May, 2016 Newsletter

Two by two.  This month we had Bro. Manuel and Sister Marina Azucena as well as their son, Josue and his finance Lia came to work with our congregations here in Juayua and Salcoatitan for 4 of the 5 Sundays of May.  The ladies taught the children’s classes and Bro. Manuel preached each Sunday.   He is a pioneer of the Churches here in El Salvador and is greatly respected.  Our ladies event on May 7^th here in Juayua was a great success again with 30 visitors and over 50 people total.  Charlotte and I spent the entire morning helping two other sisters get the church building decorated- we blew up over 400 balloons.  On Sunday, May 8^th after our service we had the great joy of two new baptisms.  The first was Enrique Ernesto Galacia the 16 year old son of Jose and Kelly.  The second was Carolina Sanchez, the oldest daughter of Sister Ana’s oldest daughter, Dora who died suddenly a few months ago.  This month we also had to get our visas renewed since mine was due to expire June 10, we had to go to San Salvador three times in a week and half but at least on the third trip we did get all our papers accepted and we got new three month temporary visas but it was during this phase last year that we had to go through the in home interview process before our final approvals.  So we will still have to see what happens but at least we have gotten this far along again.  Wednesday May 11 we had an in home explosion as Charlotte thought she had lit the oven and when it was not hot she tried to light it again and it blew up.  It was amazing how loud the explosion was and how much the stove came apart and ash was blown everywhere but despite all that we were able to clean up the mess and put the stove back together and everything still worked and Charlotte was not injured.  We even managed to get to go to Ataco that afternoon to visit with some of the people we had studied with while living there and some brothers and sisters in Ataco.  We also got to have our first men’s event on successive Friday nights first in Salcoatitan and then in Juayua.  Here in Juayua we had our first men’s event with 10 brothers and 12 visitors- we watched the movie Courageous and then we had tamales and talked about being good fathers.  Toward the end of the month Charlotte got the sickest she has been since we got here.  She finally did go to the Dr. and after some blood test he decided she had two different types of stomach flu one on top of the other.  She has tried to push on through as much as possible but has had to miss some studies and some services.  The most amazing thing she did was in the middle of all her illness she cooked a beautiful wedding cake and several other things as well as decorating for the wedding because last Sunday May 29 Mario and Sara got married at our house.  On Sunday morning we had a huge 5^th Sunday service with our congregation, Salcoatitan and three visiting congregations.   We also had the great joy on May 24^th of going to the airport to pick up our son Clifton who will be here with us until the end of July.  He will be working with us as often as he can when he is not gaining employment experience by working with Ricardo and Yoli in their variety store and warehouse.  We only have a month to go before our group arrives for the big campaign.  We are getting excited.  Keep us and especially Charlotte in your prayers.

May 21-May 31, 2016

Where do I begin?  That is the first line to a famous song but also a very good question for our blog.  Our last entry was May 20^th. And since then Charlotte has been sick most of the time.  She did go to the Dr at the end of our block last Saturday and he first thought she might have Dengue Fever which is pretty rough.  He prescribed some blood tests and some medications but the tests showed that she did not have Dengue but now he believes she has had two different types of stomach flu’s one after the other.  She has rested most of this week but had tried to keep going until the last few days.  On May 21 we had the ladies event in Salcoatitan which she attended and also cooked for.  On the night of May 20 we had our first men's only event.  We watched the movie Courageous.  The first session was in Salcoatitan and there were only 3 visitors.  The next Friday night, May 27 we had the same event here in Juayua and had a really good turnout.  We have several brothers in the congregation here (about 10) and about 12 visitors, several for the first time.  On Tuesday May 24 Charlotte and I went to San Salvador to pick up Clifton from the airport.  We both were feeling like we needed to stay home near the bathroom all day but we made it through pretty well.  We even made a Walmart stop as well as a couple of other short ones on the way back.  On Thursday night our weekly home meeting was at Jose and Kelly's again.  Charlotte had stayed home both Wednesday night and Thursday night with her illness and our numbers for both meetings were pretty low.  Clifton got to attend the men's event as well as a youth event here in Juayua last Saturday afternoon.  He said it went well.  On Sunday we had a combined 5^th Sunday service in Salcoatitan with Juayua, Salcoatitan, and three other visiting congregations.  There were about 125 adults and over 150 total with the kids.  After the service we had a catered lunch.  Sunday evening was the big event for us.  Mario and Sara got married here at our house.  Despite being sick, Charlotte pushed through and cooked a beautiful 2 layer cake as well as chicken salad and wedding cookies as well as decorating our living room on Sunday afternoon.  It was a fairly long and very beautiful ceremony and all went well.  I think till the end of the wedding Charlotte just willed herself through and after it was all over she was completely spent.  She has been home all week so far and in bed all day Monday.  She did have several visitors today and is pretty tired from all the talking.  I went out with Cesar and we studied with Delmy and then passed out invitations to the Ladies' event that will be this Saturday here in Juayua.  After all the visitors Charlotte did stay home and rest tonight rather than going to the services.  We sure are thankful to have Arnoldo and Linda to teach the children's classes when Charlotte needs to be off.  Clifton got to work with Ricardo and Yoli yesterday and today and today he was gone about 12 hours, from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm.  He was pretty worn out but said it was a good day.  We are thankful he is getting the experience.  Our internet was out from last Friday till yesterday morning.  It was broken somewhere on our roof but we have no idea what happened to it.  We sure do miss it when it is out.  We went to an internet cafe on Saturday but only got to speak with Christina and then we went back on Monday night and got to speak with everyone again.  Anyway, that is a catch up and hopefully Charlotte will get back to normal and we can try again in June to be more regular. 

