Friday morning I went to Mass at the friary in Comayagua at 6:20. Upon arriving in Central America two weeks before, I remembered how much easier and natural it is to get up early. In the Texas at my parents house, the kids and I would wake up at 8 or so. Here we are almost always awake by 6:30 or 7. We definitely go to sleep earlier so we are getting the same amount of sleep. People just wake up earlier, the sun is shining into bedroom windows at 5, the roosters everywhere, even in the cities are crowing, the trucks are honking, the dogs are barking, donkeys braying: it's time to begin a new day.
Last Friday was not only a new day, it was another new beginning for the Hinckley family and 4 Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. After Mass, breakfast and last minute packing into the Friar's minibus and two trucks, we headed south to Matagalpa, Nicaragua, our new home. We Hinckleys road in the bus with Br. Matteo driving. Br. Antonio and Fr. Terry drove one truck, while Fr. John Anthony and Fr. Francis Mary drove the other. Fr. Terry and Br. Matteo were not to stay in Nicaragua, but came to help drive and stay with the others to help set up the temporary friary. Br. Justin who is also assigned here to Matagalpa was unable to come with us because he had become sick with dengue and needed to recover before making the trip and living in the new and somewhat rustic conditions.
We had to stay at the border of Honduras and Nicaragua for an hour and a half for fees to be paid, luggage to be checked, and documents filled out. Leaving Honduras we left behind a tropical storm that was flooding and causing Honduras to now be in a state of emergency. It had been raining for 48 hours once we left Friday morning. Our last night in Casa Guadalupe, the Friars' apostolic center which Daniel helped build, was the first night that the Friars started housing people whose mud brick or mud and rock and wood houses were falling down because the rain soaked the once dry, solid mud into liquid mud.
May through October is rainy season for both Honduras and Nicaragua and I really do pray that come November 1st the rain will stop. I put laundry out on the line yesterday late morning once Daniel set up the washing machine we brought from our old house in Honduras (a major luxury in both countries...I'm spoiled). Only a few pieces of it dried by the time we got back from running errands at about 2PM, but the sky looked dark like it was going to give us the regular afternoon shower so I took it all off. It ended up not raining and so at about 4, I put it all out again though it was barely getting any sun. I guess I was hoping that it would be a rain-less evening. It wasn't. It started pouring just after dinner so hard that I didn't have time to run out and take it all off the line. So it all go a second rinse. The next day was gray, no sun. By evening we realized that we had to put up lines in one of the extra rooms upstairs in order to have any dry clothes. With a fan on them, they dried in a few hours.
Yes, our house has two floors and quite a few extra rooms. We arrived to the house around 4PM last Friday and immediately unloaded as much our our things as possible into it before the Friars left to go unload the rest of the stuff at their house. Unfortunately most of the cleaning stuff was packed together and so we didn't get it until Saturday evening. Though Daniel had seen the house briefly during his trip last May, I had never set eyes on it. It was not one of those we had looked at when we first arrived in Nicaragua. The Friars had actually traded with us and they would be staying in the large office building. As I said, I had never seen the house we would be calling home for an indefinite amount of time. I don't know what I was expecting...my dream house or something. Well, unfortunately it was a bit overwhelming, and not too dreamy. It is huge, used to be the minor seminary so the upstairs has four large rooms with bathrooms and the bottom floor is a kitchen, dining room, living room, another room with bathroom and two offices in front. All these rooms are huge and totally concrete and somewhat dingy with the water marks and mud still on the walls from the flood of a year or so ago. Did I mention the back of the house is up against the river...in the one hundred year flood plane?
After everything was unloaded, I, wanting everything to magically be clean and set up, didn't know where to begin. But Daniel helped me focus: one room at a time; since its getting late, let's set up the bedroom.
Anyway, we have been settling in and making it home, offering up frustrations and mosquito bites. One thing that normally would be frustrating and a major headache just make me laugh: every morning at 6:30, right across the street in a huge metal pavilion, the high school band starts practice. The loud beating of drums can be heard for an hour in the morning and in the afternoon. For some reason I can't do anything but chuckle at this noise...must be grace. :)
Leaks are getting fixed, doors are being made more secure, walls cleaned, floors mopped, the very few pieces of furniture being arranged, all the while meals are being prepared, meetings had, bank accounts opened, contacts made, and prayers said.
At Mass on Sunday at the Cathedral, the bishop at us (Friars and Hinckleys) sit up front and introduce ourselves and mission before Mass. Later we all went up to see the property given to the diocese and then passed on to the Friars from the bishop. It is not far out of town, but much higher up. The road leading up to it is quite steep...only 4-wheel drive will get you up one of the sections of it. Once up there and walking around with the kids, I felt peace which had been lacking for the previous two days. We walked up the road a short ways, took in the view of mountains all around, watched the ants carry leaves across the road, and played in the tiny stream. By the end of our outing the kids were all muddy and wet and had had a great time.
I admit that this move seems the hardest for me of all the family and I'm sure some of it has to do with being pregnant. I'm praying for greater faith and at the same time some sort of sign that I can make it here like a friend or two or greater connection with family and friends back home. I went from seeing and talking to my sister everyday for almost a month to having almost no ability to easily communicate with her...the things we take for granted.
Something that I know will help me by getting my mind off of the difficult things is doing simple things like take time to read a novel (currently trying to get my hands on the newest novel by Catholic author Michael O'Brien which the friars have somewhere), start the embroidery project I brought, do crafts and activities with the kids, exercise with the workout DVD I brought, and try to make a daily trip to the Cathedral just up the block for some prayer time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
Here's our address for those of you who asked:
Frailes Franciscanos de la Renovacion
Hinckley Family
APDO 283
Matagalpa, Matagalpa
NICARAGUA C.A.
