3 Months

So, I went down to the Immigration office last week and renewed our Visas, which of course means we’ve been in Nicaragua for 90 days now. A lot has happened in that time, and I’ve been slacking with my writing, so a lot has happened since our last blog post. So, here we go… 

(*MountainCC people – look for an announcement at the end of this blog entry)

A trip to the immigration office is a lot like a trip to the MVA/DMV.

Erinn:

Although there wasn’t really any intention of teaching here when we moved, Erinn has been using her gifts as a part-time staff member at Nicaragua Christian Academy (NCA). There was a need for a calculus teacher back in September, and Erinn happily stepped into that role. So she happily took on a class of a whopping four students and has fit right in with the other staff at NCA. 

More recently, NCA decided that their Geometry class would be better served if it were split into two smaller sections. So Erinn took on an additional class – this time a class of 14 Geometry students. 

She really seems to like the faculty and students at NCA, and is enjoying her work there.  Looking at her teaching as her main ministry, Erinn has also been providing some math tutoring for students who need it.

Wendy got Erinn and early/surprise birthday gift - special delivery of Flavor Cupcakery!

 Since Erinn has been the main income provider, she has also been doing some contract educational writing, and we recently became incorporated. This will allow a broader range of contract work for both of us as needed, and was necessary for a specific contract that Erinn will soon be working on.

Jeff:

Mostly, I have been serving where ever I can, whenever I can. Along with the Willards, Erinn and I have been bringing missionaries and their families to Campo Alegria to explore how they might be able to use the facilities for their own ministries. I have been visiting various ministries regularly to help out, to see what God has going on around Managua and Granada, and to get some ideas for how I might fit in here long term. I am starting to get some real ideas for ministry here, and exploring how they might be put into place, which is pretty exciting.

Playing with the kids at the Managua dump is a highlight of our week.

In addition to serving, I have been taking Spanish classes at Universidad  Centroamericana (UCA), thanks to some friends who arranged the classes for college students they bring in to serve here. I just finished week 4 of a five week basic Spanish course. We meet twice a week for about three and a half hours. I’m still a very basic speaker, but I understand much more than I did a month ago.

I recently picked up where I left off in the states as a youth group leader. Last week, I had my first small group with a group of 8^th grade boys. Next week, I will be joining them in the 30 Hour Famine to raise funds for World Vision. I’m looking forward to getting to mentor and just have a lot of fun with a great group of kids.

I also have the distinguished honor of being the first one in the family to need a trip to the ER here in Managua. Many of you probably saw most of the details on Facebook - basically, I had a little banana cutting accident and had to get a couple of stitches and a tetanus shot. Overall, I was very impressed with the whole process. The check in was quick, the doctor was very friendly and professional, and without insurance, it was cheap (by US medical standards). 

A trip to the ER for 2 stitches + tetanus = 45 minutes and $89. Not bad.

For fun, I still get out and enjoy running whenever I can. Last weekend, I did a long run with Managua Runners on the trails of a coffee plantation in San Marcos - very cool. Pretty soon, I will be preparing for a 50k race on Ometepe Island in February called Fuego y Agua. The island consists of two volcanos, one of which I will summit and descend during the 50k. I have also been going to the gym pretty regularly with my friend Maynor.

Climbing a volcano as the last leg of a 31 mile race? No problem!

Nate:

Nate’s daily life has changed quite a bit in the last few weeks – probably even more than Erinn’s. A few weeks ago, after Erinn started teaching her second class, we decided to enroll Nate part-time at NCA. It’s been a great change for him, and he really seems to be enjoying it there. So, in addition to his homeschool English, Science, and Social Studies courses, he is now taking Geometry, PE, Bible, and guitar at NCA – and Erinn is his Math teacher.

Nate in a drama for the Kid's Program at the dump.

While Nate hasn’t had much of an outlet for his love of acting, he has been busy with music. Aside from his guitar class at NCA, he is improving his drumming by taking private lessons once a week. He play on one of the worship teams at International Christian Fellowship (ICF), where we usually attend on Sundays.

