Feliz Cumpleaños

Well, I had my 31st birthday yesterday, July 17th.  I decided I wanted to have a pizza party for my birthday.  One of the families working with EMI built a rancho with a pizza oven behind their home here in Atenas.  So, we invited friends from church, our EMI family and a few other close friends.  I was so excited!!  All in all, 30 people came to the party.  As I said to the party-goers at the beginning, I felt like the party was a two-fold celebration.  Yes, it was a celebration of my birthday, but it was also a celebration of what the Lord has done in our lives over the past two years.  I feel so incredibly blessed to think back on how the Lord has worked to build relationships with those around us.  I remembered the days of feeling like we'd never fit in or when deeper friendships with Costa Ricans seemed like something out of our grasp.  To stand in front of a huge extended family of Ticos who have accepted us as "family", love and support us left me without words.  To have our EMI family and our friends from church get to know each other was pretty cool also.  We ate LOTS of homemade oven-baked pizzas, had cake as well as cream cheese and cinnamon pizzas, opened presents, laughed and just had fun together.  They came to celebrate my life, but I was more giving thanks to the Lord for his continued faithfulness and plan for our lives.  He is GOD!  I am NOT.  He is SOVEREIGN and He is GOOD!