Josh & Alli's Place

The First Step

2012-01-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

The Lord has been teaching Josh and I so many things over the past year. One of the main things is Josh has discovered that his passion to help people and serve the Lord through disaster response runs deep. In different ways, the Lord has been shaping him, molding him and revealing gifts and abilities that allow Josh to serve and minister through disaster response. Next week, Josh will be leaving Costa Rica to be part of a collaborative team with Food for the Hungry to do a week of Disaster Risk Reduction assessments in a village in Guatemala. They will be working in a village in which FH wants to spread the love of Christ and His gospel through community development. Although this will take Josh away from home for almost 2 weeks, it is a huge opportunity and first step towards what Josh has found to be a great passion. I ask you to join me in praying for the team, the week they will spend in the village...that it will be fruitful, and that people will come to know the Lord through FH's work in the community. This will be the first of many assessments throughout Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

Christmas and the Clinic

2012-01-20T16:43:00.000-05:00

We had the great pleasure of going back to Georgia for two weeks to celebrate Christmas with our families. It was wonderful to celebrate Christmas with some new and old traditions. We celebrated with Josh's family and then mine. Two highlights were seeing all of Josh's dad's family when Josh's dad had a fish fry the day after Christmas. It was really fun to talk, catch up with some and meet others. We also changed it up with my family a little this year and the "kids" (this is what we have called the 4 siblings who are now in their late 20's/early 30's since we were young) stayed in Atlanta and our parents drove to celebrate Christmas with us. It was the first year in many that we have not driven to my mom's in Senoia and then my dad's in Columbus. My brother and sister-in-law wonderfully opened their home to us and we had a great time. A great memory was that when we celebrated Christmas with my mom, we decided to not exchange gifts this year. Instead, we each came up with a Christmas family tradition to do together. We had everything from hot chocolate and homemade egg nog, a yearly family photo in front of the tree, and the one that Josh and I did. We decided to have a time of encouragement where people offer words of encouragement, say things they appreciate or have learned from/about another person this year. It was a very sweet time. Also, as my dad and step mom were able to drive from Houston up to Atlanta for a week, we were able to see them for several days instead of just a few hours like we normally do at Christmas.

The week after Christmas, I was able to work in a clinic as a physical therapist. This was a huge blessing as I was a little nervous already that I had forgotten my skills. After 2 years in a clinic full-time, it was so wonderful to get back into a clinic and get my hands dirty. I am grateful for a company like the one I worked with before we moved that will let me stay on as a contract worker and have the opportunity to work when I am in town.

I praise the Lord for all the blessings He has given us, struggles and "good" things. That includes the rich, sweet time we were able to spend with family and renewing the joy or using my skills in a clinic setting.

Our New Neighbor

2011-12-17T11:14:00.000-05:00

We are happy to say we have a new neighbor. Well, new, I guess, is a relative term. Judy, Josh's mom, joined us down in Costa Rica the beginning of September. Her initial plan was to stay a few months, but God has different plans. Two weeks after arriving, Josh and Judy were taking the trash up the driveway on trash day. They were stopped by Yamileth, our neighbor, who told Josh if we knew anybody that was looking for a house to rent, her rental property would be coming available October 1. Her rental property is a small house right at the end of our driveway. We all thought it was God's timing, and Judy made the decision to stay here for a longer term. It has been nice to have family close by and Josh is loving being able to eat his mama's potato salad and meatloaf. I love seeing how God works in ways we don't expect or imagine. Judy continues to get settled in here. She and her landlord (who does not speak any English) are learning to communicate very well through signs and facial expressions. As you can imagine, it has been such a blessing to have her close. Here are some pictures of her house.

Manualidades Navidenas

2011-11-28T12:44:00.000-05:00

Back in September, the Lord placed on my heart a desire to have an outreach activity at our local Costa Rican church. Christmas here is a pretty big deal, and the season starts very early as they obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving. The idea was to have an afternoon of Christmas crafts where ladies from the church would attend and invite their friends who do not know Christ. It turned out that the only day we could host the event at the church was the Saturday after Thanksgiving which just happened to be the day my sister and brother-in-law left after their 1.5 week visit. I felt very much like the Lord was leading me to ask our church back in Atlanta, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, to partner with us in this event by donating the supplies needed for the crafts. They gladly said yes, and found a weekly Bible study class who was interested in partnering with us to donate all the materials needed. Through the generosity of the class, my sister and brother-in-law arrived with tons of supplies and materials...everything we needed and more. Parts of the next week were spent organizing everything into craft packets for each activity. By the day of the event, I was pretty tired, but the Lord was faithful to give me strength and endurance. We ended up having almost 60 ladies attend the event. We had two craft sessions with a time of cafesito (coffee and pastries) and one of the church ladies gave her testimony and a very clear presentation of the gospel. Praise the Lord at least one woman chose to accept Christ. It was a wonderful time of fun, sharing and loving on the ladies. This has been the first time in a long time that the Lord very clearly placed an idea on my heart of what I can do to help spread His Kingdom. The feeling of having been used by the Lord to bring people to Himself is a little overwhelming and just really cool. I praise Him for all that was done at this event and the new sister in Christ we have today.

Visitors

2011-11-28T12:18:00.000-05:00

Although being far away from family is difficult, living in Costa Rica does have its advantages. It's incredibly accessible from the States, especially Atlanta which is where we are from. Our first short-term visitors for the year arrived the week before Thanksgiving. My sister and brother-in-law came down to celebrate their 5-year anniversary as well as celebrate Thanksgiving and spend time with us. I cannot fully express the joy that I felt in their coming. It was a wonderful time or rest, renewal and relationship deepening. We spent many hours just laughing and talking about life, family, God and everything in between. It was such a special time. During their visit, we finally went to visit volcano Arenal. I can't believe it's taken us almost 3 years to go visit for the first time, but we were very excited. I had hoped to get to see more of the volcano, but it was raining almost the entire time we were there. So, we spent long hours reading books, talking and resting. I think the Lord gave us the best, and what we needed most which was rest. Here are some pictures from their visit.

