Well time continues to pass fairly fast round here. Mom and Dad came for a week and the cousin thomas came for a week and now its been like a week n a half since he left. Next week is going to be a full week. We are having a bible school here in leon. It is going to be for 3 days. People from Waslala and Jinotega are coming. I think we are expecting about 30 people. Pablo Yoder and Mark Gingerich from Guatemala are 2 of the speakers. I think it will be interesting, but a lil stressful being that we dont have very much room to house 30 extra people. It will go from tuesday to Thursday and then on friday, i think we are going to take a trip with everybody to the volcano or something like that. Today we have the monthly youth night out in La Palmerita that we go to. I enjoy that. We normaly play soccer, softball or some game like that, then sing and have hot dogs. its starting to get really dry. It hasnt rained in like 2 or 3 weeks, but the good thing is, its nice and cool. November and December are the coolest months of the year, and its still not to fairly dry yet. Believe it or not, i wake up and put on a longsleeve tshirt. It gets like to 65 or so, so i say thats chilly enough. I kinda stay busy studying. Lastnight i had the topic again, and i always teach the childrens class on tuesday nights. Soon im going ot have to let sister Carmen take over:) I rekn thats all for now...

Well here are just a couple pictures..mom and dad were just here for a week so that was a lot of fun to have them here and show them around a little, and git some of moms cookin. the two picture of scenery are when we went out to the volcano. cows and sugar cane, and papaya plants. the other one is me helping benito work at the church or the girls house. we are tryin to make it a lil more secure so the girls can sleep at night..haha.

Ya i know what yall are thinking. What in the world? Well our neighbors electricity went out but ours didnt. Why, well because her redneck hotwire to the telephone pole came loose. So she got someone to come out and unofficially fix it because its prohibited to climb the poles like that, but, whe hers got fixed, the the other neighbors lights went out. So this guy was fixing it all. haha. his harness was just a little rope around his waist, and his feet were just in some little ropes tied to the pole. One day i went to work with Benito just for the fun of it. Well it was fun, but not easy. We worked about 10 hrs that day in the baking sun. Making cement, with a shovel, carring it in buckets on our shoulders. I love the work, but it will give you a beating. My neck was nearly black till the end of the day. It has been raining quite a bit recently, but it keep things nice and refreshin. In about a week another youth group will be coming down to do some work projects. so we should be pretty busy next week. I think we are going to build a bathroom and a shower for Larry and Julios family. their house situation is not good at all. Well i should post more often...Joel

I might me in Nicargua, but I still get some good southern cookin:)

Heres a loong overdue post..i tried to update a while ago but couldnt because of computer problems...go figure...Well, this past month has been a lively one. The WATER students were here which means that we did a lot of out of the ordinary stuff. Waslala, volcanoes, day trip, and as the americans would say,"hangin out". It was also a lot of fun for me becasue the water guy was from my church. So we had, um like our whole lifes in common which was nice. It still has been raining quite a bit. On an average of every other day i would say. Keeps things nice and green and growing. One day, Ryan,Me, Hosmin, Fidel, and Ronald went biking in the afternoon. We didnt have anything planned for the day, so i thought it would be kind of fun to tour the city on bikes, so we wipt through Fatima(the community behind the church) and got some guys drummed up to go along. We rode probably 3 hrs at least. All over showing Ryan around. We also made it our to the dumpy little zoo and saw some cool things. Mainly the little crocidile. We threw some rocks in on top of it to get him all rowled up. And then we stopped at a little store on the way back and got some sodas. It was a lot of fun.
We also went out to a little village one day to have a service out there and thats where the mudhole picture is from. Also, the redneck picture. Kieths had to go pick some people up and it was raining, and the windshield wipers wouldnt work, so ropes and two people, i guess that works to. The river is in front of our house during a rain. When it rains, and we happen to be in the house, um, we just kind of stay put for the moment, although, i have left the house on the motorcycle when the river was that high, which was kind of fun, since i was already wet. Anyway, got questions, just email me or leave a comment...Joel

Well i guess i could put up a few pictures. Ryan Skrivit is hear for a month on WATER. Its a lot of fun so far. I have been putting him to work pretty good with a lot of much neglected yard work. We have been trimmin trees, and cuttin grass, well weeds, but we like to call it grass. The pictures are what i did last night. This tree was way to big and was putting a lot of shade on our clothes line and lemon tree, so i climbed it and made it bald, but dont worry, it will be big again soon with all the rain. sorry the pictures are backwards, they go from finish to start. Monday we took the WATER students to the volcano so once again that was fun and some good exercise. I have to study a little now for youth class that i have to teach today at church in La Palmerita. I always enjoy interacting with those youth becasue they are the first youth that i got to know when i was down on WATER. Well i should go. got questions? comment....joel

Well jist thought that i would let all yall know that i did make it back to Nicaragua safely and all. When i left for the states, it was hot, very dry, and dusty. I come back 3 weeks later, and it is cooler, very wet, and very green. It is amazing what 3 weeks of rain can do when your gone. It is very comfortable here now and the green defintly looks better than the dust. But i enjoy them both. I had a wonderful time in the states with family and friends. It was kinda shocking to see how much things have grown and changed. Mostly the people. My niece and nephew didnt even know who i was. Well maybe they can remember now. It isgood to be back though. Its amazing to see the difference in the 2 places. Anyway.....Joel

News Flash

I am really enjoying my time with family and friends in the states.

