Which Holiday are we On?

There are many things we enjoy about the culture here, one of which is the number of holidays and celebrations they have here. It seems to me that there is an enormous amount of parades and days of celebrations, which is great for us and especially the boys. We have actually seen more parades this past year here than in our entire lives in the States. Sunday, Sept 28th, is the Day of the Bible, which most of the evangelical church celebrate with a …. You guessed it, a parade! A famous preacher from Puerto Rico, whose name momentarily eludes me, came in and spoke at the stadium, which was at the end of the parade line and packed full.



The churches decorate vehicles, the children are dressed up as Bible characters and animals, and there are of course, lots of balloons. The whole idea is to celebrate the anniversary of when the Bible was translated into Spanish, which was the 439th year this year. The boys had a great time helping decorate the truck and motorcycle and being a part of the parade.

Our kingdom is not of this world…

Thank God that it is not! Unfortunately recent actions by the Nicaraguan government look eerily similar to those of the Somoza government, under which this country suffered for nearly 50 years. The sad irony is that the people (namely the president, Daniel Ortega) who fought so hard to remove the Somoza dictatorship are now trying to solidify their own form of totalitarian dictatorship. And through it all who are the people who suffer? The average citizens, of course.
Here a few of the events that have transpired recently, as we near the mayors elections in November:
1.The candidate for an opposition party was removed from the ballot by some technicality.
2.The government supported mayors’ candidates continually utilize government property for propaganda activities and post their posters on government buildings.
3.An opposition political party who had planned a peaceful march was met violently by government supporters and was not allowed to march. The government supporters proceeded to threaten the marchers and burn the vehicles of various opposition leaders.
4.A group of students who were peacefully protesting in front of the government propaganda television station were chased away violently by a group of government supporting thugs wielding belts and, supposedly, machetes and knives. The first person to strike a blow against the students was a Congressman who raced out of the building and struck a student in the face. The police, who are increasingly controlled by the President, were nowhere to be seen.
This is just a taste of the seemingly daily conflicts that we read about in the newspaper. However, in all of this we thank God that His kingdom is eternal and someday, be it soon or many years from, we will be free from all of this strife.

First Family Vacation in Nicaragua

(Sorry folks, after several tries to post pics, there seems to be a problem with the website, so you'll have to use your imagination!)
Well, we just returned from a 3-day vacation at the Pacific Ocean at a nice little resort called Vistamar (literally, SeaView). It as a wonderful, relaxing time, and the boys enjoyed themselves immensely. We arrived Sunday around lunch, and enjoyed a sumptuous lunch, then ran straight to the ocean. Zach was a bit timid at first and insisted on holding Steve's hand, while Nathaniel, all 33" and 27 pounds of him, walked straight into the ocean and would have kept walking all the way to China if we hadn't stopped him!!
The wide beach was beautiful and littered with thousands of perfect, tiny seashells. We now own the 2nd largest sea shell collection know to man! The hotel was divided amongst several bungalows, and we took advantage of the free room-service to enjoyed most of the meals on our back porch, overlooking the ocean and swaying in the hammock. The sunsets were absolutely breathtaking, and I had to refrain from filling up my memory card with images of God's handiwork splashed across the sky.
We also sampled 2 of the 4 swimming pools the resort had to offer. Zachariah enjoyed "swimming" on his own, while Nathaniel continued on insisting that he "do it myself!", with a little help from Mommy. Throughout the day, boys and teens from the surrounding villages would stop by on horseback and offer a ride. While Zachariah declared no fondness for horses, Nathaniel was excited to try his hand at the beast, and enjoyed a quick ride with this charming young man, only a boy himself.
This is a bit late, we went away the weekend of Sept 14th.

The God of the Impossible… (by Steve)

On a Sunday afternoon recently I was listening to a teaching on a CD that some friends gave to us. The speaker spoke of the idea that God enjoys doing the impossible and related numerous accounts from the Bible as evidence: Gideon with his weaponless army of 300 against the mighty army of 150,000; Jesus waiting until Lazarus was ‘stinking dead’ to come and raise him; Peter’s release from the heavily guarded prison; etc. His point was that the more ‘impossible’ the task the less likely it is that we will be able to take credit for the miracle. It struck me that often times when I ask for things I ask for things that may be possible (healing for someone who is sick, perhaps), but I never have the faith to ask God for the impossible (fix the tire on the motorcycle).

A couple days later I had an opportunity to test my faith and ask God for something that seemed impossible. I was driving my motorcycle in the countryside and in the process I lost a small notebook somewhere that contained a lot of important irreplaceable information. I thought, “Well I could try to retrace my steps and search high and low for the notebook, but that would take an incredible amount of time and it is not likely to be successful. Or I could ask God that someone else would find it and return it to me”. But I felt like God was challenging me to ask for the impossible, that the notebook would be in my pocket when I returned to the house.
I struggled with this for almost an hour as I was riding, and each time I would try to ask God for this the voice of doubt would say, “but you know that it will not happen”. I was amazed at how difficult it was to ask God for something impossible without thinking at the same time that if it does not happen it will be because it was not God’s will. I realized how little my faith really must be to not be able to ask, believing, for God to do something so small.

In the end, without looking for it, I came across the notebook in a place that I had been earlier that day. So was that God’s answer to my prayer? I don’t know, but I believe that the revelation of faith and believing were well worth the experience, and I expect God to continue to challenge me in this area.