Check out the newsletter!

Our winter newsletter has finally arrived! You can find it on the right-hand side of this blog (you might need to scroll down just a little) under the "Newsletters" section. Depending on your internet connection, you may need to wait a little while it downloads. Enjoy!
--Alan & Elizabet

Learning from a Mentor

Before we arrived in Nicaragua, several people recommended Henri Nouwen's ¡Gracias! A Latin American Journal. It documents Nouwen's thoughts and reflections from the 6 months he spent in Latin America back in the 80s. We've been following his entries day by day since we arrived, and it's been a rich blessing. Nouwen articulates many of the thoughts and feelings that we've had, but with more wisdom and experience. He's served as our mentor during these first 4 months.

He writes frequently about being a 'presence' with people, making time for conversations and relationships. This is over and against the temptation to spend lots of time 'working' to make a difference in a place like Nicaragua. He suggests that when we simply be present with people, we create space for the Holy Spirit to speak to both us and 'them,' the people with whom we're present. We're working at it.

If you get a chance, we highly recommend you read it. We might be posting more reflections from this book here as well.

--Alan

Beans, Beans, Beans

This is one pound of beans. These red beans of Nicaragua can last us for a week. That's 1/2 pound of beans for each of us per week. Usually Nicaraguans buy one pound per week for each person in the house, but we're not quite at this level of bean consumption.

We buy the beans dry, and then we have to sort them to get rid of rocks, bugs, & beans with holes (here Beth sorts the beans). Unsorted beans can make for quite a surprise when you eat them and chomp on a rock!

We then soak the beans for a few hours and then boil them for another hour or more. When they're soft, we put them in the fridge and they're good for a week.

The staple food of Nicaragua is red beans & rice (called gallo pinto), which is normally eaten for breakfast and dinner. It's quite good, and we've enjoyed experimenting with different variations on a theme.

Connecting in León

I have now started full-time into my work here as the "Connecting Peoples Coordinator." So far, it has involved meeting a lot of Nicaraguan people and organizations who have wonderful projects and vision to work for justice and empowering others--embodying God's Kingdom. (I know, you should all be jealous of what a great job I have). As one Nicaraguan woman in León told me yesterday--"God's mercy is reflected on each face--how beautiful are God's people!"

Yesterday, Alan and I went together to meet up with Marshall Poe and a Canadian Brethren in Christ work team who is staying and working in León. A cool city (though not in temperature) and a life-giving opportunity to connect with 2 congregations from different parts of the world.

A Visit to the Country (Campo)

Last weekend Beth and I visited Lydell, one of our MCC colleagues who works in a rural region on Nicaragua. By 'rural,' we mean a) no running water, and b) no electricity. In fact, we learned that the situation in these rural communities is quite severe. The closest source of water is 2 km (little more than a mile) from the town where we stayed. Everyone and their livestock shares the water, so it's not clean. And from October until May, the land is bone-dry and virtually nothing grows.

70 years ago, the land was a forest and quite fertile. But then lumber interests showed up and cut all the trees down. Deforestation is a huge problem here in Nicaragua, and not just in this one region.

MCC's projects in this area include irrigation (close to the few water sources) and silos for grain storage, as most people have no dry, clean place to keep their beans, corn, and rice.

In the midst of the simple surroundings, we had a wonderful time in this region. We ate dinner with a local Mennonite pastor and his family (he was in Pasadena last March for Mennonite World Conference meetings - if we had only known!), attended several church services, and enjoyed the fantastic display of stars at night. We also took a nice hike that led through a herd of cows (two photos are from this hike; the third is Lydell giving a dish-washing lesson to some of his neighbor-boys, also a lesson in breaking gender stereotypes!).
--Alan

MCC Team

Here is MCC Nicaragua! This picture was taken in front of the MCC office in Managua and includes:
-2 SALTers (the one-year service and learning program), Sarah in yellow and Erin in orange
-Our country representative (jefa :)) Angela in white in the center
-3 long-term volunteers, us in blue (the matching was not planned) and Lydell, the one in the middle with a beard
-2 local workers--Veronica (in pink) works with the social commissions of the Anabaptist churches, and Yolanda (in the white t-shirt) works in the office
We just had 2 days of team meetings, and were reminded how much we really enjoy our team members here. Lots of meaningful conversations as well as laughing/joking in two languages.

A New House!

We failed to post anything thru the Christmas & New Years season, but we made it into 2007 in good health. Our big news is that last week we moved into our own house! It's a half a block south from our host family, and we've enjoyed dropping by to visit with them in the evenings. But it's nice to have our own space and finally not live out of suitcases for the first time since mid-September. We're learning to cook Nica-style (we'll probably post something on the food in the future) and we're adjusting to the constant dust that permeates everything.

Our house is located about 10 blocks from the MCC office, so Beth can either walk or take a quick bus ride. We're across the city from Alan's job, but only about 5 blocks from a bus route that passes close to the university.

We're already getting to know many of our neighbors, especially the kids and youth. There's a group of 6 or 7 between the ages of 12 and 33 who want to speak English better, and already we've had them over for conversation practice. We told them that we need practice with our Spanish, so they made us translate their English dialogues into Spanish - kind of rocky but really good practice for us! We will probably have a bigger group next week when they come over.

The pics are of the front of our house, our little kitchen, and one of our hammocks that we've hung in our patio out back. --Alan