October, 2015 Newsletter

We're back.  At the end of August we were back in the states for our first visit since leaving in January.  We stayed for a month and had a wonderful time visiting with our families (including little Charlotte's first birthday) and also a very encouraging time visiting with our spiritual families.  We got to go to several life talks and speak at services at Central and Rock Hill.  But, by the time a month had passed we were really looking forward to getting back to our work in El Salvador and our spiritual families here.  We arrived back on Tue. Sept. 22 and after spending all day Wed. renewing our contacts and studies, we spent the afternoon Thursday looking for a house in Juayúa. At the end of the day we decided on a house that is adequate but still temporary.  It is small, doesn't have a water source in the kitchen and no garage but at least we are not on the road every night returning to Ataco.  We got to start two new studies in October.  In one, Charlotte is studying with a lady who helped us several times in looking for a house.  The other study is with our current landlord.  He is a really nice fellow.  He did not want a deposit or a contract on our house and when we told him we were probably not going to take the other house his is reconstructing, but would probably look for some other place he was super nice about it.  Charlotte, Rachel and Linda held a seminar for Children's Bible class teachers with about 80 people coming from 10 different congregations.  Charlotte had the object lessons, games and Bible themed snacks part and everyone raved about it.  We got to attend two monthly preacher's meetings in one month for the first time since there was a lot of preparation for a big weekend on Nov. 7^th. And 8^th.  We also attended our first El Salvadorian wake and funeral which were very different from anything in the States except there was a deceased person present.  The studies we had going before our return to the states are mostly continuing.  One family that we had been studying with had separated while we were gone, but we are continuing to study with each one separately.  One study seems to be drawing to a close with the lady refusing to make the changes in her life that she knows she should.  And our study with Nelson and the one with Jose and Kelly and family still both look very promising and we are praying for their decisions soon.  We are also getting back into door-knocking to find more contacts since we are now in Juayúa full time.  At the end of Oct. we made the decision as a church family to change our meeting time for the main Sunday service from 5 pm to 10:30 am starting Nov. 15^th.  Our number is growing and this will be a better time for most everyone except that we will not be able to continue attending in the mornings in Ataco as we have been every Sunday since we got here.  Also, October saw the beginning stages of a new work in Salcoatitán which is only about 10 minutes outside of Juayúa and we will be working closely with the families starting this work and they will be helping us here also.  They plan to start meeting on Sundays the first of January and at least for a while to have their services at 8 or 8:30 so that we can attend there and they can attend here. On the last day of the month, Charlotte got to go to Santa Telca for a ladies’ class with Ricardo and Joli that had been in the plans since August.  Lots happening and it is great to be back!

October 31, 2015

Short notice and scary moments.

Short notice.  Charlotte stayed up until 2:30 am getting ready for her ladies’ class in Santa Tecla and then she got back up at 5.  Also she is now coming down with the cold that I have had since Thursday and said her throat is really sore.  Perfect for speaking for a couple of hours.  We had thought we might be going to look at a house for rent but never got the call on that.  About 9 I went to Selectos with a list to get food for Sunday lunch with Paulo, Bessie and Isabella and kids.  When I got back I took the car back to the garage next door for them to work on the bumpers.  Charlotte was getting picked-up at noon by Ricardo and Joli.  After a quick lunch I took all my load of stuff and headed out on foot for Regina's house hopping to catch a taxi but never did.  I had a 12 o’clock appointment to study with Nelson but he did not show up until almost 1.  We studied one of three pages and then Carlos and Arnoldo arrived for English class.  With a small class it was really easy and we made good progress.  Then at 3 Cesar arrived to give me and Arnoldo a ride across town to study with Jose and Kelly.  They were both present for the first time in quite a while and Cesar had been waiting for them to be together to study baptism.  At the end Jose said that was what he wanted to do but had some things he was working on in his life right now.  I hope to lead the study next time and do a follow up to the baptism study and to his comment.  For the 5 pm service we just had prayer and singing since Cesar had just finished up an extended study on the series ‘Que Dice La Biblia’ and we are not having service next weekend due to the family seminar in Ahuachapan.  Charlotte arrived home about 7:30 and she had had quite a day. 

