Sunday, March 29, 2015

March Newsletter

March Newsletter

March began with our move to our new house in Ataco.  It is really new and we are the first people to live in it.  After some adjustments on the garage entry so we could get the car off the street at night it has turned out good and we like it here.  At night it is much quieter than the other house because it is in a less busy corner of town.  Everything works great and we are very thankful and pleased.  Our first day and night were wild because the school (polling place) is across from us and everyone in town passed by our door the first day we were here and then there was rallying in the street until 2am Monday but pretty quiet after that.  I got to lead my first home Bible studies with no translator and that went pretty well.  We were told that the brothers and sisters here have been very happy with our Spanish though we certainly have a long way to go.  I as well as several people in our family turned a year older in March.  It was pretty funny we had several people over for lunch but they did not know it was my birthday until they got here. 

For me, this month has really been a time for building friendships, getting to know the body and sharing God’s word.  I have been going to the ladies class on Saturday’s and got to teach my first class as well.  The ladies decided to alternate their focus, so one week we have a class and the next week we go out visiting.  The visiting is heart moving.  It includes families that are not coming regularly, relatives of members, one who had lost their home in a fire and people who are not Christians.  We all go out with a prepared devotional, but often what we prepared changes as we see the needs of the people.  Similarly,   I continued meeting with the teen girls after service on Sundays in Shucutitan.  I always bring some lunch and Bessy, our sister here that helps us with our studies, prepares a devo.  Afterwards we go visiting.  From one of their visits, a lady came to church and Dwaine and I were able to set up a study with her.  She has a great grasp of the scriptures, but has said she doesn’t want to make a decision to follow Christ at this time.  We are all praying for this lady, Rosaria.  The teen girls asked me to host a spend-the-night for them in April.  I agreed, but interestingly, they asked if I would then take them to the pool in Ataco.  I asked if we would get any sleep during the night and they all said ‘no.’  So, I said, I just couldn’t stay up all night and then take them swimming.  I think my age is telling on that one.  It will just have to be two separate eventsJ.


Our two really big events in March were the baptism of our new sister Reina whom we had been studying with once or twice each week since we got here and the decision was made that we would be working with the new church planting in Juayua.  This is a town of about 25,000 that is about a 20 minute drive from Ataco.  There are a few Christians there from a work that had been started and then left off about 15 years ago.  Several of the brothers here were going there, visiting people, having studies on Wednesdays and then having an evening church service at a family’s home on Sunday nights.  We will be working with Cesar and Eliza Melgar.  Cesar is a young preacher who is really devoted to the Lord but did not have a work he was currently involved in so he has agreed to be the main preacher in Juayua.  He and Eliza along with their 7 month old daughter, Abby, moved to Juayua last week so we will begin going there several days a week in April.  We will probably move there later, but for now we will commute from Ataco.  

March 31, 2015

Moving day for the Melgar’s.  We had planned to have breakfast with  Bessie and her mother on Friday but I went to the garage to get the car so we had rescheduled for Tuesday morning.  We got there at 8:30.  They had two kinds of pupusas- one with cheese and the other with azote (a local vegetable that looks somewhat like a squash) and sauce and mixed onion toppings.  They were good and we had a really good visit.  Then we had our study with Sister Reina- we are still doing Que Dice La Biblia to help her get a foundation.  Then we went to Kathrine’s house for Charlotte’s study with her in Mark.  We told her Mark 7 was also told in Matt. 15 but she said she never wrote in her Bible.  Then we went to Senora Rosaria and had a study with her from Hebrews.  She said she understood everything but that she was baptized in the Catholic church and did not feel she needed to be baptized again but that she would study with us again if we wanted to come back.  By this time it was about 1:00 pm and we still had to eat lunch.  We called Cesar and he said they were at the new house in Juayua and were unloading the first load and would head back to Santa Ana to get one more in about an hour.  We fixed sandwiches and ate them on the way and got there about 2.  After we finished unloading, including breaking a leg on the dining table, he said he needed to eat so he, Bro. Pedro and I left for Santa Ana about 4:00.  We got to his old house about 5 but fortunately there were some brothers from there waiting to help us load so that did not take too long.  The truck was really full but we were able to get everything in.  Bro. Pedro rode in the back all the way to Juayua to make sure nothing flew off since the truck was open.  Cesar told me that when they moved into that house a year and ½ ago they brought all they had in one pickup truck.  By the time we got back, got unloaded and helped set up the bed and baby bed it was about 9.  We discovered one really bad thing about the house-there is a Pentecostal church next door and the preacher uses a microphone and is really loud.  Guess that is why they wanted to be sure we looked at the house in the daytime.  The lease is only for 6 months and Cesar said if it was too bad they would move then.  That could be a long 6 months.  


