In these photos are: The famous Pablo Yoders house in Waslala, the way that we sold some of our chickens on our tricycle cart, our dog that we got that is very hyper and a good guard dog, our house from our front yard, and the last is at the valcano crater lake that we went to. A group of us went camping to it and is was a beautiful place. We did a lot of swiming and spent the night there. It is a lake that is in and old volcano. The water was very clear as well. A very beautiful place.

More Of Life In Leon

Well things have been going good so far that i know of. I have done a lot of things lately. First, I gave blood the other day for the first time( go figure, in a third world country) so that was pretty cool. Also us guys recently went to the volcano Telica and hiked up it. It is a huge thing and is always smoking to. At the top it is absolutely beautiful. There is no restrictions at the top or anything. You can walk up to the edge of the crater and junp in if you want. It doesnt look as big in the pictures. I threw in a rock and it took 8 seconds before it hit the bottom. So im guessing it is a long way down there. You can see the bottom to and at night you can see red lava in it too. It took 3 hours almost to hike up it as well so we were very tired. I will try to put up some more pictures later. We are also selling all of our chickens right now to. They are not laying as many eggs as they used to be and so we are going to sell them and get a new batch when Delmar gets back i think. So that also means that when we get them sold i wont have to sell eggs for a while so that will be a nice little break. Its hard to believe that i have been here for more than 2 months already. I gues time flies when you are having fun. It hasnt been raining as much lately so it is refreshing when we do get some. I guess we are getting closer to the end of rainy season. The language is coming along slow but i think i am still learning:) It is hard for me to do devotions and things like that. I have to write everything out and then trnaslate it into Spanish. It just take s lot of time right now. Also we have been having some action with the robbers at our house. They have been coming to our house a lot lately to visit and things like that. I think they are scoping out our house for a later moment. The other day my MP3 player got stolen. I think they had me distracted on the side of the house and another guy was around that i didnt see and he sliped in and took it off my bed. It is very frustrating as well but i guess we will deal with it as long as we live here. I just hope they dont get my computer sometime. I try to keep it hidden really good though. Well that is all for now i think. If you have any questions i guess you can email me.

Hello again

Well it has been a while since i posted. i have been done with school now for a while and i dont get to the internet very often anymore. i will try to post up some more pictures later. things are pretty much to a normall now. delmar has left for home for his 2 month furlough and davy leaves in one month. that means i will be by myself for one month and maybe a little more. i am in charge of the chicken business now. i go out and sell eggs on tuesday and friday. i also get up at 5 in the morning to feed and water them. then i gather the eggs and sort them at 8:30 and then again in the middle of the afternoon.. life is getting to be busy now and i am really enjoyin my time. Thanks for your prayers..Joel

Well I am done with another week of language school. It is coming along better now i think. Just one more week to go and then I am done with school. This week i also started my homestay with a Nicaraguan family. It has been pretty interesting and good for me. They do not speak any English so that is helping me a little to. This friday we went out to La Palmerita for youth night again. We do that every first friday in the month. All the youth from Palmerita come out to Randy's house and we play soccer and softball and kickball. Just kind of whatever they want to do. Then today we went back out there for a fasting service. We also do that on the first Saturday of the month. In the pictures are: people singing in church, a nice tarantula that I killed that was on top of my bed, our beautiful washing machine that helps us get so much work done:) or not, my teacher Oscar doing what he does best every day, teaching me Espanol, and the last one is out at our house. We had the guys from church out to our house and had a time of talking and just hanging out. They love to joke around a lot. Also the WATER students are here now. So we will be doing some volcano climbing soon hopefully to. Well thats all for now..Joel

People

This is all of the staff here in Leon. Denise Jantzy, Karen Keller, Richard and Andrea Burkholder, Davy Slabach, Delmar Martin and myself. And there is Roger(left) Benito(center) and Jerson. Benito is a member and Roger is finished with instruction class. Jerson is in instruction class

Life Down Here

Well I have been here 3 weeks now and things are going good so far. I am in language school now so that is a main portion ofwhat I am involved in now. I go to school on the mission motorcycle 5 days a week. Classes start at 8 in the morning and go till 12. Then i head home and try to study for the rest of the day but that dont always work out. I have a new teacher that is very fluent in english so that helps to move a little faster because he can explain things a lot faster. So hopefully I can master the language someday. Revival meetings are over now. They went well except I couldnt understand the preacher:( So far there was one convert who was one of the theives of church stuff, and there are a few more that are interested. It has been raining almost every day here which is nice because it keeps things cooled down. Not much but some little showers. Saturday Delmar, Davy, and me did some planting around the house. We want it to turn into a jungle around the house so that there will be a bunch of shade. It is rarely calm around our house. There is always someone coming for eggs or to borrow something or just the neighbor children coming to hang out with us "gringos" as they call us. The one picture is a neighbor boy William trying to help me learn some more Espanol. Also we have been having thieves around our house. So far they have stolen 4 pairs of sandals, my rubber boots, a couple buckets, some clothes off of the line, an umbrella, the wheels off of our egg delivering cart, and probably some other things that we havent noticed yet. So now we bring everything in at night. So far they have never tried to break into the house in the 2 years that it has been there so that is nice. Also it is going on 9 weeks that we havent had a break-in at the church so that is a blessing as well. When we wash our clothes in this weather they dont dry very fast so we put them under our porch so they dont get rained on. And there is Delmar doing some trimming in the yard to an ugly tree. Well he actually cut it down:) If yall want some prayer requests i guess the main one would be for the guys that attend church. They seem to not have the zeal they used to. They skip church a lot and things like that. Also for the new believers at church....Thanks again..

Well i just got done with my first week of language school. Only 3 or 4 more to go.:) It is kind of confusing for now but I am catching on a little. The past week has been full of activities. Going to the beach with some visitors, going to La Palmerita for youth night, washing clothes, starting Compana(revival meetings). The speaker is Philip Ebersol from Hondouras. In the pictures above is the beach at sunset and the national bird of Nicaragua. Well thats all for now..Joel