Scary Moments.  I had worked on my lesson to prepare about 30 power point slides for a two hour lesson.  That was quite a lot since I had little experience with power point.  Ricardo and Joli made several stops along our route and it seemed to be a leisurely trip.  We picked up tamales at one stop and then salsa at another for refreshments.  I took some orange bread.  Then, in San Salvador, we stopped for lunch at Subway.  They said they tried to arrive very early because one time they got caught in traffic and were almost late.  They have been working with this small congregation in Santa Telca for about a year and everyone I got to meet thought so highly of them.  Joli had been doing a series on Aquila and Priscila and she wanted me to relate my mentoring experiences.  It was a good time of reflection.  The ladies were very receptive and eager to study. When I started I went around and told everyone by name.  They were surpised by this!  One funny, two ladies came together and they both had the name Maria.  The verb tense for 'we' ends with 'mos.'  So, one said I could just call them "Mariamos"....'we Marias.'  It was a blessing to meet them and participate in their study.  We headed out a little after 5:30 for the trip home it was already getting dark.  We were about 30 minutes along in our hour and a half trip and Ricardo hit something in the road.  After a minute or two, he had a flat tire.  He found a shoulder in the road and pulled over.  He got the tire changed and was about to put his damaged tire back in the car, when a man on a bike came by.  He said we needed to leave quickly.  The gangs had put something in the road to cause a flat and then they would assault and rob people while they were changing their tires. They had already attacked a few. He said that they were close behind him and we needed to hurry.  I had never seen Ricardo move so quickly.  He threw the tire in the back and told us to load quickly.  He almost had the car moving with one foot still outside the vehicle.  Once we were on our way, he called the police to tell them to go to the area and see what was happening. I sure was thankful that we got off without incidence.  Joli said God had protected us for it could have had a different outcome in a matter of moments.  It was good to get home!  

Ladies in Santa Telca

Song Leading by Vera

Ladies in Santa Telca

Enjoying the fellowship

October 30, 2015

Now we're cookin’.  Today was a second preacher's meeting in the same month because next weekend is both the family seminar on Saturday and a huge area wide gathering all day Sunday.  Ataco was the host congregation and since they have no real building at present and there is no parking much on the road to the Schucutitan meeting house we met at Entre Nubes.  It is a large rustic restaurant on this side of Ataco and they had a really nice building in back where we could meet with lots of space and privacy.  They served coffee and sweet bread and then lunch all for only $5 per person.  We only paid $1.50 each and Ataco paid the rest since they were hosting.  Most of the meeting was about getting ready for next weekend and a lot of time was spent counting heads and taking up money.  After the meeting we borrowed Ricardo's truck and he took our car to his house.  We headed out for Sonsonate and had 5 people riding in back and Charlotte and I in the front.  It sure is fortunate that Ricardo's truck has a good tight canopy over the back because it rained much of the way to Sonoanate.  After we dropped everyone off we went to Metro Centro.  First we went to Curacao.  They had a large selection of stoves but we were undecided so we also went to Omnisport which is also in Metro Centro.  They had a really nice Whirlpool and it was a little more than a very similar stove in Curacao so I asked them if they would match the price and they said no that their stove was imported from the U. S. and the other one was not.  We drove around for a little but found there was not much selection anywhere else in town and ended up coming back for the Whirlpool since Charlotte said she liked it better than anything else we had seen.  We asked if they had it in a box and he said that was the only one.  Charlotte said we should get some discount for taking the floor model but he said oh no because this way we could see that this one had no dents or dings and one in the box might get dropped and have dents when we got it and then we would have to wait while they replaced it.  We gave up and took it.  We had already stopped at Freund and gotten a new gas line and connection for the tank because I was not sure where the leak was in the old stove and that was only a few dollars anyway.  While I paid, Charlotte went into the large Selectos in Metro Centro and got a few items.  We ended up driving back in the dark but had no problems.  I called Ricardo and he met us at our house with our car and helped me unload and then got his truck.  Just as we arrived the rain started pouring again so we had to wait for it to slack some and still unloaded in some rain.  I got it all hooked up with no problems and it all works great.  Now we are cookin’.  I cannot imagine money better spent with all the cooking that Charlotte does and all the entertaining we do.  About 9:30 tonight Kelly and her two children knocked on our door.  Their son Kiki was looking for something he could use as a Halloween outfit.  Fortunately we still had the masks we had used to pretend to be crows at the children's retreat in May.  They had gotten a new puppy that had very long and matted hair.  We had a nice visit but they did not stay long.  Kelly said they would be expecting us for the study tomorrow.  Charlotte will be in Santa Tecla with Ricardo and Joli.  She thought she was just going for the ride but Joli called after we got home and said Charlotte would be the speaker tomorrow so she may be up a while getting ready.  At least it was our day off.  We had joked with Noe at the preacher's meeting about trying to have a day off once a week and he laughed and said once a month would be amazing.  We agreed.  

Preacher's Meeting

Lunchtime.

Entertainment at light....

he juggled too!

Sign reads, "Dogs for sale!"

Kiki and Nicole's new dog.

Trying out the Halloween gear!

It's contagious!

Nicole tried out the bird mask!

New Stove!!!!!

Top with a warmer.

Six Eyes!

