For such a time as this..: One month and a day..

One Month and a day. We have been in Nicaragua for one month and a day and so much has already happened. I cannot believe how much time has already gone by. We have had many fun experiences a long with some not so fun.

We just got home from two weeks of language school in Laguna de Apoyo. Here are some fun facts:

We had a tarantula in our room about a foot from our bed one night during school.
We studied Spanish for 4 hours each day
We slept under a bug net. We had no air and took cold showers.
We had many critters hanging out in our bathroom such as toads, spiders, geckos, centipedes, etc.
We had monkeys swinging from tree to tree above and usually were the sound we went to sleep to and the sound we woke up to.
We had four pet dogs and two birds.
We were one with nature.
We ate beans and rice with all 3 meals for two straight weeks.
We had internet for what seemed to be 30 minutes every other day.
We learned how to use a Potter's wheel at a little town called San Juan de Oriente, where they are known for their pottery.
We climbed in caves formed by lava from the Masaya volcano and were swarmed by bats.
There was at least 10 different countries represented (coming and going) where we stayed by the time we left.
We are thankful for our church family in Leon!

God works in mysterious ways and we learned a lot about him... in a lot of mysterious ways. haha

It was a great experience and we would do it again in a heartbeat... but would probably take some extra bug spray...

We have a big challenge ahead of us. Learning a new language is not easy. Yes, we learned a lot the past two weeks. And yes, I learned a lot last year just from living here. And yes, Ryan took 2 years in high-school. But neither of us are anywhere near where we would like to be. We plan to start this week at a language school in Leon for at least 3 days a week 4 hours a day. It is very important to Ryan and myself that we first learn the language. We do not know how long we will be here and we do not want many years to catch up with us and us be unable to speak. Please keep this long road of studying/practicing our spanish in your prayers. We look forward to the day that it just "clicks" like they say.

Other than working really hard on our spanish, Ryan and I will be working on learning the "ropes" around here. I could tell you just about anything you need to know about the school but when it comes to directions/using the bank/paying the electricity bill or how to turn on a water tower I am helpless.

Please keep praying for us as we transition in to this new way of life.

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