Fogata!

We had a bonfire! and ate s'mores :) made from chiky cookies and roasted marshmallows. . . pretty resourceful if you ask me!
(those are the ones that are like butter cookies with one side dipped in chocolate)



 

Braids

We have gotten on a real braid kick here. With so many girls, there's plenty of heads to practice on! One braid I'm particularly impressed with though, is this one:

 

It doesn't look that exciting until I tell you that this is Solimar (8 years old) and she did it herself! She can french braid her own hair, and have it come out looking like a real french braid. I don't think I could have put a regular braid in my own hair until I was in high school, so woohoo Solimar!

 

Photo dump!

Sometimes I or other people take pictures of the kids either looking really cute, or doing something fun, or just being themselves and I don't have a specific reason to write a blog about it, so I don't. . . But then I think, these pictures are just too great not to share, so here are some. Just for fun :)

 

Teeth

I somehow, without much difficulty, have managed to completely erase any moment in history when I had a loose tooth. Obviously I must have gone through the stages of loose teeth and gaps as a child but I can’t seem to remember anything about it. Now though, I am living in a house full of children going through every tooth losing stage, and the chills are slowly coming back.

I can take care of most any cut, bruise, or bump. I can clean glass eyes, and I can clean stitches, I can wipe up messes of most any kind, but the one thing I cannot do. . . is teeth. I don’t know just the sound and idea and action of losing teeth just sends shivers up and down my whole body. I will encourage wiggling and pulling on the teeth, but don’t you dare be in the same room or within listening distance when you decide you want it to come out. To every one of the kids I will say find someone else to help you pull it out then come back and I’ll sop up the blood.

The most recent tooth to come out has been Samari (yesterday morning), although Solimar, Ofelia, and Luviana are coming in close. I think Solimar’s should be the next one to pop so long as Luviana doesn’t pull hers out just for the fun of it (it’s not nearly ready yet. . . beginning stages of looseness) But this missing tooth of Samari’s creates a grand total of 4 gaps now :) It would be a cute little ‘All I want for Christmas is my FOUR front teeth’ smile except that they aren’t the main ones. The top is gap, tooth, gap and bottom has gap, tooth, tooth, gap. . . So really she just looks adorably dorky. I took this picture of her last night, it’s hard to tell, but there are definitely four holes!

 

Stay tuned for the next installments of ‘The unending tales of toothless children’

English Access Program

I'm not sure I've ever mentioned on here before, but I also teach an English class after school for a program sponsored by the US Embassy. It's called the English Access Program, a 2 year intensive English course for students between 14-16 years old (when they start). The program is running in countries all around the world and has something like 12 classes throughout Nicaragua, two of those classes are here in El Crucero! I taught for 4 months last year, and then started up again last month teaching the same class that is now in their sixth level. They are a pretty great group of kids :)

We had to turn in pictures of our class so I figured I would share it here too!

Her favorite spot

Ruby loves the swing! She could spend all day out there if someone would sit with her :)

The Independence Day March!

This week we celebrated Independence day for Nicaragua. The kids have been practicing for the March for a while now, so everyone was quite excited when the big day arrived.

Everyone got dressed up in their new clothes, tied their hair up pretty, and set out for the adventures of the morning.

As soon as all the marchers got out the door (all the students met here at the school, marched together to where the parade started, and then came back by in actual parade form), Camille and I started to get the non-marchers (little ones plus Luviana and Samari) ready to go out and watch. We are pretty ideally placed in the middle of the stretch that runs about 5 km.

We got to the end of our street just as the first school began to march by (we were school number 4 of about 10). The little ones were mesmerized by it all. They sat in their little chairs, their eyes glued to the students marching, and the drummers banging away.

 

We were quite a spectacle ourselves too. Most people that walked by took a picture of the kids all sitting. Remember how I had mentioned before here that here people most people don't sit and watch, they march right along side the students. . . whatever they prefer! 

 

But at the end of the day, although everyone was nice and tired, I think the morning had been a success! Here are our march-ers:

 

 

The blue sashes represent the excellent students, and the red, white and blue, the very good students.

 

Yay Nicaragua!



The Wedding

Leave it to Solimar to come up with the marvelous plan of having a wedding ceremony in our living room.

The first thing she told me the other day when she woke up was, 'This afternoon we're going to have a wedding, you're invited!'

I continued on with my day not really thinking much about it until that evening when we got back to the house and she reminded me again. 'Let's do it!' I told her, 'Who's getting married?'

So here was the cast of our drama :)

Bride: Samari
Groom: Luviana
Pastor: Solimar
Singer/Bible Reader: Yorbanny
Guests: Jhoselin and Lauren

And I would have to say Solimar did quite a good job directing too!

