Andrew & Jenny’s Weblog

Goodbye Jinotega….

Hello Telpaneca!

We went from a congregation of 82 publishers to a congregation of 6, including us. Fortunately there are students that also attend now on a regular basis. In a month our average Sunday meeting attendance has doubled from 7 to 14 whoohoo!

But I must say that we´re having a lot of fun getting to know the publishers and the communities around us. The distances between studies is an issue. One whole side of our territory will be isolated from us when the rains start in October and the Rio Coco floods the bridge. More about bridges later.

The day we were moving in to our new house, these teachers came to the door looking for literature. They work out in the communities and use our literature as reading material for the students. We´ve found a great respect for our literature here. Even the Mayor asked me to bring her a back issue of one of the Watchtowers.

This is a view from across the river looking back at the center of Telpaneca.

However, to get to the neigborhoods it´s a little more complicated. We take this route on Tuesdays to get to a group of about 150 houses. Most of the people there used to live near the center but they were relocated when Hurricane Mitch wiped out their houses. Amazingly the river rose almost 30 feet.

While Andrew was giving a reading lesson…

I was focused on the mans wife braiding her granddaughters hair. She didn´t know I was taking the picture so you can´t see the back. She was interweaving bits of leather into the little girls hair to make firmer braids. She said her own mother tied her hair in the same way. They think it helps hair to grow faster and stay soft. If I could have met this womans grandmother 100 years ago I bet the house and the customs wouldn´t have been much different. Sometimes it really feels like we´re stepping back in time.

These kids took me down to the river to show me how to get fresh water from the sand. They dug a deep hole, waited for it to fill with water, started scooping out the first murky fill, and then filled containers of fresh water to bring home. Their house has no running water so after going to class in the morning this little girl makes several trips to the river to haul water and also washes clothes in the current.

This little boy seems to have it a bit easier. After taking a dip in the river he was having a great time playing the classic spin the tire with a stick.

We´ve had a few chances to go play in the river ourselves. Since we´re in a drought at the moment the sandy river bed makes a great place to play soccer. Here Andrew got a little too into the game. Fortunately the sister who went face first into the sand is very easygoing.

We also have a new publisher this month. Milagros is 13. Her father was a baptized witness but left his family and the truth about 2 years ago. Both Milagros and her mother have certainly had a hard time of it but are progressing well. Her mother, Margarita, hopes to be a publisher soon.

Milagros first day in service was a marathon. We started out in Telpaneca but then took a bus, actually a cattle truck out to a place called Santo Domingo.

This is the view from the village. We were supposed to do a ´everyone jumping in the air´picture but either Andrew took the picture as we were landing or the 3 of us couldn´t get off the ground. Either way it´s a good memory of a great day in a beautiful place. Milagros took her first doors and was able to go on a few studies as well.

I told you I´d have more to say about bridges. The one below is my nightmare..

The Golden Gate of Nicaragua. Several people have fallen through rotten boards. Thankfully I just got a tetanus shot so I can hold on for dear life to the rusty sides.

This past Saturday I braved the crossing for the second time. Of course Andrew was there as well but it´s not as traumatic for him. Somehow he thinks it´s amusing to make the bridge swing when he crosses. Of course he´s kind enough not to do that when I´m with him. The neighborhood we were headed to is called El Barro. It has 55 houses. None of them have running water. Quite a few are also without electric. Milagros came along as well as Ivania and Carolina who are baptized publishers. I guess I should be glad we found interest including a woman who would like a literacy class. Unfortunately it means braving the big mean bridge on a regular basis;)

Ivania has a baby named Giselle. She´s becoming quite enamoured with Andrew. He´s been helping share the load of caring for her when Ivania comes out in service.

These little girls live about a 45 minute from the KH. The father of one of them used to attend meetings. We met them on a Thursday and were impressed with how polite and attentive they were. To my surprise they made the walk in for the Sunday meeting all by themselves. The road they take is incredibly dusty and hot and their only shoes are flip flops. They showed up with big smiles though and commented all through the WT study.

This is a typical house and yard outside of the center.

When we first walked into our new house it felt like walking into a cave.

However, Andrew and one of the brothers that helped us move got right to work putting together our furniture.

Now it looks more like a well furnished cave;)

To the left of the picture below you´ll see we have a sink. No small feat. We brought the sink with us and Andrew had to install about 30 yards of PVC waterpipe.

There were a few glitches. I´m not sure if you can see the water spewing out of the broken pipe below but we weren´t quite sure how to fix it since there´s no way to turn off the main.

Enter Cesar the plumber.

He created a homemade coupling by heating one tube so that it would stretch to fit the joining tube inside.

Now that is an ingenious, inexpensive, fix it yourself lesson to remember folks.

What I most enjoy about our house is the garden. It´s a bit overgrown at the moment but we have Noni, Papaya and Lime trees. Plus Aloe, cilantro, oregano, mint, and hot pepper plants. We´ve started a little garden of tomato and sweet peppers from seed so I´m waiting to see how they do.

The Noni plant attracts tons of butterflies and hummingbirds.

So thats all for now. Miss you loads and hope to hear from you soon.