Nicaragua Newsletter December 2007

Dear Family,
We hope that you enjoy reading our latest news.
Happy Holidays.
Love
Marilyn

<<...>>

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Wings Over Nicaragua / Tronquera Mission
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Nicaragua, Central America
www.hanleymissions.org
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Family Nicaragua Newsletter

Wings Over Nicaragua Mission
    Misión Alas Sobre Nicaragua
Colegio Adventista Porteno
Bo Peter Ferrera
Clint Hanley
Bilwi - RAAN, Puerto Cabezes
NICARAGUA - CENTRAL AMERICA

E-mail: hanley@softhome.net

USA message phone: 406-381-1742

November 5, 2007
Dear Friends and Family,
We left Tronquera yesterday for our visit to the States over Christmas. I just wanted to give you a quick update on the hurricane Felix food distribution program, and the runway.

Hurricane Felix Food Distribution
We received food aid for the hurricane from the Goldendale Seventh-day Adventist church in Washington. With that, we purchased food for two villages, and fed around 400 people for just over a week. The people were very grateful to their Adventist brothers and sisters in America. Everyone in each village turned out to receive their portion.

January through April will continue to be hard times for the local Miskito Indians here that were affected by the hurricane. They will start harvesting their beans in April/May so they will be back on their own. In the mean time, many people are starting to re-build their houses that were damaged or collapsed.

We will be personally helping distribute all the food and construction aid that is given to us for the people.  
Runway
The Ministry of Aviation people inspected the runway on October 4. He walked the whole length, checked it with a GPS and tape measure, and authorized it for active use. The Lord blessed, now we have an official legal runway right beside our house. From this central location we can reach all the people up and down the Rio Coco River and other isolated villages by air.

Now we just need an airplane, which I am sure the Lord will provide in His time.

Transportation
The Lord has blessed since our last newsletter about obtaining a truck. We already have $1000 of the money we need. We have two months before we are ready to purchase the truck, and we are already about 10% of the way to our goal of $9,000. We request that you continue special prayer that the Lord will provide the money for a truck by Jan 16, 2008.

Future Plans
We will be in America November 7^th to January 15^th. Our phone in America is 406-381-1742 (cell).
Our web page will not be updated very often in our absence from Nicaragua.  www.hanleymissions.org

Thank you for your support and prayers.
God Bless,
Clint and Marilyn Hanley

***
Wings Over Nicaragua Mission
Nicaragua, Central America
hanley@softhome.net
www.hanleymissions.org

Donation information: (Tax Deductible)
Goldendale SDA Church
Attn: Treasurer
PO Box 71
Goldendale, WA  98620
Make a memo on the check to “Wings Over Nicaragua”
****

If you would like to be removed from this mailing list please send an email to hanley@softhome.net with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. 

*******
Wings Over Nicaragua / Tronquera Mission
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Nicaragua, Central America
www.hanleymissions.org
*******

