Prices are skyrocketing!!  I have been shocked at how much prices have gone up here.  Prices have been going up more than usual in the past several months, but in the past few weeks they’ve jumped.  A gallon of milk cost 40 cordobas last week and costs 50 this week.  A dozen eggs cost 20 cordobas three weeks ago and now they cost 30.  Beans used to cost 7 or so a pound now cost 18-20!!  Now, David and I get paid in dollars, so we get helped a little because the exchange rate goes up as well (though not near as much as inflation), but image those who are paid in cordobas.  Let’s say they make 500 a week.  If they bought 10lbs of rice a week (remembering they eat rice and beans 3 times a day), that used to cost them 45 cordobas and now it costs 130.  7lbs of beans were 49 and now they’re 126.  That’s half their salary without even putting in any oil, coffee, sugar, onion, carrots, or whatever else they usually add to their rice and beans.  So, please pray for some price decreases or pay increases quick!!

On a happier note, we were able to purchase uniforms and school supplies for all of our kids.  I couldn’t believe we have 90 school age kids!!  We bought notebooks, rulers, pens, pencils, white paper, colors, sharpeners and erasers for everyone.  Hopefully with all the price increases that will help them start off on the right foot for the new school year.  One of the moms who has 5 kids told me she was only planning on putting two of them in school this year because she couldn’t afford more, but now they’ll all be able to attend!!  But I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t easy taking measurments for all of those kids!!

Two more baptisms:  I was at the internet cafe on Tuesday and was just starting to write that we had another baptism when Giovanni called and told us that there was going to be another, so we headed off to Jinotepe.  The first baptism was one of our youth, Isolina.  She is the only one in her family who attends services, so hopefully she willk open the door to reach her family.  Maria was also baptized.  She has a nephew who has been visiting, but is also the first of her family to become a Christian.  Please pray for these new Christians and their families, and remember our upcoming gospel meeting in your prayers.  It will be the last week in February.

Well, we had a fruitful week this week with two baptisms.  Tania, a visitor to the youth class, decided to become a Christian on Tuesday. 

 

Jamilett, daughter of one of our members, visitor for a month or so, decided to become a Christian on Friday. 

 

We are so pleased to have these two new members.  Please keep them in your prayers, and pray for further growth for the church.

I also put up pictures of our Barbie House, so check out the gallery for those.

Sunday, David and I packed up with Giovanni, Carolina, Mateo, Patricia, Juan Pablo, Chico, Juan, Sara, and Ruth and headed off to Chacaraseca (which they lovingly call Cucarachaseca or “Dry Cockroach”).  This is where Mateo and his family lived before they moved to our area.  For Christmas, we were able to help them with funds for gifts for the kids, and earlier in the year we donated kid’s class supplies (All made possible by your help and support!  Thanks!).  So, we decided it was time to finally visit and get to know the congregation.  Patricia and I were in charge of kid’s class.  I taught a lot of new songs, until my voice died and that was the end of that.  There is one song, I don’t know what it is about it, but it always kills my voice, and we sang it about 5 times so the kids could learn it well.  Patricia took over and the kids got to enjoy a pinata and games.

Carolina taught a teachers workshop.  She packed a full day seminar into 2 hours, and taught on visuals, class planning and preparation, fun ways to keep attendance, and much much more!  She also gave a lot of materials to the ladies. 

It was a fun, but exhausting day!  The congregation was so nice.  The ladies made a great lunch.  They had steak, pork, and chicken and pork soup.  It was wonderful, and we left stuffed!

I don’t think I’ve talked about the school of preaching yet, have I??  Next week three of our members (two single, one married) will be leaving us for 2-3 years to attend the school of preaching, Bible Institute of Central America (BICA) that is just starting in Jinotepe.  Today we had a going away lunch for them.  Yesterday a couple of families from the congregations got together to have a surprise lunch for the families that are leaving.  These guys make up a huge part of our men’s leaders, so please pray that others will fill their places and we won’t get too busy!

