Cruise Ship Cart Witnessing

Cruise ships are now visiting out little beach town. The local vendors are starting to take advantage of this new form of tourism by having an artisan market set up by the port

So, of course we're taking advantage of this as well. We had a lot of passengers walk by & we could hear people commenting, "there's another one". We met 4 JWs from New York who said that they've been seeing carts at most of the cruise ports & seemed very excited about it

You'll notice that we have about 4 bungy cords holding down our cart because of the strong winds

Our New Congregation!!!!!

So, we're definitely WAY behind on posting this, but....as of Dec 1, 2014, our group is officially the Central Ingles Congregation of an Juan Del Sur!!! YAY!!! It was a group for 2 years before becoming a congregation

Our C.O Ruben Garcia visited us the week after our assembly & he was pleasantly surprised to see all of the growth. Ruben gave us our "numbers" & we were SO encouraged: In 6 months, the amount of Bible Studies have DOUBLED to 75 (5 of whom are regularly attending meetings), right now we officially have 35 publishers with 72% being Regular Pioneers (but, we're expected to drop to 20 publishers in April, when people leave to go back home), completing over 9000 hours in the ministry :-) We technically have 4 elders, but only one is here at the moment (the other 3 are working back home). We have approx 6 Ministerial Servants now, but will be losing a few in the next few months. Our congregation is constantly fluctuating, but we're loving every minute f it

It's such a blessing to be serving here & to have seen this huge activity increase over the past 6 months. Bryan & I are currently conducting 5 Bible Studies in English 

Saw this house while out in service...has the Tetragrammaton painted on it !!!

Circuit Assembly in Ticuantepe, Nicaragua

Our English Circuit actually encompasses 4 countries: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala & Honduras. However, each country has their own circuit assembly. Our C.O Ruben Garcia & his wife Kathy, travel through all 4 countries

Thankfully we have an assembly hall (which used to be the location of the Nicaraguan Bethel) only a couple hours away. All of our brothers from the Caribbean side of Nicaragua traveled all the way here. In the future, they may decide to divide us into an Atlantic group & a Pacific group, allowing the Pacific side to have their own assembly closer to home

The assembly hall is completely open...really awesome hearing birds, etc, while your listening to the program., As a congregation, we rented a bus to take us to the pioneer meeting on Saturday & the assembly on Sunday. A seat pillow is a definite MUST

Nice, small baptism pool outside...this brother was our pool cleaner for the day, haha

4 BAPTIZED !! They were all from the Caribbean side of Nicaragua: Bluefields/Corn Island/ Pearl Lagoon. On the Caribbean side of Nicaragua, there are those who speak Creole, similar to Belize Creole (Nica JWs are able to use the Belize Creole publications/videos on JW.org to preach to them because it's so similar) ...their language sounds AWESOME!!! Many also speak English as a 2nd language

Visit from our beautiful friends, Juan & Raye Ann Hernandez

During their visit, we had many memorable adventures. We know that it wasn't the "easiest" vacation they've ever had, but it was AMAZING for Bryan & I...they'll never know how much their visit meant to us

We went to Ometepe Island & stayed on a plantation (coffee, plantains, corn, red beans & cocoa), Finca Magdalena. Finca Magdalena stretches out along the foothills and up the slopes of Volcano Maderas. It's a 864 acre organic farm run by a collective of 24 families.The surroundings were quite beautiful, but the accommodations definitely were NOT 5 Star...think camping

After making the trip to the plantation, we were told by the locals that our motorbikes would not make it all the way  up to the plantation through the dirt/rocky road. So, they offered to allow us to leave out bike on their property

We took  a guided hike through the coffee plantation & saw how the beans were dried & processed...super old school. ALL of the high quality/grade beans are exported out of the country

This was our cabin...ask Ray Anne about our cabin spiders, haha

We took an agonizing 5 hour waterfall hike...as you can see from the one photo, the waterfall was TINY!! I have to admit that I was dying, but we suffering through it together...memories. Along the way, we saw more of the beautiful plantation....then hiked over slippery boulders...YIKES

We took a tour around the beaches of San Juan Del Sur, snorkeling & a bit of fishing

Our snorkeling guide gathered all kinds of critters from the bottom...sea cucumbers, urchins, oysters, etc

Bryan decided to eat an oyster while we were still on the boat...I was grossed out, but he LOVED it

On our way back, they trolled fishing lines through a school of black tuna. This was Bryan's catch

They skinned & filleted the tuna while we were on our way back, then handed Bryan the tuna steaks. We walked them up to a beach-side restaurant & asked them to cook it for us for $5 per person...weirdly looked like beef once it was cooked, but really good :-)