HOT

Dear Family
Ok folks. Today is very hot! It is 91 in our kitchen. 95 in our bedroom and 99 on the porch. This is the first day that it has been so hot. And there are plenty more days coming.
I am watering my garden regularly now. It is hard for the girls to haul all that water. The carrots are growing well. Peppers are finally flowering. The tomatoes have fruit. The eggplant is iffy sometimes. The corn only grew 3 stalks. The papaya trees were transplanted this week to various places outside the garden. That about sums it up.
This week Clint is hoping to get our water pump in so that we don't have to haul so much water by hand. But our inverter is not quite strong enough to handle the load so we will have to run our generator to fill our water. Right now we don't have a water tank so we will be filling a large 30 gal basin for now. Hopefully when we get back we will be able to put up our big metal water tank.
We are trying to finish up some little projects this week before we leave next week. We are going to be pouring a cement pillar under the cement spillway on the village spring. The village spring was man made in the sixties. It has a 30 ft cement spillway. Over the years since the war, it has not been maintained. The water has eaten the soil out from under the spillway for about 15-20 ft. That doesn't leave much holding it up. The cement is holding itself together over a 10 foot drop. If
the cement breaks and falls, Clint says it will most likely take the whole damn with it, losing a valuable water resource for the village. This is not their only water supply but it is a large pond reserve that would be bad to lose. We are going to put a cement pillar under the spillway to help support it. We have plans in the next year to put multiple pillars under it but we are starting with one.
We are purchasing food this week to be distributed to Tronquera and Santa Rita.
We are also trying to get the windows in the church done. The church members from here and Santa Rita are volunteering their time, while we are supplying all the supplies, lumber, nails, generator, etc. There are 4 big windows and one small one. Also two interior doors. The next step will be to purchase paint for the church. I was hoping to do that before we leave but it looks like we will have to wait until we return after Christmas.
This week was an exciting week. I got to talk to almost everyone on Monday when I went to town. Then Clint when to Puerto on Tuesday, back on Wednesday morning. Then Brandel fell while playing (where he shouldn't have been playing) and got a large cut under his arm. It took 5 stitches to close it. I had never thought of it before, but the skin and area under your arm is very tender and often used by adults when interacting with children. Try putting a child on your lap without reaching under
his arms or picking him up for any reason. So Brandel has been a lot more careful in his play in the last couple days. This is the third time in his life he has had stitches. I just wonder how many more he will have.
We decided to leave a little bit earlier to save ourselves some hassle of trying to finish packing Sabbath evening in time to leave at 6:30 am Sunday morning. We will leave Thursday or Friday, Oct 25 or 26. So that means I can talk to you all that much earlier. :)
I am going to go find somewhere a little cooler to rest.
Lots of love to all of you.
Love
Marilyn

Good News!!

10-3
Hello to our Family,
The inspector came yesterday and approved the runway. He walked it all with a GPS, measured it with a tape measure, and took lots of pictures. Now we have an official runway! That is exciting. It has been a lot of work to get to this point, we never knew for sure if we would get permission. God has blessed. This is a confirmation for us that we are suppose to be down here. There are often many doors for God to close, but this one is staying open.
Now we just need to get a 4 seat plane.
Thank you for your prayers!
Clint and Marilyn

Good News!!

10-3
Hi to everyone.
We have really good news. The inspector for the airstrip is suppose to come tomorrow (Thursday). Praise the Lord! Please keep this in your prayers. Clint met the inspector that is coming last time he was in Managua, he seemed like a nice man. Please pray that he will actually keep the appointment and come. Secondarily please pray that the Lord will help him to be fair and unprejudiced and do the inspection according to the Lord's will, what ever that might be.
We have been working for a couple years to get to this point. If he gives the airstrip a "passing" grade or "needs improvement" grade then we will be set up to work on bringing a plane. If he give it a "no-go-any-way-you-look-at-it" grade then the whole aviation program is also no go.
Thank you in advance for your prayers for tomorrow afternoon.
Sincerely,
Marilyn

Nicaragua Newsletter for Family, Friends, and Goldendale church

October 1, 2007
Dear Friends and Family,
It has been a very busy last month with Hurricane Felix hitting us on September 4. Since then we have been able to help the villages with some food and gas and oil for their chainsaws so they could cut fallen trees out of the roads. Many large trees fell so now it is also a race against time to turn them into useable lumber before the termites turn them into sawdust. Many houses need repaired. We spent a few days with our chainsaw helping clear trees off the top of houses, roads, and trails.
Many donor agencies from all over the world are currently here distributing food and supplies. Groups are here from America, China, Japan, Germany, etc. Currently, the basic needs are being met. The major problem will be that soon all the groups with their donations will go back to their respective countries and the new crops will not be due to be harvested until around April of this coming year. January, February and March will be hard months for the people here.
Here are some of the other items we are also continuing to work on:

Runway
The runway is done and ready! The inspection for the runway has been delayed 4 times since the middle of August. We are hoping that the latest date for inspection sometime in October will hold. Hopefully the date will stay and the inspection will go smoothly.