Julia:

Julia has been doing school online through The Keystone School, which is a very well designed online high school program. But, for any of you that know Julia, she is an extremely social creature. With the rest of us out and about doing our thing, she is often home alone. So as of January, when the second semester starts, we plan to enroll Julia part-time at NCA, along with her Keystone studies. Since she already knows many of the students there, she seems really excited to get to be in school with them. Like Nate with the drums, we plan to get Julia started soon with private guitar lessons, as well.

Julia serving for the Eagles (look at the ground - yes, there are rain outs and delays for volleyball here).

Julia has also been active as a member of NCA’s volleyball team, which is wrapping up its fall season. It’s been fun for her, and definitely a major social outlet for too. She has also been involved with Young Life here, which she really enjoys. Since their schedules are more flexible than Sammy’s (who is a full-time student), Julia and Nate have served in various ministries together with me when ever we can.

Sammy:

Ah, last but not least. As a full time fourth grader, Sammy has been the one in the family who has had a pretty consistent schedule since August. He has really turned it up a notch this year at school. Sammy works so hard, and his grades have been reflecting that. He has been making a lot of friends and really seems to be fitting in well. He sings with a cute fourth and fifth grade worship team for his Wednesday morning chapels. They practice together most Tuesdays after school. He was also elected as a representative in a school-wide election a few weeks ago. 

Is this the face of a politician?

For fun, Sammy still builds everything Lego. He’s currently in a Bionicle phase, but still love him some Ninjago. Since moving, he’s also become a huge Netflix/Power Rangers fan.

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*Mountain Christian Church short-term mission opportunity – Easter 2013:

What would be a better way to celebrate Holy Week than by being salt and light, serving as a family in Nicaragua?

Well, we want YOU to come and experience serving in Nicaragua first hand March 28 – April 4.  It would be VERY cool to have some Mtn families here to work alongside of us at Campo Alegria – to make Easter extra special for all involved. The cost of the trip would be in the ballpark of $1,000 each, but may vary according to several factors.

  

Maybe you can’t go, but please think of others who may be interested…Mtn families we might know.  We have been emphasizing families because this is a great, safe, family oriented trip for kids and with kids. But, by all means, singles are welcome too!

This trip may or may not be advertised broadly at Mtn…we are hoping to “capture” 4-5 families that want to go then get them ready to make the trip.

If interested, please contact Jeff, Erinn, or Tom Moen.

Back to Reality? Not so fast!

So, I guess getting settled in here means keeping ourselves busy beyond blogs and that sort of stuff. I figured we’re long overdue for this update. 

While we everyone in the US is getting used to the routines of school and the smell of autumn in the air, the baseball pennant race is heating up and football is getting started. I’ve been surprisingly connected in to both sports since leaving. Considering I’ve watched approximately five Bills games on network TV since moving to Maryland, imagine my surprise when the CBS affiliate we get here in Managua (Miami’s WSEE) was showing the Bills/Jets game. After watching, I kind of wish they hadn’t. But, hey, I’m a Bills fan – I’m used to those sorts of beatings. And it always helps when the Yankees crush a team that’s battling them for first place in the division, like they did today.

Meanwhile, the weather here is still hot and humid with rain almost every night. School has been in session for over a month, and American football is an afterthought at best. Earthquakes and volcano eruptions have been the talk of the past week. Even as the US mourns one of its darkest days this week, Nicaragua is preparing to celebrate its Independence as a nation.

Huembes Market

Despite these differences, it’s easy to feel strangely connected to home through experiences like watching sports and posting on Facebook, even though we are thousands of miles away and living in a completely different culture. That contrast was really apparent on days like today. Since we’re two hours behind the US East coast, the Bills game finished around 2PM. I sat on the couch watching the game and, for a time, seemed to forget where I was. But within an hour after the game, Erinn, Nate, Wendy, Caeli, and I hit the Huembes market in Managua to find traditional clothes for the kids for Nicaragua Christian Academy’s Independence Day celebration. The market is a mixed collection of shops and vendors; selling everything from tourist friendly t-shirts to hand-made crafts to food items like meats and baked goods.  Back in the US, the only shopping I could remember doing on a Sunday after the football game would have been at Target or Safeway.

