OH YA. HOME SWEET HOME!!!!!

The whole staff here in Nicaragua

Working on our nieghbors pump

Putting in back down in

headin down the well

neighbor boys

studyin for a topic

watering- a much neglected task that i enjoy

youth hangout

my friends that ride bmx...we have a lot of fun

my cycle

fun in the sun

children gettin out of school

gel anyone?

neighbor boy fixin to take a shower

nieghbor cowboy bringin it on home

nighbor with his horse cart, thats how he makes a livin, hauling lumber and things for people

fixin my bike and greasing it

sunset on the way home frum church

Well i guess not too much has happened recently. Yesterday we went up the volcano Telica again. Wow. I dont think il ever go up there again. Its a really tuff walk. It took us about 3 hrs. But its worth it when you get to the top. Today, delmars parents come in, and they are all planning to stay at our house. His mom n dad n sister n brother, so ya, our house will be a little full. Im sure ima get in some yankee cookn as well, but im sure it will be really good. Marty clemmer was just here with a friend and they left today as well. I also recently got to experience a 15th birthday party. It was a girl that we bring to church a lot. They reall celebrate the girls 15th birthdays. It was almost like a wedding, with the music, procession, the way they dressed. wow. But it was a cool experience. anyway, i think that pretty much explains the pictures..Joel

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