David and I got to go see The Interpreter yesterday. It is nice to be able to escape for a few hours a week and just relax and hear some English! I wouldn’t rate the movie too highly though.

Another small joy: Yesterday David and I went grocery shopping and we went to this new place La Union, and they had EVERYTHING! It was very exciting. I even found cream cheese, so I made my Homemade Gourmet Minty Chocolate Cheesecake!

We also got our tutoring all set up. The lady is VERY nice, and she talks nice and slow, so I think she will be easy to learn from. She lived in California for 5 years, so she speaks both English and Spanish very well, though while we were there she never spoke in English. She did a little conversation with each of us alone in Spanish to see how much we knew and I only didn’t understand one of her questions, so I call it a great success! I have taken a new approach to the language. Before, I always translated in my head what I heard, but now I’m just focusing on understanding the Spanish rather than translating, and it seems to be working better. I don’t get so behind. We are going to study two times a week for 2 hours each for 9 weeks, and she said we should be fluent by then if we study enough! How exciting!!

I am so excited because today David and I went to Ava Maria, College of the Americas and set up a meeting tomorrow with our new Spanish tutor! I think it will be such a big help to work with someone one-on-one and she said that they would focus the lessons on our line of work, meaning, Bible words. It costs a fortune, but it will be worth it!

Sunday we had so much fun! Juri, Edwin, and Jose Ricardo came over and ate lunch and dinner with us and we had a ball playing with them. We also gave the two boys haircuts. Not that we saved them much money; haircuts here cost 10 cordovas, or about 60 cents!

We also finally got the tags for our truck on Tuesday after a 3 day effort! I cannot see why they have to make things such a pain here! We decided that next time we are going to make friends with the cheif of police so that we can get special treatment. We saw it work for several people while we were there waiting!

David and I finally got to move into our own apartment today! David’s parents headed back to the states today, and while they were here, we were living in a larger apartment. It will be nice to finally be able to settle in. It also has a desk, so we can set up our computer and then hopefully get some new pictures in the gallery.

Yesterday we were blessed to meet a gringa from Oklahoma. She is the sister-in-law of one of our friends in Edmond. She works with Fair Trade to encourage fair pricing of the arts from Nicaragua, and has been living here for 3 years. She gave us some great tips about living in Nicaragua.

As I mentioned, David’s parents left yesterday, so now were on our own! David tried to get the tags for the truck today, but it ended up being a wild goose chase for tons of papers and things. They were almost done, but arrived at the last place at 3:50 when it closed at 3:30, so they’ll have to finish Monday. And the people from Managua said it was easier to get tags in San Marcos than there! I can’t imagine what they have to go through in Managua!!

We were able to go to the Ducuali congregation in Managua on Saturday for a youth campaign organized by Benny Baker and some students from Harding. Andrew Baker gave a talk about having a servant attitude, and how to live without arguing or complaining.

Sunday services on the farm were encouraging, with 35 members, 43 kids, and two families that were visiting. There were two responses from men who asked for prayers from the congregation to be more faithful. The sermon was about Gideon, who we are very familiar with because David taught two classes about Gideon at the Edmond congregation in the weeks before we moved here.

Everything is still going well, and this week we will work on getting insurance and tags for our new car.

We are so excited that we had a baptism today! A man from San Marcos who has attended services on the farm for a short while decided to become a Christian! They had to drive all the way to the ocean (about 40 minutes) to do the baptism, because he thought it had to be water like that or a river since that is what they used in the Bible. It proved to be quite an adventure, because first they tried to go to the river, but the roads were too bad. Hopefully we can get some pictures of the event up in our gallery soon!

I was so happy today when I discovered a Pricemart, like a Sam’s Club, right here in Nicaragua!! David and I got a memebership on the spot! When we went to the market the past few days the one thing I did not like was that they sold everything in such small quantities. The largest laundry detergent in the store was like the smallest one they would have in the states. But not a Pricemart! They also have appliances, so that will be a big help when we start buying things for our house. I am sure some of the native brands are just as good as those that I am familiar with, but I am just not sure which ones they are. But, the prices for appliances are so much more than in the states! I guess that just balances out how much cheaper food is here.

We also went to the Chevy dealership today and they said that we would have to pay taxes upfront, and they would be returned to us in 2-3 months. Also, $800 of the taxes is customs or import tax, and we will not get that back. So it looks like the truck will cost $13,700 in the end, but that is still a good deal, and we are still pleased!

Well, we bought our new truck today! It is a Chevy S-10 4×2 with full extras (that is what they call it here)! We got a great price too! Very exciting! It has bigger tires like a 4×4 so it shouldn’t scrape the ground like our poor little rental car does. We are very pleased with the way everything worked out.

Now we have to start working on our Visa papers! I think that is going to be the worst part!

Things have still been going really well. The men of the farm have been having daily devotionals (though they last about 2 hours each!) about the work on the farm, and how to follow God’s plan to do the best we can. Everyone seems to work so well together, I don’t anticipate any problems.

It looks like it’s going to be a busy summer! There are several groups coming from the states to do various works in Nicaragua - from Oklahoma, Harding, and more! It will be nice to talk to some Norte Americanos!

Well, things are really going well for us. We were able to reach Nicaragua with all of our luggage all at the same time! One the glass on one picture frame broke, and the plastic around my electric skillet broke, but it still works! I’d call it a great success! David and I are settled in the apartments in San Marcos. Once David’s parents leave, we will move into a 2bed/1bath apartment.

We’ve been car searching all week! So far we (ok, I’ll admit, mostly David) have talked them from $21,000 to $15,500! We also discovered that we can get the tax returned to us because we are working for the church! That will more more than $2,000 back! Very exciting!

The weather is much nicer in San Marcos than in Managua, though all is humid.

We are so excited to finally be here, and thing are working out so well! It will be even more exciting when we finish all the purchases and can start doing the work we came here for.

Well, the monitor is flashing that I only have 2 min. of internet left!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Kim

Well, tomorrow we head off for Nicaragua. We’ve had tons of fun this week! We got to Fort Worth on Monday and spendt the day unloading the U-Haul. On Tuesday we went shopping out at Grapevine Mills. I got some glasses so I can see in Nicaragua, and we got a few shirts and things. Thursday we went to Six Flags with my sister, and we had a blast!! WE rode all the rides, and decided that Superman was our favorite. Friday and Saturday we had a garage sale to get rid of the last of our stuff. We got to go eat on Saturday with the Priebe’s and the Bedecheck’s from Oklahoma City! It was fun to get to hang out one last time before we go.

All in all, everything is going great! Your next update will come from Nicaragua!!