Adventures to Managua with the Luvianita

Today was long. Any day we go into Managua is long, but today was even worse.
Moises had a mile long list of things to do in town, one of which was taking Luviana and I to her eye doctor appt. As we were planning yesterday, we decided though, that Kyle would come with us so that after her appointment, the three of us (Kyle, Luviana and I) would just take the bus back, so we wouldn't have to stay in town all day. We left at 8 am so that we could get in quick, and get back home before noon. But of course things never go as planned. The only stop we had to make before the eye dr. appt. (dropping the other truck off at the mechanic) took until 11:45 am. When we got to the eye doctor at noon, the receptionist told us it would be at least an hour wait before we could be seen. Okay then. . . so we decided to run and get a bite to eat during that time.

We got back to the eye doctor and were met by more waiting time. Moises left us so he could get other errands done in the time we were waiting and meeting with the doctor. It was also decided that Kyle would take the bus back, (meaning there was no hope of Luviana and I getting home anytime before dinner).

Long story short we got to the eye dr. the second time around 1:15 pm and left at 5:10pm.
Your next question may be. . . what do you do with a 7 year old who can barely see for 4 hours (minus the half an hour we were in with the doctor) in an office waiting room???
We were actually able to have some good bonding time, Luviana took a little nap on my lap, and we made up some fun games. Some of these games included:
-grab my hand before I can move it
-find where the steps are and jump up and down them without falling
-catch the rock when I drop it
-which phone sounds like *this* (enter ringing sound of my, charity, leo, moises, ana, kyle or the house phone)
I think you get the idea :) But it really is nice to be able to spend one on one time with the kids, and see their personality when they are without all the other kids.

After the appointment, Luviana and I walked down the street to get some crackers and a soda pop, and saw a car accident. Today everyone was celebrating the Day of the worker. So Daniel Ortega (the president) made a huge speech, and something like 250 buses took part in the activity, driving around parade style with people sitting on top and waving flags out the windows. In the process of the buses taking up the entire street, a taxi trying to squeeze his way through an opening that wasn't big enough. Concluding in crash, bang boom. Fortunately it was nothing major, but it was a good summary of the other 3 crashes we also drove by on our way back home. Because of the busses all taking part in this parade, there was not many to actually take people home though either, so as we drove back to El Crucero, the people were everywhere lining the streets, waiting for the littlest hope of a bus to pass and have space for them to ride back in.

So the day that was supposed to be a relatively quick run into Managua (at least for Luviana and I) turned into an ALL day ordeal in which we got back about 7pm, and Moises only got about half of the things done on his list. Either way, it was an adventure, and it reminds me why I try to avoid trips to Managua unless absolutely necessary.

WATER. . . kind of

I was so ready, and so excited to write this celebration post about how the purified water, and the running water came back. The running water (having been out 13 days now) came on completely unexpectedly the middle of this morning. I was so excited to take a real shower, and let the WARM water run over me. I had already gotten dressed and ready for the day, so I thought I would wait until I finished up some things, then get showered before the big kids finished with school at noon (they got out early today). But, within an hour or two, it was gone. Who knows where it went, or why, but its not here, again.

There is really good news though about the purified water, after running out Tuesday afternoon, the truck came today and filled us up! We were able to buy two jugs Wednesday at the corner store (all they had) so those two lasted us during the day yesterday, and we only had to go a little while longer this morning without.

It may be hard to tell, but this is a FULL water dispenser. And there are approximately 35 more jugs where it came from :)

Despite the lack of running water, we are blessed to at least get water so we can take bucket or washcloth baths, and can pour it in to flush the toilet, we have a great method of washing dishes too, so if nothing else, I have learned how much we completely take for granted these modern developments, and it is a good reminder of how even though I never thought I would last this long. With God's help, I have become content with my bucket bath, and hey, we don't waste nearly as much water that way!

So as you are taking your nice long, warm, shower tomorrow morning, just savor it, every drop :)

Baby Update

Just thought I'd update you all on little Selah. She's doing amazing, and growing big and strong! She is eating great, hardly ever cries, and is being LOVED to pieces :) Here she is with some of her sisters/aunts!