October 29, 2015

Armadillo by morning.  There is a country song that I really like by George Strait and the title is Amarillo by morning.  If you have never seen it you should at least once if you can google it.  Anyway at 8 this morning Jose knocked on our door to say that he had trapped a live armadillo and wanted us to come over to see it.  We got ready and went.  It was large and fat and very interesting.  When we got home we had another surprise- our utility bill was lying on our floor.  It must have been slipped under our door while we were out.  Everyone else had gotten theirs a few days ago and we thought we had missed ours but fortunately still had time to pay it.  We took Wicket for a walk and then Charlotte went in Selectos to get a few more items for dinner tonight with Julia.  When we got home I took the car to the shop just down from our house so they could remove the front bumper to repaint it and put it on the car better.  They said I could pick the car up after lunch without the bumper.  Charlotte informed me we were out of stove gas again.  We had gotten one tank that only lasted a couple of weeks and we had kept disconnecting it after using since we were smelling gas.  This time the smell was present but not quite as strong so we left the tank connected and it only lasted about 1 week.  We decided that settled the matter and we would go tomorrow to get a new stove.  Charlotte said we could also title this blog gassed.  We went to Omar, Emile and Gisela at two and studied till three.  We had thought their dad was going to be there at 2 to go look at a house.  He was detained and so we studied first.  Then it started pouring down rain and at 3 when he still did not come they said they knew where the house was and we could ride up and see if anyone was there.  It was just pouring the whole time so I just went ahead and got soaked and Charlotte tried to use the umbrella.  The house was small and ugly and not at all anything we would be interested in.  We dropped them back off and came home to finish getting dinner ready.  At 6 Charlotte and I went to pick up Julia.  She had her son and two adult grandsons sitting around and she was making rabbit stew.  She started making excuses for not coming and I said it was up to her but this was a one-time offer.  She asked why in surprise and I explained it was a lot of work to get dinner ready for someone and if they did not come we would not go to that effort again and risk them not coming the next time also.  With that she finished the stew and got dressed and came on.  We just had dinner and then took her back after about 1 hour because of all her family.  It was nice but she didn't eat much.  The one dish she really liked was creamy broccoli and chicken casserole that I actually didn't so Charlotte sent most of it home with her.  I think it was pretty different from what she was used to.  At 7 there was a knock on our door.  Regina and Pedro had escorted Zuleyma and Danielito home and stopped back by to ask what had happened to our front bumper. 

What a catch!

Armadilla for dinner? 

Close up! 

Trap without bait.

Bumper repairs in progress.

Dinner with Julia.

October 28, 2015

Three short weeks.  We headed out this morning about 9:30 after a short visit in our house with Cesar to talk about some things we needed to bring up for consideration by our Juayua family.  First, we passed by the home of Mr. Rivas whom we have not seen now for a long time.  Last week his mother said he was in bed with chikungunya.  Today she said he had gotten better enough that he was not at home.  Then we stopped by Delmy's but she was at the clinic getting some medicine so we left some cookies Charlotte had made and said we would check back.  The only one left for the morning was Julia and we had a final study with her on her need to become a Christian.  At times she seemed to be considering it but in the end was just unwilling to pay the cost of the commitment.  Charlotte invited her for dinner at our house on Thursday night and she said she would come.  After lunch we went by the school in Juayua to meet with the director.  This time he was in and favorably receptive to our teaching the classes but said that there would be no room available until Monday Nov. 30^th. And that will give us only 3 short weeks of classes- just 6 with each group of students so it will most definitely be only an introduction.  We had stopped by Omar's house to say we needed to change our study with them to tomorrow and they said that was fine and they would come at 6 today for the class on marriage.  We said we could swing by to get them on our way.  Then we went to Regina's house and fortunately everyone was home because we wanted to have a meeting about the items we had discussed with Cesar.  First, we now have some people coming to services from out of town and it is not good for them to have to go home in the dark.  Also some of our contacts have said they would like it better if our services on Sunday were in the mornings.  We settled on 10:30 and will discuss this with the group tonight and again on Sunday night and begin the new time on Sunday Nov. 15^th.  So this Sunday will be our last time in Schucutitan.  That sure is hard to imagine.  Then we talked about looking for a place for the church to meet.  Regina and Pedro said their home was always available and we talked about how wonderful it was to have such a strong core family and place to meet and that we did not have to be in a rush but that we would keep our feelers out in case anything happens to come available.  We also talked about opening an account for the contribution and it was decided that Pedro and Cesar would do this next week so we at least can begin to have a good handle on how much we have available to spend in rent.  Then we went to Sister Ana's and had some songs and prayers.  Our meeting with Regina's family had taken a while so we had to make this one shorter but at least we got to bring her some food to help them out.  Charlotte and I ran back by our house and got things for our class.  Then we stopped by Julia's but she had family as usual and would not come.  Then we stopped by and picked up Omar and Emile.  This class was our second in the series on marriage in the material we had gotten from Alan. Charlotte just happened to have some regular candles and some that would re-ignite after being blown out and we ended the class with the illustration that when the winds of difficulty come you can let your candle of love and commitment be blown our or keep coming back.  We let Emily blow out the regular candle and Omar the trick one since they were sitting next to each other.  We had lots of fun with Omar, joking about how his sister had more breath since his candle kept flaming back up each time he blew it out.  Then everyone got to have cupcakes.  And everyone was in agreement with the time change.

