Pastor Tommy and got to Candelaria around 3...Tommy had his leadership meeting with 12 pastors and Oscar translated with Tim present. Scarleth and I did some more work on our attendance headshots and organzied the bodega. Here is a picture Scarleth did for fun for the attendance sheet...2 other kids had strings tied to her hair and pulled to the side. Alex helped me win the bodega, and we will have more to do tommorrow, at least another hours worth.

Leo held baseball practice for the first time since his return...some of the boys are out of the routine but I think with him back it will get straightened up quickly. I have decided to use $200 a month of my mission income to pay Leo as the baseball coach along with the work he does to help with youth group and other odd jobs. Scarleth and I went over the rules that we have just made for the baseball team and we have about 10-12 new boys that are joining the team. Leo wants any kid that commits to coming to be on the team to have a shot.

Leo will also be teaching discipline, character, and teamwork. They must pray before and after every practice and have good attendance in school and Sunday school.

We got back to Leon around 7 and I cleaned up, ate, and started doing updates to the blog and other computer daily tasks.

Beach Trip for Carmen's Birthday

Tommy, Tim, Scarleth, Leo, and I went to the beach and brought Carmen and her younger sister Griselda with us. Carmen turned 28 and Tommy really wanted them to join us.

Carmen is 28 years old and was just married by Tommy about 3 weeks ago, to Luis. They have a 9 year old girl Xarling, and a 4 year old, Julie..I love them both to death. Their family is as involved a family in Pastor Walters church in Santa Matilde as any. They are very faithful and have such giving hearts. Luis has built houses for the widows with the wood we got from customs this past month and Carmen is in charge of Sunday School. Both girls are in Sunday school and morning classes M-F.

Carmen has 2 younger sisters, one is very involved in church and youth group, and the other is becoming involved. Margarita is 18 and expecting a child on my birthday, July 2. Griselda is 16 and loves to help at youth group and sings in the praise band some friday nights. All the sisters love to dance with Linda on Saturdays and any other days their time allows.

We had a lot of fun and Tim tried to teach me to surf. The boards we rented were actually not very good and the rental place didn't have wax so it was next to impossible to get up. Would have been hard for anyone, but for a first time i didn't stand a chance...Tim got up a few tiems but took some pretty hard falls because without wax his feet just came off just after getting a short ride.

We got back to Leon and hungout with Scarleth and some of her roommates for a couple hours.

Relaxing Monday in Leon

Was going to head to Candelaria with Leo and Scarleth to talk with the baseball team and do some things, but Pastor Jose called us and said no one was around and it'd be a wasted bus trip out. They have moved rpactices to Wed-Sat instead of MWF.

So I did my administrative stuff, and caught up with some friends etc. Saw a couple movies with Leo and Scarleth and also let Tim borrow a flick or 2.

Went to bed early and slept great.

HAPPY EASTER FROM NICA!

First off, I hope you all have a great Easter with your families.

We went out to Candelaria around 3 and setup for the 6:00 evening service. Tommy spoke on 1 John 2:3-11.

Tim shared his testimony of being raised in church but then in high school choose his own paths, and then his time in Iraq and the struggles with his wife over his daughter, but how close he has coem to God now at Steele Creek Church in Charlotte and that he might be moving here permantly later this year.

It was a great service and one of the youth boys I play soccer with named Virgilio (Be-he-lee-o) came to the front and surrendered his heart. Many of his soccer buddies circled him and placed hands on him for Pastor Jose's prayer. It was very touching.

We got back to Leon and had dinner and then Scarleth, Leo, Tim, and I hungout in Leon and got a taxi out to the beach after midnight so that Tim could play his guitar on the rocks and enjoy the ocean under the stars. We stayed up late, but it was fun to welcome Tim to Nica.