Well, this last week we were super busy.  We decided to move to another house closer to the church, so we spent the week packing and moving.  Our new house is a little bit smaller, but much more secure and in a better location (you had to drive through a rediculously bumpy road to get to our old house).  Our friends have lovingly named it “The Barbie House” because for some unknown reason the owner decided to paint it white with pink, lilac, and coral trim.  It’s awful, and our first big project is to paint (we made sure we had permission before we signed the contract!!)  The house is brand new, and hopefully we’ll be able to settle there for a while.  Our moving experience confirmed that we have some of the best friends around.  I asked Carolina and Patricia to help me clean (the house is brand new, but still messy from construction), and when they came, Johanna, Giovanni, Cruz, Carla, Chico, Juan, Juan Pablo, and Chepe all came along too!  I mentioned that I wanted to put smooth cement under the kitchen cabinets (it was real rough), and next thing I know Juan Pablo had bought the cement and was hard a work.  I mentioned that I wanted to fix the grout in the bathroom (it got dirty during installation and was stained), and bam! Gabriel (oops, I forgot to mention that Gabriel came too!) was on it!  Carolina starts directing the girls on how to clean (she had the joy of helping me clean the other house and knows I’m slightly obsessive about it), and everyone was hard a work.  The house now looks great (I wish I had taken before and after pictures because you wouldn’t believe we did so much in one day).  Couldn’t ask for better friends.

During all of our packing and moving we decided to take a day off and go on a 20 km hike.  We hiked from the church building to El Crucero (going up the mountains).  One of our group knew the way up to a certain point and then we were going to ask directions.  The first time we asked directions the man directed us back to where we came from to take a bus!!  No, we are crazy people who want to walk there through the mountains!  It was so much fun.  We had 21 people make the trip.  At one point we were a little lost and I felt the need to warn the group.  “Guys, be careful.  In every movie I’ve seen it’s always the natives who die first.”  I was quickly corrected.  “Maybe in the US movies, but in the movies here the white girl always goes first.”  Yikes!  =) Well, we found our way and made it safe and sound.  On the way we found a farm that was harvesting oranges.  They sold us 30 oranges for about 55 cents, and they were delicious.  Giovanni said I only thought so because I was so hungry, but I saved one and ate it the next day and it was just as good!  Technically, only 5 made it the whole way (of course David was the leader of that group, who even managed to run most of the final strip!).  After we made it to the highway there was another 5 km to get to our car.  My group made it about half of that, and then there was a bus stop that just called our name and we waited for the guys to pick us up.  Of the other two groups, one hitchiked from the highway and the other caught the bus.  I don’t think I have any pictures.  I was too busy just trying to put one foot in front of the other!!  At one point, the path was so overgrown that the weeds actually came up over our heads!!  I felt confident that David’s group had run off all the snakes!  Gabriel was with the third group, but wanted to catch up to our group, and chose this overgrown spot to make up the space.  So he was all alone walking through it.  I can’t imagine how he felt, I’m sure wondering if he was lost or going the right way!

Let’s see…I ended with our ladies party and kids gifts.  Since then we have had one of the families of the church over to have Christmas dinner with us and exchange gifts.  David and I decided to adopt one family, so we chose Reyna and her kids.  I made turkey, roasted chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, apple cranberry pie, and some other goodies.  It was my first time to make a dinner like that, and it didn’t turn out too bad.  I was worried about the pie, but it turned out pretty tasty.  Hopefully my other baking atempts will improve too!  I’m an utter failure at bread!  It was soo cute to see the kids open up their gifts.  We got a remote control car for Juan Francisco, and he couldn’t contain his smile!

Then David had the youth year end party.  They started the event Sunday evening.  All of the kids met at the church building to play games (they had kareoke (however you spell that) and bingo for prizes).  One of the ladies had a devo with the girls.  Then they all ate pizza.  After that they split up.  The guys stayed a the building and the girls went to Carolina’s house for a lock in.  Manuel, one of the teens little brother, was the first to go to sleep, so he got drawn on and saving creamed!  They said he woke up and just stared at his hand uncomprehending for about 5 minutes!  They also did a gift exchange.

All in all it was a great holiday season and we all had a lot of fun!!