We started the real full harvesting on Monday, and wow, is there a lot to do! We have about 90-100 cutters on the farm that get there about 6am and cut until 3 or so. Then we call them all in to measure what they have cut (we pay by volume, not by the hour). Monday was very disorderly as everyone wanted to be first in line to be measured. Nicaraguans aren’t great about standing in lines anyway (if you aren’t smashed up against the person in front of you they just cut), but things went better Tuesday because we just called them by name. We measure on a concrete area, and we didn’t alow anyone that wasn’t being measured on the concrete. A few tried to get on the concrete, but when I told them I was noting their coffee under the name of the person we were measuring they moved off real quick!

Some were making fun of me for the way I said their names, or spelled them, so I told them if they could say and spell my name “Kimberly Rene Ferguson” then we would talk. I said it real fast like they talk and in my heaviest southern accent. They told me to say it in Spanish, but I told the that was cheating because they weren’t saying their names in English for me. Then it just became a joke of them trying to say my name.

We got our house plans all finished, so as soon as we are ready (some time after Feb.) we can start on the house building process. Right now we don’t even have time to think about anything besides coffee!

Poor David, he has to oversee the harvest, plus watch the farm at night from 6-10. 10:00 here is VERY late! The other night we were helping another of the guards with their shift, so we got home about 11:30 or so, and I made “dinner” for us (4 adults and 3 kids), and finally got in bed about 12. That was Sunday night, so David had to be up at 5:30 to be at the farm since it was the first harvesting day! I don’t know how he did it! Please keep him (and me) in your prayers for the next few months that we don’t over do it!

On Friday we celebrated a very American holiday. David’s parents are here, and they wanted to have a Thanksgiving meal, so they bought a pig. When I told my sister that they were looking for a pig, she said “You mean a ham?” Nope. Patricia’s father used to be a butcher, so he got it all ready for us, and some of the women of the church worked all day to prepare the meat, veggies, rice, and pumpkin for about 100 people. Giovanni gave a lesson about imitating the church of the first century. How they ate together and met together daily. This next year we hope to implement more meals after Sunday services. It is a good opportunity to help the people who don’t have food to eat, and have time to get to know each other better.

We have had a nice break this week since we aren’t cutting coffee, but we are trying to up the guards on the farm ,so David has had to make rounds every night this week from 6-10pm. Good thing he didn’t draw the later shifts. Yesterday someone cut our new barbwire fence so they could get in. Next year we are going to plant cactus so that most won’t dare to try to come in. For now we are just doing what we can.

We had to take one of the member’s husband to the hospital this week because he was poisoned by the pesticides on the coffee farm where he was cutting. They kept him over night in the hospital. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

Israel with Pig

The church on the farm set a new record for attendance. We had 101 people in church services Sunday morning. 50 adults and 51 kids!! I am going to have to start buying more cups for the kids refreshments! It is so exciting to see how the church is growing and staying involved. Sunday evening we went to the Jinotepe church of Christ to visit. We had a lot of members go to this service as well; two truck loads in fact (over 20 people)! It is great to see how the members jump at the oportunity to fellowship with other Christians.

Our break from cutting coffee is going to be shortened because it is ripening so quickly. We are going to start again on Wednesday. Now that the big truck is ready we can cut tons of coffee and not worry about how we are going to take it to the processing plant. We still need to get the tags for the truck, but our last experience with that has made us wasnt to drag our feet to start the obnoxious process!

Sunday we were able to pass out sweaters to the church members that Christians in the states graciously donated. It is starting to get cold at night, so they couldn’t have come at a better time! When we come back in January we are gong to concentrate on getting kids clothes, because twice we have been able to give clothes to the adults, but not to the kids. Hopefully I can get sizes so everything we bring can be used. We’ve also been asked for shoes, so we will have to work on that too.

Our Spanish is coming along nicely. It works because David knows all the words for the farm and such, and I know all th words for cooking and such, so we make a good team. The kids always laugh when I get to tell David a word he doesn’t know because he always used to have to translate for me. I even got to help Augustina on her first day here! But then it all came back to her after a little practice and she left me in the dust! It is really nice because the people here are so willing to help. Juri always tells me when I say something wrong, but when she corrects me I say “That’s what I said.” It is amazing how our ears are trained to her somethings differently, but others sound the same. I’m just glad they can understand me, because my fear was that I would learn the words, but my accent would be so heavy they still wouldn’t understand me!

David and I are thinking about buying a horse!! It is a very nice horse for here. Most are very skinny and small. It is a female, so it wouldn’t be able to do any heavy pulling for us, but it would be nice for riding around and checking on the farm. Our truck has a few more scratches from the farm than we would like. They want 1300 cords for it which is about $78, but we are trying to talk them down to 1000. They told 1000 to Israel (a member of the church), but I am a gringa (white) and that ups the price substantially. It could also help cut our grass! We are still trying to decide.

