I was thinking that I haven’t really described our apartment, and the oven tried to kill me, so I thought these might be good things to mention.

The man who invented the pilot light is my best friend! We don’t have one in our oven, and I almost die every time I try to bake something! We’re going to look for one of those long lighters, because the hole to put the match is too small and it always puts out the flame! Plus, I always forget and turn off the stove-top thinking I can just turn it back on, but no, no pilot light! But we do have an oven and stove-top, and that’s saying a lot!

I also thought I’d mention that we only have hot water in the shower. But, they have the best dish washing soap ever, because it cleans everything, including grease, in cold water! Let me know if you want me to send you some. =)

Yesterday we had Mateo’s family over for lunch, and it was quite a task, because they have 7 kids! But all went well and I even had a little food left over. We were going to have the kids sit outside, but it started raining, so we had to put them in the office. We don’t have a dining table yet, but we all managed. The best thing is that the guests ALWAYS do the dishes here, so I didn’t even have to worry about cleaning up! They are a really neat family, and we’re going to do our next family spotlight on them. I forgot to mention that he is the caretaker of the farm.

If you think of anything that you’d like to know, email me and I’ll put it in the newsletter. It’s hard to remember what we say and don’t say since we give so many reports, and if you want to know, others might too.

Things are going great for the farm! Yesterday we had a man from a neighboring farm take David on a tour of their farm and he came to see our farm and offer suggestions. He gave us three things to do before this years harvest (in October): clean the area around the coffee plants, remove some vines that have grown on the coffee and are choking it, and spray something to get rid of fungus. They are saying (don’t ask who “they” are because I don’t know) that this is going to be one of the best coffee seasons because everything seems to be coming together perfectly. This man estimated that we can make maybe $40,000 off the coffee. That sounds like an awful lot to me, so we’ll see. But if it does happen we can have a great start on getting ready for the next year. Mateo, our caretaker, has proven to be a great asset. He has done a great job cleaning the farm with very few resources, and he always comes to us with great advice. God has really blessed us to have someone like him on our team. One of our projects with the coffee profits is to fix a house for him. He has 8 kids, and they live in a tiny little house, and has for a year now. That is one of the first things that I want to change.

Our house is kind of in limbo. We aren’t going to be able to build in October, because it’s too rainy and is the beginning of the harvest, so we’ll be too busy. I think we will have to put it off until January. First, no one from the states will want to come during Nov. and Dec. because of the holidays (at least I don’t think so), and we again will be busy with the harvest. That will also give us more time to get the materials together, as we still don’t even have a materials list. We did get to see where to buy the materials, which was encouraging. On a side note, I was very happy to find that water tanks (750 gallon) only cost about $120. Sometimes they randomly cut off the water, so we want to have a reserve, and we are also researching collecting rain water, as I will have my own water purification system anyway. Another good thing about building in January is that we will know if there are things that we can’t get here that we want and we can get them when we visit the states (we were planning a trip in January to get David’s tooth fixed).

We have had sooo much trouble with mold!! My little carry on suitcase was so bad I washed it with a rag with straight bleach, and the mold still came back! This has confirmed my desire to have a dehumidifier somewhere in the house. Maybe we can make a safe-room! I just can’t figure out why it shows up on one suitcase and not the other. It’s a puzzler.

The busses had a strike the other day, and that cripples so many people because there are a lot of people who live out here and travel to Managua to work (don’t ask me why they don’t move closer). Juri said that it was actually the people who wouldn’t let the busses pass because they want lower rates. The bus drivers say they had to raise the rates because of increasing gas prices, but I think gas prices are about the same as they were last year.

We’re almost done putting up the fence in the worst areas, so hopefully this coffee harvest we won’t lose much crop to stealing. This was a small investment that should produce great results. Some of our neighbors aren’t too happy though. One of the guys even tried to rebuke us for cutting down some of our trees to make room for the fence because he wanted the wood!

Monday we went to Managua and met a member of the church who helped us find some places that we might buy materials for our house from. I have to convert our house plan from feet to meters, and then he is going to help us get a materials list going. It still looks like we are going to have to put off the house building. I can’t remember if I said this before, but it rains a lot in October, so we have to wait at least until November, and then it just depends on us getting everything ready.

Solis Family Story

My family is very big and wonderful. There are 7 people: 5 siblings, my mom, and my grandma.

My mom’s name is Mayra. She doesn’t work because she is dedicated to watching us kids, preparing our food, and washing our clothes. My grandma moved in with us after my father had passed away so that she can work and can give us food, pay for our school, and buy us our school supplies.

My brothers and I study at school. Only three of us go to school because my sister is too small and my 13 year old brother doesn’t want to study. We are all Christians and we have been Christians for one year. We are members of the Church of Christ on the farm. We live next to the farm. My house is made of planks of wood and tin, and is very small. We all share one bedroom except for my grandma, she has her own. All six of us share three beds. We have drinking water, lights, and we have a small garden too. We have a dog named Chiripa and another puppy named Dolar. We also have three chickens.

Our names and birthdates are:

Yuri Nohemi Solis Davila - I am 16 years old (back left).

Eddy Francisco Solis Davila - My brother is 13 (far right).

Edwin Alverto Solis Davila - My brother is 10 (bottom right).

Jose Ricardo Solis Davila - My brother is 7 (bottom left).

Reyna Eliza Solis Davila - My sister is 4 (bottom center).

My mom, Mayra Davila, is 29 years old (back right).

My grandma is named Maria Lidia Ortiz Davila (back center).

My dad was named Jose Alverto Solis, but it has been 2 years since he passed away.

