The Annexation of Guanacaste

Recently, Costa Rica celebrated their national holiday called "The Annexation of Guanacaste." Our school held a massive celebration, complete with music, dancing, stories, food (including "resbaladera" - a drink made of milk, ground rice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar, "rosquillas" - crunchy, ringshaped corn snacks, and "tamal asado" - a kind of baked, moist bread made of ground sweet corn and refined sugar), and illustrations of the 1824 event. We've posted a clip of some of the customary dances that are performed every year around this date. The dancers featured here are teachers and some students of the language school we are attending. Also, if you're interested, I've posted a short history of the Annexation of Guanacaste below.

On July 25th, the people of Costa Rica celebrate the Annexation of the District of Nicoya, more commonly called the Annexation of Guanacaste. Guanacaste, a region on the northwest corner of Costa Rica gets its name from the huge, umbrella-like national tree, called the Guanacaste tree. One of the largest and least populated regions of the country, Guanacaste has been called Costa Rica's "wild west" due to its hot, dry climate, long stretches of plains, cattle ranches, and cowboys.
Formerly part of Nicaragua, Guanacaste decided to be annexed to Costa Rica on July 25th, 1824 following a long, violent civil war in Nicaragua. Weary of the political unrest and violence all around them, the town council of Nicoya held an open meeting and raitified the decision to be annexed. Despite several attempts by Nicaragua to regain the territory, they signed a border treaty with Costa Rica in 1858 affectively granting full rights of the land to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica acquired many things from the people of this region including 8300 square kilometers of productive farm land, the Chorotega (local indian tribe) culture, Guaitil pottery, poetry, bull-fighting (a style adapted from the Spaniards), and marimba music.

Enjoy the clip!

Happy Birthday!!!

This past weekend was Allison’s 29th birthday! YAY!!! So, for her birthday, we went out to dinner (a very special treat) at an Italian restaurant (even MORE special!). We drove out to the small town where the restaurant supposedly was and as we drove into town, there were lights and banners all around explaining that this weekend was founder’s day for this sleepy little town. What luck! We sat down at the Italian restaurant and began to speak with our waiter. He asked where we were from and, upon hearing that we were living in a town about 30 minutes away, asked how we found the place. We told him that we’d ran across it on the internet and he soon returned with his boss, the owner of the restaurant. We were pleased to find that the owner and his wife were originally from Florence, Italy and that they’d moved here about 5 years ago to open a restaurant. He was formally a pit reporter in Formula One racing and proceeded to tell about his times with Michael Shumacher and other drivers on the circuit. He proudly pointed to photos on the wall of himself and the drivers. His Spanish had a peculiar Italian ring to it. His white hair and Italian features certainly set him apart in a sea of dark faces and black hair! We took his business card, assured him we’d back, and promised that we’d spread the word for his new restaurant. After lasagna and parpadelle, they were even thoughtful enough to whip up some homemade tiramisu with a birthday candle in it! The waiter and I struggled through “Happy Birthday” in Spanish, Alli made a wish, and blew out the candle. What an awesome birthday dinner!

As if that weren’t enough, we drove down to the little downtown area of this Costa Rican Mayberry and found a full-blown fair going on that night! The fair was just like any country fair you or I would know from the States, complete with coke-bottle games, ferris wheel, bumper cars, fair food (all sorts of grilled meats on sticks, cotton-candy, candied-apples, and fried pies), and a stage where children performed in front of judges for prizes (a make-shift Latin American Idol). From what we could tell, the mayor of the town even stood on the stage to address his people. We walked around for a while and enjoyed the small taste (or smell) of home. They’d even scheduled fireworks for later that night! It was quite a treat!

Today was spent at the police department getting fingerprinted for our residency paperwork. What fun! As of today, our paperwork is in the process and we hope to have an appointment with the immigration office sometime in the next couple of months. We’ve also begun to meet people at church. A few Sunday’s ago, we were blessed enough to be placed in a small prayer group with Gabi and David - a young Costa Rican couple, and father-daughter duo. We had the privilege to pray with them and we hope we can continue to develop these relationships in the future.

