I SEE THE LIGHT, DO YOU?

These are the days you know you can't escape.  Being on the mission field is not supposed to be easy by any accounts.  It all started last Saturday.  I have slowly been redeveloping the heat rash I had gotten at the beginning of my stay here in Nicaragua.  Now it's back again.  This time mostly on my legs, particularly around my knees.  There is just no convenient place to get a rash.  As I write this piece my ankles will not stop itching.  It seems like there is hardly anything there but the more I scratch the more it itches.  Hydro-cortisone cream is a joke.  It has never worked for me.  I just stared at the doctor today as she prescribed it for me.  I reminded myself I could not lose my testimony over a tube of cream.  I waited for two hours in the sweltering heat of the waiting room as I watched the intense sunlight of the Nicaraguan sun pouring through the door.  The view of the coconut palm outside in the distance did not provide any sense of being in a tropical paradise.  Two hours later I had prescriptions for hydro-cortisone cream 1%, prednisone 50 mg,  and some banana flavored syrup called ketotifeno.  I already was self-medicating with the first two.   I hope the syrup makes me sleepy like she said.  In fact I know it will.  I tried it when I got home and I crashed in a hammock after dinner.  I hope I can make it last until this rash is gone.  Why didn't she just give me the cortisone I.V. like the last doctor did that I told her about the last time I was there.
Well, to go on with the rest of why these are The Days Like These Would Come.  So back to Saturday, it all started out like normal.  A slightly warm morning that I know will grow into a hot and sunny day.  I, Jimmy, Darel and the YWAM team took the ferry to Rivas to buy paint for art projects around the grounds.  The ferry was packed as if it was evacuating the island.  I looked back at the volcano to be sure we hadn't missed a warning siren.  Nope, no smoke or ash.  So we're out in the lake and I look outside and I see a swarm of gnats hovering over one of the trucks in back. I thought it was an isolated incident.  Later I found out that the annual swarm is on.  By the time we get back to CICRIN there are gnats everywhere.  My room is filled with hundreds of dead gnats and they smell like dead fish.  I mopped and cleaned and it still has a slightly fishy smell.  So my room besides always being hot now smells like a can of cat food.  Back to Rivas.  I don't understand how or why the Spaniards chose to found Rivas where they did.  I guess I would say that about most of the cities here.   What could they do.  It's hot everywhere.  I would have just made it one block wide and clinging to the entire lake shore.  Well, a trip to Rivas is the same as working in the fields all day.  By the time you get back to the island with all your purchases you are dripping with sweat, thirsty, exhausted, deranged, and wanting a shower.  To add to this all the sweating exacerbated my rash and now it's moved to the next level.  I don't want to wear clothes; not an option.  I hardly slept that night.  The electricity keeps going out so the fan stops.   I can't be in my room without a fan so I walk outside in the middle of the night several times.  Needless to say I had little sleep.  In the morning I could not eat breakfast from the heat and lack of sleep.  I changed pants twice to find the coolest ones and for the first time I didn't wear shoes.  I don't care if they judge me or I cause someone to stumble, I wasn't about to put shoes on too.  I wore chanclas.  Probably the first brown-skinned man to do so in that church. I guess it didn't phase anyone.  I also slept through part of the sermon.  I couldn't fight the heat and lack  of sleep.  Back to the orphanage; back to the sayules (gnats) and the heat.  This had to be the hottest evening of the year.  I helped Hellen set up a Pay Pal account in here air-conditioned office.  I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my time in Nicaragua in that office.  I forgot to mention that there were hundreds of sayules in the office.  They were on the computer screen, covering the desk (I kept blowing them off onto the floor) and continually pouring in through the a/c vent--seeking the light too.  There is so much spiritual parallelism going on here that I fail to mention.  The sayules are seeking the light.  They are a pestilence and they swarm in with you whenever you open a door-or a window.  Earlier in the day while I was pacing the rancho trying to find the coolest place with the least amount of sayules I kept thinking, but this is God's creation in action.  These little gnats are glorifying God in a way that I am unable to appreciate.  I see that they demonstrate is power to mass produce life.  They drop dead by the hundreds every minute that they're on the move.  Such an insignificant creature.  Such a successful creature.  God is so good.  I'm told that when the sayules come they stay for a while, a temporada, at least until it rains.  That night it poured.  He does answer my prayers.  I have been praying for the early rains.  You don't know what it meant to me to not have to irrigate that day.  It's not as easy as just turning on the faucet.  We didn't work very long today.  Until this rash goes away I have to try to sweat as little as possible--I know, what a joke.  Still, with the itching and the sweating, and the renewed appearance by the white fly once again attacking our garden I have to say I am greatly blessed.  If my biggest complaint is I itch, I have no problems.  Even though I was seriously contemplating making this a five months on-five months off missionary life just yesterday.  The best part, the sayules are gone.  No gnats in my teeth, covering my white tank top, in my coffee, in my eyes.  I don't know if they will come back, but I don't think so.  I just stepped outside to give Magdaleno, the night watchman a cup of coffee, and the night sky repeatedly lights up from a distant storm.  It is quickly moving towards us.  I hope it pours again tonight.  Insurance that the sayul swarm is over for this year.  I'm told that they are followed by swarms of leaf-cutter ants, the ones you see creating trails of green in the rain forest documentaries, and finally by thousands of frogs once the rains are regular.  Bring them on.  I already know I have the privilege of praising God for being able to witness some of His spectacles of nature, even if they resemble the plagues of Egypt. 
Last night before it rained, I stood outside the first time the electricity went out.  For the first time this year I saw the fireflies signaling each other above the tallest trees.  Again, God shows His symbolic glory through His 'insignificant' creatures.  Their flickering now reminds me that His light will always shine through the darkness.  Their appearance immediately before the first rain storm of the season seems to remind us that His light comes before the storm.  I didn't know it was going to rain last night.  It's a good thing to take notice of His light before the storms hit.

