As I’m writing this, the temps have dropped to the pleasant stage, there is the slightest cool breeze, the sound of loud salsa music is blasting from the neighboring hillside and a brilliant full moon is shining in the bedroom window over my shoulder. It’s Saturday night in Nicaragua.
I need to be working on lessons for Los Cedros but thought I would get a blog written before I buried myself in frenzied lesson planning. Many of you already know but my hard drive in my computer was lost in a fiery crash last night. Okay…that’s not completely true…there was no fire except those few flames that came shooting from my eyes when the computer absolutely quit and refused to do anything. Jim spent almost an hour on the phone with Dell tech support to end up being told that the hard drive was dead. Not the news we wanted to hear.
The guy did tell us that when we return to the States in March, we can call them and Dell will send us a new hard drive and we will have 3 weeks to send them our old one and there will be no charge as the computer is less than a year old and still under warranty. He didn’t seem to be terribly surprised that the hard drive crashed but said that usually they make it longer than a year. ???? Well, shouldn’t they???
The sticking point in this is that I have lost all my “stuff” – lessons, blog copies, newsletters, etc. We had our external hard drive stolen at the same time we had our laptops stolen and had not replaced it. I don’t even know the words to use to describe how I feel about that! But there’s no point in getting upset about that part now…I’m using enough energy to fret about all my info stuck in my hard drive. There are companies who are in the computer information retrieval business but it is an abhorrently costly process.
We have put out feelers to see if anyone here is able to do that but so far, the answers from the missionaries haven’t been very promising. The local people we’ve talked to seem to think it’s just a regular part that is “broken” and can be repaired by a regular computer repairman. That’s not the case. Our friend here who is the computer guru at one of the nation’s leading banks and travels throughout Central America fixing the unfixable didn’t have good news for us regarding this. He said they recently had the same thing happen to one of their computers at the bank and ended up having to send it to the U.S. for the info retrieval. Which brings us back to the abhorrently costly process.
So, I’m assuming God is using this as another teaching lesson for me in patience and flexibility. It’s a good one.
Re: yesterday’s visit to the children’s home…it was a great visit! Fortress of Hope is a government licensed orphanage/children’s home operated by a group of American Christians for children who have been removed by the Nicaraguan government from their own homes due to abuse, neglect, endangerment issues, loss of parents, etc. It is located about 3 km from our house, tucked back in to a quiet neighborhood.
I’ll try to be brief in the description of the place. It was a former motel with individual little cottages or casitas. There are currently 15 children living there ages 2-15 – 13 girls and 2 boys. The children are divided into age groups with the largest having six girls, ages 11-15, sharing a casita. Each casita has up to 5 bunk beds in it, its own bathroom and a small space for the placement of the children’s few belongings. There is a house mother for each casita who not only sleeps there with the children, but also takes care of them.
The facility is very well maintained considering the age of the buildings and how they’re used. We noticed a few things that needed attention but overall, it was encouraging to see such a place being run like it is.
We met many of the children…of course, they’re precious and beautiful children…but most have suffered much in their young lives and are walking around with broken spirits due to their home situations. My heart ached at hearing about some of their stories. Even so, there were a few who were very outgoing and one little guy who had only been there a couple of weeks, immediately came up to Jim. His mother had dropped him off saying she no longer wanted to care for him…can you imagine? Most of the girls smiled shyly and were friendly enough but obviously, they all must struggle with trust issues. That’s in direct opposition to how a child should be…heartbreaking.
There is definitely not a lack of adult supervision and guidance there. Besides the house mothers, they have a full time doctor on staff, a clinical psychologist, an accountant, a cook, a laundress who also does janitorial work, two security guards on duty at all times and they just recently lost their social worker who moved to Costa Rica...she also acted as the liason between the facility and the government. They are in the process of trying to replace her with someone who is not only qualifies academically but also is a Christian. There are currently only two firm believers. I don’t think that the others are necessarily opposed to Jesus, they just have never been discipled on a regular basis.
Karen and her husband, Dwayne, were instrumental in starting Fortress of Hope and it is an outreach of a Mennonite Church in Ohio although Karen and Dwayne, having grown up as Mennonites are now Nazarenes. They lived in Costa Rica for several years and then were moved to Nicaragua. They have lived here for the last three years but have recently moved back to the States so their youngest son could graduate there. They are looking for someone here to help relieve them from some of the burdens of trying to run the children’s home from Ohio.