Jenn, Patrick and Josh at the central market in San Jose

Orosi Valley

Central plaza in Zarcero on the way to Arenal

This is pretty much what we saw of the volcano for 2 days

Jenn took a surf lesson on one of their last days here. She even got up on her first wave!

Tribu

2011-11-14T10:02:00.001-05:00

So, I (Allison) have been helping with the newly re-formed youth group at our local church here in Costa Rica. The group is called "Tribu" which means "the tribe". It was an interesting start, and has definitely taken some time to get to a point where the youth feel comfortable with me and are starting to open up. This past Saturday marked an important point in my life. For the first time, I lead the teaching part/Bible study part of the youth meeting. Needless to say, I was totally nervous. The time was covered in much prayer and thought...and practice. Practice because, just like in English, I hate talking in front of crowds and the words just seem to leave my head. I think I talked through the entire 30 minute Bible study 4 or 5 times. Praise the Lord, I lived through it. I hope that the Lord used it to speak to their lives. I will say one thing, we also have had in the past few weeks to make some conduct codes due to disruptive behavior. I was a little nervous about this because disruptive behavior could've been very distracting. I don't know if it was the Lord's provision just for me or what, but they were the most attentive, well-behaved group of 25 youth I'd seen at Tribu yet. Praise the Lord! Please continue to pray for me as I seek to speak into the lives of the youth at Valle de Beraca church, sharpening them and pushing them towards holiness.

In the Trenches

2011-11-14T09:47:00.000-05:00

I feel sometimes like I'm back in college. Life in college was very cyclical. You had very definite beginnings and very definite endings, beginnings and ends of semesters and classes and activities. There was the excitement of the first day and overwhelming joy as you walked out of that last final, along with some relief that you actually made it through. And then there's the part about 3/4 of the way through where both of those joys and excitements don't play into your daily life, but you just are walking daily to learn more or get work done. I feel like that's where we are...at the 3/4 mark. In the EMI Latin American office, we have intern and project cycles. Three times a year, we have new interns come in and with each semester comes new projects where the team members serve the Lord and help to spread the gospel through their professional design and engineering skills. You have the relief and joy when the final project report is completed and sent off, knowing that you have fulfilled a divine purpose and have served the Lord with your life and skills. Then, some weeks, somewhere in this 3/4 point of the semester, you're just living daily to serve the Lord, trying to get work done and move towards the completion of projects. We praise the Lord for the opportunity to serve him. We praise him for the excitement that comes with the fresh faces of new interns and new projects and look forward expectantly to the finality of the project and the sad goodbyes to the interns (and time with family to celebrate Christmas!). But in this moment, we are simply praying for continued daily perseverance, motivation and encouragement. Praise the Lord that He is always with us!

SOME PICS FROM THE LAST MONTH:

With Fall interns at Host Family Appreciation Party

Duke with our 11-month great dane Duke

Aguacero

2011-10-20T11:32:00.000-04:00

So, it's literally been raining for the past 10 days straight. I absolutely love the rainy season because of so many reasons...mainly though, because it cools things off so nicely. Without the rain, it's HOT! I also love it because it makes things so incredibly lush and green. I don't see why people would come visit Costa Rica in March when it's so dry and hot and everything's brown. Anyways, back to the rain. Aguacero means a terrential downpour. I feel like that has been our life for the last two weeks. I've washed two loads of laundry, both small and had to hang them up in the bathroom on hangers with fans blowing on them. It still took 2 days for them to dry...2 full days! Praise the Lord we have clean underwear, though. I didn't go to the Friday morning fresh vegetable/fruit market because it was so yucky outside and I didn't feel like trying to maneuver through the outdoor market with an umbrella and my purchases. This morning, we have had cloudiness, but no rain. I hope this is a sign that the weather is returning to normal. I miss my sunny mornings! Thank you, Lord, for the chance to be grateful for the beautiful sunshine. The rain has been a reminder that sometimes the darkness and hard times reminds you of how grateful you are for the sunshine.

La Piscina

2011-10-20T11:23:00.000-04:00

When we returned to Costa Rica after our trip back to the States in August, I decided I needed to take up my pastor's wife, Cecilia, on her offer to help me with my Spanish. Although conversationally fluent, I still make mistakes and still don't feel as though I talk like a true "tica". So, every other week, I spend the day with Cecilia. We talk, cook, eat, have coffee, run errands or any other thing that she wants to do that day. Last week was an exceptionally interesting day. We spent the first hour or so talking, with her correction/teaching. Then, she said we were going to out to do some things and to eat lunch. We walked all around the town she lives in, running errands. We walked to a little store that, I promise, if there was an emergency, those people wouldn't make it. We wound ourselves through little alleys (all with one way in/out) and finally landed at this little store way back and hidden in a maze of alleys that sold an eclectic mix of random things. She was going there to buy hangers. That's when I think about missing Walmart. We ate lunch at bar stools in the central market at a little cafeteria there. It was bustling and full of people. It was a good test in Spanish because it's so hard for me to understand, even English, when there is a lot of background noise. Finally, we ended our outing by going to the "piscina", as she called it. "La piscina" in Spanish means "pool". It didn't take too long for me to realize why it was called that. The first 1/3 of the store was like a normal thrift store, with racks of clothes displayed on hangers. The back 2/3 of the store were nothing but knee-high huge bins where they dump huge bags of clothes on top of the already mountainous piles. In the "piscina", you just have to dive in, literally. I learned the way you shop in the piscina is to sit on top of the piles of clothes and just dig through. Everything is about 85 cents, and it's a lot of old, musty clothes. We were able to find some "treasures", though, and it was a fun, bonding experience with Cecilia which was the best part of all.

