Forgotten T-Shirts

So I posted this on our One by One site, but in case someone follows this blog, and not the One by One blog, I thought I’d double it up…..

Do you ever wonder where your old t-shirts go? Today I  was driving and I saw something that I wish I could have photographed, but was unable to. So I will ask you to use your imaginations and picture this: You’re driving down a stone road in one of Managua’s hidden crevices where two cars can barely pass each other. It’s hot and you’re sweating, you have your heavily tinted windows rolled down because your air conditioner isn’t the greatest and you want a breeze. Then you come across one of your daily driving obstacles: a horse-drawn cart. These carts are usually a couple of boards stretched across a shaky-looking frame with a couple of wheels. The passengers sit on t-shirts or other items for cushioning. As you’re passing this particular horse cart you see that the driver is not a skinny teenager as you often see, but rather a strong grown man. Then you notice his shirt, it’s a faded gray and across his chest it says Girl Scouts. I believe Nicaragua is where your old t-shirts go!

Exciting Life

So I haven’t written in a while and thought I’d just give a quick update.  We have a building that we’ll be starting our church in, however, it is currently occupied.  The current ocupants hope to be out by April so we can move in and get our services started, however, nothing is set in stone yet, and this is Nicaragua where everything goes slower.  So until then we are still getting things planned, working on learning the language, and building relationships with Nicaraguans, and some who may become volunteers at our church.

Something that has been really exciting for me is that we have been able to team up with a young lady named Nadia.  Nadia is the head of Chi Alpha (XA) for the whole country.  Chi Alpha is the campus ministry that I was in while I was in college.  It had a huge influence on my life and because of my time in that ministry I was able to hear the call of God in my life to serve Him through missions.  Anyway, it’s really exciting to be able to still be connected to Chi Alpha, helping Nadia, as she also helps us.  Some of our volunteers may come out of her XA groups.

This weekend we will be going with Nadia and other Chi Alphans to the beach where another ministry is bussing in kids from Managua to hang out and then there will be a concert at night.  It will be a good time to hang out and build relationships with the students, as well as practice my Spanish.

Living here has been really easy, and hard all at the same time.  I know that it’s been easy because it’s very clear to me that God has placed this call on my life.  I know without that call I would not be loving Nicaragua like I do.  Although it has been a very good, natural transition for me, there are things that are hard.  The biggest difficulty for me is not being able to clearly communicate with people.  Yes I can order my own food, or latte from a favorite café, but I can’t tell anyone about things I did in the past.  It’s very easy to underestimate the difficulty of learning another language.  Oh well… I will keep trying and keep getting better.  I have also been considering moving in with a Nicaraguan family for a little while so I will be completely emersed in the language and be forced to use it more.  I know there are several other missionaries here who have done this and they highly recommend it.

Ok so maybe the title of my post is a little miss leading because this hasn’t been the most exciting blog ever… but I do really love it here.  I’d really love to hear from some of you (assuming anyone reads this other than my mom and Molly… hi guys, miss you!).

Oh, something that is really exciting is that my lil bro Brian is coming down in a few weeks to bring some sound equipment to us from the states, because believe it or not it’s cheaper to buy the stuff in the states and pay for him to bring it to us than it is to simply buy it here.  Cest la vie… oh wait that’s french… Hay es vida… maybe?  anyway, enough of my rambling… oh yeah, with the recent time change en Los Estados Unidos I am now on Mountain time.  This is the first time I’ve ever lived in this time zone (even though the time didn’t actually change here and neither did my location)… anyway… enough rambling (I think that’s the second time I’ve said that).

TKT

(That’s Traveling Katie, get it?)