blamed again

For those of you who have been wondering for a long time, last week I finally heard back about the result of my appeal for the accident report with the police. Quick review: got in an accident almost two months ago; I basically t-boned a car at midnight on my way to the airport when she ran a red light; the first police report indicated she was at fault, gave me a speeding ticket, and her insurance would have to pay for damages; she didn't like the idea of having to pay a deductible and increased premium and vowed to appeal, which she did; she pulled some strings and had the report reviewed and the resolution was in her favor, totally ignoring her critical mistake; I appealed with the help of a lawyer and began the month-long wait for a response. That is the response I got last week. Next week we will be filing another appeal, this time with the civil court, so a different set of strings will need to be pulled in order to manipulate the system. I'm still hoping that those who make the decisions will do so justly. I post here when I know more. For now, I'm very thankful that my motorcycle is running well, and just as thankful that the rains have slowed down significantly.

Speaking of rains slowing down significantly...they were coming down really hard for like almost two months. There has been so much flooding in Nicaragua and damage because of it that it's been quite disastrous. Lake Managua has grown, I just heard, so much that it's covering several blocks of the neighborhoods closest to the lake, and is still rising. The ground is so saturated that any time it starts raining, rivers appear out of no where. A few nights ago during a 40 minute downpour, I was on my bike near my previous house, and I was slightly concerned that I couldn't see the road; water coming from side streets careened across the road, and manhole covers were shoved out of their place by brown water pushing its way up from below. When you see this quantity of water, it's not hard to see why so many streets have open drainage systems instead of pipes--they simply can't contain it.

The rain has also affected farmers significantly. Those who lost their crops last year because of lack of water are now losing their crop again--and the seeds for the next!--due to erosion from the extreme amount of rain. The price of beans right now is skyrocketing, and prices in general continue to rise in kind.

Red Pro Com #1

In other news, we had our first training day for Christian computer teachers, and it was a definitive success! We had exactly 20 teachers from almost as many schools out to meet for the first time and begin what I hope is a deeply enriching mutual learning experience. A couple of weeks ago, Christian Reformed World Missions published an article about this group of teachers on their e-news bulletin. Here's the link. It really does a good job of explaining what it's all about. In this first session we focused on developing a biblical understanding of science and technology and how that relates to teaching computer classes. Unfortunately we only took a few photos of the hands on part of the day, where the teachers are getting the opportunity to install Ubuntu on computers and set them up for dual-boot. They're all interested in coming back in October and November for more meetings.

By the way, you may notice that I have started posting other things on my blog--there are some posts below that I didn't send emails about. I decided to start blogging once in a while about things that aren't necessarily related to my ministry here, but that I believe are important and interesting topics. I hope you'll pop in once in a while to read them. I will continue to send email invitations to read my ministry-update blog posts. Thanks for following along!

prayer items

-pray for the rains to slow down, for the ground to dry up a bit, and for harvests this next season to be bountiful
-praise for a great first session with the computer teachers, and pray for further creativity and energy within the group (and for its leaders!) pray that there is natural leadership from within the group of teachers that stimulates and involves everyone
-pray for my situation with my car, the Dama de Hierro, and that through this long process we'll eventually see justice done