October 27, 2015

4 studies and then some.  This morning we stopped by the Juaya credit union during our morning walk.  Actually, I stayed outside and continued to walk up and down the block with Wicket while Charlotte went in to make our first withdrawal.  We had put most of our money in our account so that we would have an official record for immigration that we had money.  So far we had only made deposits and on the largest one we had to show our English and Spanish copies of where the money was coming from.  We had opened the account under Charlotte’s name so she will have to make all the withdrawals even though I am on the account also.  Somehow, it is not the same as being on an account in the states.  Another reason to be good to her as if I needed one.  Anyway, it took a few minutes but went ok so at least we know we have access to our money after it is deposited which was not going to be the case with the bank as far as we were able to understand.  At 9:30 we picked up Cesar and went to Sara’s for a study.  We had a good study and she said she would try to come to the Sunday service and bring the kids.  We are also studying with Mario separately and pray that as each of them grow in their relationship to Jesus they will grow closer to one another again.  After the study we had a little time before lunch.  We tried to make contact with some people Cesar had spoken to before but one had moved and two others were not home.  We did get to talk for a few minutes with a young lady in her late teens who agreed to take the study course of ‘What does the Bible Say?’  After lunch, we went back over to Regina’s and had a study on baptism with Nelson.  He said he had been baptized and that he understood it was for the forgiveness of sins but said he would continue to study about it.  After this study, Charlotte had her second study with Socorro while I walked down and visited with Omar.  He said his father had talked to the owner of the house that was coming available in Dec and that hopefully we could see the inside of it on Saturday morning.  The owner is a lawyer and works out of town during the week but is here on the weekends.  After her study with Socorro I picked up Charlotte and we went to the hardware store to have a study with our landlord Don Santos.  We sat around till about 5:25 waiting for them to close the store and then he brought out some plastic buckets for chairs.  We told him we would be happy to have the study at our house and he said he would meet us there in a little bit.  We went by Selectos for a few items and went on home.  He was arriving as we did and he had told us the house beside us had just been vacated.  We walked in to look at it.  It had a much bigger bathroom with separate doors to enter the shower and the toilet and a large outdoor balcony but only three fairly small rooms.  Still it is always interesting to see the inside of houses here since they are so different from the states and almost everyone is different from the others.  Then he came over to our house and we had a good study for about an hour and a half.  He said he strongly believes in God but knows very little about the Bible so we talked about that and about how we can know the Bible is God’s word to us.  He said he would just come here next week when he can get through at his store instead of our going by there.  He asked if we were both preachers and we said no just Christians.  I told him my saying that I am not a preacher, never was and did not want to be.  He had a little trouble understanding that, he finally understood that is just not a talent I have and that we just enjoy studying the Bible with people.  We read the story of the wise and foolish builders which I thought he could identify with since he is always involved in building houses here.   I also told him that Charlotte said that when it poured rain during the night she sometimes dreamed the house is sliding down the hill it is built on.  He said she needed to have more faith to cast out her fear.  She said she was not afraid to die but could not help what she dreamed.

While doorknocked, we passed two ladies selling kitchen shelfs.

Looked like quite a load.

