so much to tell

Needless to say, it's been a while since I've posted...so it's about time for this one.

First of all, if you didn't notice Andy wrote back to let me know that he was pretty upset with his agent about being on billboards down here... I hope you got that straightened out. I'll let you know if I see any more of your pictures down here.

Since I last wrote, Ted & Laura came down again with Uncle Ken. Interesting story there. I decided I'd make the trip down to San Juan del Sur to see them so I left Saturday night late with my friend Luke from NCA. Got to the place they were staying with no problems (aside from being stopped by the police for passing in a no passing zone...they let me off and then mentioned that they were hungry...haha...so I shared some of my teddy grahams with them). When I got up the next morning I found a flat tire on my truck (the second flat tire in the past month--I thought of you, Ben). Luke and I spent the next hour driving around trying to find a place to fix it because we didn't want to be without a spare. To make a long story short, we were going to meet the Keys and ended up being a bit late. Since they were waiting with the realtor and another two other clients, we decided it would be best for them to leave ahead of us and call us with directions of how to get where they were going to so we could meet them at the next checkpoint. Somewhere along the way on some of the worst roads I've ever seen we lost track of them because there were no cell phone towers (no signal). We spent a lot of time driving around trying to find them. During that time we found some awsome puddles and made good use of them (see the pictures of my truck). If you want a video of splashing through, I can send it to you in an email. That was pretty fun. Finally found them at the last place we knew they were going and hung out for a while before heading back to Managua. There's also a picture of Raul here. He's the security guard at the school. Mud got everywhere. It splashed up into the car through a hole in the floorboard. The engine was absolutely covered. Not sure how good that is for the engine, but hey, it was fun. The only differences with the car now are that one brake squeeks a lot and the car wants to turn right when I hit the brakes. Oh, also, the driver's side door now rubs when it opens/closes. :) It was a rough day for the truck. It cost 30 Córdobas to fix the flat tire. That's less than USD$2.

In other news, I have really enjoyed getting to know the most recent other English teacher. His name is Sidney and he's 25. He's been teaching English for about 4 years. I think he's going to be raising the level of the English Department at Nejapa. He's been good for me as a friend and as a colleague. We're planning on getting our students into the computer lab more often to get them used to using the computer and to make things more interactive. Currently the internet is very slow but the school is looking at really improving the bandwidth by two or three times. This would make it much more possible for us to do interactive internet things. I have been working a little on designing a website for us to use as a launchpad for in-lab assignments--somewhere that I can put both links to external sites as well as audio and video clips that I make. If this works, it could be really cool and I think the students would love it. My computer can act as a webserver, so when we're in the lab I can just plug my computer in and they'll be able to access the website--regardless of whether or not the internet is working and at high-bandwidth speeds even if the internet is slow. I also discovered a website builder on my compupter which is helping a great deal, too.

Still learning Spanish. I think it's taken a few steps up during the past weeks. I am still complaining that I don't study and blame myself for not learning several times faster. I can definately understand more and my speaking is improving, too. It's encouraging to see this improvement. Living with the family has been good. I still enjoy them quite a bit and they're always in a great mood. Food, though, has been a little less than healthy on the whole. Lots of grease. Not as many veggies or fruits as I would like, but it's been slightly better lately in those areas. I think I will recommend some mangos this week. I have been wanting mangos. I my fat cells might be developing a bit. I should try to offset this by exercising more than occasionally once a week.

Prayer Items
-I feel like things have been going really well lately, and I really need to give thanks to God for responding to my prayers and those who have also prayed on my behalf. He has clearly responded and it has been very encouraging!
-Pray for continued success in the classroom, and continued improvement in many ways "including but not limited to:" (make sure you use that phrase in your prayer ;) 1-communication with parents; 2-patience with and understand of students for me; 3-student behavior.