Month: March 2015

THURSDAY- JUEVES

At 6:30 AM Stephen left for the mechanics. We have found that things tend to move forward when he is present. The reality though is that he goes and sits in a dusty, hot, dirt lot with 5-10 broken cars. The time is long, boring, with some interaction with the young men working on the cars.

Stephen spent the day in Masaya while I tried to catch up on things- making dinner for our Bible study helpers, planning the kids study, going to Granada to make copies, get supplies for the kids study, doing payroll for a local ministry, doing some shopping, and being ready for our Bible study that evening.

Stephen got home at 4:30 without the car, and our study started at 6 PM. We enjoyed the time together with 25 of our neighbors, being reminded why we are here. We headed for bed early knowing we had a very full day on Friday.

FRIDAY- VIERNES

So, in previous blogs I have mentioned that Nicaragua is hot and dusty this time of year. The last time I remember rain was about a month ago, and it rained enough to make it humid. Every day we want the wind so that the high 90s are bearable, but with that comes clouds of dusty. Life here is just dirty, and then there is the sweat.

Stephen woke me up and told me that we had no water. This is not unusual, so I hoped it would come on before we left at 6 AM. Unfortunately I had but oil spray in my hair the night to keep moisture in it during this dry time of the year. There was no water by 5:30, so we washed up the best we could with our precious purified water and baby wipes, and headed to the road for the bus. We were trying to get to Trinity for their Passover celebration. We felt bad canceling with them twice this week and wanted to make it to this special event that the kids had been preparing for weeks.

We let a few buses pass that would make us too intimate with our fellow Nicaraguans, and settled on a “chicken bus” (Old American school bus) where we were able to sit down for the ride. We arrived an hour and a half later at Trinity and enjoyed a great program of singing, drama, and dancing of the students.

We had to leave early though so we could make it back to Granada for our 11:30 AM Bible Study. When we got to the bus stop, we got the call that the mechanic needed some of Stephen’s tools to complete the work on the car… Hmmmm… Another change of plans- tranquilo.

Image a line about 40 miles long; Granada  is on one end and Managua is on the other, with Masaya being in the middle. The Bible study is several  miles south of Granada. This is not going to work out.

We canceled the Bible study, Stephen went to Granada to get the tools then back to Masaya for the afternoon and I headed into Granada to do all the things I had planned to do the day before but was not able to. I got home mid-afternoon hot, sweaty, sticky, dirty and no water in the house.

Stephen got home  about two hours later hot, sweaty, sticky, dirty, sun-burned and no water in the house

We did our best to pull ourselves together and left 45 minutes later for a new Bible study that we were starting that evening in Granada- back to the buses, taxis and walking, but at least the sun was down.

We had a great study with this new family, who is excited to learn more about the Bible. We are excited about these relationship possibilities

They gave us a ride home to a home with still no water. I did not even want to touch myself, I felt so gross. I fell into bed feeling claustrophobic in my own body. All I wanted was to be clean!

I woke up around 3:30 feeling pity for myself.  I grabbed my Bible planning to read until I was either encouraged or asleep. I thought about my neighbors; many of them do not have running water in their houses.

At 4 AM the water came on! I got up and took a shower; I did not want to miss my opportunity!

Then I went back to sleep.

TUESDAY-MARTES

We were out the door a little before 6 AM, but as we soon found out, that was too late! This country gets up early to beat the heat, and we were on the road with most of the country! What is usually a 45 minute drive stretched to 1 hour and 45 minutes.

I called Patricia telling her we would be late- “No problema, this is Nicaragua. Tranquilo.” We ended up being 40 minutes late, missing our appointment, getting grilled by the main boss at Immigration as to why we needed a lawyer and what we were doing in the country, and being told that without having our original diplomas certified in the United States that we would not be able to get our Residency.