Seeing the country from the passenger's seat

2011-08-26T12:40:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, we have been in the U.S. for the last month. The initial reason for our return was eMi's World Staff Conference in Colorado. Every 4-5 years, staff from all 7 offices gather in the U.S. for 5 days of encouragement, renewal and learning. It was a great time where Josh and I both learned more about eMi's 10-year strategic plan for ministry. We were also so encouraged to see how eMi has grown over the past 2 years. I didn't recognize at least 30% of the people, meaning they were new staff that have come on since we joined. We stayed at YMCA of the Rockies outside of Estes Park. It was a beautiful setting and a great time of worship and fellowship with other eMi families. I will say that the huffing and puffing after 5 minutes of walking because of the higher elevation was a little ridiculous!

YMCA of the Rockies

We participated in a photo scavenger hunt. This is a photo line-up.

Awkward family portrait

Because of our return for the conference, we have been able to recruit volunteers for the Construction Management program for which Josh has a vision. He is implementing a new format for the program, and wee are in need of volunteers. So, we had the great opportunity to speak at different churches throughout the U.S. with which we have partnerships to recruit volunteers from the area. We were able to see supporters that we haven't seen in quite a while, or ever before, to meet lots of new people and see the excitement they have for eMi's ministry. It was incredibly encouraging, and we were blessed by the hospitality of so many to open their homes and lives to us. The last 3 weeks have consisted of driving more than 4,000 miles, hosting 9 informational meetings, driving through 5 states I have never visited and seeing LOTS of corn.

Josh speaking at a church in Lake Jackson, Texas

Great illustration of eMi's role as a support ministry

Beautiful rainbow we saw driving through Nebraska...that and 8 hours of corn

...said corn. It was actually very beautiful to see the countryside

We had a meeting in Illinois, so we spent some time in Chicago to celebrate our 6-year anniversary. We were able to fulfill a bucket list item for Josh...to attend a Cubs game at Wrigley field.

Feliz Cumpleaños

2011-07-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

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!

Water for the Ixil (Guatemala, July 6-10, 2011)

2011-07-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

Ixil Family of Xonca

Following a local bus ride from Atenas, Costa Rica to the airport to travel to Guatemala, a cheerful greeting from FH Staff in Guatemala City, the sweet, nostalgic taste of rosa de Jamaica with lunch, and a harrowing van ride from Guatemala City to the mountain town of Nebaj, my teammate Hudson and I were greeted by a damp, moldy room with two double beds, lumpy and sagging from age and the all-to-familiar smell of unvented sewer gasses coming from the mirror-less bathroom. Exhausted from the journey which took us over mountains, valleys, and precariously close to unguarded cliffs and landslide-weakened roads, we promptly retired for the night. Awakening the next morning to the foggy chill of high-altitude Guatemala, I fiddled with the shower for a few minutes to coax out what little warm water would come. I brushed my teeth, gingerly swishing with water from a bottle, the infamous “Montezuma’s Revenge” ever present in my

mind.

Guatemalan Hillside & Creek

The Village Leaders of Xonca

The day was to consist of a visit to the spring that the village leaders had discovered a year prior and hoped we could use to supply water to the 1,000+ residents of the village of Xonca. With plans to perform water quality tests for alkalinity, hardness, iron content, bacteria presence, and bacteria quantity, we set out after breakfast, heavy-laden with testing supplies, a handheld GPS, and other odds and ends. Little did I know, we were embarking on a 4-hour, 10km hike which would cover a total elevation change of over 400 meters (or about 1200ft). We set off for the peak at about 9:00 in the morning, where we were told we would find the mountain spring, led by a small Ixil man and followed close behind by a train of 20 other dark-faced community leaders from Xonca. The little 40 year-old Ixil man, Diego, who courageously led us machete-in-hand was more akin to a waterbug than a human, skimming across the muddy trails and cavernous paths with the greatest of ease. Weighing all of 80 pounds, he quickly skipped down the trail unaware that his “gigante” Gringo brothers were trudging through the mire and the muck, ducking and dodging low-hanging branches and limbs he’d never noticed. Outfitted with rubber boots, machetes, picks, shovels, filthy clothes and anxious smiles, the train of leaders behind us were raising a loud ruckus in the throaty Ixil language, exchanging stories of the night before and their commentaries on the excitement of the coming presidential election in Guatemala.

Following the "Waterbug"

Our Entourage

As we marched, my legs became heavier and heavier, partly due to the load of mud growing ever thicker on the bottom of my boots with every step and partly due to the altitude and lack of oxygen causing the lactic acid to build with painful quickness. As my lungs struggled franticly to keep up with our “waterbug”, I was constantly bombarded with questions posed in Spanish requiring answers…in Spanish. We finally crested a hill and were welcomed by a beautiful green meadow rolling gently down to the valley below. Here, we encountered their babbling spring of hope.

Arriving at the spring

Spring

As we prepared and executed our water tests, fumbling with sterile bags of collected water, test strips, and collection vials, the long, dark faces of our village leaders looked on in stunned silence. It suddenly dawned on me that they most likely had no idea of why I was spreading sweet-smelling clear gel on my hands (hand sanitizer), being so careful to avoid touching the edges of the clear, sterile bags I was filling with water from the spring, dipping little white strips of paper into the vials of water and seeing them magically change colors and then comparing them to other little squares of color. This was a day, I was sure, they would not soon forget. They would tell their children and grandchildren for decades to come of the day when the giant white men came to their spring to make paper change color!

Having collected our samples, GPS data, and other measurements, we made haste for Xonca hoping to miss the evening rains. Unfortunately, the downhill portion of the hike was not any easier than the assent. The pain that was in my thighs was now replaced by a shooting pain in my knees and heel, a nasty blister I would soon discover was building.

The "downhill" portion wasn't so "downhill"

Waterbreak

Finally leveling off in the valley, I was hopeful that the trail would become easier. However, much to my dismay, we made an abrupt left-hand turn into the cornfields. I was again quickly left behind by our “waterbug” to fight the cornstalks and leaves by myself. After an hour of fighting and swatting, we emerged into a clearing, Xonca.

About to make the abrupt left turn...

