Today was a VERY exciting day! I found Grands Biscuits at PriceMart (basically a Sam’s Club, and actually the store Sam Walton got his idea from, but that’s beside the point). One of the big sacrifices I have to make living in Nicaragua is living without biscuits. Sure, I can make them, but it’s just not the same as the good ol’ canned biscuits. Today for the first time ever I saw some in the store. So, I spent a rediculous amount of money for a 4 pack of ‘em. Hopefully they’ll stay good while we’re in the states, if I can’t manage to eat them all beforehand. Everyone needs to take a moment to reflect on the blessing of the ability to buy/eat biscuits whenever you want to!!

Someone told me once that he knows one thing about farmers, whatever the weather is doing, it’s not the right thing. I think that has to be right. We need some rain!! Last year in October it started raining and didn’t stop. Usually this area has 50-60 inches of rain each year, with about 1/2 falling during September/October. So far we’ve had only 33 inches of rain this year, and only 6 inches in September compaired to the 12 that regularly fall. They say that the last time they had a dry spell like this was in ‘72, when there was the big earthquake in Managua that destroyed downtown and many other areas. So, we’re taking steps to protect the humidity of the coffee plant, but please pray that God blesses us with rain so that we can have a good crop.

We have just been getting so much done, that it’s just great! When I realized last week that we only had 2 weeks before we go to the states, I thought, “Oh no!” but things have been going so smoothly with all of the things we have to prepare before we go. We went to a new place today to buy our coffee bags, and we didn’t even get lost! In Nicaragua, the “addresses” are more like general directions such as, “From the ____building, 300 meters south” but it might not really be from the buidling, but the two streets over, or the building might not be there anymore, but “everyone” knows where the building was, so it’s still used as a marker. But, like everything, the more we practice at understanding directions, the easier things go.

David and I did a lot today!! We got boxes purchased for our shipment of coffee, ordered our coffee bags, and got our stickers printed. Along the way we were almost hit by 3 cars, and almost had to enter the “No Abortion” march going on in Managua!! I don’t know if it was because of the march, but the cars were CRAZY today. This one little car cut so close in front of us, and David honked, and then the school (which isn’t for school, but public transportation) bus after him did the same thing! The car could have been an accident, but the bus had to know! In Managua the intersections have the circle where the cars go around to turn, and this truck (like a semi, not a little pick-up), who should have been yielding to enter the circle, almost ran into us while David was exiting. The close encounters were always on my side too. Hmmm…

The abortion march - we got to Managua early, so we stopped at a gas station/deli to eat a snack, and tons of busses started pulling up for an anti-abortion march. Nicaraguans will be voting for/against therapeutic abortion this next month, so the Catholic church and other religious instituions and working really hard to encourage people to vote against it. Please pray for this.

So, what is the thing that you don’t want to do when you have 2 weeks before you travel to the states and tons of stuff to get done beforehand. That’s right, get sick! But I did it! I even had a fever, which never happens. Luckily I am feeling better and didn’t miss too much. We are working double duty!! We hope to make a shipment of coffee before we go, so we are getting bags, stickers, roasters, boxes and everything organized. Not only that, last week our coffee advisor told us that the heaviest harvest will be during the three week we’re in the states, so we have to get all the money ready for that and everything. But, we are in a good position becuase we have Roger, who handled the paying of the harvestors last year when we were in the states, so I know things will go great!

Tuesday we got an audio system for the church building. Since our building is so much larger, it’s a must, especially with the rain that gets very loud on the aluminum roof!

So, please pray for us, that I get well, David doesn’t get sick, and we get everything done and have a safe trip to the states!! Thanks!

I started teaching the 2nd Level class today (6-10). I think it’s going to be a fun class. I liked teaching the little ones, but it will be nice to teach a class where all can remember their memory verse and answer the questions. We’re going to go through the historical life of Jesus for this quarter, and next quarter I hope to have all the classes teach the same theme, just on different levels, talking about the teachings of Jesus. We’ll see how it goes.

David preached at the Diriamba congregation today. They have about 15-20 members, and 15 members from our congregation were there also. The preacher from that congregation preached at our congregation this morning. He’s a very young man, but did a great job and obviously has a real talent for teaching the Word.

We focused on visiting our missing members this week, and really encouraging them to attend, and I guess it worked because attendance was up to 126 today from 108 last week and only 99 the week before. I was going through and doing some maintenance on the newsletter today, and it was funny to see how much things have changed. For example, I wrote how big my class was getting because we had 17 kids, where now if we have less that 20 I start to worry. We wrote about our record breaking service of 101, and now when we had 99 we started working extra to get our attendance back up. How quickly things change!