Afraid of the dark

Whenever I get that twinge of 'and why am I here?' (it doesn't happen often, but you know sometimes when life just throws you a bad day) all I have to do is think about events like the other night, and I know exactly why.

I had just turned off the light in the girls room and was sitting on my bed when Samari came walking in, her her eyes brimming with tears. When I asked her what was wrong the tears just started falling. I was sure one of the other girls had said something, or her and Luviana were fighting about something, but she wouldn't say. She just came and crawled in my lap cuddling up with me. When she finally was snug in my arms, she looked at me and said, 'Mommy, I'm afraid. It's too dark.' Samari is six and the youngest of the five girls that I have sleeping in the house with me. Therefore even though she's not the youngest in the home, she definitely milks the roll of youngest child when we are just us 6 over there. With that being said, she has never complained of the dark before. She goes to sleep just fine on her own (she shares a room with 4 others and my bedroom is an entire 10 feet from theirs) and has never been afraid of the dark. But as I was sitting there with her hugging me, I was just pulled back to the whole reason God called me here. I'm here to kiss ouchies, to braid hair, to clean up after accidents and to be arms to snuggle in when the room feels just too dark. And I could never get enough of those things (well maybe not the accidents, but the others you know)

Camille's Birthday!

A couple weeks ago we celebrated Camille's birthday!

Camille is pretty amazing so it only seems right that she got some pretty awesome candles on her delicious cake :)

We all love Camille and thank God that she is here with us!

earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis, oh my!

It may not be as big of news anywhere else in the world, but I feel as though it is probably my responsibility to keep you up to date on all the weather/natural disasters that are threatening this lovely country of Nicaragua. . .

Last Wednesday there was an earthquake in Costa Rica that we felt pretty strongly up here too! It was a 7.6. Fortunately it was more of a rolling type. At first I thought it was just me getting sick. I felt dizzy and like I was going to throw up! Then I realized it wasn't me, but an earthquake! When it ended, I figured, okay then, it's done, lets move on with life. But that is pretty much the exact opposite of what has been going on.

First we were put on Tsunami watch (the earthquake occured a little off the coast from Costa Rica). We are far enough off the coast (and high enough up in the mountain) that that wouldn't effect us physically, but still something the country was considering. Fortunately, the tsunami watch was just as soon called off, and life on the beach went on as normal.

Like any other earthquake (I think), we had little aftershocks following. The problem though, is that they began to bring even more paranoia to the country! Nicaragua has notoriously been effected by major earthquakes every 40 years, the first occuring 127 years ago. The last major earthquake (killed 10,000 people) and happened in 1972. . . exactly 40 years ago. Now I have heard that earthquakes are impossible to predict, and we can never know exactly when they are going to hit, but Nicaragua is still on alert. Here is one article that talks about it. The country is preparing itself for the next one to hit.

The next concern to fill the country was around our various active volcanoes. When the earth quaked, the volcanoes decided they wanted to become a little more active too. One of the more active volcanoes- San Cristobal, decided it was time to errupt a little. It is quite a ways from us (I think like 100 miles) so it isn't anything that could reach us, but still another threat to the people who live over there. This is another active volcano that's a little closer to us. It's the one I've been up to a number of times.

San Cristobal

San Cristobal

School was canceled Friday so that teachers can plan evacuation routes and emergency plans in the case of another major earthquake. In someways I feel like it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but at the same time, you can never be too prepared!

Regardless, keep the country in your prayers, and also the nerves of the people too!

multiplying food

Luke 9:16
"Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks, and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over."

We all know this story. You may or may not have read this story about how God has multiplied food in our house. If not, you simply have to take my word for it and believe He does.

BUT now I also have this amazing story to tell you, more on the feeding the masses level. This Saturday there was an activity here in the school. It was an all day women's conference/church service type of thing. It was great. awesome. filled with the presence of the Lord.

When Angela was planning for the event, she estimated approximately 300 people would come. She planned on having a simple lunch of 'arroz a la valenciana' (rice with some vegetables, shredded chicken, and hot dogs all mixed together) for everyone that came. The only "problem" (aka blessing) was that a few more people showed up than expected.

The general rule of thumb we use is 1 lb of rice makes 6 servings. She had 50 lbs of rice set aside to cook. When we saw there were more people coming, we pulled out 20 more pounds. That gives us 70 lbs. But remember I said a few more people showed up than anticipated. In the end, that 70 lbs of rice served 750 people, and left us with a big pot left over (say enough for 30-40 more servings). Seven hundred and fifty. That is a lot of people and a lot of multiplying. and more than anything,

my dear friends, that, is nothing short . . . of a miracle.