Man, God is awesome!  I just got back from Nicaragua where we explored some of the famous sites and lived with new host families for about a week!  Before I jump in, here's some house-keeping stuff: You have to be a Xanga member to post comments, so just send emails to samorse723@yahoo.com if you want to contact me.  Also, that one entry in Spanish is just a translation of the one before it.  I was hoping to translate all the entries but that's pretty time consuming. 

     Alright, so.  We learned some basic Nicaraguan history.  There was this guy named William Walker, a North American, who decided he wanted to rule Nicaragua in the 1800s.  He sort of succeded until Central America booted him out twice.  Then, I believe, Nicaragua set up a Socialist government and wanted to sell the rights for building a canal through Nicaragua to the best business partner, not necesarrily the US.  The US didn't like that, so they sent in the marines and a puppet government.  A young Nicaraguan man named Sandino didn't like that, so he started guerilla warfare against the marines to restore Nicaraguan control.  He was successful for a while until the US helped the Nicaraguan National Guard overthrow Sandino and put Samoza in power.  Samoza was assassinated but his two sons ruled after him.  They were overthrown and the country was once again socialist.  Then the US started supporting a rebel group known as the Contras.  The Sandinistas and Contras waged war until finally a treaty was drawn between them.  Know the country sort of fluctuates between capitalist and socialist governments, but has democratically elected leaders.  It is also the second poorest in Latin America, after Haiti.  Don't quote me on that, but that's the gist of it.  I'll check all my facts in a few days.

     So anyway, as you all know by now I really want to be a missionary out in the sticks somewhere.  Well I lived with a family that was definitely out in the sticks and it was awesome!  You had to ride a truck for a half hour and then a horse for an hour and a half to get there!  While I was there we bathed in the river, harvested and shucked some beans, milked cows and slept in hammocks.  I felt like a little boy the whole time I was there cause it was all just one big adventure!  I mean, it was awesome!  Especially since my family was really easy to understand. 

     We were the first gringos to ever visit their village!  So we were definitely the center of attention, which you all know is perfectly fine with me! 

     We went to a baseball game one day in the village and everyone had really nice uniforms!  They take their baseball seriously here (something the marines brought to the country.) 

     We also ate dinner at about every house we went to, so it got kind of hard to down more food after a while!  They even killed a few of their chickens while I was there and I told my dad "You don't have to kill all your chickens for us since they give you eggs."  He replied, "The chickens we will always have with us, but the Gringos we will only have for a little time."  As funny as that sounds, that's how they treated us; like Kings and Queens!  They really were some of the nicest people I've ever met!

     My family borrowed my camera to take pictures the whole time, so it was kind of nice cause I got a lot of good pictures, but after a while I started restricting use of it because it started taking away from doing other stuff. 

     Two of the girls got proposed to in the week that we were there!

     I got to preach in Spanish.  That was pretty cool, but I had almost no voice that day!  No joke, I had no head ache or sore throat, but my voice sounded like a chipmunk in puberty drinking helium!  I kept going, though.  I preached about using all the opportunities God gives you and talked about Abraham and the Woman with the flow of blood that touched Jesus' cloak.  Luckily my host dad, the pastor of the village, understood me and retold it all to the congregation.  Afterwards I played the guitar and the three gringas sang Indescribable by Chris Tomlin. 

     The next night we had a going away service which most of the village attended.  We were playing some kind of tag for a while, but then it turned into all the kids just chasing me around!  I felt so honored!  All those kids really loved the three girls and I! 

     I had a blast and I know my family will miss me.  I'm going to send them a thank you card and a big stack of pictures as soon as I can.

     Our families were definitely poor out there, but they had food and land.  Most of the houses were wood with tin roofs and dirt floors and an outhouse.  The majority of people had horses and farmed.  A few even sold things like milk or beans in the nearby town and had a TV powered by a solar panel.  (Not quite the Satellite dish next to a bamboo hut like in Thailand!)  They also have school up to sixth grade in the village and higher levels in the city 2 or 3 times a week.  They even had a free government clinic a couple hours down the road. 

      So they were definitely poor, but they get by and they all seemed very happy.  Some of the other students stayed in small towns (almost slums) and that seemed worse to me.  Some of their families were unemployed with a 7x7 foot house and no land to farm. 

     This trip made me think about poverty a little differently.  I sort of felt like there would not be as much need for a medical missionary out in the sticks like I'm been wanting to be.  I feel like the slums somewhere would be in greater need of medical care among many other things, but the slums honestly don't excite me as much as the sticks.  However, my one friends reminded me that not all villages have a free clinic nearby, and my mom told me that even if they do, problems like cleft pallete and infant death still need improvement of treatment. 

     I'm also thinking about maybe living in a poor neighborhood in the States some day so I can help it improve and minister to the people there.  I could find plenty of people in need of medical care and I could even do a month of missions every summer or something like that.  We'll see!  I've still got a while to go before I really have to think about all that and I know God is working out the details as we speak.

     Well, that's most of what's been going on!  Hope to hear from you all soon!  I'll put some pictures up some time.  Good luck to all of you in school and work and remember that God is faithful!  Tell about what's going on in your lives, good or bad.  I'm willing and eager to listen!

           Hey everyone!  Golly, a bunch of stuff has happened since my last entry.  I’ve been getting to know my family better.  We’ve learned a lot about poverty, politics and global economics.  I’ve even managed to have a little fun in there too...don’t forget to check out my Special Report Video that I posted.

Trip to Limón

           Well, this last weekend we went to Limón Province, a major shipping area with a large indigenous and negro population, to do some interviews about poverty and visit some plantations, the docks and an indigenous village.  It was really cool.  Jess, Jen and I interviewed a group of hobos first.  They were some of the nicest guys and they gladly answered our questions.  Mostly they said that they all lost their jobs for some reason or another and now they’re alcoholics on the street.  They also said nobody will give them jobs because they’re alcoholics. 

