Ministry Experiences

The last post, I gave an update on our progress with Spanish. That's the boring part for me. What have we been using our Spanish for is the exciting part.

It is amazing to witness first hand the growth in this city. Bible knowledge is abundant here. Not just general knowledge, but important bible teachings are understood by many. This is because people enjoy reading the Watchtower magazine so much here. Since so few have access to the internet, reading material is actually read here! The people recognize the points brought out in our magazines are from the bible. Everyday, we pass by people as they read the Watchtower. Not only that, people regularly come up to us asking for the latest magazines. This is how I started one of my bible studies.

One young man named Felix literally stopped me in the street and asked me for the magazines. He seemed even more interested then normal so I offered him a study. He gladly accepted. Let me tell you, I have never had such an eager student. We study nearly every day. Sometimes twice a day! That's right, one morning after our study, I asked him when he could study next, and he said that afternoon! He plans on attending the memorial and hopefully he will start coming to the Kingdom Hall soon. He has had a bad experience in the past with another religion so this has made him a bit apprehensive. But he said he likes that he can make his own decision and is not pressured by us.

Felix asks lots of questions too!

Bree is studying with a woman who had studied in the past, but lost contact with her study conductor. They study every week and she plans on attending the memorial as well.

Bree with one of her studies

When we first started in the ministry here, we could barely understand any thing the householders would tell us. But now, it really is encouraging when we can understand our bibles students expressions of faith.

Speaking of the memorial, it is only 8 days away. We are expecting a massive crowd. The location is at a school in a very central part of our territory. It will be a special night for our congregation as we will be splitting in May. This type of change is quite common here with the growth, but sad none the less.

The last I heard, there were 30 congregations in the city. The population is about 150,000. I have heard from various brothers that the ratio of publishers to population is about 1 to 50. But there is still much work to be done. The rate of those getting baptized here is still growing. Not to mention the preaching that can be done in the rural areas!

On Sunday, our congregation made a special trip to a rural area to preach and invite people to the Memorial. We all pitched in the pay for the bus rental and it felt like a school field trip! Even our dear older ones in the congregation went! Sister Thelma, who needs assistance walking went with us. She was sweating a lot as we walked quite a bit through difficult terrain and I asked her if she was ok. She smiled and said she was fine!

Sister Thelma not letting anything slow her down!

We have seen just in our few months here a number of bible students make progress in the congregation. Several have become publishers recently and will be baptized soon. Because the growth is so much here, many in the congregation are unbaptized publishers making progress. Therefore, much training and assistance can be given to these ones.

Beginning the rural preaching day

New Kingdom Halls need to be built as well. We just received news that a new hall will be built in a few weeks and another one possibly in a few months here in our neighborhood. Each Kingdom Hall in the city currently is home to 3-5 congregations!

Our friend Yoshto from Japan is serving with this group that does not yet have a hall to meet in.

Well, we can't write all that is being done, but hopefully this gives you a better idea of what's going on here!

Language Update

With only a short time left here in Nicaragua, I wanted to provide an update to everyone. In this post, I will share our progress with learning Spanish. In the next, I will relate some field service experiences.

At this point, we have passed the five month mark of being here. When we were first deciding how long to come for, many told us that six months was a good amount of time to learn the language. So, do we know Spanish?

Well, by no means are we fluent and we obviously can't communicate nearly as well as we can in English, but we are able to understand and speak enough Spanish to get by. At times, we both felt frustrated and like we may never reach our goal of learning Spanish a sufficient amount. But like others had told us, the six month time frame to learn a language has proven to be right.

While living in a Spanish speaking country is a huge help, I've learned that you cannot learn Spanish merely by osmosis. You must put forth effort to learn to language. But not as much effort as you may think! I recommend studying a new concept and some new words every day. Then use those new things when you practice speaking with others. Listen to people speaking or audio recordings. Reading the language in printed form is essential as well. And finally, do not be shy. If you want to learn, you must put your self out there! Bree and I are both thankful to Sam for helping us. I playfully compare him to the spell checker on Microsoft Word when you make a mistake and a little squiggly red line appears. That was Sam for us here! We had good times laughing at our continued mistakes.