Selah with Yorbanny

With Emy

and with Luviana- I love how gentle and caring she is holding her :)

Lazy Mornings

It can be a really good morning, or a really bad morning when you are still in your pjs at 11:15am after waking up at 5:45.
Today happens to be one of those good ones! After getting up and getting breakfast ready for everyone headed off to school, I decided my bed was calling me again. Normally it would be time to get Luviana and Samari ready to go off to pre-school, but they don't go back until tomorrow, so instead the two of them, Joselyn and I cuddled up in my bed . . . for an hour! We got up just in time for prayer (fortunately, the people who come for prayer didn't judge me for still being in my pjs), and then I spent the last 2 or so hours hanging out with my little babies :) So I decided now would be an appropriate time to get ready for the day, but I do have to say I could get used to this type of lounging and although I realize it is not something that is so entirely reasonable- I can still hope. 

Happy Easter!

What better way to celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Christ than surrounded by people you love. I was able to skype with my immediate and extended family all back in the states this afternoon, which was a blast, and I loved getting to share a little piece of here with them all the way over there. They were even generous enough to 'share' their strawberry shortcake with me. (Not the same over the computer). But regardless I loved seeing all them.

It was interesting sharing in a holiday such as Easter with a different culture and a different country. This being the first Easter I have celebrated away from home, I mostly expected it to be the same as what we have in the states, but I was peculiar-ly surprised. Yes, of course the Christians here all see it as the big day as it is, and everything is closed for the whole Holy week leading up to Easter Sunday, but I realized today, no one dresses up special for church, the churches aren't all packed with the people who don't normally go, and the church isn't decorated for a celebration. It more or less was like a normal Sunday. People here don't all get together with their family for a big lunch or dinner, they don't necessarily make anything different to eat than normal. And only because there are us Americans here, did we make our own exciting Easter dinner. Like I said, I just hadn't expected things to be so different. When I first asked Ana and Moises about eating together today, they looked at me like. . . well okay, are you specifically inviting us over, or what, sure I guess? They were surprised to find out that in the states, often, family (blood or not) get together to celebrate Easter, regardless of whether or not they are Christians. I'm sure there probably are some Nicaraguans that do get together and celebrate with their family, but at least the people around here, didn't seem to see Sunday, Easter Sunday, as anything particularly special.

Either way, I had all the kids get dressed up so they looked extra nice for church. (Just don't mind the fact that it is hard to get 16 kids all looking and smiling at the same time without taking a dozen different pictures :)

And this evening we were blessed with an awesome dinner that we were all able to share in together, (us all in the home, the Jacksons, Moises, Ana, their two boys, and Kyle)

Moises was not too happy he was not a part of the picture, so he had to have one of his own. . .

He is also demonstrating the extremely delicious dinner we had of chicken fricassee (something I had never heard of, even though it is supposedly something we eat in the states) with rice and veggies in a great sauce, plus a roll! All made (except the bread) by our very own chef Antonio. (Also to give him more credit, he made dinner one night a couple weeks ago for everyone, and I told him I would try to get him a blog entry, but it didn't end up happening, so here I am giving him the credit.)

So although I wasn't at home with my blood family this Easter, I was surrounded by people I love, and who love me back. And what better way to be reminded of the reason for celebrating this day, than through LOVE.

The Passion

A picture of some of the Jacksons with our girls in downtown El Crucero where the church set up aThe Passion of the Christ  watch in an open market area of El Crucero. All of us who go to the church got awesome T-shirts to wear and passed out Bible tracks to the people who walked by (or who were on the buses when they stopped). It was of course an emotion and moving movie bringing many people to tears as they watched. I think more than other movies with blood and torture, this one is so much different because its TRUE. It actually happened, and more importantly, the ending wasn't changed to make it more Hollywood approachable. Jesus died, but then He ROSE and LIVES and I think without those final 30 seconds of the movie, it would be a failed attempt at describing our God.

More pictures of us enjoying ourselves before the movie started.

