Hello my friends! Ah the time goes by and I wonder where it all goes! Time is such a precious gift, and living here has brought me to a new perspective on how to take advantage of that time. Each morning I wake up and look outside my window. The land is covered in whiteness, and more often then not, rain is falling from the cloud we are engulfed in. It is the same all throughout the day and lasts through the night. From what my informants tell me it should be like this for the entire month of October, possibly even leaking over into November. Where has the sun gone? No sun for a whole month? I didn´t bargain for this when I signed up for this thing! Ahhhh, but this I learned is the way of life down here. Many things come to be that I don´t bargain for, yet I must take each in stride and be thankful for the rain when so many other parts of the world are in a drought. Here in the Cus' I finally started my classes last week. For now it's only one English class in the morning to 6th graders, and I also have my class on faith and values in the afternoon. So far so good. Now I must tell you of my happenings recently. A week and a half ago I left this little pueblo and to attend a concert in Managua and spend the weekend with two of my good friends, Uziel and her sister Eylim, both from Cusmapa but are currently attending the university there. One night there I was with Eylim as we had visited the Jesuit volunteers in Managua and I had just finally succeeded in buying liquid 2% milk, as there is only powdered milk and the milk straight from the cow in Cusmapa. I had been waiting for this since I arrived nearly 3 months ago, so you can imagine how excited I was. Well it was about 7:30 at night and we were waiting on a street corner in the rain to return to her house, when a young teenager (maybe 17 or 18) came up to us. Like is very common in Nicaragua, I figured he was here to beg for money and that he said "Dame un peso." I turned my head to Eylim and she was thrusting our 5 cordobas for the bus into his hand. He then said something about my watch, and me being the smart one said "Son las siete y media," or it's 7:30. Meanwhile, Eylim was screaming at me, and for some odd reason or another I didn´t understand why. Then he reached for my bag of milk, and my thought was¨"No you're not getting my milk, I've been waiting to long for this!" Then he raised his right hand up and I finally saw it - a knife. Although I wasn't scared, I released my grip from the bag of milk as I didn't want to have any more of an altercation, and he walked off to his friend about 15 feet away. His friend asked him, "Is this all you got?" Yes, somehow he only extracted from us 5 cordobas (about $0.30) and 3 liters of milk. Eylim and I proceeded to cross the street and walk 20 minutes home in the rain, laughing at my inability to understand. Thank God nothing worse happened to us, as God saved us with my blind eyes and deaf ears. A few weeks ago I was hanging out with Uziel, Eylim, and the rest of their family here in Cusmapa. I had spent the previous nights with Uziel reading the Bible and we were talking of praying the rosary together. Uziel nor the rest of the kids had ever prayed the Rosary. Their mother Panchita said to me, "Can you do something to help me? I can't get them to go to Mass, and they have no sense of spirituality in their lives. Nothing. What can you do to help bring them closer to God and develop their own spirituality?" I said I would do what I can to help. That night for the first time in their lives, Uziel, Eylim, Roberta, and Anyel said the Rosary. The next night we did the same. Something small to start, but that's what it's about - planting seeds. Now I have the opportunity to help the young people here develop a spirituality in my "charla" on faith and values. As they have given me free reign with it, I have designed it that it's not so much a class as it is a time for playing, discussion, fellowship, and praying. Since I arrived in Cusmapa and saw the lack of spirituality this is what I've wanted to do, minister to the young people and help deliver the good news, and now I have the opportunity to do it. God is already using me in ways I didn't imagine before coming down here. Isn't He great!? I love you all. Take care and God bless. UNTIL NEXT TIME...