Nicafied: #12 Take a hike!

About 4 days ago we decided to get a couple of the friends together and take a hike up over one of the very small mountains or very large hills depending on how you look at things, thats behind our house. The weather here is generally quite perfect for such outings as its usually 70 and sunny. We were kind of surprised that some here had already climbed this little mountain and that there were some who were willing to come with us. If we were in Nicaragua the common response would have been, "you want me to climb that...why?" Well here everybody knew why you might want to do this little hike. It took us about 2.5 hours to get to the other side but man was it worth it! I guess we didnt realize what a little valley we live in tucked away way up in the andes mountains. As you can see in the photos the other side of this little mountain is an enormous vast landscape of andes hills and andes jagged mountains rolling one right after another layer upon layer of mountains and valleys. You'll see a picture of a river of sorts at the bottom of one of the valleys, this is a tributary off of the amazon river. Actually come to find out all the little farms and houses on this side of the mountain are part of our territory. One of the brothers with our little group brought along some magazines and tracts so as to take advantage of the houses along the way that rarely get preached too. At the top of the mountain there was a little school and all the kids gathered around him as he talked about Jehovahs name and gave them all tracts and magazines with the teacher. We all brought lunches and enjoyed eating and visiting with one another once we got to the top.

The weeks have gone by fast and the adjustment has been farely easy. Every sunday people from neighboring towns up in the mountains come down and sell all their goods and produce. Lots of grains, flours, vegetables, cheese, chocolate, breads, pastries, and wine. Fruit is a little pricy but they have things like grapes and apples mixed in with tropical things like pineapples and mangos. They have pine trees next to palm trees next to mango trees...its all very confusing.

The ministry is great! Between the two of us we've started 5 studies and have a mounting pile of return visits just waiting to be switched over to studies. The reception I hear has been exceptional of late because of the gold mine. The gold mine lays about 2 hours out of town but it's causing tremendous tumult. Supposedly in order to get to the gold they have to empy one of the main water sources to the town and because of this the people have gone bizerk. They protest all the time and the police are always roaming about. It gotten so bad that they had to bring in a fraction of the military to help the police keep things under control. I guess if the people can calm down by august 5th then the military will move out. We encounter two types of people in service because of this. 1: Those that say, "why arent you fighting for the water! Its your water too and you need to join us! People of every religion are in the square protesting with us except you people, why!" They usually start off a little angry but they always let us give them an answer and none of them will argue with what we show them from the scriptures, its proven to be a good witness. The 2nd type are those that are truly distressed about the situation and are glad to hear news about a better future under Gods kingdom, many of those have turned into bible studies.