My only, only complaint about the night. . . and I can't believe I'm about to say it. . . words I never dreamed to come out of my mouth about Nicaragua. . . but, it was COLD! And I'm from northern Indiana, so I figure I have a fair enough judgment on cold. So don't judge me, I wasn't wearing a winter jacket like a lot of people were, but I will admit that I would have worn my zip-up if I had it with me. Really it reminded me of a fall October night at my high school football games. That kind of crisp breezy cool :) It made for good memories.
But they served coffee and cookies to everyone, and although I don't drink coffee at all EVER, I did last night. I only had about a half of a styrofoam cup full (just enough to make my blood a little warmer) because I was terrified it would keep me up all night, and thankfully it didn't!

But overall it was a great night and I hope everyone who was there was able to really think about the reason we celebrate Easter.

New Little Buddy

I have a new little buddy. He's been camping out in the shower the last few days (especially since there's no water to scare him off!) I had a hard time taking his picture so that you could really truly see how TINY he is but here you go :)

May God bless you on this Thursday as we get ready for the greatest celebration of all times on Sunday!

Lets go swimming!

We decided to enjoy the first day off of school, by going to the pool! We had a blast, and were able to take all the "big" kids so that no one was left out :) I'll tell you the truth though, I'm beat. I don't know how kids do it.

This is the "We are trying to sit and wait patiently, but why can't we leave already!" pose.

But of course, soon enough we were there and enjoying every moment! Including the delicious pbj sandwiches, cookies, chips and soda that are not part of normal meals :)



But in case you weren't quite sure if they had fun or not maybe Cecilia could convince you

Or Samari

Just a side comment: this whole bathing suit with a built in life jacket thing is great.

But more than anything, I think this picture of Luviana speaks for itself.

So I sit here slowly fading, and anticipating my sweet sleep, hoping my face doesn't turn bright red tomorrow. (I put SPF 70+ on my face when we got there, and then more about 2 hours later, and still got pink. . . i don't know if its the sun, or me, or maybe just both, but if SPF 70 doesn't cut it, I don't think I have any other options). But in addition to loving spending the day at the pool, we are all enjoying the simple unforseen blessing of the shower. Due to the lack of water at the house since Saturday (and still now), we were able to take advantage of the "must shower before entering the pool" shower and get ourselves all bathed, hair washed, and just plain clean after swimming. So who knew I could ever be anything but annoyed with those things, but here I am, truly thankful someone decided to come up with the idea.

Nicaragua is about improvising

Tonight we made 'No bake cookies!' aka Cowplop cookies :) We don't have an oven in the house, so this was what we decided on. For whatever reason, its the first time we have made them since I've been here. The only problem was that we had no cocoa- only a giant hershey's milk chocolate bar that i had been given as a gift! The only other minor isue was that I could only find one 3/4 cup measuring cup. I am pretty sure we have a set somewhere here in the house, but only the Lord knows where it is. So everything was measured in association to 3/4 cup (true to Nicaraguan style.)

But I think they turned out okay! To me they were a little too sweet and milky, but the kids all loved them!

We ended up using the milk chocolate bar and a little chocolate milk powder in place of the cocoa, and taking a little bit of milk out of what it called for. The hardest thing was that the milk chocolate didn't melt all that well (hence adding the powdered chocolate milk mix) but otherwise, I would call it a successful mission.

Here is Yorbanny with our creation (she was my primary chef assistant, although Solimar did help some too)

And more of our final product:

Primera Festival Unido en Cristo

Whoever thinks that Christian music is tranquil was not at the concert we had Saturday night! Moises planned this activity aiming to pull in the young people from various churches of El Crucero, but the event in our school gym was standing room only with over 500 people of all ages there! There were multiple 'Reggeaton' and pop style Christian groups that came and played as well as a Christian rapper. (I confirmed though, that it is not only the lyrics that makes me not like a majority of rap, its the fact that i just can't understand any of the words- and that wasn't because it was in spanish either!) The kids LOVED it, especially the three older girls. If it hadn't ended after 4 hours, they would have stayed longer. It was also exciting because they got dressed up nicely and felt like they were actually going somewhere!

