Prayer Letters
Here are our prayer letters that we write every three months. If you are not on our email list and would like to receive these letters, please sign up today. Enjoy reading!
September 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
We have just celebrated Samantha's first birthday! Looking back it has been an amazing year full of many changes, lots of laughter, plenty of picture taking and not a lot of sleep (though that is getting better). To celebrate we got most of Thomas' family together (about 40 adults and 10 kids) for a big pizza party and brownies. They brought the piñata, and we had one crazy loud evening of laughter and fun.
Over the past couple of months we have had a number of teams and visitors working with us here at the sports center. My parents were here visiting for two weeks and we also had three guys with us for about a week who were starting an around the world tour – we were honored that they all came to spend time with us! When we began developing the sports center, I don't think that anyone expected that we would have as many teams as we have had over the last five years. And teams keep coming. We have a number of churches that continue to send teams each year, and each year we have new churches or school groups that come to Nicaragua to partner with us. In the last three months we have had four different teams here, and they have done everything from mow lawns to pray with families in the community. One of the highlights with each team was putting on a youth night for the older youth in our area. Many of the teams that worked with us this summer were young so it was fun to have an evening of games with the youth and then a time for the team to share their faith.
Probably one of the funniest nights was in the beginning of August when a youth team from San Francisco was here, and they planned an impromptu talent show after the leader was finished sharing the Gospel. To be honest I was not sure how much the Nicaraguan youth were going to participate because it can be like pulling teeth to get them to volunteer for something, but sure enough a number of them participated by singing a song, telling a joke or even break dancing! The funniest part of the evening was the joke-telling. I had the job as translator which can be quite difficult when it comes to jokes. A number of times Halle got up to share a joke, and there would be a silence at the end (and the jokes were funny!). And when the Nicaraguan youth would share a joke, while they all found them hysterical, most of the team and we had a hard time understanding the humor. Many times in my years of living in Nicaragua I have had to ask Thomas for an explanation of a joke; first for a translation and then sometimes for why the joke is funny.
Humor is something I believe you can find in all cultures, but what is humorous is the big difference. A couple of weeks ago Thomas and I were asked to do a talk on cross- cultural differences for new people living in Nicaragua. In our four years of marriage we have definitely learned some things about cross-cultural differences. Unfortunately, the learning process has not always been humorous, but we have tried to laugh at our mistakes and miscommunications. And while this first year with Samantha has been a good test of our marriage, we are still laughing and even more so when she joins in too.
Seeking Him for life,
See more pictures of Samantha.
"dale una luz a los que aman tanto vivir en Nicaragua."
~ Guardabarranco (Nicaraguan duo)
