Hello again! Sorry about the lack of posts in March. I really can't remember a month when I was that busy! I'll start with the end of February, the last time you heard from me...
MOVING
I found a cute little house. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, cute little patio/terrace thingy. It is perfect. I made plans to have some girls stay in the house that I was caring for so I could move in to my new place. The only problem is, I didn't have anything to move except 3 suitcases of clothes and a box of misc items.
No bed, no stove, no chairs, no cleaning supplies, no tupperware, no forks or knives, etc.... So the first thing that I had to do was to buy a fridge, a bed, and a stove. I made plans to go to Managua's Mercado Oriental (which by the way is a veeeerrrry cheap market but also where like 80% of the crimes committed in Nicaragua are committed) and buy some cheap or used items. Needless to say I was pretty scared to death, but all went well. EXCEPT the night before we were to go I got very very sick. I was in bed with a terrible fever, the chills, the sweats, everything! I thought I was going to die I was so sick. By 9:00am the next morning, the fever was gone and I felt a little better, but I really should have stayed in bed to get over whatever bug I had gotten. Unfortunately though, the way my schedule had become I had to either go THAT DAY or wait til the following Monday, which would've put me sleeping on the floor with the ants for a week. ha.
So I went, wobbled around the market, made my purchases, came back home and collapsed. It took me a couple days to recover well from my sickness....but it never fully went away. It stuck with me for 2 weeks. Which was a shame because as March 1st started the campaign for the Memorial Invitations, I had decided I was going to take advantage of this month's opportunities and set a goal to get Special Pioneer hours (130) to make up for some time lost while I had visited the US. We also had our Circuit Overseer's visit for the week of the memorial which was very nice! In service every possible minute that I could be, by March 22nd I had 100 hours. During my 'off' time I was shopping for my house. Generally when you move, it's not like you're starting from scratch... you have your boxes of food and little things that you've acquired over the years and you pack them up and transfer them with you. But every time I switch countries, I don't bring much with me... so it's like I'm moving out on my own at 18 all over again. Every free moment I had I went to the closest markets and bought the little stuff that you need to 'live'. Salt, Sugar, Ketchup, tupperware, bowls, coffee mugs, water buckets, sponges, broom & dustpan, blankets, pillow, etc... And the worst of all that is I had to make so many trips because I don't have a car, and I had to carry it all in backpacks (one around back, one around front) and in my hands. I must've been a sight. Too bad no one was there to take a picture of me. Yet another reason why a roommate would've been helpful to have!
THE MEMORIAL
With my house set up, and 100 hours the day of the memorial, I was feeling prrreeetty good! One of the first studies I started, when Paola and I came to Nicaragua last year, came to the Memorial with his mom. They loved it. I also had 3 little kid studies of mine attend along with their mother who is not studying. Out of the 45 publishers that we have in the El Crucero congregation, we had 160 attend our memorial!!! I know there would've been a lot more too, however because of the transportation situation, many didn't come. In many latin american countries they celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) which is basically the last week that Jesus lived. They also use this celebration to take off work and go to the beach, and unfortunately the buses stop running early. So with sundown at 5:45pm and the talk starting at 6:00 and over at 7:00.... there's no way for anyone to get home. We had a number of people who came anyway, relying on Jehovah to find them a way home.... and he did, of course. The brothers who own cars stayed after the memorial almost 2 hours just driving people back home, coming back for more, and driving them to their homes, coming back for more, etc... It was a truly different experience from any other memorial I've ever attended, but very encouraging to see the willingness that people had to come even though they lived 20-40 minutes away by car, with no way to get home except walk down a winding mountain road in the dark.
It was a hard memorial for me. After spending the last 3 in Mexico with all my friends, going out for dinner afterwards, taking all our pictures and all the fun we had together... now I'm very far away from all that. I went home after my memorial here in Nicaragua, satisfied with the results of my hard work, encouraged by the evening, but quite lonely. Where are my roommates?? But every time I second guess why I'm here, Jehovah quickly reminds me.... The next morning for the Circuit Overseer's public talk, he gave us some statistics on the surrounding congregations attendance at the memorial. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after I heard. I thought I'd put some of them together for you to see.....
|
Name of town |
Number of Congregations |
Number of Publishers in each Congregation |
Attendance for Memorial in each congregation | ||||
|
Jinotepe |
2 |
70 |
| ||||
|
Granada |
4 |
90-100 |
| ||||
|
Malakatoya |
1 group |
17 |
150 | ||||
|
San Juan del Sur |
1 |
50 |
182 | ||||
|
Carazo |
1 |
29 |
150 | ||||
|
El Crucero |
1 |
45 |
160 | ||||
|
Managua English |
1 |
30 |
67 | ||||
|
Nicaraguan Sign Language |
2 |
16 |
| ||||
|
Diriamba |
1 |
60 |
244 |
So yeah, my jaw hit the floor when I heard that over 1,100 people had attended Jinotepe's memorial, and almost 500 attended only one of 4 congregations in Granada. It's easy to see all the work that we have to do down here. It's definitely more than we can handle. And I must say, I'm loving it!!
TO WRAP IT UP
So the memorial is over, and I am 30 hours and a week away from my goal for the month.... and then it happens. A cough, a fever... AGAIN. This time I went to the doctor, and I find out that I have bronchitis. Blech. So needless to say, instead of pushing and pushing like I did at the beginning of the month. I settled for my 108 hours this month, and took it easy for the rest of the week. I headed down to Granada to recover at my friend Tara's house and ate lots of good food. ( yummy restaurants in Granada! AND we even experimented in making our own hummus! )
Now March is over and April has begun. I have a quick trip planned to visit Bethel on the 11th-19th which I'm SUPER excited about, and when I return I should have at least one roommate, maybe 2... pray for me!!!
Check out Vocaboly to expand your vocabulary!
Check out Vocaboly to expand your vocabulary!
on April 21, 2008, 7:53 am
I'm Terri Seels and my fiance lives in Managua. (Levi Davila) We are marrying in January 2009, but I have planned to move there in October. I was in Villa El Carmen and Managua last yr... a 2 month stay. Before I left last June, my fiance took me around to other parts of Nica, to see how I would like them. I liked El Crucero better than Jinotepe...nice and cool. Managua makes you melt...lol. Anywho, let's keep in touch. I miss the ministry there... it's as you said, amazing! Hasta luego...
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