Delicious Homemade Pupusas


Bessy's mom on left and Bessy on right
Bessy always goes with us on studies and out with the teen girls.
She has been a huge blessing to us.


Moving day for the Melgar family.
Now they are Juayuaians!


March 30, 2015


Mountain top day.  We had kept Monday open because we thought Cesar and Eliza were going to move that day.  They had to pack Monday and move Tuesday so we had some time.  We waked over to Sister Rosamiria’s home and she went with us to study with the lady she and Charlotte had studied with last week who is a sabatarian.  She sat and listened but with a very resistant attitude so I doubt the study had much effect on her.  Because we had some time we decided to go on a lunch date to the Celestial Gardens.  We had been there with Lucky but had wanted to go back and walk around and see all the garden.  It was really beautiful and interesting but fairly pricey for here so we probably won’t go back soon.  When we came back we dropped the car off at the car wash.  For $4 they vacuumed, cleaned all the inside and wiped down all the leather and perfumed the inside, they also washed the car, cleaned the tires, waxed the car and machine buffed it all over.  Wonder what that would cost in the States.  It looked the best it has since we got here (see picture).  Charlotte thanked me for taking her out to lunch so I thanked her for the car cleaning.  I told her it was my consolation for having to spend the day at the garage last Friday.    Then we had our adventure.  We had told Edgardo we would go to his Monday night home Bible study sometime and this seemed like the perfect day.  We went over to meet him at the road near his house and he came down and asked us to come in for hot chocolate.  Then we walked about a mile down the road and started up the mountain.  It was quite a mountain and quite an experience.  We were told that from the top you could see all the way to the ocean.  Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover and you could not see the ocean but it was still amazing and very beautiful.  I had just told Charlotte Sunday on the way to Juayua how much I would like to climb one of these mountains if it were safe.  She said that clearly she was not the only one who heard that.  I have to be more careful what I wish for.  Anyway, there were only 4 houses up there, no water and no electricity and I still can’t figure out how they got all the concrete and other building materials up there.  The brother and his wife have to come down the mountain and walk to services every Sunday and then back up.  There are no roads or vehicle access of any kind.  After we got home we skyped the kids and I went to bed pretty early but I had no trouble sleeping.


Giant grasshopper....wish I had put my hand in the photo.


Celestial Garden


 

Celestial Garden


Celestial Garden


Celestial Garden


Which one is the goat?


Looking Good!   



Up, up and away!


It was some view!


Can you find the ocean?


Come on up!




Mountain top experience.
Coffee fields in the background.






March 29, 2015

Holy week has arrived.  We were told to expect various activities here due to the Catholic influences.  At 6:30 in the morning people began collecting around our doorway and sidewalks.  Many flowers had been placed in the street and at 7:00 the procession began.  The parade was to commemorate the Triumphal Entry for Jesus into Jerusalem.  The statue of Christ was hand carried and appeared to be very heavy.  To go through all the streets of Ataco would take quite some time and the movement was very slow.  A good size groups of people collected along the way and made the journey with the procession.  We headed out for Shucutitan shortly afterwards for our first service.  I stayed to visit with the teen girls, but the group was a little smaller due to the holidays.  School will be out for the whole week.  We tried to visit Rosario because she did not come today to service, but she was not home.  Otherwise, we mostly made plans for the spend the night that will be at our house on Thursday.  I am sure that there will be no sleep that night.  After staying up all night, the girls wanted to end with a visit to the Ataco pool.  Well, I said that would have to be a separate time, I didn’t think swimming after a sleepless night was a good idea for such an old person as meJ.  Anyway, we are planning some crafts, games, devo and lots of eats.  I am looking forward to the night….except for the sleepless part.  Before too late, Dwaine and I headed out for Juayua.  We wanted a little time to see some of the activities on Sunday in the town, so we left a little early.  We walked around for about an hour and ate dinner before service.  As we were eating, another procession started with Jesus carrying the cross.  After, it passed we headed out to sister Regina and brother Pedro’s home for service.  Franklin preached and he even told a story about door knocking with Della.  It was announced that next week Cesar would take over the preaching and we would be working alongside Cesar and Eliza.  They will be moving this week to Juayua and settling in.  It is exciting to have this focus before us and we pray God will open many hearts in this city. 


Design made with flowers in front of our house.


Branches for the triumphal entry


Gathering at 7 a.m. on our front sidewalk


Beginning of parade


Procession with statue of Jesus


Band at the back


Small dead snake along the path


Large live snake in Juayua!