We left around 1 PM, discouraged, hot and tired from anticipation and tension, having rented a car for “no reason”, and having canceled our plans once again with Trinity Christian School. It was reminiscent to Stephen experience with Customs. Bureaucracy wins again!

We returned to Granada, turned in the rental car, did some grocery shopping, and tried to get things back on track for the week.

Just before bedtime, I got another email from Patricia. “If you can make it tomorrow at 8:30 AM, the lawyer will be waiting for you, and you will get your Residency- things have been worked out.” WOW! We had to try again.

It was too late to rent a car, so our game plan was to fill up all the fluids in the car, be ready with plenty of water,  ask friends to pray for us, and hope for a quick trip into Immigration.

WEDNESDAY- MIERCOLES

We left again at 6 AM, giving plenty of time to get there. About 30 minutes into our trip, we hit morning traffic, causing our car to overheat. We stopped, cooled it down, checked the fluids, and made it about two minutes down the road- the stop and go traffic was killing us!

Plan B: We parked the car in a parking lot, paid a man to watch it, got on the rush-hour bus, met some new intimate friends (yes, we were that close) and got into down town in about twenty minutes. The bus driver would put any racecar driver to shame  in the stop-and-go Managua traffic.

It was 8:15 when we got off the bus, and we still had about 5 miles to go. It was taxi time! Unfortunately our skin color says money so they tried to charge us $10 for a ride that Nicaraguans would pay $2. We negotiated $5 and made it to Immigration by 8:25. Then we waited, and waited, and waited.

We sat on a bench outside of Immigration for four hours. Tensions were rising, but we did not want to leave for fear that this all was in vain, again! We decided we would leave at 1:30 if no one came. Our solace was the American Donut stand, and a common practice in Nicaragua; listening to music on your cellphone at loud volume; not us but a man near us, had his cellphone cranked up. Usually this is annoying, but he was listening to How Great Thou Art, Take It to the Lord in Prayer, and other hymns in the local Indian language. The music is the same and I was reminded that many of you were praying for us in this circumstance.

We got the call that the lawyer was coming, so when he arrived at 12:30 the real process began:

• Wait for another 30 minutes because everything is shut down until 1:00
• Get in line to be told that it would take until 3:00 to get the paperwork done
• At 3:30 being told that they would need $300 in dollars for each of us towards plane tickets to leave the country if we caused a problem, and $C3,400 cordoba (about $140) for each of us for processing.
• Unfortunately since all previous interactions with Immigration needed to be in Cordoba I had withdrawn all Cordoba, so we got to walk 2 VERY long blocks to exchange money.
• We returned, got in the line to pay, then took the receipt to the first window. The receipt was in quadruplicate, but for some reason we needed to have one more copy.
• This could not be done at the copy machine right behind the woman, but we needed to go find a place to make a copy….hmmmm.
• Right outside Immigration are booths set up for lawyer, notary, computer and printing help. We got the help!
• Closing time is around 4:30 and it was already 4:20. Previous experience with government is that when they are done, they are done. We hurried back in, handed over our paperwork, and waited.
• Around 4:45 we got our pictures taken, and by 5:15 we were walking away with our cedulas (residency).

We were somewhere between very happy/relieved and exhausted since we knew that we still had work in front of us due to our car situation…

We got a ride from Immigration to the mall, Metrocentro, from our lawyer, ate a quick celebratory dinner at Pizza Hut, then caught a VERY full, rush hour bus to our car. On the bus, I bragged to a perfect stranger that we had just got our cedulas!

It gets dark here by 6 PM year-around, so it was dark once we left the mall. About 45 minutes later, we got to our car, put more water into it, and it started up right away.  We drove the 15 miles to the mechanic, left the car, then hoped on the bus again and rode to our house. At 8:30 PM, we arrived home, dusty, dirty, tired, but happy!