Teaching class went much more smoothly this time. We started out with puzzles which helped with the kids who don’t like to stay in class. Then we sang songs. I taught them “Read your Bible and pray everyday” and “He’s got the whold world in His hands” which I translated. For the lesson, my co-teacher and I both had illustrations, so that helped keep the kids attention. We have 17 kids who range in age from 1 to 5. There were a total of 41 kids in the classes.

We had a meeting with the men of the farm today to go over the finances for the past year. It was a little overwhelming, but we learned a lot about how much to pay workers and how to hire workers to avoid legal problems. Mateo, our caretaker, said that we should have less expenses for workers this year because most of the farm is cleaned up. We’re just doing the work little by little, but it is amazing how much has been accomplished. We got to drive around the farm and see all of the work done, and it looks so much better than last year, and I was amazed to see how large the farm really is!

Tuesday, Flor, a member of the church, had a little baby girl! She was a month early, but is perfectly healthy, and a cutie. And you won’t believe what they are going to name her! Kimberly!! What an honor! It’s very exciting too because Israel, Flor’s husband, usually doesn’t come to church services, but Wednesday he came with the kids because Flor was still in the hospital. So maybe this will be an opportunity to reach out to him and see Christ’s love working through the church on the farm.

We also had a baptism last week that I forgot to mention. It was a very sweet woman who has been visiting or a little while. She has 4 beautiful daughters. We got to take a picture of her family, and of her baptism that hopefully I’ll be able to put up here someday. I need to come to the cafe sometime when it’s not very busy so the owner will have time to show me how. These computers are kind of weird because you can’t just open any program, so I don’t know how to do it on my own.

I’ve decided I am going to have to up my grocery budget! We have so many kids over that I can hardly keep up! It’s been fun getting to know them though. We spend time playing games on the computer, singing church songs, and learning Spanish. They always want to be there when I wash clothes to see how I do it in the washing machine (luckily our apartment has a laundrymat - very unusual). I am still amazed at certain things we just take for granted with our kids. For example, yesterday, Juri (15 yrs old) asked me where the air comes out for the air-conditioning in the car!

The work on the farm is still going well. We might be able to sell some wood to a lady who is putting up a fence herself, and make a little extra money. We’ve been real encouraged about the different things that we can do with the resources on the farm to make money every month. Later this month, Augustine is going to come and help us put together a plan for the coffee: how to get it all cleaned up, what other crops we could plant to provide monthly supplemental income, and that sort of thing. It is great to have someone with experience to help us get on the right track.

Wednesday, we went with some members of the church to Managua to go to a seminar about “How to interpret the Bible correctly” and it was really good. He went through what the New Hermaneutics is and why it’s wrong, and then showed that you have to understand Scripture in relation to other scriptures and within the Bible as a whole. He gave specific examples of how one passage might be difficult to understand unless you look at other passages with it (for example: baptism in fire). Very interesting.

Well, I taught my first Bible class yesterday. We have three classes: ages 2-5; 6-8; & 9 and up. I taught the first class, and I won’t say it was a great success. Right now they have classes through the adult classes and the church services, so it’s two hours with the kids. I suggested, and we are changing that next month, to where the kids go to services and only have classes for an hour. But for now, it’s two hours. The other teachers let the kids walk in and out of class to see their parents in class/services, and I had some problems when I wouldn’t let them. The kids aren’t bad, they just don’t discipline them much, so when you tell them something, they just ignore you! But, we taught on creation, and they kids repeated back what God created on what days, so at least they learned, just not in the organized way I’m used to. I’m sure it will get better and better as I learn more Spanish and the kids learn how things are going to work. I was excited to see all of the supplies that they have. They had puzzles of animals, crayons, crafts, and some good pictures to help teach class. Crayons and materials cost a lot here, so I’ll have to get someone to bring me some - so whoever visits first be ready!

Oh, I almost forgot that we also started feeding the kids breakfast on Sundays. We found that a lot of them come to class hungry, and who can learn when they’re hungry!?! So we bought bread and DeliSoya (a powder you mix with water and it tastes like chocolate milk), for 50 kids and it only cost about $6.60!

Yesterday, Gabriel, one of the kids (he’s about 12 or so) asked me when was the first time we came to Nicaragua, and if I spoke Spanish this well then. I thought “Yeah! I speak Spanish well!!” The teachers had a meeting on Saturday, and I understood everything all by myself (David wasn’t there), and only had a little trouble speaking. Our tutor suggested we keep a diary in Spanish about our days to help us with verb use and with practicing our Spanish. That way she can correct it and we’ll have something to study. So… from now on I’m going to blog in Spanish. Just kidding!!

Well, if you can believe it, I’ve learned a lot of Spanish in only one tutoring class. Today Eddi (13), Edwin (10) and Chepe (8) were over at the house while David was gone, and I didn’t do half bad talking to them. (On a side note, I think it’s odd that their mom named one of the boys Eddi and another Edwin). Our tutor did a really great job. She started out with greetings and closings and was sure to tell us words that were unique to Nicaragua. She also made sure we knew the difference between words that the people in the country say that aren’t proper. That’s good to know since they will be the people we talk to most, but we don’t want to speak poorly. She told us words not to say too because it might offend people in this area because of different meaning brought on by the revolution in the 80’s. Towards the end of the class we used the Bible to learn some different words too.

Having the kids over today, I was very impressed with their Bible knowledge. Last time they were over (Sunday) we told them to learn John 3:16 before they came back, and today Edwin could quote it for us. Later, we were looking in Chepe’s school book, and there was a picture of a whale, so I asked who Jonah was, and Edwin was able to tell me the whole story, including the word Nineva. Not bad for a child who’s only been going to church for the past year!

The past few days David has been working on clearing the road in the farm, and clearing space around the farm for our new fence. While he was there, they discovered 6 men hiding from them in the coffee. They snuck in to steal bananas and coffee, so the fence will be a great help to keep our produce in and unwanted people out!