We have been sick, sick, sick. Just colds, but it kept us out of the game for a week!! We are both finally on the mend though, thankfully. It has been raining, raining, raining here!! And they say it only gets worse in October!! Yuck! I’m on constant mold patrol.

So where to begin? We had a fun time in Bible class this past Sunday, and actually filled our whole 2 1/2 hours with activities. I made an ark out of a Kleenex box, and a bunch of animals out of toilet paper rolls. I translated “Put the animals in the ark” and we have fun singing through all of the animals. I also translated “He’s got the whold world in His hands” and Juri said her little sister is always singing that song around the house.

David and I bought a computer program that lets you input your house plan and it builds a 3-D version. It’s been really neat to see how the house will look and how all the furniture will fit in the rooms and such. I can’t wait to move to the farm! It will be so nice to be closer to the families (even though we only live 10 min. away now!!).

The kids (Chepe, Edwin, Eddi, and Juri) have been helping me clean around the house. They discovered that we have hot water in the shower so Chepe and Edwin both took showers. I’ve been paying Juri to help me around the house so she’ll have money to pay for school and tests. I made all the kids little banks, so they’ve been saving their money. Every time they come over they get their bank out and count how much they have.

Juri had her 16th birthday this week, so Saturday we had an Accion de Gracias for her. This is where we have church services and a meal as a outreach since the whole extended family will be there to celebrate.

Sunday at church we started an evangelism serminar. Hopefully this will encourage more to door knock with us. We went through the plan of salvation. Yesterday we had a baptism too. A daughter of a woman who was baptised about a month ago got baptised. She’s about 14.

Farm work is coming along as well. Monday we went to Managua to look for parts for our truck (not the new one), so that we can hopefully have it ready for the harvest. Little by little we’re getting it all done!

We also discovered that we don’t have to got to Costa Rica. We just have to go to the immigration office and get them to restamp us (and pay of course!). This is a blessing because 2 months ago they opened up an office in one of the malls (is God looking out for us or what). Our neighbor from Costa Rica is going to help us work on getting our residential visas. She’s been through it all and knows who to talk to if you want to get things moving.

I think that covers all of it!!

We have had all sorts of problems electronically! First they were shutting off the electricity, then yesterday the internet died, but hopefully we’ll be back on track for this week of newsletter and photos!

Last week was a fun week because we got to see the kids marching for their holiday. Chepe Grande (not the little Chepe who always comes over), got to carry one of the flags and lead his school because he is one of the top students in his class. I have some cute pictures of one little boy who played the drums marching in his sunglasses. There were also a lot of small kids, about 1-2 years old, who had their own little toy drum they brought with them to watch the march! Too cute!!

We’ve been working hard with our Bible class materials. This week we are working on getting little story books together of main events in the Bible. In my class I’m talking about Noah, so I made some cute little animals out of toilet paper rolls. I’m turning into a real teacher because now my house is filled with empty cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls and such. Class is getting better every time. Pretty soon I hope that my Spanish is good enough to do the lesson part (right now Cruz does that), but already I can lead all of the songs and activities.

Our Killer Oven struck again this week! One of the hoses got a fracture and the gas tried to kill us, but luckily we always have all of our windows and doors open, so we just lost a few brain cells. But, the good news is that the technician who came out to fix it told us how to lite the oven without dying. He said that it should have a pilot light, but the parts are broken, and it was better to light it my match anyway. I don’t think he knows our oven!

Gas prices went up by 3 cordovas, about 18 cents, but the rumor is that it will go down by 5 cords. soon. There have already been bus protests in Managua. This weekend we are going to go to Costa Rica because we have to renew our visa (good excuse!). Luckily yesterday we talked to our neighbor from Costa Rica and she gave us some good advice. We were going to go on Nica Bus, but she said that they drop you off in the middle of the red zone in San Juan, so we decided to go with Tica. (She told the story that one time they were traveling there, and all of the Tica’s were full, so they went Nica for the first time. They left at 9 from Managua and arived at 3AM in the red zone of San Juan!!) Tica also passes right through San Marcos, so we don’t have to go to Managua first before we can leave. She is also going to help us with our residental vistas, because she said she had a hard time trying to figure out what to do when they had to go through it all. We have really been blessed with so many great helpers!

Saturday Juri, Chepe Pequino (little), Edwin, and Eddi all came over and helped me clean. Juri needs 130 cords. for school each month, so I told her she could work for me a little each week. I started them all a little piggy bank, and was so encouraged with Juri asked if I would keep all of her money until the 15th of the month when school tuition was due so that she wouldn’t spend it before! We are getting somewhere!!

This past Saturday, during our homiletics class, I had the opportunity to practice my first sermon in Spanish. I felt pretty comfortable and I only had to ask twice how to pronounce a word. It’s also interesting to learn that in different cultures you have to preach differently. I normally like to get the audience invloved by asking questions, but they said that that’s not the norm for preaching. I wonder what they’ll say when i start using props for illustrations.

This week, they started turning off the electricity to conserve energy (that’s why we didn’t blog on Monday). They are shutting off power throughout the country. Each department or state has a certain block of time when they cut power off. They?ve been cutting our power off from 8pm - 10pm. Needles to say we had to buy a few candles.

