Thursday, June 8, 2023

Thursday, June 8, 2023 (Day 7)

We were awakened today by a phone call from Regan saying he needed to take Blanca to the doctor and he wanted Dave to go with him.  So Dave got ready and they headed into Managua to see our friend, Dr. Bayardo.  Dave took this opportunity to make arrangements for Dr. Bayardo, Dr. Ocampo, and Nurse Arely to join us for church at Verbo in Veracruz on Sunday.  They are the backbone of our medical team here when we conduct medical clinics.  On the way back from seeing the doctor, Regan and Dave bought a battery and a tire for Regan's 1991 Toyota van that has been our most dependable transportation in Nicaragua to date.  It is a red van, affectionately referred to as "Reddy", because it is always ready whenever we come to Nicaragua.  Once the guys returned to Veracruz, they met with Jose Felix to verify transportation and work through all the details for our Saturday field trip with the VEA students.

While the guys were taking Blanca to the doctor and making arrangements, Bethany and I spent some quiet time at "home" and did a little housework.  Where we usually reside at Casa Bernabe Orphanage, it is common for someone to be mopping behind you everywhere you walk.  Since we are not staying there, we are responsible for our own cleaning.  The house where we are staying has beautiful windows, but one day earlier in the week when we had a hard rain, the windows leaked and we had a lot of water standing on the floor.  As a result, the water left a stain on the floor.  Bethany took the initiative this morning to mop and thankfully, it came right up.  

We had a few other things to deal with at the house as well, related to our water and our toilets.  By the time we were finishing up with that, Dave and Regan returned from dropping Blanca off at their house.  They said she is feeling much better after receiving some treatment but she was going to get some more rest and she needed to work with their grandson to help him catch up on schoolwork he missed after being in the hospital for over a week right before we got here.  From there, we left for a late lunch meeting with our friend and lawyer, Nubia.  Her son, who is also educated as an attorney, and granddaughter joined us as well.  We had a lot of good conversation catching up on our lives and discussing the state of ministry and business in Nicaragua.  Four hours later, we said goodbye.

 Since this was our rest day, we had planned to do a little shopping, but we ultimately decided to skip it and go back into Veracruz.  Regan went home and with Blanca feeling considerably better, they and their youngest son, David, joined us back at the house where we are staying for additional fellowship until the end of the night.

The property where we are staying has many different types of fruit trees (mangoes, plums, limes, guavas, coconuts, etc.).  Earlier in the week, I noticed one of the trees had the fruit in bags and some had the fruit in bags of water.  The groundskeeper, Carlos, picked a guava in a bag right off the tree and offered it to me.  We are waiting for it to ripen a bit more before we cut it open.  He has told us we are welcome to harvest any of the fruit on the property.  It is certainly lush here.

[See below for a pic of our guava in a bag and you can see one of our beautiful windows, that Carlos has since caulked, in the background.]

In Christ,

Katy, for the team