October 26, 2015

Making plans and making headway.  Mondays we meet with Ricardo, Joli, Carlos and Cesar to discuss the works in Salcoatitan and Juayua.  Last week we had met at our house for the first time because of the rain and they said they would just come here again today.  We have had our Sunday service in the late afternoon since the work here began because of the times of the services in Ataco and Schututian and when the work in Salcoatitan was first discussed, the idea was that they would meet in the mornings on Sunday and we would go there and continue our services here in the afternoons.  However, morning is the usual time for services here in El Salvador as in the States and I had mentioned that we would probably at some point want to start meeting in the mornings in Juayua.  We had thought that would probably be sometime later, but we now have some members who are traveling here from out of town and do not like to return home at night (sound familiar) and also some of the people we are studying with have said a morning service would be better for them. So we spent a while during the meeting discussing how we could support each other’s services and still have morning services in both places.  The best idea was that one service be at 8 or 8:30 and the other at 10 or 10:30.  We have not decided yet which one will be first but does not matter much to Charlotte and me because we will always be attending in both places.  At 11 we headed out to meet with the director of the school in Salcoatitan.  He was very nice and seemed very receptive to our offering some summer courses.  As we have said summer here is the dry season from Nov. to April or May and beginning in about 2 weeks schools will be out for about 2 months until early January.  The preliminary plan is to offer two classes of English and two classes of morals every Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 to 11.  There would be two age groups 7-11 and 12-15.  Charlotte and I would teach one group English for 45 minutes and Carlos and Cesar would teach the other group on morals.  Then there would be a 15 minute break and we would swap groups.  There would be 8 classes total in a 4 week period.  After lunch we went with Sister Regina to visit the school here in Juayua because she knows the director.  He was not in but we met with the assistant director who was very nice and receptive to our plans.  Tomorrow Carlos is going to take a detailed plan for each class and resumes for all teachers to the directors at each school and try to set up definite times.  We hope to also do the Juayua school on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.  This would pretty much consume these two days each week but only for 4 weeks and would hopefully get us some good contact with the communities.  We wrapped up our Monday with our usual study with Raul and Ana.  When we dropped Arnoldo off after the study we visited for a few minutes with Regina because she had just gotten back from an appointment with her Dr.  She has a tentative date for her surgery of about the middle of November when Arnoldo will be out of school for the summer vacation here.  She has to have several physical exams before the surgery and said she would go to get a price on those on Tuesday.

October 25, 2015

Dry Sunday.  We had invited Arnoldo and Kenia to go with us to the morning service at Shucutitan.  I headed out to pick them up at 8:10.  It was a beautiful morning and I said that after they got in the car.  Kenia said it was clothes drying weather.  We know what she means.  Friday we hung out a wash load of pants thinking it might not rain and the rain began 10 to 15 minutes later and continued for a while.  They did dry on Saturday morning.  We have missed having our dryer but we are near the beginning of the dry season which last several months.  We hope to be able to have the dryer working in the next house but there are very few people who use clothes dryers here and so almost no homes have 220.  On Friday night when they came for dinner, Omar had mentioned a house that he knew about that was to be vacated at the end of November because the people living there had already found another place to live and were just finishing out their contract.  We drove by it with them on Saturday afternoon after English class.  It is in a great location probably in the best part of Juayua and has two stories and a garage.  It is hard to tell from the outside what it is like but he is going to talk with the owner and see if we can get to look at the inside since the family living there already plans to move.  There is a store in the front room of the house which is very common here and the door was open when we drove by so we could see inside and Charlotte said the room would have to be repainted because it was lime green.  I told her that was where my color blindness was a blessing, it looked just fine to me.  Anyway, we enjoyed the service at Shucutitan.  It was sunny as we got out of the car but Charlotte asked if we should take an umbrella with us and I said I did not think so.  During the second hour of the service it clouded up and rained a very little bit but had stopped by the time service ended and we did not get wet at all walking back to the car.  Arnoldo and Kenia stayed at our home for lunch and we just had leftovers from all our company this past week.  Dwaine took them home after lunch.  Afterwards, Charlotte worked on Sunday school crafts and we rested a little before the evening service.  Unfortunately, Kelly and Jose were not able to come or Julia, but we did have a full house.  There were probably 8 children and around 15ish adults.  It was a good evening.  

Passed a wreck.

Another overturned taxi.

Jimi and his new dog, a Shar Pei

Our landlord and his son....they came to dinner last week,

but I forgot to take a picture.  So, we passed them on the street and visited a few minutes.

Chlidren's class...found some corn husks for the story on the Prodical Son.

The chocolate pudding was edible, at least:)

October 24, 2015

On again.  Since Santa Tecla was rescheduled, we needed our morning to finish preparing for the marriage class.  We even planned a mock fight for an opener….like anyone would believe that.  We were moving along, when Nelson came for a visit.  We had a study scheduled at noon with him.  He came by to say he didn’t have our number and he had family coming, so he could not study today.  He stayed for a bit and were able to print out some pictures for him from his lunch with us.  We rescheduled the study for next Tuesday.  He also invited us to go out to dinner with him and his wife and two children.  They want to take us out for pupusas next Monday night.  That will be fun.  We will go to the place that has the loco pupusas with everything in them.  We haven’t had pupusas since we got back, so we are excited about that.  We went to English class and we had four students.  It was a good class and Omar said that he would come back for the evening class.  Next we went to the study for Kelly and Jose.  The parents were away, but Kiki invited us in.  So, we started a study on youth with Kiki and Nicole.  Kiki said that he thought he was coming down with Chikungunya, so keep him in your prayers. About midway through, Jose arrived and joined in the study.  Afterwards we went to the marriage study. Both Nelson and Omar came as visitors.  It went well and it seemed that many wanted to change the class to Wednesday because more families could come.  It means changing up the children’s classes.  I always teach on Wednesday because the girls go to the university at night in Sonsonate.  Afterwards, Arnoldo offered to help by doing the class by himself.  It was amazing because he said that he needed the practice to help him prepare to eventually preach.  He had done some of the classes while we were in the States.  So, we are going to work on a plan to cover the children as well.  As a side note, Saturday was ‘band day.’  Many bands played, like parades, throughout the country.  We saw some from the distance, but missed the activities.  