David and I went on a field trip today with our spanish teacher. We got to go to San Juan del Oriente where there are many artisans. They work with clay and wood, and make beautiful pottery and all sorts of neat stuff. One of the men showed us how he makes the clay vases on the spinning wheel. It was amazing how quickly they can shape the clay. They certainly have a ton of practice!!

We also went to Catarina, where you stand up on a mountain and look down at a lagoon in front of Lake Nicaragua. It is beautiful! One of our friends told us that down on the lagoon there is a place called the Monkey Hut that we are going to visit some time. It only costs $5 for the whole day of playing.

We passed by an area where they make all of the wood furniture, and met with the woman who owns a place that we found last year. They make beautiful furniture, and it?s all solid cedar. She told us an awesome story about how her and her husband started with nothing making small wooden figurines under a tree, and grew into what she has now, with about 20 people working for them, and a beautiful house and store. Hopefully I can get her to write up her story and then I can share it in full, but she?s proof that the hard workers can be successful anywhere!

Finally we went to Masatepe to buy Nacatamales. They make their tamales with pork or chicken, and potatoes, tomatoe, green sweet pepper, rice, and you can get the “special” with olives and raisins. They also wrap them in banana leaves instead of corn husk. They were delicious!! This family is also an example of the hard workers. They are famous for their nacatamales and people come from all over to order!

In the end we stopped by Gloria (our tutor)?s house to meet her daughters. She has 4 girls and one son. Her husband passed away about 8 months ago. It is amazing to see how strong they are, and how hard she works to provide for her family.

I got a lot of great questions about the church, so I’ll answer as many as I can right now. Every Tuesday through Friday we have groups that go door knocking, visit contacts, and visit members who have been missing services. This is neat because there is always an opportunity to go, and you go with different people every time. Today we went and visited two members of the church who live in Las Esquinas. They have been missing services on Wed. and Fri. Both had reasons that it was difficult to make it. Quite a few people from this neighborhood have been missing, so we are considering having services there as an outreach, so they can invite friends and neighbors to come, and it will be easier for them to make it too. We would still have services on the farm, just send a few men to help with services there too.

We are still doing our preaching seminar, but now students are getting to practice preaching and teaching. We have about 15 men and women attend, which is pretty good out of 38 members! This weekend we are having a woman from Managua come and give us teachers a seminar on class activities and crafts, so hopefully we can make class more fun!

A lot of times on the Wed. and Fri. classes I take the kids and we practice songs. This is really neat because I let them all get up one-at-a-time and lead songs, and I make all of the boys lead prayer for us. I have been pleasently surprised at how eager they are to participate, and it keeps the kids from being a distraction for the adults in class. I’m going to work on having an official class for the kids soon, because I think more kids would come (our kids attendance is pretty low on the week days). We are just working on getting a routine down!

For all of you who thought I was crazy saying you could call me from that other website, you were right!! Here is the correct website below. Right now, you will have to pay to call, but when we get internet in our house, we can get Skype too and then it will be free.

Check out www.skype.com for a way to call us for little or nothing! You call through your internet service, and it doesn’t cost us a thing to receive calls on our cell phone! So, when you get to thinking that your life has lost a little joy because the Romero’s aren’t there, just start up your computer and give us a call.

Most of you know that I had a 3 month plan when we came: I tried to buy the stuff that we would need for the first three months, because people are coming to visit in October and they can bring anything else we need for the next few months. Well, we only had one color ink cartridge because that should last at least three months, but this week our printer decided that it wasn’t the right cartridge for our computer, and quit working. Plus, you can’t scan or copy if you don’t have the color cartridge; you can only print. So, we ended up having to buy a new cartridge which costs about 50% more here than in the states! Bummer!!

On our last trip to Managua, we bought a computer game for the kids to play. It’s Frogger, but for the 21st century. They are loving it! It’s nice too because it’s actually pretty fun for us to play too. It is neat to see the kids play and actually be able to win when two months ago they had never touched a computer.

At services yesterday, the three congregations in Managua who had been overseeing the work officially released us and put us on our own. They are the ones who came to help with our first campaign last year. Until last month, they were sending different groups out to teach the kids classes too. It is neat to see how many people have come together to help make this work a success!

I don’t know if you had the chance to look at our pictures, but they found two huge snakes when they were cleaning the farm!! David says he wants the next one for a pet, and he’s going to build a cage for it. I say, try it and you’ll find it dead the next morning!!

This week was very busy. I spent all day Tuesday making cakes for Luciano’s going away party. (Don’t forget what this means with my killer oven!) Luciano has been preaching on the farm for the past year, and he has really done a great job! He’s going to Managua to do basically the same thing for another new congregation. We had what they call “Accion de Gracias” after church services, and we had sandwiches, cake and pop. I was a little concerned when they put mayo, mustard, and ketchup on the sandwiches, but it didn’t turn out so bad. There were over 60 people in attendance.

I thought you might be interested to know that when the kids go to school here they have to pay for their notebooks for each subject, and they also have to pay for their tests. If you can’t pay, you can’t take the test. In high school, you have to pay about $8 per month to go to school. That may not sound like much, but it’s pretty significant for them, more than a day’s wage.

I have a strategy for getting my kids to do laundry. The kids here love to help me do laundry, so I figure that I’ll tell my kids they aren’t allowed to do laundy until they’re about 12 or so (or maybe I’ll make them wash their clothes by hand), and then at 12 I’ll tell them I think they’re finally old enough to be able to use the machine, and they’ll love it!