Pharmacy
The local authorities have given us permission to sell basic medications here in Tronquera. This does not include prescription medications. To sell those we still will need permission from the regional level.

Work program
Following the hurricane the work program is tapered off a little as people work to try and set their own homes, villages and plantations back in order. There are still some people working for food which they need since the hurricane destroyed their rice crop.

Transportation
We would like to ask special prayer from everyone concerning this issue. Following the hurricane we found that our usefulness here was severely handicapped because we did not have a truck. We were not able to bring building supplies into villages that needed it. We were not able to transport people that needed to go the hospital. But most importantly we were and are unable to help bring food into villages that had great needs. We have donations to purchase food for hurricane relief, yet the
cost of getting the food to the villages will be inflated because of the local transportation we will have to use since we have no truck yet.
ADRA was working hard to distribute food and medicine to many villages, we were not able to participate because we had no way to get to where ADRA was working and we were not able to assist ADRA with their deliveries.
We would like special prayer that the Lord will provide a truck or the money for a truck by Jan 16, 2008. Over the next few months please make this matter a special prayer.

Future Plans
Our plans changed with the coming of Hurricane Felix the beginning of September.
Our focus is now distributing food and medicine to villages in need.
We were surprised a few weeks ago that our family has purchased tickets for us to visit America this Christmas. We will be leaving Nicaragua November 7, and returning the middle of January. We hope to work and save some money during this time. We will be happy to speak in any churches in our travels through Washington, Montana, and Wyoming.

Our web page is updated frequently with new pictures and short stories or items of interest on our blog page.

www.hanleymissions.org
Thank you for your support and prayers.
God Bless,
Clint and Marilyn Hanley

***
Wings Over Nicaragua Mission
Nicaragua, Central America
hanley@softhome.net
www.hanleymissions.org

Donation information:
Goldendale SDA Church
Attn: Treasurer
PO Box 71
Goldendale, WA 98620
Make a memo on the check to "Wings Over Nicaragua"
****

If you would like to be removed from this mailing list please send an email to hanley@softhome.net with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

We are writing this from a ham radio email connection which is very slow. Please delete the original letter when replying to this letter.

Hurricane Update

Dear Family,
It looks like Hurricane Felix went about right over the top of us. Our house held together fine, but it was creaking sometimes. Thanks to the cement bottom, it was solid. We lost almost all the trees all around our house, now it looks like it has been clear cut.
In Tronquera village two houses collapsed, and one very large church (Moravian). No one was hurt. Now comes the rain. Already the nearby creeks are higher than we have ever seen them, and the rain will come for sometime more. Fortunately, our house and the village are on high ground.
Food will be a concern for the whole village in the next few days and weeks (maybe months). We hope to use some resources to purchase some if there is any available and bring it here. I am sure most of the plantations are decimated.
We are thankful our house is standing and our radio antenna is still up!
Thank you for your prayers,
Clint and Marilyn