We would soon be told that the poorest of the poor were living in Xonca and suffered from chronic malnutrition, the result of a limited diet of corn. Corn and beans were the only crops the locals felt comfortable growing and were the only things culturally familiar. Other organizations, along with FH, had been trying for years to introduce more nutritious crops into the Ixil diet. The water system we were there to design was part of a multi-faceted attack on the malnutrition and disease that affected the Xonca population. In bringing a clean, steady supply of water to the community, FH hoped to be a shining example of what God’s love was all about. We were there, having been blessed by God, to be only a small cog in that wheel. It was truly a blessing to have a part in the work that God was doing to bring His salvation to the Ixil people of Xonca!

Water = Life

2011-06-10T22:09:00.000-04:00

¹¹ “Sir,” the Samaritan woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
- John 4:11-15

God uses water many times in his Word to us. He tells us that we will only be satisfied when we drink from Him. Even so, the Samaritan woman seems to miss Jesus's point again saying, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." Often, when the lost's physical need for water is not satisfied, it can be very difficult to hear the words we are so desperately preaching.

On Monday, June 13th, Josh embarks on a 9-hour bus ride to Managua, Nicaragua and another 2-3 hour ride to the province of Chinandega, Nicaragua to meet with descendants of the Miskito indians and Food for the Hungry, a Christian non-profit organization ministering to the community of Bayardo Arce. Bayardo Arce is located on the outskirts of the city of Chinandega. Most homes are constructed from scrap wood, cardboard and plastic with an outdoor latrine. Families run small business ventures selling tortillas, fruit, water or other small items in the streets of the city to earn $2 - $3 per day, which is less than half of the cost of food to feed a family. Rice, beans, and corn tortillas are the dietary staples, along with very limited amounts of fruits and vegetables because of the expense. Regardless of the season, whether dry or rainy, the community's general health is poor due to poor hygiene, dust and dampness, or standing water that breeds mosquitoes. They are connected to a municipal water system, with limited distribution spigots and no sewer system. A nearby public health post has inadequate facilities for primary care or health promotion. Common illnesses include malaria, dengue fever, anemia, malnutrition, respiratory infections and parasites. Most of the school aged children attend one of two public schools (primary or secondary) located within 2 kilometers of the community for morning or afternoon classes. Because of economic needs of the family, some adolescents are required to skip school and help support the family.

Critical issues in Bayardo Arce include the following:
The health of community members is generally poor because of the living standards of the community. The streets are very dirty and there are many mosquitos. Many people suffer from Malaria and Dengue fever. There are also many people that suffer from parasitic infections because of a lack of basic hygiene. Many children especially suffer from malnutrition because they are not receiving basic nutrients in the food that they eat. Most families eat rice and beans but never any fruits, vegetables or meat. About 50% of the community is unemployed and those that are employed are still barely able to provide a stable wage for their household. There is not much emphasis on children's education in the community.

This visit to the community is meant to be an exploratory trip to meet the people of this community and understand their needs as they pertain to the lack of consistent, clean water supply and a system to effectively and safely handle their excrement, wastewater, and trash. This project is being pursued as a means to increase the overall health of the community in hopes that it will increase overall school attendance of the children of that community. In ministering to the needs of the children, the hope is that this will open the door to Gospel to be heard. Josh will be in Nicaragua until Thursday, June 16th. Please join us in prayer for his safe travel, effective ministry, and soft-hearted reception of the community to our help in securing safe water for them to drink, a way to handle their waste, and ultimately the acceptance of the Jesus-founded love we hope to share through this project!

Pray with us that the people of Chinandega would drink from well of Living Water!

6.10.2011

2011-06-10T18:58:00.000-04:00

Well, this has been a trying and long week, but the Lord has been faithful to give strength, encouragement and we've found perseverance in Him. This has been a week of negociating our way through the bureaucracy that is the Costa Rican government. Although I've come to love this country, I try to have as little contact as possible with red tape and waiting lines. Monday, I took a two hour bus ride to San Jose to get my driver's license renewed and a two-hour ride back. Then, Tuesday night, we decided the best way to approach figuring out the process for renewing our cedulas (residency) was to actually GO to Immigracion in San Jose. Once we got there, we found out we actually couldn't renew it at Immigration...go figure. They recently changed the process to where you can only renew them in select banks throughout Costa Rica. So, just by chance, we decided to walk into the biggest bank in Costa Rica, the one in downtown San Jose to ask questions about the process and required paperwork. First blessing was that there was only one other customer there so we went almost right up to the desk which is very unusual. The young woman at the desk, Aura (and who I could also call an angel), walked us through the process and paperwork needed. When we asked if she could help us make an appointment, she kindly took out her personal dayplanner and penciled us in for 2 DAYS LATER!!! Normally you call a phone number to make an appointment, and we've heard the wait can be up to 6 months. We walked out of that office feeling as though the Lord pulled off something that we could never do ourselves. So, as of 11 a.m. today, we are legal to be in Costa Rica for 2 more years as residents. It's very exciting, and I cannot be more grateful for the Lord's provision and gift of encouragement through the young lady at the bank. So, needless to say after more than 10 hours on a bus this week, Josh and I are going to try to relax at home tonight!

On a side note, this is the newest addition and newest temporary addition to our family. The bigger "puppy" is Duke. He is a 6-month old great dane and he belongs to us. He's sweet, super tranquilo and a perfect addition to our family...and a daddy's boy! The little puppy is a great dane mix that we are dog-sitting for a month.

The government strikes again....