Parrot hanging from the top of a vendor's tent


We asked how much the baby cost among the items for sale.


Iguana at the entrance of the Reptile exhibit


Carriage ride in Juayua


Procession in Juayua with Jesus carrying the cross


Statue of Mary at the end of the procession


Fellowship at Juayua church

March 28, 2015

Great start to the day!  We got to skype with our family in Huntsville.  All our children, granddaughter, my parents, and Samuel from El Salvador were all having brunch at Christina’s.  It was great to see everyone in the group.  Christina fixed a ton of good eating, especially some cinnamon rolls in the crock pot.  I asked her to send the recipe, but alas, it looked like most of the ingredients I can’t get here.  Maybe, I will get with it and make them from scratch one day!


First police stop.  I had been out with Caleb when he was stopped for a document check, so we always kept our papers with us.  When I went out by myself for the ladies’ class, I was almost there, when I got pulled over.  It was completely random, but it was interesting.  There is the car registration, stateside license, temporary visa card, NTE card and passport.  He looked at everything, but it all was in order.  The only thing that I didn’t have is a license here, but we should get that in April.  I walked to Zoila’s and her daughter said we were meeting close-by, about a 2 minute walk.  When I arrived at the spot, no one was there, but Zoila and Rachel arrived soon.  They had gone out early to meet a family that had been robbed this week.  They said the robbers had taken everything, even down to the batteries in the child’s toys.  That is the second robbery in the area.  Zoila and Rachel said I should walk anywhere by myself, oops!  A group gathered and we visited Bessy’s mom, Zoila’s mother-in-law and Zoila’s sister-in-law.  Dwaine and I have been working to develop a friendship with Bessy’s mom, Marta, so it was great the whole group visited.  She had surgery two months ago for her gall bladder and the site is still inflamed.  She didn’t feel very well, but hopefully we encouraged her.  I stayed afterwards and talked to her a little bit because we have gotten to know her so well.  She is planning to have Dwaine and me for breakfast one day with Bessy’s help.  We also stayed a while at Zoila’s sister-in-law.  She had four children and her home has recently burned.  We took a collection up to help her out.  She was very grateful.  Rachel asked me to read a scripture for her.  I am always deeply moved to choose a scripture that might be an encouragement and help someone find solace and desire in our Lord.  I pray for this often and regularly read many hours in the night when I can’t sleep well.  That seems to be a regular, so lots of readingJ.  We were out about 2 ½ to 3 hours and had about 8ish ladies out visiting.  It was a good group with lots of fellowship between each visit.  


Devo at Marta's home


Rachel leading a scripture reading


Walk to next home



Moment of encouragement



Zoila's Sister-in-law



First fire truck I have seen.



Group in Huntsville gathered for brunch at Christina's!



March 27, 2015

The Flea of Central America.  There is an old children’s song about a hole in the bottom of the sea.  As it goes along there is a verse that says “there is a flea on the hair on the wart on the frog on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea”.  Charlotte mentioned the man we met on the street here in Ataco who was from Texas.  He said that El Salvador was called “the flea of Central America” because it is so small.  I decided to google it and sure enough he was right.  I guess that means we are now living in “the flea”.  I never personally liked fleas but I guess God had a purpose for everything He created.  There are quite a lot of people living in the flea.  The internet also said El Salvador is the most densely populated country in Central America (# of people per square mile).  So we lived in Macau (the most densely populated city in the world) and now we are living in the most densely populated country in Central America.  Really, “the flea” doesn’t feel that tiny when you move around inside of it.  Yesterday was a long and interesting day for me.  I arrived at the garage where they had been working on the car at 8:30. Everything in the dash area and the middle console was completely disassembled.  When I told them I was not going to spend the additional $300 to have it fixed but just wanted it put back together so I could get it back they were a little put out with me.  They said it would take a lot of time to put back together and I could pick it up at the end of the day on Monday.  I said I was not leaving without it.  So after finishing a van they were working on they started on our car.  Then another large van came in that apparently needed a break job and oil change.  They stopped working on our car to do that.  Funny thing was that both of those vehicles were still there at the end of the day.  Anyway, since I said I was not leaving without the car so when lunch time came they all left, closed the doors and left me inside.  So I went over and started working on the car myself.  I have found that, at least when it comes to mechanics, that most of them here know no more than I do.  The owner had left for San Salvador about 11:00, before lunch, and I am pretty sure he told them to work on our car only in their spare time.  When they came back from lunch and saw the progress I had made they started back on it and we just talked and worked alongside of each other for the rest of the time.  It was really disassembled and of course they did not get it back together as good as it was to begin with.  But I was so tired and had not eaten anything or been to the bathroom since I left home so on a few occasions I said to myself when something was not perfect,  I can fix that better later.  At least when we finished everything but the AC was working and we could use it again.  I left the garage at 5:00 and called Charlotte to tell her I was on my way.  Of course, my sweet wife had dinner on the table when I got there and after a great meal and a “hot” shower I was feeling better.