A common thing some would say to us back home was, "My brain can't learn another language!" I am always disappointed one someone says that for several reasons. Probably, they have never really attempted to learn a new language before! You have shut the door before even trying! Second, Jehovah God created our brains. Our brain is capable of so much even in our imperfect state. Third, that statement could discourage others from attempting to learn. Maybe they are having apprehensions about diving into learning a language. While living here, we have meet many from varied ages and backgrounds who have learned a new language. We only need to show love, have a willing spirit and Jehovah's powerful holy spirit will do the rest.

It is bittersweet right now, because we know that if we were staying here longer, our Spanish would continue to develop. Therefore, we are trying to make the most of our time left and are determined to keep learning when we return home!

The Short Story

It's raining right now. That may not seem like a big deal, but according to my records, it has not rained here in Chinandega since November 18th, 2014. This city is dry as a bone! There is dust everywhere. It is impossible to keep anything clean for more than a few hours. Yet, there are fires set on every street daily to burn trash and other things. Today, I witnessed a man set fire a large pile of leaves and trash, right next to a grove of trees and bushes. We then approached the man and had a discussion with him. The fire got quite large and all he had was a small pot of water if it got out of control. I was sure it was about to several times. Even with the wind whipping around and almost igniting the wooden fence a few feet away, the fire eventually went down. I then quickly remembered that the man probably did this a couple times a week and I didn't really need to be so worried. By the time I engaged back into the conversation, my 13 year old companion had started a bible study with the man. As we walked away, Miguel smiled and told me it was his first bible study that he has ever started. He asked me to come with him Saturday morning on the study. But Saturday is a day off for us! I will go though. It kind of felt good for him to ask me to come. After all, I can't really offer much help. Perhaps he thinks my spanish is better than what I think it is.

On the dirt roads, every step results in a ploom of dust

The Language
When people ask how learning spanish is going, it really depends on which day you ask me. Some days I feel confident and it shows because I want to keep preaching and pushing the boundaries of what I really know how to say at the doors. Today was a good day and I actually improvised a presentation for the magazines and reasoned on a few verses I wasn't planning on reading, instead of my normal reading through of one of the new tracts. Other days are just downright discouraging. I feel like I can't understand anything or say anything and it feels like I'm letting the friends here down. Those days don't happen too often. Usually I realize it is because I do need to study the language more because I had been slacking.

Bree preaching with Darling

Right now, one of bigger obstacles in learning the language is learning how to speak spanish. I have learned good amount of what to speak. I know quite a few verbs, nouns and adjectives, so therefore I know what I want to say way better than the last time I wrote. But at times, I will construct a sentence in my head and then speak it, but the listener just looks at me funny and says they don't understand. I know I pronounced all the words correctly! I think to myself. But I know that I may not have used them in the right order or even used the right verbs.

I am in no way discouraged about this. It is part of the learning process. Just simply wanted to let you know where I am at right now since many have asked.

Our large congregation. The sound was broken at this meeting.

The Congregation
We are very much enjoying getting to know the friends in this congregation. They have many strengths here that I hope rub off on me and can use wherever else we serve in the future. Just one example is how willing the friends are here to open their homes for meetings for field service. It really hit me just how important this is since we have to walk everywhere. Having a home to meet in is very helpful. For many congregations where we live in Maine, driving and spending money on gas is a huge part of our ministry. Opening up our home can alleviate some of the expenses for many of the friends incurred during the ministry. Also, we can cover the territory more effectively by being strategically located in parts of the territory.

It is a bit difficult because I want to help more, but I just can't at this time. So my biggest goal has been to just try and set a good example with actions since I can't use words. This means making sure we are on time for everything!

Waiting for the group to arrive.

They came eventually. They always do.

The Ministry
We work the territory completely every two weeks. That is a bit of a challenge because it has forced me to learn new presentations! Bree and I both have a few studies. Today we were walking home and a man was reading the magazines on the sidewalk. Once he saw us he ran up and asked for a tract. I gave him one and then he left. That sort of thing happens a lot. People enjoy reading here. Barely anyone has internet, so information on paper is valued.