Also, if any of you would like to receive the newsletter I wrote in September and any future ones we write, please email me at familiahinckley at yahoo dot com.
Last Friday was not only a new day, it was another new beginning for the Hinckley family and 4 Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. After Mass, breakfast and last minute packing into the Friar's minibus and two trucks, we headed south to Matagalpa, Nicaragua, our new home. We Hinckleys road in the bus with Br. Matteo driving. Br. Antonio and Fr. Terry drove one truck, while Fr. John Anthony and Fr. Francis Mary drove the other. Fr. Terry and Br. Matteo were not to stay in Nicaragua, but came to help drive and stay with the others to help set up the temporary friary. Br. Justin who is also assigned here to Matagalpa was unable to come with us because he had become sick with dengue and needed to recover before making the trip and living in the new and somewhat rustic conditions.
We had to stay at the border of Honduras and Nicaragua for an hour and a half for fees to be paid, luggage to be checked, and documents filled out. Leaving Honduras we left behind a tropical storm that was flooding and causing Honduras to now be in a state of emergency. It had been raining for 48 hours once we left Friday morning. Our last night in Casa Guadalupe, the Friars' apostolic center which Daniel helped build, was the first night that the Friars started housing people whose mud brick or mud and rock and wood houses were falling down because the rain soaked the once dry, solid mud into liquid mud.
May through October is rainy season for both Honduras and Nicaragua and I really do pray that come November 1st the rain will stop. I put laundry out on the line yesterday late morning once Daniel set up the washing machine we brought from our old house in Honduras (a major luxury in both countries...I'm spoiled). Only a few pieces of it dried by the time we got back from running errands at about 2PM, but the sky looked dark like it was going to give us the regular afternoon shower so I took it all off. It ended up not raining and so at about 4, I put it all out again though it was barely getting any sun. I guess I was hoping that it would be a rain-less evening. It wasn't. It started pouring just after dinner so hard that I didn't have time to run out and take it all off the line. So it all go a second rinse. The next day was gray, no sun. By evening we realized that we had to put up lines in one of the extra rooms upstairs in order to have any dry clothes. With a fan on them, they dried in a few hours.
Yes, our house has two floors and quite a few extra rooms. We arrived to the house around 4PM last Friday and immediately unloaded as much our our things as possible into it before the Friars left to go unload the rest of the stuff at their house. Unfortunately most of the cleaning stuff was packed together and so we didn't get it until Saturday evening. Though Daniel had seen the house briefly during his trip last May, I had never set eyes on it. It was not one of those we had looked at when we first arrived in Nicaragua. The Friars had actually traded with us and they would be staying in the large office building. As I said, I had never seen the house we would be calling home for an indefinite amount of time. I don't know what I was expecting...my dream house or something. Well, unfortunately it was a bit overwhelming, and not too dreamy. It is huge, used to be the minor seminary so the upstairs has four large rooms with bathrooms and the bottom floor is a kitchen, dining room, living room, another room with bathroom and two offices in front. All these rooms are huge and totally concrete and somewhat dingy with the water marks and mud still on the walls from the flood of a year or so ago. Did I mention the back of the house is up against the river...in the one hundred year flood plane?
After everything was unloaded, I, wanting everything to magically be clean and set up, didn't know where to begin. But Daniel helped me focus: one room at a time; since its getting late, let's set up the bedroom.
Anyway, we have been settling in and making it home, offering up frustrations and mosquito bites. One thing that normally would be frustrating and a major headache just make me laugh: every morning at 6:30, right across the street in a huge metal pavilion, the high school band starts practice. The loud beating of drums can be heard for an hour in the morning and in the afternoon. For some reason I can't do anything but chuckle at this noise...must be grace. :)
Leaks are getting fixed, doors are being made more secure, walls cleaned, floors mopped, the very few pieces of furniture being arranged, all the while meals are being prepared, meetings had, bank accounts opened, contacts made, and prayers said.
At Mass on Sunday at the Cathedral, the bishop at us (Friars and Hinckleys) sit up front and introduce ourselves and mission before Mass. Later we all went up to see the property given to the diocese and then passed on to the Friars from the bishop. It is not far out of town, but much higher up. The road leading up to it is quite steep...only 4-wheel drive will get you up one of the sections of it. Once up there and walking around with the kids, I felt peace which had been lacking for the previous two days. We walked up the road a short ways, took in the view of mountains all around, watched the ants carry leaves across the road, and played in the tiny stream. By the end of our outing the kids were all muddy and wet and had had a great time.
I admit that this move seems the hardest for me of all the family and I'm sure some of it has to do with being pregnant. I'm praying for greater faith and at the same time some sort of sign that I can make it here like a friend or two or greater connection with family and friends back home. I went from seeing and talking to my sister everyday for almost a month to having almost no ability to easily communicate with her...the things we take for granted.
Something that I know will help me by getting my mind off of the difficult things is doing simple things like take time to read a novel (currently trying to get my hands on the newest novel by Catholic author Michael O'Brien which the friars have somewhere), start the embroidery project I brought, do crafts and activities with the kids, exercise with the workout DVD I brought, and try to make a daily trip to the Cathedral just up the block for some prayer time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
Here's our address for those of you who asked:
Frailes Franciscanos de la Renovacion
Hinckley Family
APDO 283
Matagalpa, Matagalpa
NICARAGUA C.A.
Also, if any of you would like to receive the newsletter I wrote in September and any future ones we write, please email me at familiahinckley at yahoo dot com.
Comments
I jumped over here from the Hinojosa's blog. You guys amaze me. We will keep you in our daily prayers. And congrats on #4. I hope the pregnancy goes well for you.
Elizabeth
much love! Jena