Ladies Event in Salcoatitan

Alba decorating a cake for her mother-in-law.

Dwaine driving in the parade with Isela

 Clifton did arrive!

Sunday combined services with 

Salcoatitan, Juayua, and two visiting congregations for about

150 total

Wedding for Mario and Sara

May 20, 2016

Double header meals.  Dwaine left early for the preacher’s meeting and I started at 8:30 with Kelly and Nicole.  It is a study to lay a foundation for Nicole.  It was nice to spend some time with just the two of them.  I tried a new recipe for them as they are my guinea pigs for some breakfast foods for the campaign in the summer. We went a little long and finished up about 10:30.  When I dropped them off, I went by to pick up Celia and Nicole, Celia’s granddaughter.  Terry was called into work early.  We had planned to study at our house and follow up with lunch.  That was interesting to pull off two meals back to back, but it was great.  I did talk to Celia to ask her if she wanted a native speaker to join us for the study and she said absolutely not.  She enjoyed our studies and wanted to continue as is.  That was encouraging.  I took Celia home about 1 for a short break and headed back out at 2 to go to Alba’s sisters’ for a study, Angelia.  She was alone this week, because Alba’s girl Katherine, was sick.  We study about faith and it was good.  Seily was out so it was just the two of us.  I was glad that she was willing to go ahead with the study.  We finished about 4:30.  Dwaine got back from the preacher’s meeting about 2 and about 5 we headed to Salcoatitan for the first man’s event to watch the movie Courageous and dinner.  Dwaine led the comments after the meeting.  There was a small number, but a good time.  Linda was cooking tomato sauce for the tamales and I went to pick her up.  The movie was a little long, about 2 hours, so it was a late night.  It was good to get things going for the men.

Men's Event

May 19, 2016

In the last week, I had swapped Thursday morning study times so that Floramarina and Claudia would be early and Tatiana would be late.  Alas, Floramarina had already left early to go visit her mother.  She is a hard person to connect with.  Claudia was home and it was a great study.  Kenia went with me and Claudia mentioned she was headed towards becoming a Christian.  She is coming on Sunday’s now and some studies.  It will be great to see our youth grow.  For Tatiana, she is also considering a decision, but she has a difficult time attending services.  We did a study on the body and commitment to the body.  We are in prayer for her as well.  Her grandparents said they would be willing to study too, so we hope to start that soon.  Break for lunch and waited for Mario and Sara to arrive for a study.  We are hoping for a date of Sunday, May 29^th for their wedding.  Sara said she was interviewing for a job in Santa Ana where she would leave each morning at 4:30 and arrive home about 5:30.  After paying for bus fare, she would make a few cents over $3 per day.  That may be enough to feed her family each day.  We cannot imagine.  For the night, we had our study at Mario and Seily’s.  It was a good turnout with several visitors.  Seily’s served some iced coffee that was really delicious!

Evening Bible Study

May 18, 2016

For our morning studies, Dwaine and Cesar went to Delmy’s and Eber’s.  Seily and I went to Julia and Briseida’s.  Everyone was home.  The sad aspect of today’s studies was my study of Julia.  In the end, she basically stated that she is comfortable with her life where it is and that she does not have a desire to change.  At one point she had a renewed interest, but that has waned.  She has a lot of family and she is always busy with them.  Seily and I are going to shift to another study with Reina.  Time is so precious and it is difficult to have time for everyone.  We had stopped this study before, and for the time we are going to just stop by some for a visit.  We tried to wrap up about 11:30 because I was hosting a luncheon for our teachers.  We have eight adults that do a rotation on teaching and we needed to have a planning session.  We are trying to begin a program where we can recycle materials, so we wanted to introduce the materials.  We had lots of eats and lots of great comments.  It was a blessing to visit and make plans.  Dwaine took Mario to go to Sonsonate.  He needed to get his NTE to have for his papers to get married and to adopt Carlitos.  They had a successful trip and we are trying to shoot for Sunday, the 29^th of this month for their wedding.  This took the afternoon, and then we had service.  Osvaldo did the teaching since it was the 3^rd Wednesday and I did the children’s class.  

