Yesterday we had a sort of surprise birthday party for David (is it really possible to keep the surprise to the end??).  We cooked all day long making all of David’s favorites: refried beans, fried bananas, cheese, cabbage salad, hot sauce, etc.  It was really good and we had a big group come.

Last week we had a busy week of fun!  It’s Semana Santa here and a holiday all week.  Monday we went to the beach.  The water has finally warmed up a bit so it was really nice.  A shark did bite me though.  Yep, right on my little toe.  There were two little teeth marks.  Well, it was probably a baby shark, or maybe a pirana, or maybe a twig…  =)   Tuesday David took a group from church to a member’s home in Masaya.  They harvested mangos and ahote (I don’t know how to spell that, but it’s a small fruit).  They even shared with the neighbors…

Thursday we took another hike with a group of the church.  This time we went in the opposite direction to come out on the east side.  This walk was much less challenging, but we all had a good time. 

We had another sewing class today, and I keep forgetting to take a picture of the skirt I made.  We do all of our practice on crepe paper, and this week we had to make those skirts that have several strips of cloth together (peasant skirts maybe??), so I went to the store and just asked for a variety of colors.  The lady happened to give me four colors that I had the exact color of thread for.  Imagine that.  Well, I worked really hard on my homework (because the past three weeks I didn’t do my homework!), and it turned out great, for a paper skirt that is.  Our teacher, Carolina’s mom, loaned me a sewing machine (anyone have one they want to donate??) and so this week I get to make that same type of skirt out of real material.  She gave me lace and fun sequins to sew on too, so it should be great!

We also had our third Love Languages lesson today, and we studied the difference between “falling in love” during the first 2 years and the “real love” of a healthy marriage.  It was interesting because we have a gal who’s just starting dating her first serious boyfriend, and we have me (almost 6 years married), we have another who’s been married 15 years and then another who’s been married at least 25.  So we get to see all stages of married life and love.  This has been such a blessing, because the older (not old, but older, mind you) ladies give great advice about how they have managed and how they work things out in their marriage. 

Ok, I try to avoid stories about our animals because, really, who cares but us?  …but I thought this was funny.

Several weeks ago I was watering the grass out in front of our wall.  I leave the gate door open to do this, so I chain Tigger (the older dog) up (he runs out of the gate to chase other dogs and even cows, and we’re on the highway so I’m afraid he’ll get hit by a car), but leave Stormy free because she is more timid and I’ll have time to stop her if she steps out.  So I’m watering and keeping an eye on the door, but the gate is blocking my view.  Suddently Tigger starts barking and barking, so I drop the hose and go to see what’s going on.  Stormy had taken one step out of the yard, and Tigger was tattling.

Jump to last week.  I come home, open the two doors of the gate to put the truck in, and put the truck in. As I get out of the truck I see Tigger stretching lazily on the porch 10 meters away.  I close one side of the gate, and as I go to close the other Stormy starts barking.  I look around, and don’t see any dogs, but there’s a street guy a little down the way and figure she is barking at him.  Close the gate, go to open the front door, and wonder, “where is Tigger?  Couldn’t have gotten out”  Sure enough I see his little eye peering through the crack in the gate.  Some how, during the 10 seconds it took to close the first door of the gate Tigger did a silent ninja speed run behind my back and out the door, and Stormy was tattling.   Silly dogs.  They’ll never get away with anything.

Giovanni, Carolina, and Gabriel all left us last week to make their first trip to the states.  They are visiting their sponsoring congregation in Seminole, Oklahoma.  Boy does that make us busy!  I’m starting to feel a little guilty about the trips we’ve taken to the states and all the work we leave behind for our partners!  But things are going well.  We have students from BICA who are helping us do follow up studies with our new converts, so that is helping a lot!

Thursday we had our second “Love Languages” class, and it went really well.  We are talking about our love banks and how to keep them full.  We have a great group because each person has a very different background and can add a new perspective to the reading.  I wanted to keep it a small group (5 or so), but many already 2 of our new members have asked to join, so we’ll see how big it grows.

Friday we measured some of the member’s houses.  When the mission team from Edmond comes in June, we hope to put in concrete floors in several homes.  This is supposed to help a lot with health issues.  Please keep this effort in your prayers!

Well, we finished off our very busy campaign week, and it was very productive.  We had a total of 25 baptisms and 3 restorations.  To help us with the follow up load, some of the BICA students are coming over every day in the afternoon to help us visit with and do new convert studies with all of our new members.  Check out the gallery for pictures during the week.

At the beginning of the week when I still had energy I volunteered to make a congregational meal for Sunday.  What was I thinking!?!  It went really well.  I made a hamburger veggie soup.  When we went to the grocery store at about 7 on Saturday, Gabriel tricked me into buying little baby corns for the soup, saying it would be yummmmy.  As I started to shuck and clean over 100 baby corns Saturday night I began to think that might not have been such a great idea.  But I guess it paid off because many people specifically asked for mini corns in their soup.  Sunday morning we finished the soup early, and I was further inspired to make grilled cheeses for everyone (I already had the bread, why not get the cheese and whip it right up?).  I guess they don’t make grilled cheeses here because some thought I was crazy until they tried it.  It was like a regular soup kitchen, and everyone was happy.  =)

Yesterday, I had full plans to sleep in until at least 7, but I guess my subconscience didn’t get the message and woke me up at 5!!  I managed to lay in bed until 6, but then I accepted my fate and got up.  I did get a ton of things done.  Giovanni and his family are traveling to the states to meet their supporting congregation on Thursday and he asked me to translate his three sermons.  Translating isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.  I know what he’s saying, but it’s like my mind blanks on how to say it properly in English.  After noon we headed off to Managua for our free day/grocery shopping.  On the way home we stopped off to get me a laundry basket (I decided it was rediculous that I continally drop things while trying to hold a bunch of laundry and hang them on the line because I’m too cheap to buy a laundry basket), and when we got outside the truck wouldn’t start.  No turning over, nothing (the battery was fine).  So we called Giovanni, but he was about an hour and a half away.  I took the time to call my mom, and when my dad got home he suggested we pop the clutch, so we tried it and after 1 1/2 hours of waiting we were off.  Turns out a relay was bad.  It did take a trip back to Managua to find the part, but we got it all fixed.  I reflected on how great God is that this didn’t happen during our campaign week and leave us and many members stranded as we were taking people home!  Also, the mechanic who told us it was the relay was one of the members baptized during the campaign.  Without him we would have spent a fortune taking it to the Chevy shop to find out what was wrong.