We spent several hours with Karen asking and answering a myriad of questions…Dwayne was unable to come due to business conflicts at home. We thoroughly enjoyed our time getting to know her…she’s a delightful person and I came away with the feeling I had made a new friend. She even took us to a nearby guesthouse they often use to house teams and gave us a quick tour of it.
We left Fortress of Hope better understanding the significance of its name. Before we said our good-byes, we prayed together, asking God to make His will clear to each one of us regarding what role, if any, we were to play in this ministry, to open the doors that need to be opened and to close the ones that need to be closed. Jim and I so firmly believe that we want to be where God wants us to be and we don’t want to just step into a role because there’s a void. If that were the case, we would be bundled up to our chinny chin chins right now in Budapest instead of living in what often appears to be a virtual perpetual hot flash! Our remaining years are too short for us to settle for what may be good instead of holding out for what is God’s best.
So…fast forwarding to this afternoon while we were at Tipitapa…Karen called and asked us if we could meet with her and a few of the staff Monday night for dinner. We’re continuing to pray for God’s clear guidance in this as it would mean there would have to be some schedule changes with Los Cedros.
And speaking of Los Cedros…we inadvertently found out last night we missed the open house there this week…we didn’t even know there was one being held. I’m disappointed but sadly, not terribly surprised. I don’t believe that we were intentionally left out from it but I have to acknowledge that is not out of the norm for that to occur. I’m not sure what God is doing with us there and I don’t want to read something in to nothing but there have been several things that have occurred that have made me scratch my head and wonder if we “stepped into a role…” regarding Los Cedros. We’ll see…
Tipitapa…it was a good news, bad news kind of day. With the crashing of my computer, I didn’t have my lesson to present for my English class, but we worked on conversation and it went pretty well overall. There are a few students who struggle with their pronunciation and comprehension but for the most part, the class is doing well. We were down in our numbers today with only 9 students in attendance but it made it easier to do what we did.
Jim presented an excellent Bible study class on gods, idols and God. It created a good discussion among the guys in the class…which is unusual as it is typically the gals who do most of the talking in Bible study. It was encouraging to see them talk through some of the quest
ions and come up with their own conclusions. That’s a big step.
We took some vacuum packed veggie bags (they are for soup) for Miguel and Elizabeth and for his mother. We also took a good sized amount of fruit, veggies, oatmeal, cereal, Sustagen and milk for Kenneth and Lindsay. I was anxious to talk with Danelia after class to find out how Kenneth did this week finishing up his chemo. He had another set of x-rays done on Wednesday.
The good news is the large tumor in his hip is shrinking!!! The bad news is Danelia said there are three new tumors on his “thorax”. I don’t know if that means on the sternum or where exactly…she just pointed in the general area of the chest. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach when she told me that. We just looked at one another for a minute. In just a split second, my spirit begged God to keep my eyes tear free and my voice steady.
I asked Danelia to tell me how she knew that. She said Kenneth had been having trouble breathing sometimes at night and when she mentioned that to the doctor, she (this one was a female doctor) said that it was probably allergies (it’s very windy here right now and there’s a lot of dirt blowing) but she wanted to take some chest x-rays to make sure. Needless to say, we all would have preferred it to be allergies.
The doctor told her they have done what they can…Danelia’s heard this before…but it hasn’t gotten any easier even hearing it said repeatedly. She is worried…she understands very well what metastasized cancer means.
Earlier, Kenneth had told me he wasn’t feeling the best. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me his head was hurting. I asked if he had taken any medicine for it and he told me he had. I thought about that and asked Danelia if the doctor had done a scan on his head. She quietly shook her head no and neither one of us said anything more for a full minute.
Danelia then began telling me all that she was feeling…the difficulty in trying to keep the wildly swinging pendulum of emotions in check. After letting her talk for about thirty minutes, she began to wind down. We then began to talk about God’s sovereignty and the truth that He has a plan for Kenneth’s life. We talked about the impact the test results were having on her emotions. I reminded her that the doctors’ knowledge is limited by their humanness and the x-rays only show a snapshot of what we see as real but that God created Kenneth and only God knows when He is going to bring him to his final home...and that reality is the same for her and for me…only God knows.
I told her that this whole situation is bigger than Kenneth and that God is using him to touch so many people. I reminded her of all the people in the States who are praying for Kenneth, of the lives he has touched in the hospital and of the women Danelia has been able to minister to who are watching their own children suffer with various forms of cancer. She is such a herald of faith and she just needed to be reminded that God hasn’t forgotten them at this bend in the road.