2011-06-06T23:10:00.000-04:00

It seems that it is the season of renewals, and I don't mean just spiritual ones. As we just passed our 2-year anniversary of living in Costa Rica, we have alot of our legal documents needing to be renewed....more specifically our driver's licenses and our residency. So, the past two weeks have been full of trips to the capital, San Jose, and errands hither and yonder trying to both figure out what we need and actually complete it. As of yet, I personally have been extremely unsuccessful. For our residency, we have to pay into the national healthcare on a voluntary basis which is a reduced rate compared to what Costa Ricans pay as we already have personal international health insurance that covers us both in Costa Rica and the U.S. BUT, in order to pay into what is known as the "caja", we needed a certified copy of our marriage certificate as we are actually enrolling under Josh's name, not individually. So, two weeks ago, I spent an entire day at immigration in San Jose trying to make a certified copy of the marriage certificate in our file. I left with several certified papers in my hand, but guess what...not our marriage certificate. It was starting to rain as I was receiving the paperwork and I had taken the scooter to San Jose. So, foolishly, I ran to the scooter to get my rain gear on without looking at the paperwork. Finally I was able to obtain our marriage certificate, and Josh and I spent an entire day at the Caja here in Atenas getting singed up. Now we just have to make an appointment to meet with the people at immigration to actually complete our renewal. Josh and I also went to San Jose this past week to renew our driver's licenses. Only Josh was able to renew his since I needed an updated medical exam and he had just completed one in the weeks before. So, tomorrow I have the plan of getting to the doctor's office at 7 a.m. when they open, getting a medical exam and taking the bus into San Jose to hopefully wait in line for less than an hour and a half to renew my license. I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, and am trying to have patience in it. It's a lesson in remembering to take each day at a time, not getting stressed at lack of efficiency, but enjoying the life we have here in Costa Rica...even on my third trip to San Jose in two weeks:)

June 6, 2011

2011-06-06T22:58:00.000-04:00

I feel as though I reached some kind of new home-making goal today. I made my first loaf of homemade bread. Okay, well maybe it was in a bread maker but still made the house smell incredible. One of the families in our office is leaving the field after 9 years, and selling almost everything. Once I heard they were selling things, I had my eye on the bread maker. So many times, I've gone over to their house to meet with the wife, and my friend, and walked into the house to the smell of baking bread. It brings good memories of our times together and reminds me of the example she set for me as a wife, mother and missionary. Today I attempted to make rosemary bread...without rosemary. It still tasted pretty good, but I definitely want to try it again when I DO have rosemary and not just leftover Italian seasonings. One things I've found out since the having the bread maker is there's a difference between "bread" flour and the regular flour that I use. I'm not sure if I successfully bought bread flour as the bag doesn't specifically say "bread" flour or doesn't distinguish itself from any other flour other than to say for "pan, galletas y reposteria" which means "bread, cookies and pastries". I took a chance. I still have no idea if it's bread flour, but the bread turned out a really nice density and fluffiness. Is that a word? fluffiness? I look forward to many more times of filling my house with the delicious smell of freshly baked bread.

9.24.2011

2011-05-24T16:29:00.000-04:00

I feel as thought I've somewhat spun off a roller coaster and am sliding to a halt. This past weekend was our office's annual Family Retreat which is the biggest event of the year that I am responsible for planning. It was an amazing weekend of laughing, playing, learning from each other and spending time in God's Word together. The theme for the weekend was "Thriving, Not Just Surviving" and God showed each one of us things about Himself and ourselves. Many of the families in our office have made decisions to stay for longer terms here in Costa Rica, so it was a good point to discuss what it means to thrive on the mission field. Although I was energized from being around people and the weekend was very fun, we are now two days out and I still feel as though I could sleep 3 more hours. I know the Lord will regenerate me, but He has also taught me alot about resting in Him, and resting in general. It feels good to be able to use what I feel are my gifts and things I love to do to serve the Lord through serving EMI.

In the dust of the rabbi...

2011-05-17T12:53:00.000-04:00

¹³ Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. ¹⁴ He appointed twelvethat they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach ¹⁵ and to have authority to drive out demons.

This past month, I’ve been attempting to lead our interns through a study called “The Dust of the Rabbi”. In this study, Ray Vander Laan takes the listener (it’s a podcast) back in time to the days of Christ and explains, through the cultural lense of Judaism, exactly what Jesus meant when he called his disciples. Standing in stark contrast to our typical ideals of discipleship: 30 minute devotionals in the mornings, Wednesday night Bible Study, sermons that barely reference the Word of God, and a cursory glance at prayer from time to time; Jesus’s understanding of discipleship was far more. The very definition of the word “disciple” has been skewed over the years since Jesus’s teaching. “Disciple” nowadays has come to be thought of as a mere student, someone who wants to know what the teacher knows. However, “talmede” in a Jewish since (hence, a Jesus sense) meant someone who wants to be what the teacher is.

In Mark, Chapter 3 (above), Jesus called his disciples, not to class or to a seminar or conference, but he called them “that they might be with him”. Why is this? Why couldn’t they just meet him in the synagogue for a few hours a week.....or better yet, a few hours a day?! Very simply, in order to be like your rabbi, you must be with him every hour of the day; to see how he walks, to hear how he talks, how he reacts in every situation, to learn his routines, his quirks, what he values, what he despises, where he finds joy, peace, comfort, and most of all, who he worships. To do this, you must be covered “in the dust of the Rabbi”; so close to him that you are covered in his dust.

How can you and I rearrange our lives to give us more time to follow our Rabbi? It’s not just a great suggestion...its a life commitment.

Hogar de Vida

2011-04-28T23:31:00.000-04:00

Along with working in the EMI office several days a week, I volunteer weekly at a children's home called Hogar de Vida, which means Home of Life. When I started volunteering, I was helping out with physical therapy, doing early stimulation on the babies. Last fall, I felt the Lord leading me to focus more on just being a helper in one of the three houses on campus....just be a "tia" which means aunt in Spanish, but is also what all the kids call the workers. The model of care is set up as a home simulated environment. Each home has a house mom that lives in the home along with 2-3 other ladies and up to 12 children in each home of varying ages and mixed genders. So, I started working weekly in house 1. Since starting there, 2 (soon to be 3) children have been adopted or returned back to their families, and I've seen children that were 1 when I met them turn 3 and grow right before my eyes. The last two weeks have been such a blessing. There are several of the younger children who I take care of on the mornings I am there that have just stolen my heart. Today, as I walked into the house I heard them running from the back of the house with an exuberant "ALLI" and a big hug around my legs. Then, as I was leaving today, my little sweetheart Brenda had my hands and asked if I was leaving. I told her yes, and she said I couldn't go and held my arms around her in a hug. It was so sweet and just melted my heart. Sometimes I wonder if the Lord is going to use one of these children to show me it's time to adopt. Josh and I have always talked about how it would be a possibility, but it would truly be a pleasure to bring one of these little precious ones into our family. I feel sad when I see them growing up...years, going through the red-tape process of adoption in Costa Rica when they could be spending those years with a family who loves them. It's just been such a blessing to spend time with those children, and the ladies that work in the home. I consider them my friends and confidants. I pray the Lord will continue to grow these relationships and work through them to show me more about Himself.