This is all of them before we left, of course we had a long walk of about a 100 yards to get us to the school :)

We all had a lot of fun, especially because there aren't nearly as many things to do on a random weekend night here as in the states, especially things that are free. So they don't get to 'go out' in terms of leave the house, all that often. Only Samari (the littlest one in the blue and white dress) fell asleep while I was holding her. Who knows how you can fall asleep with music blaring so loud, but she did, and of course wasn't content sitting and sleeping, or going back to the house and sleeping, in had to be in my arms :)

Here are some pics of the night:

There was also a group that did some skits throughout the evening (they were really well done), and one of them was the Lighthouse 'Everything' skit, if you haven't seen it, watch it here. It was the first time I have seen it done in person, and while it was almost the same, there were a couple parts that were a little different, and honestly it brought me to tears. Just to see the emotion and really be captivated by it in front of me, was awe inspiring. It didn't hurt that the end switched into the song 'Grace like rain' which I LOVE.

So I pray that the other people who were there loved it to the extent my kids did, because if so, everyone knows that GOD was in El Crucero last night.

Ganamos!

Well, we didn't actually win, (ganamos means "we win') but the girls wanted me to say they did, and in the eyes of the one that loves them, "Of course they are winners!" haha. But they wanted me to pretend that to everyone that wasn't there, they had won so that their pride could stand strong.

Today was the championship futbol game of the school, and my 3 oldest girls played on the 7th grade team against the 11th graders! Earlier in the tournament they played them and ended in a tie, so we were hopeful they could pull out a victory, but unfortunately today was not the day and they fell in a 2-0 defeat. They were sad, but they were a pretty big underdog, so you can't really be disappointed. They were excited that the 8th grade boys won over the 11th graders though. Regardless, here's some pics of them playing:

Joely is on the right in the pink shorts, Debonney to her left in the purple shirt, and Cecilia on the far left wearing jeans and a red shirt

A bunch of kids stayed after school to watch :)

Not to mention all of us! With the field being ideally placed outside our front door, we can bring chairs out and watch comfortably :)

She was the littlest fan, and although not real good at following the game, loved cheering on her big sisters.



So despite a loss, they were still in good moods and enjoyed watching the next game.

Bananas

Today for the first time, I rode in the back of a pick up truck. (Parents and assistant guardians do not worry, I am back in one piece. We only went about 10 minutes down the road here in El Crucero.) Despite countless trips I have taken where other people have ridden in the bed, I have always graciously and considerately given up my seat in the back open air to sit inside the cab. For whatever reason, I prefer inside, to the dusty, bumpy, windy, loud, ride outside. But really most people who come down here with teams for short term trips are thrilled by the opportunity to ride in back, so I am only being partially sarcastic. :)

But we went to pick up bananas

(we get this many for $200 cordobas, the equivalent of $9.02 US dollars) This is minus about 3 dozen that were already eaten :) We love bananas, and if I didn't regulate eating them, they could be finished within the weekend.

the hospital again.

In my coming to Nicaragua, God has given me this as my biggest challenge. . . the public healthcare system. After the first time Ruby was in the hospital, I knew that it was one of the few things that I had found to nearly despise in all Nicaragua.
Wednesday night, Ruby had another seizure. It was short, but still scared us all, and led us to take her to the clinic here in El Crucero, where they took us by ambulance to the hospital in Managua (about half an hour down the mountain). During this trip though, I did realize the benefits to small communities. Even though Ruby and I were in the ambulance with another lady and her caregiver, we stopped by our house so that I could get a diaper bag and change of clothes for Ruby before heading down to the hospital. I can't imagine many other times that would happen. 