This week has full, overwhelming, joyful, exhausting, and right now I am glad to be enjoying a quiet Saturday afternoon to reflect on the week. You received two requests for prayer for us this week, and we were overwhelmed and thankful for your words of encouragement, prayers prayed, and just knowing that we have so many people behind us in this way of following God’s leading!

I want to share this week with you because hopefully the highs and lows will be an encouragement to your own walk with God.

In a sense this was a normal week for us in Nicaragua, as it included very few of the normal things we do. This seems to be normal, and it is one of the things that I find challenging.

MONDAY-LUNES

As most of you know, we have a car that has had some extended issues with overheating. Recently we have marked our trips to Managua with the places that the car has overheated. The past three weekends it has been with the mechanic, so last Monday when I was to drive to Managua to train teachers for the first time at Trinity Christian School, Stephen did his best to make sure that everything was in working order for my afternoon trip. We were counting on things working well, because we had a full afternoon/evening planned for the car. I was going to  Managua from 12:30-4:30, then returning to teach two English classes at our house from 5-7 PM, while Stephen took the car to pick up guys for his group from 5-9 PM. Best laid plans…

About 45 minutes from the house the car suddenly spiked HOT! I pulled over immediately, trying to find a place with some shade, and off the road to avoid further damage to the car. Car trouble is the area that I feel most vulnerable, so my stress level that was hovering around 5, spiked with the cars thermometer.

Marcel to the rescue: within minutes of me stopping and raising the hood, a precious young man named Marcel stopped on his motorcycle. He helped me from start to finish; a hose had burst, he went and got what he needed, returned and cut out and reattached the hose, reassured me, I understood his Spanish and empathy, got me on the road to the mechanic, and would not take the little bit of money that I had to offer him. “In Nicaragua, it is tranquilo (calm)”, he said. His presents was calming, and he was a HUGE blessing to both Stephen and me!

No working at Trinity today, but maybe we could still savage some of our evening plans.

The mechanic checked out the car, saying it was okay for now but to have Stephen bring it in the next day.

On arriving home I got an email from Patricia who has helped us with our residency. The process that has had much prayer over the past eight months, seemed to be imminent. If we could be at Immigration by 7 AM, then we would get our residency that day. WOW! Change of plans. We needed a working car and money for the process.

It was 4:15, so we needed to get moving! We canceled English and Bible study walked the few minutes to the bus stop from our house (our car would not start), rode into town, Stephen went to rent a car, and I went to the bank to withdraw money. We drove home in the smallest, baby blue car I had ever seen, hoped for the best for the adventure the next day. We would have to leave early the next morning!

The Sadness of An Almost Surrendered Life

It all feels personal- the broken car, the disagreement with Stephen, the small study group, the lack of work for me to do at the school, sickness, a lack of something I am good at, the lack of a good friend. It lays on me, allowing tears to stream down my face at a moments’ notice.

God is our strength our shield, that sounds a lot like battle, and quite honestly, I want the god of the spa, the god of plenty of money, the god of the car in complete working order. But I have no more power over the god of the spa than I have over the God who is my strength and shield, and quite honestly I wish I did.

In my thinking, I wish He would run things by me before they happen. “For the next few months you are going to have a car that works intermittently. Are you okay with that?” or “All your character is going to be challenged extensively over these next few years. Will that work for you?”

Then I could make a deal with Him, “How about only a week for the car situation and a day or two regarding the character issue?”

He doesn’t work that way. And while I would like to say that I can embrace the challenge, that I am okay not relying on the comfort of people and things, I am struggling with living for Him. I am overwhelmed with the place he has me.

What I do know is that he is the “God who sees”. He sees me in my struggles just as he has many other saints. I also know that He wants me to be more like Him, and as much as I am failing the test, each experience is an opportunity to do that. Finally, I know He is a God who cares for ME.

So, will you pray for me; that I would see the amazing generosity of people before I see our need. That I would be thankful for the one instead of the lack of the many. That I would rejoice in the opportunities of others than wishing it for myself. God has truly been good to me!