We aren’t going to have the cutters come and cut coffee next week to give the farm a chance to ripen some more. Right now we are taking about 4 or so sacks to CISA to be processed, but it would be better if there were more so the expense of taking it is worth it (gas and such). We are also done cleaning, so we are going to take next week to do some major planning. We have been so busy with the day to day that we really need a break to plan the tomorrow!

Right now in the church we are visiting church members. The evangelism class we had is also visiting those recently baptized. We grouped the class in twos and each couple is in charge of someone who was baptized since July. It is great for the members to immediately be able to practice what they have learned.

I wanted to ask that this week everyone say a special prayer for the homes. Here and in the states we need to pray for God to strengthen our families spiritually and protect them from the snares of Satan. It is so much easier to do what is right as a team than working alone.

Mark your calendar, clear your date book!! We are coming to the states for a visit (well, really a dental appointment, but you can think it was because we missed you soooo much!). We will be arriving January 12th and heading back on the 31st. We told the kids about it and they are already distraught.

Coffee picking is going great! We cut 2 fanegas today (oooo, aren’t you impressed by my jargon) which is 4 big sacks!! It is amazing how fast the coffee ripens. I haven’t had time to cut any this week, but David’s parents are in town, so I am planning to take them to spend a day cutting. Which leads me to…

David’s parents are in town. They got 12:40 last night and we didn’t get home until 2:30!! Joe got to preach our devotional tonight, and he taught on laying up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. We talked about how even our lives or our families could become earthly treasures. He encouraged to make heavenly treasures by spreading the gospel and doing good deeds.

This morning was like Christmas for us! They brought us a ton of sweaters (and nice ones too) that my sister, sisters mother-in-law, and mom got together for the church members. They also brought some markers and school supplies. It is ridiculous how expensive markers are here!! They even managed a box of Cream of Wheat for me!!

We have had a lot of involvement from the church members on several projects lately. We had a day cleaning the beans that the church planted, and then Saturday we had a day to beautify the house where we do the kids classes. We cleaned the grass, planted flowers, and made a little walk way. I didn’t get to take pictures because I was working, but hopefully we can get some up showing the “after.” It looks so nice now.

Got pictures up of my cutie niece and nephew!! (under family in the gallery)

Waking up at 6:00 am is not a usual Saturday routine. But today was a special Saturday. 10 members of the church came out to the farm and helped clean about 2 1/2 acres of weeds from the beans that have been planted for the church. It was really great to see these members give up a Saturday and put in some time to help the congregation. They work hard daily to earn very little, so this was a big sacrifice. Me and some of the kids went and bought “enchiladas” for the members who worked, just to show our appreciation.

Since the members were weeding for the Church, they could not pick coffee, so Kim and a few kids of the congregation went to pick coffee. They picked about 15 lbs. of coffee in four and a half hours. I think she needs more practice.

Kim and the kids went to pick coffee

We finally have a rent-a-cop on the farm that will be working on the farm to watch out for coffee thieves. He’ll be working with us until the harvest is over. We also have three Nicaragua soldiers that show up every so often to make their rounds. Right now the coffee price is pretty high and so a lot of thieves are taking advantage.

God has certainly blessed us with a good work day today and a lot of good work was accomplished. Until next time.

We had 47 kids in Bible class Sunday. I had 17 in my class! This is encouraging because attendance was dropping off, but it is the rainy season, so a lot of people have been sick. One little girl, Yerlin, asked if she could sing, and it was sooo cute. She got up and said “Good morning everyone. God bless you!” (with tons of inflection), “This morning we are going to sing “The Stairs” (about Jacob) and then she started singing. At the end she said “Amen!” She sang us about 4 songs and did this for each of them (mimicking what the song leaders do in services).

Canda is baptized.

We had a baptism too! Canda, Juan Pablo’s sister. Juan Pablo is bringing his whole family to Christ!

Friday I started working with Edi (who doesn’t go to school) to learn all of his ABC’s. I told him he could play one life of Frogger for every time he said them without mistakes. About 10 minutes later David left for the farm, and I told Eddi he could go if he wanted to, but he said it was better to stay and practice. After he said them twice without mistake, he asked if he was going to have to say them the next day. The he said “And if I don’t I can’t come in the house or play Frogger” and I said “Sure.” It was encouraging because you could tell he really wanted to learn, which is new for him. The next morning he rushed to me first off and said “Do I have to say it” and again I said “sure” and he could say it all! Nice when a kids makes his own rules, enforces them, and plans his own punishment if he doesn’t follow them!!

Today we went to Managua to help get a move on the work on the old truck. We really need it for the harvest, but everything goes so slow here. Plus you are charged for every phone call, so no one wants to call you and give you an update or tell you what else they need. But we did get things moving, so hopefully we will have the truck very soon.