God's creation is so full of amazing blessings to enjoy!

After an initial failure with our red beans, which were decimated by the dreaded white fly,CICRIN is enjoying a bumper crop of delicious produce in our year-round summer garden.  Take a look:

Site of first planting beds with inter-crops of beets/carrots and cilantro/garlic under shade cloth followed  by tomatoes and cabbage, ending with a row of cucumbers.

 

Ayote squash come in different shapes and sizes.

 

Cristian and I smile for the camera while watering and harvesting Pipián squash.

 

CICRIN's first sunflowers and zinnia bed

 

From left to right: Ayote, Pipián, cucumbers, cashew fruit, radishes, beets, yard long beans, and more ayote underneath.

 

I used the ayote to make a delicious ayote bread using Paula Deen's zucchini bread recipe.  I have also learned to make a good thirst-quenching drink using limes and cucumbers.  The boys twist off the seeds at the end of the red and yellow cashew fruits and roast them over fire to eat the cashew inside. We also make a drink from the fresh fruit.  Because it is related to mangoes(and poison oak it does make your throat a little scratchy.  I also made my squash and corn casserole and they all loved it.  They want me to make it again.

It is a great blessing to be able to grow all of the beautiful AND delicious fruits and vegetables God created.  Every time we sit down to eat we should be filled with wonder at the miracle of His glorious creation.