Well i guess it has been a while. Here are a few pictures from the recent past...Like the last week. This week has been a easy one so far. This week is what they call Holy Week. No school, no work, vacation, beach, thats what people do. On Tuesday, i went out to help Randy haul sand to make cement. That is some hard work to do in the hot sun, but i enjoyed breaking my back a little. Next week, we are going to pour a cement floor in his house that he is rebuilding, so that is why we neede the sand. Thursday, Delmar and Rich and me took a bunch of the guys out to the river. Nobody was working so we thought we would take the day off. It was very refreshing and thrilling as well. That is what the one picture is from. There is a tree we were jumping from and some of us jumped from the top. It has to be at least 30 ft high. Then after we went to the river, we went back out to our house and hung out and ate dinner and played baseball in the street.
Thursday night we had Communion here at our church. It was a very wonderful experience for me. It for some reason seemed so much more special to me this time. I have recommitted my life to God and really want to make some more changes and do all that I can to live for HIM.
The first picture of the three people is of the members here in Leon. Benito, Mrs Yolanda, and Roger. Mrs Yolanda is such a nice lady. After church she always comes around and gives a a blessing and some words of encouragement. Roger and Benito are very good friends as well.
The other picture is the product of a lot of sweat and about 2 hrs of washing. I sometimes enjoy washing clothes by had. i just take my time and try to enjoy it. Being that it is so dry now, everything is dry in like 30 mins. Suring rainy season it sometimes takes 2 days to dry clothes. It should start raining here within a month or so so that will be refreshing. I rekn thats all fer now..

Here is just a little bit of news. The pictures pretty much explain themselves. This week, i am living by myself again. Delmar went to Waslala for the week to help a friend build a house. So i decided to suprise him by putting tile in our bathroom. He has no clue i did it yet. I used some of the money that friends have sent down as gifts so thank yall. Benito does some superior work as well. That was a lot of fun to work with him for 3 days.

Today i had a change of plans. I was going to clean the house and wash clothes, but i turned the idea down. It is extremely dry, which means the dust rolls with ease. today is very windy, and it is just rolling with dust, so i cant was clothes and keep them clean for more than 5 minutes. And if i wass to clean the house, the house would just be slam full of dirt leaves and dust. I was on my way in to town on my cycle and i had to drive really slow. I couldnt see but about 10 ft in front of me. There are a lot of empty peanut fields right close to our house and the dust just rolls through. I left the house clean and arrived very dirty and grimy. O well, it will pass in a couple of months:)Hopefully.

The tank cleaning job was fun as you can see. Our water was starting to taste kinda funny, so i looked in the bottom of the tank, and there was a nice brown film on the bottom of the tank. so i cleaned it out with clorox and wow did it make a difference in the water taste. haha..actually i didnt notice a difference, just Delmar and Roger did..I thought it always tasted good. I guess maybe my tastebuds are pickled from being farmer or somthing..Roger says its becasue im a redneck...haha..

My Uncle Wendell and Aunt Naomi was here last week for revivals. It was good to see them and here him preach in spanish. He did very good and the people enjoyed him and his preaching. Plus i got to show them around town a little so that was fun to.

I rekn thats all for now.....

Here are 2 recent pictures of stuff that has been happening..My hand from the snake bite and a river where we went swiming. sorry for the long post

Well here are a few pictures of some of the animals i see a lot from day to day. The other day i had a good experience. I was able to go down into my neighbors well. They pull water up with a little barrel a horse and a rope. The other day, they had to barrels break and fall to the bottom, so i quickley offfered to go down and retrieve them. they just tied a stick onto a rope and let me down in like they do a water jug. It was a lot of fun. Well i should run..Joel

Well heres a post since i havent put one up in a loong time. Ive been kind of busy so i havent had time. well busy in the sense that I havent been to the internet in a while. It continues to get hotter here as the dry season goes on. But i dont mind the hot weather. It gets up to 90-100 every day, but also, there is no rain, and a it gets kind of windy sometimes. That means the dust just rolls. But still, it beats the cold. The motorcycle in the pic is the one that i bought for the mission. It is a Genesis 200cc. I like it a lot, so I will try to drive with reason. Everybody wants to drive it it seems. I studied most of the day today because i have to preach or have the topic tomorow night at church. Richard Burkholders still havent came back yet. They didnt get their birth certificate soon enough and so they still have to get the passport for their baby. So they are supposed to come home here next wednesday, so we are all looking forward to that. Delmar is going for his admission exam tomorow at the college. he told me that 10,000 people signed up to get in and only 2,000 get in, so it might be some competition, and then if he gets in, i forget when he starts classes.:) Right now Eugene Weaver(board member) and his wife are here on a visit, so it is nice to talk with them as well. Lloyd and Faye, the couple that is here while Richards are in the states, leave tomorrow as well so we will see them off tonight. well that is all for now...Joel