Band in the distance

Close up

October 23, 2015

A different way.  We got up this morning getting ready to go to the funeral of Bro.  Rogerio, father of Bro. Jose Manuel who is one of our members here in Juayua.  We planned to leave about 9 because we thought the funeral would be at 10 in Ahuachapan.  We got a call about 8:40 that the procession had already left the family home and would be at the cemetery at 9:30.  We got everyone picked up and headed out as soon as possible but got behind some slow traffic on the curvy road between Ataco and Ahuachapan so we were not there till about ten.  We parked outside the central Ahuachapan cemetery and had to walk to the very back to get to the funeral service.  The cemetery was very large and very pretty though also very different from cemeteries here.  When we finally reached the place where the funeral was they were pretty much wrapping up the speaking part.  After that the casket was placed in a multi part burial edifice that was not like anything I had seen before.  Hopefully the pictures do justice.  When the body was in place in its space bricks and mortar were put in to close it in and then the name of the man and when he died was written in the wet concrete that was spread over the bricks and mortar.  All this process took about an hour and we waited until it was done.   Then several of us got into the back of Bro. Noe’s pickup and rode back to the front of the cemetery.  Sister Rosalidia, brother Jose Manuel’s wife and their two kids had ridden with us from Juayua but they stayed with Bro. Jose so we did not have anyone in our car. Sister Regina did talk to us for a few minutes regarding her surgery.  Soon she will have another doctor's appointment to finalize the date, but she is planning to have the surgery sometime in November.  School will get out soon and she will have Arnoldo, Lizbeth and Kenya all at home during the school break to help her. Then, we decided it would be a good time to run by the Ahuachapan Selectos since it is larger than the one in Juayua and has more selection.  We also went into Curacao which is a large furniture chain here in El Salvador because we wanted to look at their stoves.  The one Caleb and Della passed on to us is small but was fine. But now the door doesn’t close and the oven burner doesn’t work anymore.  We decided a larger and better equipped one would be a good investment considering all the cooking Charlotte does.  When we got home we spent the afternoon getting ready for Omar, Emily and Gisela to come for dinner.  Sometimes Charlotte seems to outdo even herself with each meal being more amazing than the last.  I went to run a couple of errands and pick them up about 5.  We had a great visit and after dinner we had about an hour Bible study.  Omar diligently took notes of all the verses.  We had thought Charlotte was going to be in Santa Tecla doing a ladies seminar for Saturday but we called Ricardo on the way home from the funeral and found out that it had been changed to next Saturday.  That meant that Charlotte would be here for the Saturday night marriage class we began last week so we stayed up till about midnight getting ready for the class since we have a lot going on Saturday.  Funny thing, Fridays are supposed to be our rest days now.  Maybe next week.

Entry to Ahuachapan

Lasst Moments with Family

Burial Sites

Slide in the Casket and Seal

Man Selling Ice Cream at Funeral

Sealing the Tomb

First Bricks, then Morter on the Outside

Man would sling concrete at bricks and then smooth it.

Writing of the name on wet concrete.

Can't see this too well, but it reads 11/09/15 on the date.

At first glance, reaction is that date hasn't passed yet and it is sealed. 

At second thought for us, that is 9/11/15. 

That is an important date for many.