A 6-shower day

It's just as they told me when I got here in November.  Semana Santa is the hottest time of the year.  Yesterday I took four official showers in my room and one with the hose when I was watering seedlings and one at the lavandero when I was washing my clothes.  It's a strange heat.  It's not as hot as it gets in California, but it is an all-consuming heat that seems to cause everything to be the same temperature.  There are no 'cool' spots.  The rancho is the most comfortable place to be because it always seems to have a breeze flowing through it.  But when the wind stops I realize that the heat is always there.  It's not a heat that hits you in the face when you step outside.  It's a slow, building warmth that starts from the inside out.  This land never really experiences cold weather so the soil really never cools off.  Consequently, it acts like a brick in a warm oven that slowly releases the day's heat of the sun in a cycle that has probably gone on since the last ice age.
A couple of nights ago the unthinkable happened.  The electricity went out.  My fan stopped.  Again, the air wasn't hot, or even warm.  But slowly, surely I began to warm.  The collected heat of thousands of years of warm days, one after another, began to build and permeate every object, including me.  Soon my body was covered in a thin layer of sweat.  I left my door unopened to hopefully alleviate the stuffiness, the phantom heat. It helped a little, but I got very little sleep that night. Next time I'm going to hang in a hammock in the rancho--hopefully that night will never come.

PRICELESS VS PRICEY MINISTRY

"I wonder if Hellen would prefer to just have the money rather than have the groups spend the money it takes to come here?"  That's what one of the parent leaders of a group from a high school said to me last night while we were eating ice cream in Moyogalpa.  It cost their group $26,000 to bring 30 kids and chaperons to Nicaragua for a missions trip.  It was a valid question seeing how much work it takes to host a group visiting the orphanage from the United States.  We have had three or four groups here at the same time for the last week.  That means the cooks have been working from before sunrise to well after sundown to make meals for over 90 people a day.  And everyone needs to or wants to talk to Hellen throughout the day.  Keeping over 60 guests working, fed, housed involves countless activities to coordinate, endless water bottles to replace, work details to arrange, bathrooms to keep clean and supplied, and parties to plan.  Needless to say Hellen has had very little rest.  In spite of all this I told him 'no'.  Their presence here provides blessings which cannot be measured in terms of monetary value.  It will never be extinguished, will never suffer inflation, will not reduce in value over time.  The Bible tells us to care for orphans, widows, the poor.  It doesn't say to send money to reduce the overhead costs of ministry.  There are no overhead costs.  All aspects of doing ministry are spiritually valued.  In God's economy our fellowship with Him and each other is what counts.   The desire in their hearts to come to serve orphans is what matters most to God.  He provides the means to get that to happen.  $26,000 can be used to buy a lot of necessary things but it can't minister to these children or to us the way a single person.  God values brotherly love; money means nothing to Him.  He can get all He wants.

Pictures of My Time on Ometepe Island

                                           

 

Unique beauty of the island

  Growing carrots and beets under 

shade to keep the soil as cool as possible

 
pelibuey sheep donated by the American Nicaraguan Foundation


     Beach at Finca Santo Domingo Hotel

  
      Hermanos Keila and Cristian at Playa Taguizapa

  
Saira, Scarleth, Isamar, Luisa, Cristian, Danilo and Hilden
playing gin Nicaraguan style


Hellen leading Wednesday Night's Family Night
                                                                               
 Danilo doiong a fine job of transplanting onions.

                                                      









Félix mulching the beds.


 Darel mulches too, we all mulch, do you?

                         CICRIN'S new wellbeing dug, thanks to the American Nicaraguan Foundation

                        the kids take a picture with the pump about to be placed at the bottom of the well

  
Don Hilario catches an alligator/caiman? in our net.


Big Boss Jefferson helps with the planting.

See I mulch too!

Charco Verde

Darel wanted a picture with me.CICRIN gets ready to start the volcanic eruption evacuation drill, Islanders making their way to the ferry.you can tell we ran for our lives.from left to right, Maren holding Duñia, Lia, Rebecca, me, Beth and Aleida.  a hard-working group from a Lutheran church in DC.  Some groups you wish could stay longer.  Thanks Lia for the Starbuck's Via.