Target

 So the illusion of where am I? seems to hit every once in a while until reality sets in. The first time I can remember experiencing this was when we went to go see The Dark Knight Rises at the Cine Galerias a few weeks ago.  Everything about going to the movies feels American, even here – the tickets, the popcorn, the mall setting…but once inside, the movie is in English (with Spanish subtitles), the air conditioning is set to “arctic”, and in the dark, watching Bane and Batman duke it out, I forget. And then I snap back to the reality that I won’t be walking out of the Regal Theater in Abingdon and taking Rt. 24, Wheel Rd. and Rt. 543 back to my townhouse for the evening. I’ll be crossing the brick and stone paved streets of Managua, through commercial districts and barrios. And that’s more than okay!

Erinn and I have grown to love it here. While Sammy is going through school and adjustments of his own, we are starting to find places to fit in and serve. Erinn recently started to teach AP Calculus at NCA each morning. Julia is playing on NCA’s volleyball team. Nate is playing drums on the worship team at church. Julia, Nate, and I go to a Bible study and feeding program in Granada at least once every other week, to serve people and with people that we met on a short-term trip a couple of years ago. We’ve also been going to a kids program and feeding center on Friday mornings near the dump in Managua. The longer we are here, the more we are finding ways that God wants to use us and situations that God wants to use to help mold us.

Nate's Jammin'

As we continue this chapter of our lives we realize it's not going to be easy. Freelance work is not coming as often as we had hoped, so finances are always tentative. Sam has had some bouts of homesickness that occasionally cause him to ignore the fun he's having with the new friends he has and the fun adventures he experiences daily. But we have faith that we are where God wants us. We are experiencing a life right now that is fun, tough, odd, risky, joyful, unorthodox, and fulfilling. What it definitely is not is boring. And aren't all of those things how following God's commands should feel?

So, even though we go through momentary lapses where we don’t remember where we are, it doesn’t mean that we would rather be anywhere else.

Starting to Adjust to Life - Beginning Week 3

In case some of you haven’t seen, our kids and the Willard girls have their own blog now: http://365nica.wendywillard.com/.  So, I guess that leaves this blog to Erinn and me.

So today marks the end of our first two weeks in Nicaragua. In that time, we’ve made some new friends, visited a few new awesome places, and gotten to catch up with some old friends. I was also surprised with a little birthday party with our neighbors on Sunday, and then Sammy, Corinna, and Caeli started school the next day.

After these past two weeks, some things are definitely starting to get easier and more familiar here. Things like getting around on our own, shopping, and those sorts of things are definitely easier. Erinn even drove to the grocery store a few nights ago. That might not sound like much to you, but if you have ever driven here or some other places, you’d understand. It can be pretty intimidating, but I don’t think any trip out here has ever been boring. Sunday we saw a bus jammed with people (a common sight) moving along at full speed, when a guy opened the back door, climbed over to the ladder to the roof, climbed it, grabbed his basket of stuff, climbed back down to the door with the basket, and waited for the bus to slow down to a relatively reasonable speed before he hopped off. For a minute, I thought a new Die Hard movie was being filmed here or something. Today, we were taking what we thought would a leisurely trip out for a sushi lunch in Managua, when we noticed the clouds looked like rain in that direction. Well, the rain turned out to be a torrential downpour that completely flooded most of the roads. I mean, like the roads had their own currents type of flooding. If I got pulled over today, I’m pretty sure they would’ve asked me for my boater’s license. Then we showed up at the sushi place completely drenched. It was a nice lunch with friends anyway, and the rain let up by the time we left (and it didn’t even rain at our house).

We’re getting used to our house and the flow of life within it. The kids are all sleeping well and enjoying their own rooms. We have fewer “pets” (bugs and geckos) than we did when we moved in, and the ones that continue to hang out go pretty much unnoticed. But we still have fun getting some with our tennis-racket-bug-zappers. 

We also got some new hand-made living room furniture from a shop in Masatepe, and have acquired some other things that have definitely helped make the place feel a bit more like a home. 

