¡Viva la Vida!

Our Top 10 Posts of 2004

Here are our TOP TEN posts recapping our adventures this year.  These chronicle a year full of friendships, cultural mishaps, earthquakes, robberies, and tropical intrigue...

Nude Woman Strikes

Arrival in Nicaragua and the Subsequent Police Chase

The Parable of the Mouse and the Scorpion

II Chronicles 28:20...?

Rio Coco Jungle Trek

Store Up Your Treasures in Heaven

Earthquake...again!

How Can You Not Fall in Love?

Pray For the Peace of Fallujah

"True Cultural Experience"

With those changes in latitudes
Come changes in attitudes
Nothing stays quite the same
In all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn't laugh
We would just go insane

- Jimmy Buffet

A Few Christmas Pics

Here's a picture of the choir from our Christmas production.  The American girl on the front row is Anna Marie, from Omaha.  I think we were a pretty good looking group!

Here are the little angels: Jackson, Sharon, and David.  The kids sang "Al Mundo Paz" (Joy to the World). 

On Christmas Eve,  Joseph leads Mary around town, knocking on doors to try to find a place to stay.  Everyone turns them away, thus there is no room at the inn.  A marching band follows them around. It's quite a spectacle.

“Here Am I, And The Children The LORD Has Given Me”

A Nativity Poem in Seven Parts

I.

In the book of Isaiah

The theme unfolds

With the highest heights: (Is. 7:10)

The virgin shall be with child (Is. 7:14)

And will give birth to a son,

And he shall be called

Immanuel

God with us.

II.

But another child was also born

Another sign, the deepest depths: (Is. 7:10)

The prophet himself went to

The prophetess and together

She conceived and gave birth to a son, (Is. 8:3)

And he was called

Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz

Quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil.

III.

One child of promise, (Is. 9:2)

The other of judgment. (Is. 8:4, 21-22)

One child of hope

The other of despair.

So says Isaiah:

"Here am I

And the children the LORD has given me.

We are signs and symbols in Israel."  (Is. 8:18)

IV.

And so the plan unfolded:

Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (Is. 8:3)

Was born and the Lord’s instrument

Swept through the land. (Is. 8:6-17)

The people were distressed and hungry

And enraged they cursed their king

As they looked toward the earth and saw

Only distress and darkness and fearful gloom… (Is. 8:19-22)

V.

But the Lord had promised to honor Galilee by the sea (Is. 9:1)

And a great light became seen

By these people walking in darkness - (Is. 9:2)

Military equipment was piled high

The uniforms too, were thrown on the bonfire. (Is. 9:5)

For unto us a child is born,

To us a son is given,

And the government will be on his shoulders. (Is. 9:6a)

VI.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty God

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace,  (Is. 9:6b)

Of the increase

Of his government and peace

There will be no end. (Is. 9:7a)

VII.

He will reign on David’s throne

And over his kingdom,

Establishing and upholding it

With justice

And righteousness

From that time on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty

Will accomplish this. (Is. 9:7b,c)

Christmas in Nicaragua

We now have had our second Christmas on Nicaraguan soil. This year was a bit better, as we knew what to expect, and we also know quite a few more people.  Last night we went to our friend's , Uriel Barquero, house. His wife is the Nicaraguan equivalent of Martha Stewart (as far as the decorating and entertaining goes!).  They had a nice family party, with all their extended family, and we were invited to be a part of this.  The dinner was a chicken cordon bleu, rice, mashed potatoes, and salad.  We supplied fudge for dessert.  The kids lit firecrackers and fireworks in their front yard for entertainment.

Around ten we went to our pastor's house. We had a dessert with them and the kids lit more fireworks in preparation for midnight. At midnight the whole town exploded with sounds of firecrakcers, mortars, anything combustible!  It sounds like a war is breaking out. The smoke is so thick, and the noise is wonderfully loud and celebratory!

We went to bed around one o'clock and woke this morning to open presents and have a chilled out Christmas morning.  It was nice and peaceful!  For our afternoon entertainment we went to Managua to watch The Incredibles with our friends. We had Christmas dinner at Pizza Hut!

It was a nice, peaceful day with friends. The boys were content and are now watching Star Wars with their dad. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Anna Marie's Back in Omaha

Anna Marie was met at the airport in Omaha by a group of 20 people - including a reporter from the Omaha World Herald who snapped this picture of Anna Marie embracing her boyfriend Jake.  She's been with us for the past two months and was an integral part of the Christmas play mentioned in the previous post.  We're happy she's back with family and friends but we already miss her greatly.

