Day 21-“Is everything okay, officer?"

No big deal, I just wanted to get your attention. Day 21 began by meeting for field service at 8:30 in Santa Rosa.

This is a picture from above Santa Rosa. I thought the tree in the foreground looked cool. I'm no Danielle Zielinski but I did stay in a Holiday Inn last night.

Leah and I worked together and had a very productive morning. Our first door was a nice conversation with Señora Yolanda. She invited us in and explained that reading is difficult because she has poor eyesight. She thinks it is related to extreme stress she has while her nephew was very sick. Who knows? Isaiah 35:5, 6 was comforting to her.

Hermano Segundo assigned us to preach on the main road after that. We quickly realized why.

The way down was a lot tougher than the way up.

Segundo is Tatiana’s father. She is the one who preached with us the day before. She is in the picture on the bridge from one of the previous blogs. He seems very kind and zealous in the ministry. Getting back to the picture-I decided to save Leah the filth and potential pain of going up to that house. It was treacherous, even though it doesn’t seem like it. I started up the hill part way and yelled but it seemed pretty dead. When I got back to the bottom a man had come out so I headed back up. By the time I reached the house his wife had joined him. He was an Indian (and still is) and his wife had major health problems. Once I started sharing scriptures they became comfortable and she asked if I might be able to heal her. Hey, I barely made it to the top of the hill! Heal!?! But it touches your heart to see the way people are desperate for relief and are tossed and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd. What a privilege to be able to share our hope. Even before I left she was asking me when I could return. I told her the following Thursday and they said they would be waiting.

Oh yeah, the title. Before we got to that house, the police pulled over and were waiting for us to approach. When we got close 3 officers got out of the pickup and asked for our papers. Yet another reminder of how helpless I am without the wifee-she had packed them. One of them asked for our papers, one stood silent and the youngest one was snapping photos of us like we were Brangelina. The first one pulled out his Dollar Store spiral notebook and copied our data from the Passports while Agent Paparazzi snapped photos of said documents. They asked me when we would be leaving the country and I said “well, if we keep standing here in the middle of this busy street, probably real soon and in a wooden box”. Fortunately, they had a sense of humor and we all had a good laugh.  They, of course, were just doing their job and everything was fine.

Afterward, we went back into Santa Rosa and did our second study with Alexandra. If you remember, she is the widow who thinks her deceased husband’s spirit is messing around in the tool room. She sounded like she had pneumonia but wanted to study. She did really well and we look forward to our next one with her.

We returned home and lunch was already made. It was sopa de menudencia (which means the small aspects of something). In this case it refers to the small, seemingly insignificant parts of a chicken (heart, feet, liver, lungs). The soup was delicious over white rice. I can say that that was the first time I have ever seen Leah sucking the meat from a chicken kneck. I was not so daring (or gracious) and left the chicken foot for Shawn to eat. The gizzards were pretty good though.

At 4pm we walked down to visit Erlinda, a RV of Leah's, who wanted us to meet her husband. They had studied and attended meetings in the past and we were hoping to encourage them to start back up again.  Her husband, Hilario was home, and very humble and kind like his wife. After a nice conversation and sharing of scriptures we set up to go back this Saturday. She gave us platanos and we were off to start walking to the meeting.  After a nice walk, and dodging a small herd of cows in the road, Ryan and Veronica stopped to pick us up.

This is Victor y Diana Vivanco. They are a young couple in the congregation and are very zealous in the ministry and very capable, as well. Victor is the school overseer and does a very good job. Diana had a talk last night and she used the following illustration to help her bible student understand why it is a benefit that Jehovah has not brought the end yet (2 Peter 3:9). If you were studying and preparing to take a test to get a promotion for your job and your boss told you that the test had been moved back from tomorrow to a week from tomorrow, would you be angry? Wouldn't it be a relief to have more time to prepare yourself for the test? Shouldn't that be the way we feel about Jehovah's patience? A good illustration to insert in the Bible Teach book, chapter 11 paragraph 17. I know because Leah plagarized that same illustration on a study this morning...which you will read about tomorrow.

Segundo, the older man I met in the street, was at the meeting again last night. He paid wrapped attention to the mtg, took notes and gave several comments, including one on the part about the bloodless alternative video - Very encouraging.

Because Ryan isn't just an elder, but the elder, he and Veronica were late in getting home from the meeting. So Shawn, Leah and I took advantage of the time and started eating everything in the house quick "before mom and dad get home" - I was starving - should've ate the chicken foot!