Ruby and Ofelia on the sofa :)


Ruby was feeling better by the time we got to the hospital, (she started laughing when got there!) But they kept us over night for observation, and in the morning we saw the neurologist, who diagnosed her as having epilepsy, and has put her on some medicine until we can come back and see him for an appointment (his first available is the morning of May 4). I do have to say though that this hospital experience was better than the first. Maybe it is because I know what to expect, maybe I came in more confident, or maybe it is simply God giving me a little more patience every time i have to go, but regardless, this is my challenge. I feel kind of selfish saying that the hospital is hard for me when I am not even the one who is facing these medical issues, and am not the patient myself. But knowing that Ruby is okay, I can be honest and I can tell you that it is a challenge to sleep in an upright chair in a big room with a dozen other patients, while the lights are all on, and every two hours someone is using the nebulizer that sounds like a bulldozer coming through. Thankful Ruby is a sound sleeper once she falls asleep, and did get to sleep a decent amount in her crib. So although the time passed relatively well for her, she was definitely getting antsy as the morning dragged on! But eventually they let us go (even though I hadn't been able to collect her urine for a sample to test), confident that considering her syndrome, she was in good health! (Just a question though, how do you collect urine samples from kids in diapers in the States? There has to be someone in the world that could create a more successful way than what they had me doing.)

So anyways, more than anything we are praising God that Ruby is doing well, and back to normal. Hopefully the seizures do not become anymore common, and the medicine as well as our prayers will help her avoid them, but just to let you know, that still doesn't make me like the public hospital any more. It just makes me all the more happy when we get back home!


This is after we got home. Also can you see how she can stand with support with no problems at all!

We're Potty Training!

Maybe I should clarify that, Marjorie is potty training. She is much more qualified, and has much more experience than I do, so I happily pass on that torch to her :)

The first to be trained, Ofelia is strickly underware! (besides when she is sleeping). And she will be the first to tell you, "No more pampers!"

And today starts Leito's training! He is definitely ready, and has so far only had one accident all day :) I also can't get over how BIG he looks in this next picture. He's like a little man!

Women of Grace

In case you were wondering, both Joselyn and baby are doing great :) Both were out of the hospital by Friday afternoon, Joselyn is able to move around without pain (while medicated), and is even laughing with the other kids, and baby Selah is being loved of course; but more about them later. Now I want to tell you about my absolutely awesome weekend.

I had the opportunity to spend this past weekend with an amazing group of women, learning more about Christ and His love for us, in a gorgeous setting.
I never could have dreamed myself into a resort so luxurious and beautiful, but God obviously could. Marjorie and I were taking about how we never dreamed we could be somewhere like this 'while on the mission field in Nicaragua', but here's the catch that we figured out. . . God equips those He calls.
This weekend was a time of equiping. Having the opportunity to fellowship with other Christian (ENGLISH SPEAKING) women, listen to an awesome speaker, Jennifer Mathewson Speer, have amazing praise and worship time with Lyn Westafer, and not to mention: rest. We were all able to learn about how we are Women of Grace. We studied the women in the geneology mentioned in Matthew 1 that leads to the birth of Jesus Christ: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. And wouldn't you know, they aren't perfect. They aren't those angelic women that you would expect to be in the lineage of Christ, nope. They are sinners, they are prostitutes, they are adulterers and so on, but do you know what the most amazing part is, they were still used in God's plan. God had orchestrated their lives in order to serve Him. The message of this weekend, is that we may be broken, and we are obviously sinners, but that does not matter to God, He is in control, and He will, and does use any situation to bring His will to fruition.
So while God knew what part of the messages everyone of us women there needed to hear, He also new that women love to fellowship, and enjoy a little time away to rejuvinate too, so He gave us (a group of I don't know maybe 75 ladies), the chance to get away for the weekend to this beautiful resort.

Here is the building our room was in on the 500 acre property of the resort:

Where we spent our time between sessions:

that little building there is actually in the middle of the pool, and has a little bridge on either side that you can take to get there (unless you just swim or wade to the otherside). there they serve any drinks, or snacks you want, and to make it even better. . .  the resort is all inclusive, so meals are buffet and free!

but in case we got tired of that view, we could just walk ourselves down here:

Sadly I don't think we took any pictures of the 5 of us El Crucero ladies together, but here is Marjorie and I on the beach :)



So needless to say, we spent ample time sunbathing, a good chunk of time sleeping, and most importantly the entire weekend rejuvinating and reequiping for the mission God has for us.