Herding Cats

We had our Christmas concert on Tuesday night.  Many times I thought about our music minister back in Concord, and how this whole thing would have given him an aneurisym.  Let me tell you about the negatives first:

•    We started practice four and a half weeks before the concert date
•    We didn't start practicing for the dramas until a week before the concert.
•    The roles of some of the people changed from three days before and even the night before
•    We are working on our church floor, with the goal of having the concert inside
•    The floor wasn't done, we had to have the concert outside
•    This wasn't so bad,  as the patio is really beautiful at night, decorated with lights and such
•    Our pastor decided to surprise us all and put up a circus tent the night before the concert, DURING dress rehearsal
•    Our pianist broke three fingers on his hand the week before the concert
•    Our rehearsals were disastrous, with no one knowing their lines (not a surprise since they had no time to learn their lines), and usually half the soloists not showing up

Greg liked to say that our rehearsals were a bit like herding cats. This made me laugh all the time, because, oddly enough, it was like that!  People running everywhere,  coming an hour late, leaving early, not focusing, etc...

All this said, we once again saw the mercy of God in the way the whole thing came together.  It was perfect.  Everyone knew their lines, everyone pulled a costume together at the last minute, the songs came off without one single problem, the timing was perfect, and it looked like we had been practicing for months and months!  The circus tent looked really nice all lit up with Christmas lights.  The pianist played the piano with his two remaining good fingers and his other hand. 

God was glorified, and it was all for Him.  We rejoiced in the birth of our saviour, and His wondrous coming to our earth to show us His love and peace.

May that love and peace reside in your hearts this Christmas!

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

- Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage

Is anyone asking who's going to minister to these guys when they return home?

Blessed are the poor...

 

Living in the midst of one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere gives us cause to consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  One commentary translates this verse as "Blessed are the desperate."  Why did Jesus say that a person who is poor in spirit has an advantage over someone rich in spirit?  Maybe, just maybe the desperate person will cry out to God for help.  If so, that person is truly blessed.

Philip Yancy, in The Jesus I Never Knew, quoted from writer Monika Hellwig who listed ten "advantages" to being poor:

1)  The poor know they are in urgent need of redemption.

2)  The poor know not only their dependence on God and on powerful people but also their inter-dependence on each other.

3)  The poor rest their security not on things but on people.

4)  The poor have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy.

5)  The poor expect little from competition and much from cooperation.

6)  The poor can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.

7)  The poor can wait, because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledged dependence.

8)  The fears of the poor are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.

9)  When the poor have the Gospel preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a threat or a scolding.

10)  The poor can respond to the call of the Gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

So today as you consider this meditation, substitute the word "I" for the word "poor".... 

The Oriental Market

Yesterday Jan and I went to the vast, sprawling Oriental Market in Managua to buy Christmas presents for a Christmas party the church is throwing for the poor children in our congregation.  This is the second annual children's party and it's the brainchild of a young couple in the church, Leonel and Marjorie.  So when they asked us if we wanted to accompany them to buy the presents at the Oriental Market Jan and I jumped at the chance.   Why?  Mostly because we've been warned by Nicas dozens of times never to go there because of the high robbery rate.  Upon consulting the Moon's Guide to Nicaragua we learned that:

"It is said that in the war years you could find contraband firearms and aircraft parts in the Mercado Oriental, if you knew where to ask.  It's still the wildest ride in the city, and it's true that if you can't find it here you can't find it in Nicaragua.  However, it's not for the faint of heart: someone gets robbed here every seven minutes."  (page 134)

So we left our wedding rings and all jewelry behind in Masatepe and I carried our money in a hidden zippered pocket in a pair of pants I have.   To be sure, the market was crowded with people thronging narrow alleys between rows of shops, vendors were often pesky (in a friendly way) to get you to enter their stores, and the market was generally a buzz of activity.  However, the market experience was not the wild west ride I had expected, and I'm sorry to report that we weren't robbed or bothered in any way.  Perhaps next time.

And with the festival comes...

...the drunks!  Jackson got a lesson today (for the umpteenth time) of how to deal with the drunks who come to the gate and just won't go away!  This particular guy knows a little bit of english, and was really wanting to practice with Greg, with Jan, with the dogs, whomever!  He also wanted two cordobas, not American money, Nicaraguan cordobas.  He was succinct in his request.  In the end Greg had to give the guy a dousing with a pitcher of water.  This is the local custom to get rid of the peskier drunks.  You ask them, "Do you want a shower?"  That is their warning.  When they don't go away you are free to shower them with water, which almost always works.  By the time Greg had the water, a small crowd of boys had gathered to cheer Greg on and watch the guy get his bath.  He was a stubborn one, and didn't leave until after he was wet, but he left nonetheless.