At that, Danelia’s face brightened a little. We continued to talk and before long, we were talking about the kids starting school. It is going to be Lindsay’s first year in school and the doctor had said that if Kenneth wanted to go and felt like it, that he could go until the cancer had progressed to the point he no longer had the strength to go. Danelia told me Kenneth was so excited about going but she wasn’t sure if she should let him or not. We then discussed the pros and cons and we both agreed that he would be much happier living as normal of a life as possible for as long as he could. He has spent so much time incapacitated by his cancer. He is not ignorant of what is happening to him and I think he is teaching each of us to make the most of the time we have been given.
It was very timely that we would hear Kenneth’s laughter as he played with the kids outside. We both turned to look out the door to see him playing tag. Danelia started to say something and then just leaned back against her seat watching him. Her face remained expressionless but her eyes grew soft as she watched her much loved son running and playing like any other little boy and obviously, enjoying every minute of it.
School uniforms and supplies have gone up in price here. We just recently helped Margarita and Felix with their children’s school needs so I was well aware of the financial strain of now having to pay for both the kids to go to school. I gave Danelia enough money to buy their uniforms and supplies. I have sometimes wondered if we will get to the place where I give the money and she takes it and there is nothing more than that. That’s not happened and I would venture to say it won’t. People may be able to force tears but I’ve never yet met someone who can make their cheeks redden. Danelia always is embarrassed by our gifts and I really believe it is very hard for her to take them. She told me today that she doesn’t know when but that someday, she and Arturo hope to be able to pay us back for all we have given to them. I hushed her and told her it was not ours to give but it was God’s. She smiled a tearful smile and hugged me and told me again, that they appreciate all we do but they consider it a loan.
When we left, I told Jim what Danelia had said. He said he, too, hoped that someday they had enough money to pay us back. And then he clarified that statement. He hopes that their financial position improves to the point that they would have that much extra that they could afford to pay back the money…not that we want them to do that…only that we want them to prosper to that point.
I thought about Danelia, Arturo and the kids all the way home. We truly love this family. They make much of the little that we give them and yet they have given us so much in return. As always, I’m asking that you continue to pray for Kenneth and this latest setback in his health. I think we are so privileged to be the ones to link you and Kenneth together through your prayers to our Father. Thank you for loving him. Thank you for loving us.
I need to be working on lessons for Los Cedros but thought I would get a blog written before I buried myself in frenzied lesson planning. Many of you already know but my hard drive in my computer was lost in a fiery crash last night. Okay…that’s not completely true…there was no fire except those few flames that came shooting from my eyes when the computer absolutely quit and refused to do anything. Jim spent almost an hour on the phone with Dell tech support to end up being told that the hard drive was dead. Not the news we wanted to hear.
The guy did tell us that when we return to the States in March, we can call them and Dell will send us a new hard drive and we will have 3 weeks to send them our old one and there will be no charge as the computer is less than a year old and still under warranty. He didn’t seem to be terribly surprised that the hard drive crashed but said that usually they make it longer than a year. ???? Well, shouldn’t they???
The sticking point in this is that I have lost all my “stuff” – lessons, blog copies, newsletters, etc. We had our external hard drive stolen at the same time we had our laptops stolen and had not replaced it. I don’t even know the words to use to describe how I feel about that! But there’s no point in getting upset about that part now…I’m using enough energy to fret about all my info stuck in my hard drive. There are companies who are in the computer information retrieval business but it is an abhorrently costly process.
We have put out feelers to see if anyone here is able to do that but so far, the answers from the missionaries haven’t been very promising. The local people we’ve talked to seem to think it’s just a regular part that is “broken” and can be repaired by a regular computer repairman. That’s not the case. Our friend here who is the computer guru at one of the nation’s leading banks and travels throughout Central America fixing the unfixable didn’t have good news for us regarding this. He said they recently had the same thing happen to one of their computers at the bank and ended up having to send it to the U.S. for the info retrieval. Which brings us back to the abhorrently costly process.
So, I’m assuming God is using this as another teaching lesson for me in patience and flexibility. It’s a good one.
Re: yesterday’s visit to the children’s home…it was a great visit! Fortress of Hope is a government licensed orphanage/children’s home operated by a group of American Christians for children who have been removed by the Nicaraguan government from their own homes due to abuse, neglect, endangerment issues, loss of parents, etc. It is located about 3 km from our house, tucked back in to a quiet neighborhood.