October 22, 2015

Unexpected events. Thursday morning we received the news that the father of Jose Manuel, who was baptized here last July passed away.  We had been praying for Jose’s father, as his health had been declining.  He was 86.  So, our plans for the day changed.  Dwaine went with Cesar to study with Mario, who lives near the waterfalls.  I stayed home to prepare for the ladies’ class in Santa Telca on Saturday.  I was trying to develop a power point lesson with pictures of people I had mentored through the years.  That was challenge in that I have tons of pictures to review and that I have done little in the way of power point through the years.  I had written my lesson while we were in the States, but I also wanted to review all the scriptures in Spanish.  It was good to have a little time to work on this.  When the guys returned, we had planned to go to study with Sara, but decided we had better leave to go to the ‘visitation’ for Jose’s father before it was late in the day.  Both Cesar and we drove with a car full.  We first went to Ahuachapán to drop Eliza and Abi by Osvaldo’s and Luz Elena’s.  Then, we headed out of town.  The body was at the home of the man who died.  Once we turned off the main road, we continued down a dirt road that became smaller and smaller.  Finally, after about 40 minutes we arrived at their home.  The mayor’s office had provided a very small wooden coffin and it was on small iron supports in the house.  The ‘visitation’ is called a vela, meaning candle, because there were four large candles around the coffin.  We sat for about an hour and visited some with family. Words cannot describe the scene, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to take a photo.  At four, we had a service.  Arnoldo led singing and Cesar preached a sermon.  The man was a brother and we later learned that the family had Sunday services in their home with about 10 people meeting there each Sunday.  We also later learned that different groups of people visited that day and there were actually 3 different services held.  The last was about 11 o’clock that night.  We were trying to head out before night fall so we would not have to make the drive out after dark.  When we left, Jose was just arriving and he had to back his truck out for about a mile because the road was more the size of a trial and there was not room for two way traffic.  Dwaine said the last ‘wake’ he had been to in a home was that of his father, some 40 years ago.  One thing I was thankful for as we heard stories of this man’s great faith was that he lived to know that his son, Jose, was baptized and growing in his own faith.  I know that was a blessing to him. We got home close to 8. Thankfully, it did not rain the whole trip.  As a side note, we have now been back for a month from our trip home to the States.  Dwaine had been working hard to reach a goal of losing 10 pounds his first month back and he achieved that goal!  Well, for me, I achieved my goal too, but my sights were only half that of Dwaine’s! 

October 21, 2015

Chikungunya anyone.  On Tuesday we had gone by the Juayua health dept. to speak to a lady there who was related to someone who had a possible church/house location here for rent.  As we were leaving we saw a poster about chikungunya and dengue fever being on the rise in Juayua.  Of course with all the constant rain for the last week plus the mosquitos sure are on the rise.  Our first stop today was at the home of Delmy and she had come down with the gunya so we talked some at her gate and had a prayer and gave her some bread Charlotte had made and said we would check back next week.  We did have a study with Julia but she was also recovering from gunya.   As we walked back toward our house we passed the house of Mr. Rivas and his mother was standing outside.  She said she was still recovering from the gunya which she had for over a month and that Mr. Rivas had it and was inside in bed.  Our first stop in the afternoon was at the home of Sister Ana who’s youngest daughter Marina also had gunya.  As we sat in the study with Ana the rain continued to fall and I could see the mosquitos swarming in the air in her small house.  Then Charlotte and I went on to Omar, Emily and Gizela’s and they at least said none of them had gunya or dengue.  We are looking forward to having them over for dinner Friday night.  We have not gotten gunya or dengue yet but feel it is almost inevitable. We hope to knock some more doors tomorrow.  Will let you know how it goes.  

October 20, 2015

Sun is up.  At least for the morning, the sun was shining.  So, we walked, cooked and cleaned until 9:30.  This included washing one load of molded clothes in vinegar to try to save them.  We wanted to start door knocking, but, someone wanted to check on a possible home/church that might be available.  So, we headed out for a few minutes to check on a large corner location that had room both for living and for a church.  While we could not find anyone with a key, we checked for more information from Socorro.  She lived close by, so we stopped.  She always has good leads.  We drove a few blocks and checked on a really nice, open place for the church, but we decided it was too expensive, about $350 a month.  If we could find a smaller location starting at $125 or $150, we might make this move.  We are quickly outgrowing Sister Regina’s home, especially with the children.  Then, we went by the health department and Socorro knew a doctor who had contact information on the corner house.  She said we could call about noon and ask about availability.  Before we left we noticed lots of warnings on the rise of Chikungunya and Dengue Fever in Juayua.  Yikes!  We dropped Socorro off and headed to our area of town for door knocking.  We talked to a store owner for a while and he took our literature.  He was already working on the first ‘Que Dice La Biblia?’ lesson.  Then, we talked to another lady and she was eager to take the information.  She said that she was a Christian and both her and her husband preached at a church.  We talked with one other and had some Bible reading and prayer as her health was not good.  By then, it was lunch time and it is not good to try and visit during lunch hour.  After lunch, we stayed home to finish cooking for our landlord to come to dinner with his family.  I also worked on a lesson for a ladies’ class in Santa Telca on Saturday near San Salvador.  When the landlord arrived it was pouring rain and he only brought one younger son.  He said his wife and older son were not able to come.  He said the older son will be studying medicine in Santa Ana next year.  He said he had lived in Arkansas for a time, but came back to Juayua to open a hardware store.  He has been operating it for 14 years.  He said his wife was strongly Catholic and did not want to change.  But Dwaine asked him to study and he said that he would.  He had a belief in God and strong moral standards in the community, but was not attending a church.  He said he would study and we will start that next Tuesday.  We did talk to several people about the house he is constructing, and they said that it was not in a safe area.  We talked to him about this and he was very gracious.  He said we could look for a different house and that would be fine with him.  He said he still liked some of our suggestions, like he removed one wall and is creating an archway, opening to the living room from the kitchen and dining room.  We said to make his own improvements and not to try to custom build the house for us.  We can still see it when it is finished and I am sure it will be quite beautiful.  It was a good night with a ton of food.  The best, was the plans for the spiritual food in the coming weeks.  