After moving, I tried to quickly get back to running, so I started running with some of the neighbors and teachers from NCA in Colonia Becklin. I also got the chance to run with Managua Runners, as well as explore a little on my own. It turns out that NCA is starting a running club, and while a neighbor will be coaching the girls, I was asked to coach the guys. It will be a lot different from coaching competitive running, but the idea of creating runners and instilling a love for the sport is the same. The goal is to train them to be able to complete a 5k to the best of their abilities by the end of September. I am grateful for the opportunity to volunteer my time in this way, and I’m really excited to meet some of the kids and parents at the school through this club.

Many things, though, are still very much a challenge for us. We’re still without our own internet and television, so we’ve pretty much missed most of the Olympics. And without internet, it’s been difficult to even make Skype calls to relatives, or companies that we have unfinished business with in the US. I even found myself getting truly frustrated for the first time here this morning because calls to our old insurance company in the US kept getting dropped every time I would finally get a CSR on the line.

Some things are really inexpensive here that would be expensive in the US (like mangos, furniture, and service-type trades), but other things are crazy expensive (like apples, electronics, and cars). Between these differences in prices and the difference between our old budget and our new one, we really have to relearn what is affordable and what isn’t all over again.  

The biggest challenge continues to be the language and general communication, but we will hopefully start some Spanish lessons pretty soon. Nothing really makes someone feel like an outsider more than the inability to communicate with most everyone else. We all have a deep desire to be able to communicate with more Nicaraguans, and the language is obviously the biggest obstacle. I think this desire really showed when Sammy told us that he already has a favorite class in school this year - Spanish.

FIRST WEEK!

We have been here a week, and I haven’t written anything for the blog until now. I am not sure why that is…am I still processing my emotions? So, I guess I’ll start with some simple comments.

I LOVE IT HERE!!! I know it’s new and a little like a vacation right now, but I feel that we are all adjusting nicely. We love our new gecko pets and no one seems to mind squashing the “big bugs”. The weather has been mild. We use blankets at night and I even wore a sweatshirt last night.

Our house is huge. Everyone has their own bedroom and bathroom. We had to buy tons of toothpaste and shampoo so everyone would have their own - silly, I know, but it made me laugh. Their rooms are huge too.  We all have beds now, and we put up curtains in many of the rooms to add color.

Our neighbors are awesome!! There are a many missionaries here in our community who have been very helpful with the transition. They have driven us around to show us the best places to buy what we need, and have given us tons of good advice.

We are so fortunate to be on this journey with the Willard family. We have spent a lot of time together and it has been comforting to have someone going through the same thing. 

Thoughts on the First Days in Nica -by Sammy (with help from Dad)

Well, it took a while to get here, but we made it. While we got our luggage at the airport, we could see Mr. Peter through the window. Mr. Peter is Mr. Wyeth’s dad. He started a cool camp called Campo Alegria. On our travel day, we wore matching t-shirts with the Campo Alegria logo. They look like this:

I woke up on our first day – Wednesday – sleeping on a cot in the Willards’ new living room, and I thought to myself, “its adventure time!” Well, it wasn’t much like that at all really. We just played Wii most of the day.

But, we did get to see our awesome amazing castle-house!!!! It looks like this:

I’m getting a tower bedroom. I want to use the tower part of my room for my Legos. Julia is going to get the huge master bedroom, and Nate will be in the other tower bedroom. That one has a bathroom in the tower.

Some of our neighbors helped bring some furniture over today. They brought some couches from another house in our neighborhood, but the truck left before I could get in. So, I had to run after them back to our castle-house.

They have a lot of the food and stuff here that we have at home, but just a little bit different. Like milk – we usually drink nonfat milk at home, but here they mostly have whole. And it comes in a weird carton. Another thing that’s different is the apple juice. Apple juice in the US is delicious – it’s sweet and clear and I like it like that. In Nica, the apple juice is thicker, almost like cider. We have a lot of trees around us, like at home, but most of these are coconut palms, and some even have bananas and mangos. The fruit here is very fresh and good.

Being here for the whole year doesn’t really seem real yet. It feels a lot like the other times we’ve visited Nicaragua. Pretty soon, I start at my new school, Nicaragua Christian Academy. Maybe then it will start to feel real.