I’ll try to be brief in the description of the place. It was a former motel with individual little cottages or casitas. There are currently 15 children living there ages 2-15 – 13 girls and 2 boys. The children are divided into age groups with the largest having six girls, ages 11-15, sharing a casita. Each casita has up to 5 bunk beds in it, its own bathroom and a small space for the placement of the children’s few belongings. There is a house mother for each casita who not only sleeps there with the children, but also takes care of them.
The facility is very well maintained considering the age of the buildings and how they’re used. We noticed a few things that needed attention but overall, it was encouraging to see such a place being run like it is.
We met many of the children…of course, they’re precious and beautiful children…but most have suffered much in their young lives and are walking around with broken spirits due to their home situations. My heart ached at hearing about some of their stories. Even so, there were a few who were very outgoing and one little guy who had only been there a couple of weeks, immediately came up to Jim. His mother had dropped him off saying she no longer wanted to care for him…can you imagine? Most of the girls smiled shyly and were friendly enough but obviously, they all must struggle with trust issues. That’s in direct opposition to how a child should be…heartbreaking.
There is definitely not a lack of adult supervision and guidance there. Besides the house mothers, they have a full time doctor on staff, a clinical psychologist, an accountant, a cook, a laundress who also does janitorial work, two security guards on duty at all times and they just recently lost their social worker who moved to Costa Rica...she also acted as the liason between the facility and the government. They are in the process of trying to replace her with someone who is not only qualifies academically but also is a Christian. There are currently only two firm believers. I don’t think that the others are necessarily opposed to Jesus, they just have never been discipled on a regular basis.
Karen and her husband, Dwayne, were instrumental in starting Fortress of Hope and it is an outreach of a Mennonite Church in Ohio although Karen and Dwayne, having grown up as Mennonites are now Nazarenes. They lived in Costa Rica for several years and then were moved to Nicaragua. They have lived here for the last three years but have recently moved back to the States so their youngest son could graduate there. They are looking for someone here to help relieve them from some of the burdens of trying to run the children’s home from Ohio.
We spent several hours with Karen asking and answering a myriad of questions…Dwayne was unable to come due to business conflicts at home. We thoroughly enjoyed our time getting to know her…she’s a delightful person and I came away with the feeling I had made a new friend. She even took us to a nearby guesthouse they often use to house teams and gave us a quick tour of it.
We left Fortress of Hope better understanding the significance of its name. Before we said our good-byes, we prayed together, asking God to make His will clear to each one of us regarding what role, if any, we were to play in this ministry, to open the doors that need to be opened and to close the ones that need to be closed. Jim and I so firmly believe that we want to be where God wants us to be and we don’t want to just step into a role because there’s a void. If that were the case, we would be bundled up to our chinny chin chins right now in Budapest instead of living in what often appears to be a virtual perpetual hot flash! Our remaining years are too short for us to settle for what may be good instead of holding out for what is God’s best.
So…fast forwarding to this afternoon while we were at Tipitapa…Karen called and asked us if we could meet with her and a few of the staff Monday night for dinner. We’re continuing to pray for God’s clear guidance in this as it would mean there would have to be some schedule changes with Los Cedros.
And speaking of Los Cedros…we inadvertently found out last night we missed the open house there this week…we didn’t even know there was one being held. I’m disappointed but sadly, not terribly surprised. I don’t believe that we were intentionally left out from it but I have to acknowledge that is not out of the norm for that to occur. I’m not sure what God is doing with us there and I don’t want to read something in to nothing but there have been several things that have occurred that have made me scratch my head and wonder if we “stepped into a role…” regarding Los Cedros. We’ll see…
Tipitapa…it was a good news, bad news kind of day. With the crashing of my computer, I didn’t have my lesson to present for my English class, but we worked on conversation and it went pretty well overall. There are a few students who struggle with their pronunciation and comprehension but for the most part, the class is doing well. We were down in our numbers today with only 9 students in attendance but it made it easier to do what we did.
Jim presented an excellent Bible study class on gods, idols and God. It created a good discussion among the guys in the class…which is unusual as it is typically the gals who do most of the talking in Bible study. It was encouraging to see them talk through some of the quest
ions and come up with their own conclusions. That’s a big step.We took some vacuum packed veggie bags (they are for soup) for Miguel and Elizabeth and for his mother. We also took a good sized amount of fruit, veggies, oatmeal, cereal, Sustagen and milk for Kenneth and Lindsay. I was anxious to talk with Danelia after class to find out how Kenneth did this week finishing up his chemo. He had another set of x-rays done on Wednesday.