4.29.2011

2011-04-28T23:16:00.000-04:00

This past week was a week of firsts for Josh and I. It was our first Easter celebrated at a Spanish-speaking church as well as our first Costa Rican wedding, both of which happened to be the same day. Easter here is definitely under-celebrated among the evangelical community. Evangelical Christians tend to lean toward the opposite extreme as Catholics. Catholicism is the most prevalent religion in Central America. Because of the deeply entrenched rituals of Catholicism, Christians tend to oppose things that are very "Catholic". For example, many Christians do not have Christmas trees or display nativity scenes. Also, Easter Sunday is almost non-existent in the evangelical church. Their reasoning is that we celebrate the resurrection of Christ every Sunday. Needless to say, It was not emphasized last Sunday. We did have a Easter breakfast with another EMI family, and it was great to be able to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior with pancakes and bacon:) In all seriousness, it was neat to start the day focused on the Lord and what He did for us. I did come to an interesting conclusion last week that the death of Christ is celebrated during Semana Santa than the resurrection of Christ. People have most of the week off and everything is completely shut down on Good Friday, but Sunday is like any other Sunday in evangelical churches and all the grocery stores are open. It was just very interesting.

That afternoon, the son of our pastor was married. It was the first Costa Rican wedding we've attended, and it was such a great experience. It was beautifully decorated, and one of the most formal weddings I've been to. It was the first wedding I've attended where I had a table/seating assignment in the reception. Of course, the 4 p.m. wedding started at more like 4:30 and guests were still walking in at 5:15. One thing that was interesting was that they had an MC type person. She give instructions before the ceremony about how to use the chocolate fountain, etc as well as announcing the wedding party as they walk down the aisle. For example, "And now, we have the groom Javier Gonzalez...accompanied by his parents Javier Gonzalez and Cecilia Quesada." Also, there were no real bridesmaids or groomsmen. The parents of the bride and groom sat in special seats up front along with people that accompanied them. The bride's parents had the mother's sister and her husband. The groom's parents had the sister of the groom. The night was culminated in a fire show. You know, where a guy lights two things on first at the end of ropes and does cool twirls. Yes, the fire show happenned INSIDE the church, but was a very cool experience. Most of all, we have enjoyed getting to know the Pastor's extended family which made it alot of fun. They remind me of my family, and it's so nice to feel as if we are being accepted into a community of believers here.

William Cornelius Vocational School, Guatemala

2011-04-27T15:26:00.003-04:00

I was fortunate enough to run across the website for the project in Guatemala that I almost exclusively worked on while I interned with EMI back in 2004! Check it out! Brings back fond memories!!!

http://www.wcvtc.com/photos_beginning_to_end.html

More Pictures from Peru

2011-03-30T00:47:00.000-04:00

I am finally getting around to posting some pictures from our trip to Peru.

Market day

Live guinea pig

Everybody working hard
The train to Macchu Picchu

Josh and I at Macchu Picchu

March 29

2011-03-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

The past week has been intense, but great. I feel as though I hit the ground running after landing back in Costa Rica. Josh and I spent the last two weeks of February in Peru working with a seminary there, and then the first two weeks of March in Georgia. We attended the Global Missions Conference at our home church in Georgia, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. The conference was a great opportunity to meet other missionaries and the Lord really opened our eyes to further ways we can spread the Gospel here in Costa Rica. We have had several visitors in the week since being back including the President of EMI as well as Kyle Collins and his wife Lolly, one of the missions pastors from JFBC. The time with them was a great time of connecting, learning about how the Lord is working through them, and an awesome time of encouragement also. They were definitely a blessing for the 2 days they were with us. From our time with visitors, we jumped right into several meetings and things planned over the weekend with EMI and our church. Sunday was El Dia para Conocernos Mejor which means "The Day to Get to Know Ourselves Better". It's a sort of dinner on the grounds/carnival. It was amazing to see how our relationship with our church has changed in the past year. I remember this same day last year was one of stress and worry. Feeling less than confident about my Spanish, trying to get to know people by sitting down at a table and starting a conversation was something that felt awkward and brought some level of fear. This year, however, was a different experience. It was great to feel like you're there with family. I blogged last year about having a granizado at this event, and this year Josh and I actually MADE the granizados. Josh was the ice crusher and I was the assembler along with a man from our church named Macho. There were lots of games to play. Josh and I helped with a fooseball tournament as well as participated. Needless to say, Josh didn't have the best partner, and we were out the first round. It was a great, but exhausting day. It's been so good to get back to "normal" life. The time away was so wonderful and the time with our family was so great, but I have felt a renewed sense of thanksgiving for the relationships and ministry that we have here in Costa Rica. On a side now, after 3 days of intense heat, it started raining and has rained every afternoon for the last 3 days. I guess rainy season is starting up, and I couldn't be more ready!

Picture from Peru

2011-02-23T18:45:00.000-05:00

Urubamba is in the Andes mountains. Even though it's the rainy season and much of the days have been cloudy and rainy, it really is a spectacular view. The Lord's creation is so great!

We are staying at the present seminary campus for which we are designing a new, expanded campus. There are several pastoral students and families that live on campus. These little girls live on campus.

This is the outside pila where most of the dishes are washed. The two cooks have had to be told several times about our "weak" American stomachs.....that they can't just rinse stuff off and reuse them because we'll get the parasites in the water.

This is the Catholic church on the little park in the center of town. It's currently under renovation and is not having mass services.

Yesterday was the birthday of one of the team members. In Peru (and in Costa Rica), they have a tradition of the birthday boy taking the first bite out of the cake with your mouth. Normally, they push your head down into the cake at this point, but they refrained.