Our Last Days at Home

The last and first days:

Overwhelmed, humbled, & loved. During our first years in Maryland, we would often leave for weekends, longer breaks, and holidays to head “home,” back to Upstate NY. For years, we took these trips “home”. But, year after year, these trips “home” transformed into “visiting family” instead of trips “home”.  It was a slow process, but Maryland was becoming our new home. The past eleven plus years in Maryland (10 in Bel Air) have been great.  There is a deep connection with one’s childhood home, but Bel Air has been a home that we chose, handpicked, and not one that we were unwillingly cast into. It has truly become our home, while Upstate NY has been relegated to being a place where we enjoy visiting -occasionally where are some fond memories we like to relive and family that we like to see. But it has ceased to be “home” to us.

Bel Air being our true home was never more apparent to me than as we prepared to, once again, leave home. While we paid a visit to see family in NY before we left, this time we were leaving Maryland, and the circumstances seem quite different than they were when we left NY over a decade ago. It was quite clear to us that when we left NY, we were leaving home for good. That chapter had already been written and read. Leaving Maryland for Nicaragua, we have every intention of returning home someday, whether it be in a year, two years, or ten years. All of this is simply because it is now our home.

Bel Air is relatively nondescript suburban town. Despite that, there is plenty we love about the area: the climate, the vicinity to big cities and what they provide, and the easy access to the ocean beaches, for example. Of course, those are things that drew us to the Baltimore area, things that we considered when we hand-picked our new home, but that’s not why it is our home.

 It’s the people. Our friends are what have made Bel Air home. As with any place, there are little idiosyncrasies that can consume an area’s population. There isn’t really a perfect place. But finding a place where one seems to fit is the key to enjoying  and settling into one’s home. Because of the friends we’ve made in Harford County, and especially the connections we’ve had with the people of Mountain Christian Church, we truly feel at home in Maryland.  

Never were these relationships more apparent than this past weekend, as we celebrated relationships that would be separated indefinitely by thousands of miles.  We set up a Facebook event called “Say Goodbye to the Izzos,” saying that we’d be at the new Sweet Frog fro-yo place in Bel Air on Monday July 24^th from 7-8-30PM. We figured anybody that we had not been able to see could swing by there, maybe a few people in and out while we hung around. Well, we were greeted by about 15 people when we got there at 7PM, and the numbers just grew. I have no idea how many people showed up to see us Monday night, but it more than I was able to spend time with and say goodbye to personally. It was so great to see so many of our friends in one place and it really did make all of us feel loved.

The outpouring of support and prayers for our move has been awesome. Even as there is sadness in our leaving, there is joy in our mission. We’ve had campers spend a week praying and raising support funds for us during Mountain CC’s week at Indian Lake Christian Camp. We’ve had friends store furniture for us so we wouldn’t have to sell it or pay for storage. We’ve had favors from friends that own businesses, and cars lent to us so that we’d have transportation after selling both of our own vehicles. Others came to our house and helped us get rid of stuff and clean – some who worked late into our very last night in the US. Nate and Julia even had friends that threw them their own going away parties, and Sammy got a special day about him in kids’ church.  Leaving the comfort and security of US culture has never really been a hurdle to us in making this move, but leaving friends from home definitely has made the move a little more bittersweet. And I humbly appreciate every one of the people that helped us to get here.

So now we are here and settling in. It was an exhausting few days, but today has been a pretty slow and relaxing – a necessity, really. We slept on cots last night, in the living room of the Willards’ new house, which is about ¼ mile from our house. We have made contact with other American missionaries in this community already, who have been extremely generous in their offers to help out while we get settled. While our house should be ready to move into tonight, we will probably stay at Wyeth and Wendy’s place another night, since we don’t have beds yet. These houses are huge, much bigger than our townhouse in Bel Air. That means that we have more house to furnish, though, which may or may not completely happen during our time here. Either way, the kids are excited to have their own rooms and to live in a castle, which is exactly what our new house looks like. And while that house is pretty cool, it is very apparent to us all that a cool house is not what makes a place feel like home. It will be the friends we meet and relationships we forge here that could make it feel more like home.