           While we were talking with them a negro man came up and asked us, in surprisingly clear English, what we were doing.  We said we were students studying poverty.  He then asked “Well, are you going to do anything to help them?”  I replied, “Well, first we’re going to study poverty and then we’re going to talk about how to fix it.”  He then said, “Oh, that’s really cool, well good luck to you.”  Then we interviewed him and he said that he brings them food once in a while, but doesn’t really see much hope for them.  He and the homeless men all said that the government needs to create more jobs and provide basic needs to people that don’t have them.  

           One of them told me he had messed his pants and wanted money to buy some more.  I told him I had some more boxer shorts in the hotel and would give him those.  So the girls and I went back to retrieve the shorts and on the way back Jessica said we should also get them some food.  We stopped at a fruit stand and I said we should get some grapes, so we bought three decently sized clusters.  Then Jess said we should get them some bread, so we got five of those for them.  We took everything back and gave it to them and I even got someone to take a picture of us all.  Afterwards I told the girls that I thought it was funny that we gave underwear and communion to hobos, and suddenly they realized that we did!  How funny!  But also so appropriate!  We had some real fellowship with people we hardly even knew!  That was awesome!

           We had also interviewed three men in San José before we came to Limón and they all said the same thing, “It’s the government’s responsibility.”  Later that night we also interviewed a negro woman and her response was a little different.  She said, “Latin America’s not nearly as poor as Africa.  People need to get an education.  If they don’t, it’s their own fault that they’re poor.”  Finally, a different response.

World Poverty

           I think all of the people we interviewed had valid points.  Unfortunately, despite whatever the government and education do there will always be someone who has to clean the toilets and collect the garbage, and it just seems like they’re so underappreciated and even neglected. 

           In our readings we’ve heard a lot of views that say that Latin America generally gets the short end of the stick when it comes to foreign policy.  About 7 years ago CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) started.  Since then there’s been good and bad consequences, and Ticos have differing opinions about it.  It has made things cost less in the US and in Central America, and many factories have come to Central America.  This creates more jobs here, and labor is lower, so products cost less everywhere.  The down side is many North American factory workers lose their jobs and many smaller businesses can no longer compete.  Also, a lot of the profits these companies make goes back is spent in the US and so doesn’t help the Latin American economy.  It’s sort of the Wal-Mart effect. 

           Agriculture is a slightly different story.  American wheat and corn farms are much more industrialized, and often are government subsidized.  Latin American farms are often neither and so they can’t compete with the cheaper, superior American product.  Tropical produce, such as pineapples, coffee and bananas, are often grown on large plantations owned by American companies.  This also has the Wal-Mart effect.  Most of the money goes to the US economy and the workers are paid about $12 a day.  It is better than nothing, but also they’re exposed to some pretty nasty pesticides and have to work 12 hour days.  Also, farms like this can sometimes last only a few years, profitably, and if a plague comes and wipes out all the crop (since only one crop is grown they all can fall in one incident, think Irish Potato Famine) the company just moves to another location and starts over, and all the current workers lose their jobs. 

Sustainable Agriculture

           We visited this farm that tries to do everything completely organic and pollution free.  It was really cool.  They raise animals and compost their waste with dead plant matter.  They also grow a variety of crops and rotate their fields.  They even have a “Biodigestor” to turn, I believe dead plants, into methane gas that they can use for fuel, and they grow a lot of natural insecticides.  Unfortunately only ten people live there and it’s a bit of a struggle to provide enough food for themselves.  They have classes to teach their techniques and to locals and to foreign visitors.  They even have a Spanish language school there to attract foreigners and generate income.  They have one TV and a computer for work purposes only, and they grow some medicinal plants.

           I really admired that place, but I think it would still need some work to be applicable to a whole country.  The topic for my final paper is to come up with a sustainable agricultural policy for Costa Rica.  I’m thinking something like the Incas had, with a much larger infrastructure.  Also, I might recommend that the Costa Rican government subsidize agriculture or do away with free trade on agriculture so that they can impose tariffs on foreign produce. 

           Some of the ideas they had at that farm were pretty easy and pretty easy to implement.  I almost wonder why we don’t do more of it already.  One thing they had was a big satellite dish with coated with mirrors.  It focuses solar heat to a small area so you can boil water or even cook food with decent efficiency.  Other things we could do are simply recycling and even growing some of our own food, maybe even getting a cow or two for milk, LOL.  Then if you’re slightly more hardcore you can stop shopping at Wal-Mart and buy fair trade bananas.  If you want to go a step further research foreign policies and vote accordingly.  I know I’m gonna be a lot more informed from now on. 

Other Stuff

           More and more I feel like I want to be a medical missionary.  However, that’s still a while away and I’m guessing God has a lot to teach me between now and then.  Please pray for that.

           God is definitely stretching me and growing me.  I never thought I would ever care about politics, but this semester is changing that.  Also, I feel like I’m just hearing God’s voice more clearly, and at the same time, Satan’s lies.  I can definitely tell which is God’s and which is Satan’s, but I’m guessing that the devil’s not too happy about what God’s doing with me here!  Just the other day I was giving a Bible study and all day i kept having doubts like “Nobody’s gonna like that Bible study, don’t even give it!”  I knew that was Satan and so I gave it and everyone loved it.  Please keep me in your prayers. 

           Still healthy since last time, praise God! 

           My Spanish is getting better all the time.

           I’ve gotten to play some piano here and that’s a praise. 

           I’m starting up a men’s Bible study, so please pray for that.

I wish you all well in school and work and everything!  Keep up the hard work and remember that the God of all the universe is with you all! 

Love,

Stephen