Please continue to pray for our work here in Peru. The final presentation of the design is Friday evening. Also, please be praying because there have been alot of rain here, and landslides are becoming a problem. People have lost some of their corn crop already, which is their livelihood.

First Impressions

2011-02-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

First Impressions can sometimes have a great impact, and it has been no different here. There have been so many new sights and sounds since landing here in Peru. This is my attempt to share some of those. Just as they are somewhat unprocessed in my mind right now, this is how I will share it...a string of thoughts and observations so that you can get an idea of what we are encountering.

I find that I try to categorize new things that I’ve experienced into something I’ve seen or experience before. This place has been an exception. It’s truly like nothing I’ve seen before both culturally and topographically. Urubamba is set in the middle of this valley which large green mountains springing up on all sides. Today the sun is shining a little bit and to see the light shining on the mountains is brilliant and beautiful. Praise the Lord for his amazing creation!

The people here are very indigenous-looking. This means their skin, hair and eyes are dark. They tend to be shorter, and you can tell that they’ve lived a life of labor and physical work. I’ve seen pictures of indigenous women from Peru, but it’s so amazing to see it with my own eyes. Our camera went dead at Christmas so we are relying on other people to take pictures, so I will post some as soon as I receive them. But, walking around town this morning, so many women had top hats or cowboy-looking hats, all ragged and worn. We’ve been told they usually tell either what their position in society is or what they are selling. They wear thick sweaters with knee-length non-matching skirts with little fringe underneath. They seem very no-nonsense so I’m not sure where the detailing on the petticoat comes in, but it does bring femininity and beauty. They wear sweater leg warmers with stirrups on them, socks that again don’t match with thick brown or black shoes. They are normally carrying large loads on their backs with colorful hand-made cloth. Sometimes it is their goods to sell, sometimes it’s their children. So, you see them walking around town hunched over, carrying their heavy loads on their way to wherever their daily life happens.

The majority of the construction is adobe. I’ve never seen adobe up close. It is literally whole buildings made of bricks that are made out of dirt. It’s amazing that it actually stands, but it does. The room in which Josh and I are sleeping is actually even on the second floor of an adobe building. They put stucco on the outside so it doesn’t look like dirt but almost every wall is 1.5 feet wide and you know it is adobe construction. It seems like a hodgepodge of paint color, colored tin roofs, hundred-year old doors of buildings that are all different colors, worn and used.

Peru is known for it’s hand-made alpaca wool items. Each night we are sleeping in 40-degree weather without heat, and the 2 alpaca blankets on our bed keep us incredibly toasty. It’s amazing how soft and warm it is. Alpaca is a South American animal that looks kinda like a llama. I am excited to see the market where they are selling these hand-made goods.

Yesterday, we attended the church for which the group will be designing a new building. There is both a Quechua service and a Spanish service. Almost 100 people squeeze into a little building where there is only one hymnal for each pew to share. You’re so much closer to your neighbor that you fully know whether he has taken a shower that day or not. To hear all the Lord is doing in that church was so exciting and I bring glory to Him for his work there. The young man leading the music just two years ago was a drunk and came to know the Lord through the ministry of this church. The people seemed to be pursuing the Lord and, in all of Peru, the national church seems to be taking the reigns of evangelism and spreading the Gospel. This means that Peruvians are spreading the Gospel in place of outside missionaries coming in and the ministry being dependent on them.

Travel

2011-02-21T10:30:00.000-05:00

To start, we left Costa Rica on Friday afternoon for Lima. Josh, myself, Micah (another EMI staff member), his wife Beth and two interns, Jeff and Tripp landed in Lima without problem around 8:30 Friday evening. Our plan was to stay at the airport until the last plane landed at 11:55 and head to a hotel for the night. Well, just as things don’t turn out the way you planned, the last 3 flights of volunteers were delayed. The last volunteer was rescheduled to arrive at 3 AM. Yes, 3 AM. I was surprised to see that at midnight, the airport was still busy and going strong. Every airport I’ve ever been in is a ghost town by midnight. So, to see every restaurant open and hoards of families waiting for their loved ones to arrive at 2 AM and later was interesting. So, Josh, our fearless leader, took the team of 16 people to the hotel by 2 AM, laid down for 20 minutes and then headed back to the airport for the 3AM flight. His head finally hit the pillow at 4:30. 6:30 AM came really early that morning, especially for Josh. We took the hour-long flight from Lima to Cuzco, Peru that morning, then drove 1.5 hours to Urubamba, Peru. Needless to say, our entire group was pretty tired. Most of the group used the rest of the day to recover and to adjust to the altitude difference. Cuzco is about 11,000 feet above sea level and Urubamba is just over 9,000 feet so altitude sickness can definitely be a problem. Josh, Micah and the architects spent the rest of the day riding around Cuzco looking at current construction and landscaping practices. So, by the time Josh got to bed that night, he had slept about 2 hours in 48 hours and was exhausted. I think by this morning, Monday, he finally feels fully recovered. It was encouraging to hear from the ministry that we are working with, SEBIC seminary and Nueva Vida Iglesia Bautista. They are so excited that we are here and are excited about what the Lord is going to do through the new seminary campus and church the group is designing. Their words were inspiring and a good start to the week of hard and long hours of work.

February 2011

2011-02-15T13:01:00.001-05:00

The past two weeks have just been a whirlwind of activity. So much has been accomplished, and it has been really cool to see the Lord work. The first week of February was our office's Staff Week where we spent time analyzing and discussing almost every aspect of our office, talking about things the Lord has done and ways we can change our policies and activities to better serve our partner ministries. Then last week was Member Care week. Our office has brought on board a Christians counselor/psychologist from Florida to assist us in member care which has many different facets. She is coming alongside us and doing things to help the team members in our office stay healthy emotionally, mentally and physically. It was a really great week where the Lord really moved. I know personally He revealed some things to me about how I view myself and operate that need to be changed if I am going to be healthy in the long-term on the field...or even in life in general, not just on the field. I will say it was probably one of the most fatiguing two weeks I've had in a while, but I praise the Lord and give him the glory for all that has been accomplished both office-wide and in the heart of each individual on our team. Doors have been opened for a deeper sense of community amongst our team which I do feel like is a crucial part of life here as well.