After, we visited CISA (a company that de-pulps and buys coffee) to learn the process that the coffee goes through to get it ready to toast. We are considering depulping it ourselves to save money and create some more jobs. We also learned a lot about using the pulp of the coffee for fertilizer. You basically make a worm farm in the pulp, and in about 3 years the worms turn it into dirt (fertilizer). You can also feed the worms to your chickens. He also said that you can make gas (to cook with) out of the pulp. Maybe next time I will tell you the process to get the coffee ready to toast.

We are at the car place getting the oil changed, and they have free internet so I thought I´d take advantage of it!

So what is new? Yesterday was the Day of the Dead here, so no one worked or went to school, and there were a ton of people at the grave yards. Giovanni gave a good little lesson last night about what death is: seperation of body and spirit, and how it should be something we look forward too if we are in Christ.

I am so thankful that we have gotten a gift to help us make it through this harvest. It was looking like we were going to have to sell the coffee right away to have money to pay for the harvesting, but now we will be able to save the coffee and sell it when the price is the hightest. We also hope to keep a little aside to process and toast to see about the quality for future selling. This puts us in a really good position, because ideally, this harvest should pay for the next years work and harvesting, so we are always a year ahead money wise. We are also going to work on getting animals on the farm for the next year, because they clean the grass as well as fertilize. Then we can also plant short turn around crops to make money through out the year. It will be nice to get this harvest done so that we can start working to make the coffee even better for the next year!

Oh, the car is finally ready!!!

Edwin clearing spider webs

Yesterday I got to have fun walking on the farm. Edwin was my guide, so he went before me clearing spiderwebs and making me a path. I got to visit the church members who have started harvesting. Most of the trees are still green, but some are ready. We just need a good week of sun to ripen the berries. It is very sunny today, so hopefully this weather will continue!

We had a meeting with our house planner and settled on our plan finally. Now he is going to get to work on the actual plans (foundation, electrical, etc.). It is nice to finally feel like we are getting somewhere on the house.

Plane tickets are getting very cheap. I just got an email from Orbitz.com to fly from DFW to Managua for $350 in February!! Hopefully this will continue! Start planning your trips!

What a fun weekend we had! Sunday the kids got to go in front of the church to say memory verses and sing. My class sang two songs, and they were so cute! In one of the songs, you sing the chorus first, then one stanza, then the chorus and your done, but my kids just kept going on the sing the stanza again. We were ready to call for applause after the chorus the next time. It’s the Spanish version of “This is the Song that Never Ends.” Reyna, 5, got to say her memory verse, and did a great job. In the second level, all the kids sang, and Chepe was supposed to say all of his memory verses (there’s 10 total), but he was too shy. Later in the day we were over at their house, and he said them all for us and his family so he would feel better. In the third level, the girls sang a cute song about love. In the end it says, if you love, give a hug (more or less), so they went through the church giving hugs. Edwin and another boy each got to say 5 memory verses. Afterward, I told Myra (the kids’ mom), that her kids were stealing the show! They are all the “best students” in their classes.

Yesterday Cruz and I finished decorating our class. We have been doing it little by little for about 3 weeks. Our theme is creation, and it turned out pretty good. Now I just have to start working on a theme for the next quarter! Any ideas?

After decorating, we went to Myra’s house and had a hair cutting party. She had her sisters’ families over, so it was a lot of hairs to cut! I think we are going to have to buy new shears because the other day it got knocked off the table and broke, and David put it back together, but Israel said it was pulling his hair and hurt. I teased him and said that none of the kids complained (he’s one of the biggest guys in the barrio).

Then the kids came over and we rented a movie. It’s cute because we pay the kids a little for anything they do around the house, and so when we get a movie to watch together they each pay 5 cordovas (about 30 cents). It’s good to see them being able to take pride in the ability to purchase something for themselves, and they always offer to give more than they need to (a movie only costs 25 cordovas). Here’s an ethical question: I know that it’s wrong to copy movies, but it is wrong to rent from a place that sometimes gives you copied movies and sometimes they are real? Hmmm.

Where is this hurricane? I’ve decided that Nicaraguans have made exaggerating an art. Ex 1: One of the guys was saying they said that this hurricane was going to be worse than Mitch, but this was on the day that I heard the news say it was only going to be a 1 or 2, and we haven’t even had any hard rain. Ex 2: The kids play a game where they hit you in the chest (like tag basically), and one of the women told them not to do it because it could make their heart stop. Ex 3: Someone told the kids they can’t put firecrackers in their pockets because the friction from walking will make them explode (never mind giving 7-12 year olds firecrackers just don’t put them in your pocket).

Please continue to pray for Edgar (recently baptized). His legs are getting worse, and today David took him to the hospital for examinations. Yesterday David went to visit him and he said two guys had to pick him up out of bed.

Kimberly is doing fine and hasn’t had any more episodes.