The good news is the large tumor in his hip is shrinking!!! The bad news is Danelia said there are three new tumors on his “thorax”. I don’t know if that means on the sternum or where exactly…she just pointed in the general area of the chest. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach when she told me that. We just looked at one another for a minute. In just a split second, my spirit begged God to keep my eyes tear free and my voice steady.
I asked Danelia to tell me how she knew that. She said Kenneth had been having trouble breathing sometimes at night and when she mentioned that to the doctor, she (this one was a female doctor) said that it was probably allergies (it’s very windy here right now and there’s a lot of dirt blowing) but she wanted to take some chest x-rays to make sure. Needless to say, we all would have preferred it to be allergies.
The doctor told her they have done what they can…Danelia’s heard this before…but it hasn’t gotten any easier even hearing it said repeatedly. She is worried…she understands very well what metastasized cancer means.
Earlier, Kenneth had told me he wasn’t feeling the best. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me his head was hurting. I asked if he had taken any medicine for it and he told me he had. I thought about that and asked Danelia if the doctor had done a scan on his head. She quietly shook her head no and neither one of us said anything more for a full minute.
Danelia then began telling me all that she was feeling…the difficulty in trying to keep the wildly swinging pendulum of emotions in check. After letting her talk for about thirty minutes, she began to wind down. We then began to talk about God’s sovereignty and the truth that He has a plan for Kenneth’s life. We talked about the impact the test results were having on her emotions. I reminded her that the doctors’ knowledge is limited by their humanness and the x-rays only show a snapshot of what we see as real but that God created Kenneth and only God knows when He is going to bring him to his final home...and that reality is the same for her and for me…only God knows.
I told her that this whole situation is bigger than Kenneth and that God is using him to touch so many people. I reminded her of all the people in the States who are praying for Kenneth, of the lives he has touched in the hospital and of the women Danelia has been able to minister to who are watching their own children suffer with various forms of cancer. She is such a herald of faith and she just needed to be reminded that God hasn’t forgotten them at this bend in the road.
At that, Danelia’s face brightened a little. We continued to talk and before long, we were talking about the kids starting school. It is going to be Lindsay’s first year in school and the doctor had said that if Kenneth wanted to go and felt like it, that he could go until the cancer had progressed to the point he no longer had the strength to go. Danelia told me Kenneth was so excited about going but she wasn’t sure if she should let him or not. We then discussed the pros and cons and we both agreed that he would be much happier living as normal of a life as possible for as long as he could. He has spent so much time incapacitated by his cancer. He is not ignorant of what is happening to him and I think he is teaching each of us to make the most of the time we have been given.
It was very timely that we would hear Kenneth’s laughter as he played with the kids outside. We both turned to look out the door to see him playing tag. Danelia started to say something and then just leaned back against her seat watching him. Her face remained expressionless but her eyes grew soft as she watched her much loved son running and playing like any other little boy and obviously, enjoying every minute of it.
School uniforms and supplies have gone up in price here. We just recently helped Margarita and Felix with their children’s school needs so I was well aware of the financial strain of now having to pay for both the kids to go to school. I gave Danelia enough money to buy their uniforms and supplies. I have sometimes wondered if we will get to the place where I give the money and she takes it and there is nothing more than that. That’s not happened and I would venture to say it won’t. People may be able to force tears but I’ve never yet met someone who can make their cheeks redden. Danelia always is embarrassed by our gifts and I really believe it is very hard for her to take them. She told me today that she doesn’t know when but that someday, she and Arturo hope to be able to pay us back for all we have given to them. I hushed her and told her it was not ours to give but it was God’s. She smiled a tearful smile and hugged me and told me again, that they appreciate all we do but they consider it a loan.
When we left, I told Jim what Danelia had said. He said he, too, hoped that someday they had enough money to pay us back. And then he clarified that statement. He hopes that their financial position improves to the point that they would have that much extra that they could afford to pay back the money…not that we want them to do that…only that we want them to prosper to that point.
I thought about Danelia, Arturo and the kids all the way home. We truly love this family. They make much of the little that we give them and yet they have given us so much in return. As always, I’m asking that you continue to pray for Kenneth and this latest setback in his health. I think we are so privileged to be the ones to link you and Kenneth together through your prayers to our Father. Thank you for loving him. Thank you for loving us.
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