Trip up the Rio Coco

Hello to all.
I wanted to write you about the exciting week we have had.
Last Sabbath we had visitors!! Doesn't happen often in this part of the world. Our friends from Francis Sirpi, Mike and Diana Halverson, are in Nicaragua doing some work and stopped to visit us on Sabbath afternoon. We really enjoyed their visit. They had some people visiting them, Jack and Lyn Hall with their daughter, Reanan. Reanan is only 5 so the kids hit it off just right.
Sunday morning we went to Francis Sirpi to visit Mike and Diana and help with some radio email problems they were having. That was also a really nice day.
Tuesday, Mike and Diana were going to Waspam so I hitched a ride with the children. It gave the children a chance to play more with their new friend and talk to all the family in Waspam on the phone. We met up with Lyn's father and stepmother who flew in on the plane. They were all planning a trip up the Rio Coco river. They invited our whole family to come along. Well this presented a little bit of a problem since I was in Waspam with the kids and Clint was at home. I wrote to Clint asking
but of course did not receive a reply in the following 5 minutes. To make a long story shorter, we all spent the night in Waspam and left at 6 am the next morning on the river.
It was a perfect day with cloud cover and hardly any rain. In the late afternoon as we were getting back to Waspam it rained really hard. We all had rain coats so we faired really well. The rain stopped as we got to the dock so we left our borrowed rain coats in the boat and got in the truck for the 5 minute ride home. Well it rained again, really hard. The kids were still wearing their coats since we brought theirs instead of borrowing them. They didn't get wet. Clint wore his rain coat so
he only got a little wet while walking, but I lent my jacket to Jack who was walking with Clint. I got completely soaked in the downpour. Up to this point, I had managed to keep my only pair of tennis shoes dry but now that was history.
We had a lot of fun on the river and saw a lot of places that have extreme needs. It magnified our desire to get an airplane as quickly as possible to start reaching the people even further up the river. Please keep these people and our mission in your prayers.
We were able to get home Thursday morning on the bus with no problems.
Thank you to all the family who called us while we were in town.
Lots of love
Marilyn

pictures

Hi guys.
Clint was in Managua this week and had lots of time on the internet. He
uploaded quite a few pictures.
Check them out at www.hanleymissions.org and click on photos.
Love
Marilyn

*******
Wings Over Nicaragua / Tronquera Mission
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Nicaragua, Central America
www.hanleymissions.org
*******

Nicaragua Newsletter August - Family

August 4, 2007
Dear Friends and Family,
The Lord has blessed us greatly since our return to Nicaragua the middle of May. We made the trip safely with no problems back to our home in Tronquera.
For a quick review, we have been in America for the last year due to Clint's father's illness and subsequent death.

Runway
Clint has started working regularly on the runway. After only a week there was a significant improvement. After 3 weeks it is close to being ready for a government inspection.

Pharmacy
We have applied to the local authorities for permission for a pharmacy. It is quite a complicated procedure, but we will keep working on it each time we go to town.

Work program
We regularly employ people for our work program. Many people come asking for food or money, and instead of passing out free food and money, we give them work. This is working quite well for everyone.
Recently there has been a shortage of beans here, one of their staple foods which we use for the work program. Clint traveled to the village of Polo to find beans. It is way off the beaten track deep in the jungle. There are no roads going there. You have to walk the last several hours. There was deep mud and many creeks to cross. It was a very interesting trip, even though it was quite exhausting. Clint says he has never been through such harsh conditions for so long. The people back there were
not use to seeing strangers, especially white ones. They were all quite friendly. There were a lot of huge old growth jungle trees towering over everything else. Unfortunately they did not have the beans we needed. We have had to buy them at a significantly higher cost in Puerto Cabazes, 5 hours away.

Transportation
Our motorcycle is a big help. Since it is our only transport, we use it extensively. Clint takes it to Port every few weeks to buy supplies. He gather the supplies together and put them on the bus, then we meet the bus where it goes by a mile from our house and retrieve our groceries, building supplies, and anything else we need for that month. Most of the stuff makes it OK.

Church
We recently dedicated a new church here in our little village of Tronquera, its first Seventh-day Adventist church. The 3 to 5 members (not including us) in town are overjoyed to have their own church building. It still needs windows, paint inside and out, and some cement repair, but that will come with time. The building was already here, built in the 1970's of cement block. Since it was abandoned in the late '70's the cattle and horses have been sleeping in it at night. We cleaned it and put doors
on it. We have benches to sit on for the church service. Because of the lack of a pastor, lay pastor or elder, we usually show a Spanish DVD sermon on our computer. We only have about 10 of these, so please keep your eyes open for some good Spanish sermons on DVD. You can see the pictures with the village people gathered at the church for its first Sabbath on our web site.