Corner House

Socorro helping us look at posssible church location.

Second View

Outside view....hey, check out the AC!

October 19, 2015

He's alive, I tell you, he's alive. That is a line from an old Frankenstein movie. It poured down rain all night. I told Charlotte it would be really interesting to know how much rain fell just during this one night. Because of the danger of mud slides the schools and universities were all close on Monday throughout all El Salvador. We certainly did not go walking this morning. We started two weeks ago meeting every Monday at 9 with Carlos, Ricardo and Joli and Cesar to plan the church planting in Salcoatitan and the work here in Juayua. The first two meetings had been at Ricardo and Joli's house. They live on a dirt road and when I tried to return his truck after our move to Juayua, I almost got stuck. I called and asked if his road was passable and we decided it would be better to meet at our house this time. I called Cesar and he called Carlos. A little after 9 everyone arrived and Carlos brought Linda and the girls for the first time. We also got out our projector that Caleb and Della had given us while we were in the states. It worked great. We mostly talked about the wording of a letter to be sent to school masters in Salcoatitan and Juayua to ask them if we could meet with them about offering a series of classes on morals and English. We also decided to get a seal for the Juayua church so we could use it on our letters to the school masters in Juayua and when we needed it in the future. At the end of the meeting Sister Regina, Arnoldo, Kenya and Elizabeth came by. They had been up to visit with Zuleyma and baby because the baby had some shots and was not feeling well. They said he was better. They wanted to know if we were going back to visit the family in Salcoatitan that we had visited last week. They all wanted to go because they were good friends with the family. We decided we would go so that Carlos and Linda could also meet them. We also decided we needed to take both our car and Cesar's so we could get everyone. After lunch we met Cesar at Regina's and Arnoldo and Elizabeth rode with us and Regina and Kenya rode with Cesar. We met Carlos and family at the gas station in Salcoatitan. He said his small van was having cranking problems and he was having to roll it off to start it. They were parked up a little hill but had to roll pretty far back to get it going. I had thought we had agreed to park out at the road and walk to the house but when we got to the road Cesar headed on down it as did Carlos and family so we did too. We made it ok and parked with Carlos trying to park on a hill. As we approached the door to the house my phone rang. It was the people from Claro and they said they were waiting at the bus stop in Juayua to follow us to our house and install our internet. When we went in we found out that the ladies were not home but only one man. Charlotte and I headed on back to meet Claro and the others stayed for a little while. There were 2 men who worked on the installation and a lady who walked around the neighborhood and promoted Claro while the men worked. They were pretty efficient and all went well but of course they were not able to get our home phone working. Charlotte left about 3:20 for her first study with Succorro. The men tried very hard to get the phone working and finally they had to call Claro for me to speak with them and say I was happy with the work. The internet was working great so of course I was happy. We have only used our cell phones for calls since we got here anyway. About 5 minutes after they drove away a young man knocked on the door and asked if we had internet. I was pretty sure he had watched the installation so I said yes. He asked if he could have our password and I said no and he left. Then Jose walked over for a few minutes and we talked some. He said he was a little concerned about the location of the house we are talking about moving to because it is somewhat isolated. For Charlotte, I went to have my first study with Succorro.  She is so amiable!  She has a varied background with various churches, but she is not attending a church now.  We had a good visit and study.   About 4:15 I, Dwaine, headed out to meet Charlotte at Succoro's so that we could go to Raul and Anita's for the 5:00 study. On the way I ran into Cesar, Regina and family. They were just returning from the visit in Salcoatitan. He said they had a really hard time getting Carlos' van to start and had about 20 men pushing it in the end. At the study with Raul and Anita, Charlotte gave Anita some small gifts and we gave Raul a Bible because he did not have one. We studied about being under the old law vs. being under Christ's law. On the way home we had to stop by Selectos to get some items for dinner tomorrow night with our landlord. When we got home we were able to skype with Caleb, and then with Christina and then Leanna. We both stayed on the web doing some studying until 10:00 for me and about 11:00 for Charlotte. We are alive, I tell you, we are alive.   

Planning Meeting

Linda and Briana, dressed like a bee.

Muddy Crossroads

Getting Cable!

Installing Internet

Yeah, it's arrived!