For the month of June...a Father's Day Story 

By Erinn:

Since Father’s Day having just passed, I thought it would be appropriate to tell you all about my father’s father’s father’s father’s father. Many people ask why we chose to move to Nicaragua, and yes, the opportunity arose for us to serve in Nica, where there is definite need. But, there is more to the story…

Abraham Tefel was my great, great, great grandfather. He was Jewish, lived in Germany, and was married to Mary. Abraham and Mary had several children, including Teodoro, Marcus, and Nathan. Well, all three boys moved from Germany to Nicaragua in 1800s.  Of the young Tefel men, Teodoro came to establish the most influence in Nicaragua. His name can be found in in a number of records as a successful property owner and businessman. Teodoro eventually married, and chose a bride who was also Jewish and from Germany, while the other brothers traveled to New York to find wives. (I believe they went to NY to also find good Jewish wives). Marcus and Nathan married Carolina and Amelia, respectively. 

 

The three couples all lived in Nicaragua. Marcus and Carolina, or Lena as she was called, had many children. One son was the Nicaraguan-born Ernesto. Ernesto, apparently, was quite the lady's man - his love life is legendary in our family. It is rumored that when he fell in love with a young Puerto Rican beauty, his German, Jewish family did not approve, and threatened to disinherit him if he married her. He was so forlorn with this conflict that he attempted suicide. Through the shock and sadness of all this, the family agreed to allow the marriage...but then they disinherited him anyway.

 

So, he moved to Puerto Rico with the love of his life, and had a few children, including Alberto. Then they moved to New York where they had a few more. They all lived there together, along with servants and a few “lodgers” as the records called them. 

 

Ernesto's son, Alberto, grew up and fell in love with a Venezuelan named Alicia Guevara. They had five children including my father Anthony.

Abraham… Marcus… Ernest… Albert… Tony… Happy Father’s Day (Belated)!!

 

Why?! Why would you want to move there?

WHY?! is the question we are getting a lot. I have a feeling those who haven’t asked are wondering the same thing.

We can answer the why question in 3 parts:

Cultural Experience…

We live in a global community. Not only has the world shrunk through advances in communication and travel technology, but our own nation is almost as diverse as the world itself. America is a blend of so many nationalities and cultures. To really connect with your classmates, professors, co-workers, and neighbors, you need a well-rounded global understanding. What better way to understand life outside the United States than to go live somewhere else. And no, a trip to an all-inclusive in the Caribbean won’t cut it. We want to know people, see their circumstances, and understand their culture.

Learn the Language…

After each trip we have taken, the one thing we always wish is that we knew the language better. It is really difficult to learn a language authentically by sitting in a classroom or listening to CD’s, especially as an adult. All five of us have done that, and learned a little Spanish, but not enough. There is no comparison to being immersed in the language. After a year, maybe we’ll give an award to the family member who understands the most and speaks the best.

Serve globally…

This is by far the biggest draw for us. There are needs everywhere, both here in the US and abroad. We have tried to raise our children with servants’ hearts - to always be mindful of others and help whenever possible. By taking us out of the comfort of our home and community here in the busy US rat race, we will be able to focus more of our daily lives on serving others. We want to grow as a family and stretch our faith. There are going to be challenges. We expect this to be one of the most difficult, trying things we ever do. It feels like possibly the most risky and frightening and crazy thing we will ever do. But this decision has also brought us much peace, fulfillment, and encouragement. That is what we are getting from serving in the way we hear God calling us – a life full of adventure and purpose. God wants us to serve one another. Some people are led to do so across the country, some are called next door, while others feel drawn to another part of the world. After having served in Nicaragua on short-term trips several times, we have simply felt drawn back there to serve long-term.

We feel so fortunate to have the collective desire and ability to do something that is going to be such an adventure, and in many ways, so selfless. Some would say it is human nature to want to serve others. People instinctually band together and serve whenever tragedy strikes. It is something that we marvel at, and see as true human nature exposing itself. We believe that this desire has been given to us from God. It is a characteristic that should be exercised daily. He calls us to go and make disciples of all nations, to go into the world and preach the gospel. John Piper says, “to belong to Jesus is to embrace the nations with Him.” Our mission is to go and show the love of Jesus through our actions. We may not be preachers or have degrees from a seminary, but we can live a life that is reflective of His goodness. We can love people as Jesus did.

Stay tuned for answers to the HOW questions…