Teacher's Luncheon

Small guests

Making twine to make hammocks

Twine

May 17, 2016

Satisfied with our paper status, we were back to the norm for the week.  This morning we started with a visit to Armando.  He was home alone; his wife, Mercedes was out.  We much prefer to study with both of them, so we visited for bit and said we would come again another day.  That put us ahead of schedule, so we got a little longer lunch time.  I had put on some soup before we left and it was done.  Next, I picked up Seily and Regina for our weekly trip to Ana’s.  She was in good spirits and ready to study.  We did the first 3 verses of I Peter.  Sonja was present for the full study and Gloria was in the next room, listening to most of the lesson.  Afterwards, we began reading in a book schools use to teach reading.  It reminded me a little of the book, something like…Learn to Read in 100 Lessons.  It starts simple, but progresses rapidly to reading entire pages.  Gloria had asked us to teach her to read.  I thought it would be good to listen to, so Seily is practicing some sounds with us.  It was fun and led to lots of laughs.  I was disappointed Carolina was not there.  She is our new sister and it is very hard to locate her any given day and start some follow-up.  She will hopefully come Friday to a new study for Nicole, the daughter of Kelly and Jose.   Afterwards, Dwaine led a study for Don Santos in the evening on Romans.  Sonja did not come.  She professes a strong Catholic interest and really is not interested.  We hope she will continue coming some, especially to the service on Wednesday.  He stayed until after nine. 

May 16,2016

The bad, the good, and finally got it.  Yesterday at the meeting in Salcoatitan, Carlos had said that Ricardo could not attend the Monday leader’s meeting and that we really did not have that much to cover and maybe we could skip this week.  We had gotten the signed papers we needed for immigration from Bro. Larin through Seily when she got back from Honduras so we decided to try to head back out for San Salvador this morning.  When I walked Wicket I went by to leave the papers with Cesar so he could fill out our parts in Spanish.  When Charlotte and I went by in the car to pick him up we realized we had the wrong application papers.  Fortunately we had some blank copies of the correct ones so he filled those out and we used Bro. Larin’s signature and the church seal to complete the papers on the way to San Salvador.  By the time we got to the lawyer’s office it was after 11 and there was a couple ahead of us.  We ended up not leaving there until about 12:40 so we went to Burger King for some lunch and then on over to immigration.  The lady took our application papers and set an appointment for us to come back again on Wednesday.  I said “Oh no, we only had two things that needed to be changed and we still have to come back again?  Can you please see if they could look at our papers today so we can finish up without having to make another trip.”  She said ok but this was always the procedure because they had several other people whose papers they had to check each day.  She was gone quite a while but when she came back she said they would do it and told us to go back to the waiting area.  We sat there for about 1 ½ hrs. and finally a man came and said, “You can go and pay now” which meant they had approved what we had turned in.  After we paid we had to wait a little longer and then each of us had to be seen by an interviewer again to get a new photo and re-verify all of our personal data.  After that we waited another 30 minutes while our cards were made.  Finally at about 4:30 we walked out with new 3 month temporary cards that we will have until they issue our new 1 year cards and we will have to go back by to pick those up.  Our temporary cards take us into August but the one year cards may be issued before then.  When Caleb and Della got their papers accepted they did not have to do anything else before getting their year cards but with ours all the in home interviews and stuff happened after we got the temporary cards so we do not know if we are really all finished or if we will have more process to go through like last year.  I told Charlotte that if we have the in home interview we should be good to go because we have lots of members and coworkers here who will be very glad to speak on our behalf, and we have our bank records and a bag full of all kinds of receipts where we have been supporting the El Salvadoran economy and can show them our church locations in Juayua and Salcoatitan.  Anyway, we are so thankful that at least we have gotten over these hurdles and are moving in the right direction.  We started the re-application process last Monday so that was only a week but it sure was a long one with three trips to San Salvador and the temporary difficulties and uncertainties of getting all the paperwork done.  We finally arrived home about 6 pm….10 hours after we had left.  We were very tired but at least it was mission accomplished.  

May 15, 2016

Visitors.  We continue to be blessed with guest speakers this month.  Brother and Sister Azucena, Eliza’s parents, are teaching our Sunday school and doing the preaching.  It is a refreshing time.  We had a houseful and are thankful for visitors who are coming regularly and for newcomers as well.  For the first time, Claudia came.  She is the daughter of Floramarina and they said they would visit on Sunday.  Floramarina has something akin to arthritis and has to have injections every couple of weeks.  She was due for an injection and did not feel like coming.  After church, we had invited Brother and Sister Azucena, Mario and Eliza and Cesar over for lunch.  We have a lady across the street who cooks pupusas for breakfast and dinner, but, of course, not for lunch.  Upon special request, she cooked 40 pupusas for $14.  That was a good deal and it sure helped to just add a few sides.  On into the afternoon, Osvaldo and Luzelena also joined us.  They had worked in Planares for the morning and were heading back toward home.  So they stopped by for about an hour and a half.  When everyone left, we only had a few minutes before leaving for Salcoatitan.  We picked up Ana and a car load of visitors and our new sister Carolina.  For the first time, Ana’s daughter-in-law, also named Ana, visited.  Cesar stopped by to pick up Elvira, but she was not able to go.  They had a good number.  I am teaching this month is Salcoatitan and we had a very full fun class.  The kids were very diligent and motivated.  At the end of the day, we did make a final decision to go back to San Salvador on Monday to work on our papers. 

Visitors for lunch.