Bree doing a study.

One thing that has happened a few times is that often when I don't understand what the householder is saying is that I assumed they are telling me something negative and they aren't interested. First of all, since I have arrived here, only one person told me they weren't interested. This was such a big deal that one of the elders had a group about it. Therefore, there really is no basis to ever assume they would be telling me that.

One very old women I preached too soon after we got here basically was yelling the entire time I was at her door. I automatically assumed after we left that she was not interested in the Witnesses because she kept shouting Jesus' name and so I figured she was evangelical. The next time we preached in her area, I was hoping that it would not be my turn when we did her house, but of course, it was. Once again, I didn't understand any of her yelling. But at one point she got her Bible out and said she had a question about a verse.  She flipped to Ezekiel. Oh boy. Thankfully, I had my english Bible in my bag which I usually didn't bring. I turned to the verse she asked about and read it to myself in English afterward so that I was sure I understood her question. She wanted to know why God called the nation of Israel a prostitute. I actually was able to give a simple answer which she understood!

Piglets at the base of the cardboard.

The next time we preached in her neighborhood, I actually wanted to go to her door. I felt like we had a little bond now. I feel bad for her. Like I said, she is quite old and clearly doesn't have much help from any family. She lives with all her animals in her small home, including a large pig which just had piglets. These piglets are literally her livelihood for the next few months. She can probably sell them for about $20 each in a few months. I asked her if she was satisfied with the answer we gave her to her question. She said, "Yes!" emphatically of course.

The Assembly
I imagine that many are excited to be having our convention in Portland again this year. I am looking forward to it as well. I think from time to time all of us have had a complaint or two about a location for our assemblies or conventions. But let me tell you, I will never complain again about any location after enduring the assembly here on January 4th. The location we used was the local baseball stadium. The stadium is just flat out not a suitable location for many reasons. We had to clean the night before the program right after a baseball game. Cleaning up after a circus is a breeze compared to that. The bathroom situation is atrocious. The poor speakers had dirt blowing on them from the baseball diamond. Then the audience has to endure tempeartures approaching 100 degrees. That's 100 degrees in the shade. Most of the audience is in the sun, so more like 120 degrees. We survived though. I give the friends a lot of credit for dealing with that all these years. They love it though. The spiritual food is what is of most importance. Nobody stays home just because it is uncomfortable. Over 3,100 attended. 3,100 for a circuit assembly! We have 28 congregations just in our circuit alone! The growth has been so fast that the branch has yet to split the circuit to get it down to the normal 20 congregations per circuit.

Setting up and cleaning

Listening and trying to survive.

For many years now, the brothers have let the branch know that there just is not a suitable location for assemblies and conventions here. Needless to say, when the circuit overseer announced that the Governing Body has approved the construction of an Assembly Hall in a nearby town, the audience gave the longest and loudest applause of the day.

The Weather
It is no longer raining. The rain today was definitely an aberration. I think today was the "trace" of rain that is normal for January. The best hope of sustained rainfall won't be until April, the month that we leave.

This sister is showing the river who is the boss.

Normal temperatures during the day right now reach about 93-98 degrees. By March, temps will be easily over 100 every day. Even though it is the dry season, it is definitely not a dry heat. The humidity, combined the strong equatorial sun make preaching dangerous if you are not prepared. Hence, my hat. Make fun if you want, but I have yet to get sunburned.

Last week.

Conclusion
Bree and I really like it here. We enjoy the challenges we encounter because it reminds of just how different of a world it is here. The blessings far outweigh any such small difficulties. It is tough when people ask us what we are going to do next. We really do not know. Right now, it is hard to discern just where we should be; where Jehovah wants us to be. So, we are going to keep learning and pressing on until April comes. In the meantime, our best friends Travis and Nicole are coming the visit us in about ten days! Hopefully, Travis and I will be able to watch the Patriots win the Super Bowl during their visit!!!