Water System
We still don't have running water or a septic system in our house, but have been working on other items first. Now we are getting a used steel tank that we will store rain water for drinking. It is big enough to store what we need to last the dry season. We already have a pump waiting to be used. Now we are only lacking the pipes we need to transport the water, both into the tank and into the house.

Future Plans
This month we plan to finish the runway and request the government inspection. We also plan to do some more work on the church. We hope to work on building a 5-10 foot tower to put our new tank high enough to gravity feed water to our house. We are continuing our work program employing several village people each day. We are also working on permission for the pharmacy.

Our web page is updated frequently with new pictures and short stories or items of interest on our blog page.
Thank you for your support and prayers.
God Bless,
Clint and Marilyn Hanley

***
Wings Over Nicaragua Mission
Nicaragua, Central America
hanley@softhome.net
www.hanleymissions.com

Donation information:
Goldendale SDA Church
Attn: Treasurer
PO Box 71
Goldendale, WA 98620
Make a memo on the check to "Wings Over Nicaragua"
****

If you would like to be removed from this mailing list please send an email to hanley@softhome.net with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

We are writing this from a ham radio email connection which is very slow. Please delete the original letter when replying to this letter.

for everyone update

Hi.
Just a quick note to update everyone. As of today we have planted or transplanted: corn, cassava, bananas, beets, carrots, oranges, noni, papaya, cabbage, eggplant, watermelon, onions, garlic, flowers, and coconut. Now with the Lord's blessings, if just part of everything will grow we will have a nice harvest, hopefully in rotating crops. I am most excited about the carrots and beets. If we can introduce them into the people diet here. It would make a major difference in their health to add
the vitamins available in carrots and beets. Of course I have to grow them and use them before I can teach them to grow and use them.
Clint is gone to Managua this week to work on his resident visa. We only have one more year before he can apply for a permanent visa. That will be nice. We are praying that he will make it back safely by Friday.
We have had about 4 days of sun before today big rain storms. It has been a blessing.
More later
Marilyn

Weekly update

June 23, 07
Dear Family,
Here is our weekly formal update for all you. It has been an exciting week.
We got our computer up and running for radio email. That has been the best part of this week.
We have had a man working that is good with cement so he has been plastering and doing the finishing work on our cement walls downstairs. It is looking so nice. I didn't think it could ever look this nice so I am very relieved. I thought it would always look like an old broken-put-back-together puzzle wall. Now it looks almost as good as new. After we paint, it will look very nice. Of course paint is very far down the list right now. Our outhouse still doesn't have zinc on the roof. Since
it has been raining almost every hour, it is challenging to find a good time to go to the bathroom!
Bethany's hair is growing from the chopping it received.
Clint has an appointment to get his resident visa on JULY 24. Since that is still a long time away, he will make a trip to Managua this week to his passport and old id card back. He will also use this trip to buy some things that important that we can save a lot of money to get in Managua.
It rained most of the week. We can't hang our laundry outside because it never dries. The water is also getting colder so I am starting to work on Clint for a hot water heater. Of course right now we don't have running water so he is not worried about it and just waves me off. But he took his bath this morning when he woke up at 4:45 and he agreed it was cold.
More later
Love
Marilyn

update 6-20

Hello everybody! Here is one of our first mini-newsletter updates. Please check back often to find out what is happening.

Our house is slowing getting closed in and improved. My kitchen is closed in with doors. We are still waiting for window shutters. We have one section of house that is waiting until future time to be completed. In that section is the bathroom and pantry and bedrooms on the second floor.
Thanks
Marilyn

The village spillway is finished. It took a week and a half. The waterfall with a pond behind it was eating away the dam. We fixed it with cement so the people will have many more years to use the pond for clothes washing and bathing. It is especially essential during the dry season when there is very little water. A nice reservoir is good to have.
Please continue to pray for us as work with the people here.
Clint

On Friday we applied to the government health department for permission to operate a pharmacy. The application will be sent to the Regional center in Puerto Cabazes. We hope to have permission this next week to start the much needed pharmacy.
Marilyn