Prayer Requests:

(1) Continue to pray for language school and that the language would continue to come to us. We have made huge strides in the last month. We have one more month to go of the Intensive Course, then a break in August, and we begin the Regular Course again on September 1st.

(2) Transition – We will be moving again, from the host home to our temporary apartment here close to the school where we will finish out language school. Pray that this goes smoothly and that we end well with the host family.

(3) Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. We are enjoying good health, energy, and we’ve been able to settle in and make this as much of a home as possible.

We look forward to hearing from you soon! Let us know how we can pray for you!

Our Walk to School

We're Back!!

Alli and I are finally back in Costa Rica! We actually got back in this past Sunday morning. Things have been pretty crazy here lately. When we returned on Sunday, we had grammar exams in language school on Monday that we needed to study for and then conversation exams on Tuesday that we'd missed from last Thursday! So, needless to say, we spent most of the day on Sunday and Monday studying! Now that the dust has settled a bit, we have a little time to write.

The time at home with family was very refreshing. We were able to spend time with everyone at the visitation and funeral and we had a chance to see family members that we had not seen in a while. Even in her death, Mawmaw had a way of bringing those she loved most together. It was awesome to laugh and smile and cry with everyone and it was just what we needed at the 1 month mark. We found ourselves renewed and oddly eager to return to Costa Rica. It was encouraging for us to find that we wanted to come back. We were worried that it would be very difficult to see loved ones, experience the comforts of home, and realize what we did not have in Costa Rica. However, it only confirmed in our minds and hearts that God has us here for a reason. The excitement in our hearts for returning was proof that we are certainly in God's will and plan for our lives right now!! We praise Him for these small moments, these tokens of comfort and reassurance.

On Monday, we called the shop that had our car over the weekend and found out that they had already made the repair and that we could come pick it up. So, to save a little money, we decided to take the bus into town to pick up the car. It cost us all of 350 colones (about 75 cents)! Our first inner-city bus experience was pretty interesting. We befriended a local woman who was nice enough to walk about 5 blocks down the street to show us where the bus to La Uruca was (our transfer)! It seems that people here are so nice! I think they might even have us southerners beat when it comes to hospitality! We arrived to the shop to find that the car was repaired and that they had tested the 4-wheel drive in a huge mud-pit (to be sure it was repaired correctly) and there was mud all over the side of the car! Talk about thorough! They even washed it for us, for free!! Since the government here mandates that any dealer that sells a car must gaurantee the car's engine and transmission for 30 days, our repairs to the transmission were free also!! We have certainly seen God's hand of blessing all over this car!

The exams went fairly well. We passed them all and did pretty well on most of them! It has definitely been a whirlwind over the last two weeks of class. They call is the "intensive" course for a reason! We are slowly meeting others students here at the school and we've had chances to hang out with them lately as well. The family we are living with is doing well. We only have one more month with them! It seems like just yesterday we were walking in with our luggage.

We filed our papers today for temporary residency with the agency. Once the papers have all been processed (a long drawn out process of over a month), we'll have rights to temporary residency for 2 years. At the end of those two years, we can file again for two more years (4 total). At the third year, we can also file for permanent residency. Obviously, having a child during that time will shorten the process and help our cause for permanent residency.

We began "the envelope system" for managing our budget yesterday! Today is July 1st, officially the first day of using the system. So far, we haven't bought anything. We'll keep you posted on how that goes!

We'll certainly be taking more pictures when we can and we'll post them with the next blog! In the meantime, we hope to hear from all of you!!! Stay connected!

PRAISES & PRAYER REQUESTS:

(1) Continue to pray for Josh's family: that God would comfort them and that He would continue to bring the family closer.
(2) Continue to pray that the language would come quickly and easily and that we would be able to use it and practice it as much as possible.
(3) God has recently blessed us with a few more ministry supporters! Please continue to pray that God would continue to meet the needs we have.
(4) Please pray for the people here in San Francisco de Dos Rios; that God would soften their hearts and that those we come into contact with would be blessed by God working through us.

Much love,

Josh & Alli