Time is a Strange Thing---El Tiempo Es algo Extraño

Ever since I quit my job to come down to Nicaragua I have felt like I'm living on borrowed time.  I wish it weren't true but my biggest worry is whether or not I will receive the support I need to be able to sustain this work over a period of time.  I look at money in terms of how much time it buys me to be able to be here at the orphanage.  I know from past experience that God has always provided for me in ways unexpected above and beyond my plans and expectations.  So I know that I can trust in Him to continue to do so.  But in my mind, thinking in the natural, I look at how much I have in my missions account and I calculate how long it will last and pray that my supporters will honor their pledges.  So these three short months sometimes felt like an eternity while I was in Nicaragua.  I didn't realize how much I would miss family, friends, home.  And of course I spent much less towards the end than I did in the beginning.  Of course mostly because I bought most of what I needed in the beginning and now I don't need to spend as much--until it's time to plant more trees and expand our growing area.  But now that I'm back in So Cal for a two-week visit I feel like I never left.  Time is a strange thing.  It seems like I have gone through a time machine and time stood still here while I was away from home.  In a way it has.  I have no memories of this place as of November 15, 2009--the day I left.  The lesson I learn from this is to make the best use of the time wherever we are.
Ephesian 5: 15, 16 say 'Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil'.
I am glad I am able to say thank God that He has given me a work to do that is keeping me busy.  I have been focused on planting a bunch of vegetables and that has been done.  I have also gotten to get to know most of the kids on a personal, one-on-one level, beyond what I would have expected at this point.  And I know He has given me influence with them that they will listen to what I have to say about things such as how to treat one another.  It has not been easy, like Paul said, '...the days are evil.'  They sure are.  Discouragement, boredom, loneliness, discourtesy, misunderstanding can ruin a day if you allow them.  But God has an answer to all of them: persistence, perseverance, patience, prayer, la Palabra.  I know God thinks bigger than me so I know that He has more for me to do there than teach kids to grow vegetables.  I don't know what it is yet but I sense it will come about in that amazing way that He always does things.  Thanks for taking the time to hear what I have to say and please keep these things in prayer and I will be praying for you that you will make the most of your time.

I always dreamed of doing this as a boy.
Jimmy's the real expert though.

GREETINGS FROM MANAGUA AIRPORT

Wow, I forgot what a fast Internet connection was like.  Free wifi Internet access at Augusto Sandino International Airport, Managua.  Very nice airport for a poor country.  I'm taking advantage of this fast connection to put up this post.  Again.  It's been a long, long time.  It's so frustrating to use the Internet at the orphanage that I don't even try to post a blog after I keep getting cut off.  Well to let you all know, I'm on my way home for a short two-week visit.  I've been counting down the days until now.  Not only to come home, but also to get everything in the ground.  We've (me and all the kids) have really been hustling.  We've planted zucchini, ayote squash, pipian squash, beets, carrots, cabbage, three kinds of tomatoes, two types of cucumbers, three types of onions, two types of radishes, two types of beans, okra--new to them, garlic everywhere, and flowers everywhere.  I wanted it all under way before my departure.  I want this time at home to drag by slowly but I am excited to see what the garden will look like when I get back.
Now I'm looking forward to feeling some cold air and cold rain.  Right now Nicaragua looks like California in the middle of a hot summer: dry and dusty.  Three more months until the rains come again.  But one good thing is the wind.  Cool winds blow in from the North and make things much more bearable.  Still, we're about 11 degrees from the equator and the sun is mercilessly strong from 11 to 4.  I will water in the morning and by 4 it looks like it's never been watered.  But we have started to use water from our new well, thanks to the American Nicaraguan Foundation, and we're flooding the trenches and now they stay moist for a couple of days.  I'm learning how to adapt to the conditions here.  Narrow and deep trenches, which shade the bottom of the trench, are the key.  Last Wednesday I got to lead our weekly 'Family Night' since the director is in Costa Rica.  It was quite different from what I'm used to at home, but we made it through.  I hope they got something out of the devotional and the game we played about acknowledging each others good qualities. 

Well, I better get to my gate.  Now that I will be at home with a fast connection I will be posting a lot of pictures of what I/we have been doing.  Please check back soon!