Friday, March 27, 2015

March 26, 2015

Thursday we had the Melgar family in our home from Wednesday.  As they, headed out, Dwaine caught a ride to Ahuachapan to see if he could pick up the car.  Unfortunately there was a national holiday, Day of Peace, and the garage was closed.  We have been without a car the whole week and looks like it might be longer.  Hopefully, we will get it back before the weekend.  They did point out some directions of some locations that will be helpful in the future.  Dwaine caught the bus back to Ataco and we headed out for a couple of studies.  First we met with Reina.  She was gracious as always.  We are going to continue studying ‘Que Dice La Biblia?’ with her and it has lots of information yet to go.  Next, we headed out to Katherine’s, but it was about a 30 minute walk.  We stopped for a few minutes at Maritza’s home and visited.  She asked about Katherine’s parents, especially her dad.  Her mom has sat in on a study, but not her father.  He had once been in the church, but is not currently attending.  When we arrived, she was able to study because she was out of school.  After a few minutes, both her dad and brother sat in on the study!  What a blessing.  I was doing on study on Mark 7 and the chapter had lots of good information to share.  Afterwards, Dwaine visited with him some and I talked to Katherine about joining the teen girls on a spend-the-night at our home next week.  She probably will not be able to attend since she keeps her younger brother, but she might be able to come to part of it.  We headed home after this study and arrived about 5:30.  Of course we rode the bus home.  We passed a man and son in the street walking from the bus who were native, but from Texas currently.  They are just here visiting family.  For the evening we had Bryan over.  He enjoyed some chicken and rice and I sent him home with some cookies.  It is a blessing to be able to help him a little with some food.  He is a very gracious young man.  


Breakfast with the Melgar's

Thursday, March 26, 2015

March 25,2015

Yesterday the car was still at the shop.  When we took it the first time they said it was fixed but it only lasted three weeks and ran out of Freon again so it still had some holes somewhere.  When I took it back they said the labor would be free but if it needed any parts we would need to pay for those.  We called yesterday and they said it needed a part that would cost $190.00 plus they now wanted $100 more to put it in.  So I am going back this morning to pick it up and we are just going to get by for now without AC.   Maybe later we will try to get another opinion.  It worked great till it ran out of Freon and I think they did not find all the leaks, I don’t understand how it could have worked if there was some major part that was not working.  Yesterday morning we took the bus to Shucutitan.  There is a lady who we had tried to visit with Lucky who was not home but Charlotte had visited her with the teen girls last Sunday so she came to church this Sunday then yesterday we had a study with her on baptism.  She agreed with everything we studied but made no decision.  Then we came back and had lunch.  We had called Osvaldo and he came by the corner of Ataco to pick us up on his way to Juayua.  We thought he would be by himself but he had a pick-up load of people and we had to climb over the gate and sit in the back.  But he dropped most of them off at Shucutitan and we were able ride in the cab the rest of the way.  We visited Sister Anna and she seemed to be in good spirits.  She said she was always waiting for us on Wednesdays.  Her house had been rearranged and her bed was near the doorway where she could get more fresh air.  Two of her adult daughters were there and sat in on the study.  At the end she asked for prayers that they would become Christians.  Then we went to the house of a man named Raul.  He had been baptized a few years ago and was active in the church but did not know that a new effort was beginning in Juayua.  His wife was Catholic but she was open to studying and he said he had neighbors he could invite to his house to study with us and that he wanted to become involved.  How exciting is that!!!!  Then we had a good study with Mr. Rivers and then we and Cesar, Eliza and Abby came back to our house in Ataco for dinner and to discuss the plans for Juayua.  Cesar had developed a tentative schedule for the work and sermon topics for all of 2015.  We had a great discussion.  Cesar and Eliza hope to move to Juayua next week and then we will begin going there several days a week and the work there will really be under way.  What an exciting time!!!


Family with Raul and Anna


Sissy, mi carina


Joshua, Happy Birthday March 26


Entrance to grounds


Caretaker's Home


Two Rottweilers for greeters


Beautiful grounds


More grounds


There is a sculptured dog on top


God's handiwork


Great colors


Pedrito


Great backdrop