Well there hasn't been much excitement in our neck of the woods lately but the rainy season has arrived which changes things a little, the first rain came nice and gently ....

... gradually building ....

to quite a downpour.

Porl got all excited and thought he might need to borrow my umbrella ....

but about 5 minutes later it was all over Rover, 

and even the butterflies were braving the streets again.

But the rain hasn't stayed quite that gentle and that night after the meeting we got caught in a bit of a downpour, getting just slightly drenched, this was from the 3 min bike ride home from the hall.

Actually I don't think the picture does it justice, we felt a lot wetter than we look lol.  Goodness knows what kind of a face I'm pulling there, so shocked to feel rain after so many months or something lol.

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Most evenings now there's quite a thunder and lightening show, this was the tail end of tonight's one, it was much more impressive to start with.

Other than that we've been busy keeping up with our Bible students and there always seems to be someone new who would like their own study.  The English group seems to change every other week and there are lots of new faces here now.  

The other day we had the pleasure of the company of a young lady called Sophia.  She's part of the Higgs family who have previously spent some time in Nicaragua, in Granada and also San Juan.  They are from the States and are a lovely family of Mum & Dad, Jerry & Zac and three girls, Lily, Sophia and Isabel.  They are here I think until October.

So off we set with Sophia on our adventure to visit Renee the local coquero (coconut man) and his wife.

 

(Porl the photo-bomber!)

 Our friends Blake and Candace from Michigan had introduced us to Renee who had been asking for a Bible study and we had arranged with another brother with a car to visit him as he lives quite a way out of town.  For one reason or another the study hadn't happened and Renee had come to our house asking could he please have that Bible study so we asked him for directions to get to his house and arranged to visit.  The first time we went, after about a 25 min bus trip we got the bus attendant to help us find where to hop off and Renee met us by the side of a road to take us through the maze of dusty roads between the pueblo (town) that he lives in 'Jicarito' and so we arrived at his house.

(Bikes are the most common form of transportation after the buses and it's very rare to see one person on a bike, there's usually at least two and the most I've seen is a family of 4!)

This was the second visit and this time we were on our own.  We remembered that there was a rickety wooden frame at the bus stop where we needed to hop off so when we saw one we got the driver to stop and off we got.  The bus was packed to the gills so we had to fight our way down the aisle to hop off.  No sooner had we hopped off than Porl looked around and said, "there's no town here' this is the wrong stop' and sure enough there wasn't much more than one little house and a similar rickety wooden frame at the bus stop.  "Don't worry" he said "it can't be much further we'll just walk".  I didn't fancy that idea so much as I was still hobbling around with my injured food so I quickly turned and flagged the bus down again as it was pulling away.  We fought our way back on to the bus and boy were we glad that we did.  Turns out we were way away from our stop - it would have taken us forever to walk there, especially with hoppy bringing up the rear jeje.

(Porl at the right bus stop)

Anyway we finally got to our destination and found our way through the pueblo to arrive again at Renee and Liset's.  Renee seemed very happy to see us and we had a lovely study with him and Liset.

  She, poor lady had been bitten by a dog a couple of weeks before and had a big gaping wound on her calf muscle that looked very nasty and was now a bit infected.  She'd been to the hospital apparently but they hadn't even covered it and had just given her antibiotics in case an infection developed.  I guess it was pretty likely given that they hadn't stitched or covered it, it was a really big gash!  We took her some gauze pads to cover it and a bandage so that it would at least be out of the dust that blows around everywhere but it was already showing signs of infection and she's going to be left with a nasty scar poor thing.

We sat out the back of Renee's place and as they live near the lake it turns out we were swarmed by sallules or these little midgy, sandfly things.  They don't seem to bite but they're rather annoying and there's soooo many of them.  Kieran thinks he's read that in some places people catch them in nets and make patties out of them - it wouldn't surprise me, as it'd only take a couple of swipes with a butterfly net to have yourself enough for a king size burger patty!

After the study we caught another bus into Rivas and caught up with the others, even managing to squeeze onto a bike taxi for a quick ride to let Sophie try it out for the first time.

Apart from lots of witnessing we also had our pioneer meeting a couple of weeks ago which was great.

One illustration I picked up was for when people ask about different Bible translations and what the difference is - one way to look at it is that is that Bible translations are like tv's.  They all give the same picture it's just that some models are are better quality, like plasma, high definition etc so that the picture is a bit clearer.

We did have one outing out of the ordinary, a few of us went to the new picture theatre in town to see Iron Man 3

It wasn't too shabby actually, you can see Dio there in the front row looking rather excited to be there!  Perhaps he'd just spotted the fridge filled with Toñas jeje.

After the movie a local hammock seller offered us his wares, I told him that Chase was homeless and was going to have to sleep in the park that night so he'd probably like to buy one.  Poor Chase, he spend the next ten minutes trying to extricate himself from the sale without hurting the guys feelings as he muttered something like 'I hate you MC under his breath' jaja.

The picture theatre (read room with chairs, a fridge, a computer and a cloth projector screen) is about three blocks up from the beach so we were surprised to come across a crab wondering around outside it.

Speaking of beaches, as usual, nost weeks there's also the odd shuttle ride out to the surf, here the boys are all ready to go and get some waves.

And here we are at Maderas, probably the most popular surf beach here.

Chase also had a highlight last week when a package arrived from his Aunty, turns out, despite that muttering under his breath the other night, that he really must love me as he'd got her to put in some Dilmar tea bags for me which are sooooo good, thanks Aunty!  Among Chases treasures were chocolate bars and a new singlet that obviously doubles as a headband - how handy!

Tonight was a historic moment for the English group as we had our first full service meeting.  The Spanish congregation are away this weekend for their assembly so they didn't have a midweek meeting so the brothers decided that we should do the whole thing and it went really well.  Chase and Porl gave very good talks and Damo and Paul did a couple of good demos.  Much fun was had by all!

Last weekend saw the beginning of a month long festival in San Juan the 'Fiesta Patronales' which is celebrated in honor of the patron saint of San Juan, John the Baptist or San Juan Bautista.

I'm not sure of the religious side of it but the first night had lots of bands and rock and pop music.

Apparently the festivities build and culminate on 24 June with an all out party.

Unfortunately these kinds of events also seem to bring out the lowlife and that Saturday night the brother in law of one of my studies was murdered not far from where I took this picture.

I found out on Sunday when she text me and asked for some comforting Bible verses to share with her sister.  For good reason we're encouraged not to be out on the streets late at night.

Speaking of late at night, I'll finish up this blog post with an update on the tranny that robbed us.   Last night after midnight Kieran woke up to the flickering light of a flame reflecting around the lounge.  He got up to check what was going on and it turned out it was the same tranny who had climbed up the wall at the front of our apartment and was looking in the window by lighting matches to see in.  He had gone but Kieran hid below the window in case he came back and sure enough he came back and climbed up again and was lighting matches again.  Kieran jumped up and yelled at him.  He reckoned that the guy just about leapt across to the other side of the road and ran off waving his hands around his ears giving little shrieks.  Ayayay!  Whatever next?