After the past two weeks, we finally have a chance to focus on preparation for the trip to Peru. Josh has been working for months on recruiting and planning for this project. I am so excited to what the Lord is going to do, and I am praying fervently for the hearts of the people that will come to know the Lord through the work of the ministry. The team will be designing and master planning a seminary campus and Peruvian church. The seminary will teach Quechua pastors to preach the gospel to the Quechua people. Please keep us in your prayers over the next few weeks as we travel to Peru. We leave this Friday, February 18 and return on Sunday, February 27. Things you can be praying for specifically are:

-the hearts of the volunteers, that they will be open to whatever the Lord wants to teach and show them

-health and energy as the days of work and design are usually very long ones

-wisdom for one of the other EMI staff member's wife and little baby who have been planning to go. The baby has had very mild congestion and they are deciding if it would be best to bring him to the cold weather we will be experiencing. The doctor has said he thought it would be okay, but they are looking to the Lord for wisdom in what to do

-the harvest of souls that will come to know the Lord through the work of this ministry

Thank you so much for supporting us in prayer. I look forward to sharing what God does on the trip with you in the future. When we return to Costa Rica from Peru, we will have one day to wash our clothes and pack for a trip to Georgia. Our home church in Georgia, Johnson Ferry in Atlanta, is having a Global Missions Conference and are funding our return for us to be a part of. We are so excited to share all that the Lord is doing through EMI. There will be several open activities at the church, and we would love to talk with anyone who is interested in connecting with us during our time back. Those dates are March 2-6. We look forward to seeing you while we are back!

Academia Estruria

2011-02-15T12:42:00.000-05:00

So, Josh surprised me by taking me to a night at an Italian cooking school for Valentine's day. I wish we had gotten a picture of us, because we were a pair! He was told we needed to have aprons, hair covers and closed-toed shoes. So, the only things we could find were short little aprons worn by cleaning people here where it covers the front and the back down to your waist and has little ties on the sides. And I was definitely sporting a hair net. We walk in and the other two people in the class look like professional chefs with nice cooking aprons and chef's hats. Besides feeling a bit out of place in the way we looked, it was an absolutely amazing night. The instructor was an Italian man from Florence who looked exactly like the old chef on the movie Ratatouille. He also had this sidekick who just fluttered around the room teaching us all kinds of cool things about Italian cooking and throwing out Italian words as if he was straight off the boat from Italy. Come to find out, he is actually Costa Rican. The whole class together made 3 different things, and I can't remember a single name because they were in Italian. The first was a meat dish which in Spanish was called Roll of Meat. It was layered pork, then ham, then beef then bacon with a mushroom tomato sauce thrown in the middle somewhere, rolled and baked. The second was a delicious vegetarian tomato sauce with pasta. It was the first fresh sauce I have ever made which was exciting. The third was fried cheese balls which were AMAZING!!! The best part was at the end of the night, everybody sat down to eat the food we'd prepared together. We got to try proscuitto made right in his kitchen and everything. It was really such a great experience, and Josh and I had so much fun together! It was a great way to spend Valentine's Day. And the best part was, he let us join his class for the night without charge!

Battle for Haiti

2011-02-07T11:42:00.000-05:00

I was forwarded this link video from a friend:

Here we are

2011-02-04T17:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, can I please just say I struggle with the title situation. It seems very hard just to tell what's been going on in life and have to give a TITLE to it. Just a sidebar:) So, we have for a while now been back into full swing at the office and in life here in Atenas after our short time in Georgia at Christmas. It's definitely dry season which means a couple of things. It means the clothes on the line dry in less than 2 hours which has made laundry oh so much more manageable. It means that you can actually PLAN to do things in the afternoon. It means the children at the orphanage can play outside in the afternoon instead of being cooped up in the house because of the rain. It means that I actually have to WATER my growing little hibiscus plants which I haven't seemed to kill yet. It means the air is dryer, the wind is much stronger and dust abounds...i.e. having to sweep my house every single day is a very real possibility. Josh has been working for over 4 months recruiting and planning for his upcoming project trip to Urubamba, Peru. I am so very excited that I have the opportunity to go with him on this trip. It is a blessing to work for an organization who sees the importance in the non-engineer spouse feeling a part of EMI, our mission and work. The group will be designing a seminary campus and a local church who have the purpose of training quechua pastors to spread the gospel among the quechua people. Quechua is the name of a people group living in the central Andes mountains in South America as well as the name of the languages they speak. Please be praying for our hearts as Josh prepares to help lead this group of architects and engineers, for God to do a mighty work in the volunteers that are going and for the fruit and harvest that will come through the gospel and truth spread by this ministry.

We continue to adapt and integrate into the culture and community. Admittedly, it has been and will continue to be a much longer process than I thought. I thought we'd come to Costa Rica and immediately fit right in and have ticos as best friends. The Lord had other plans. It's a day-by-day process..."poco a poco" is a phrase I have come to know well. It has been incredible to see, however, tremendous growth in this area over the past 5 months. We have been accepted as family by a church here. Our pastor's wife even shared with the entire church what I had shared with her about the people in that church being our "family" here in Costa Rica. She encouraged the people of the church to get to know us, invite us over to their house, etc. We have found a place that we feel at home with and where we can grow spiritually with strong biblical teaching. When we left Costa Rica, I had in my mind that we had one "home church", and that would be our main church support. What I have found here is that, although it doesn't in any way take the place of our "home church" in the States who we believe is so important and incredibly supportive of our ministry, Iglesia Valle de Beraca here in Costa Rica has become a body of believers that wants to come alongside us in prayer and is truly interested in our life and ministry. A big step for me was going to my pastor's house and having "cafesito" with his wife and children. Number one, I don't drink coffee so my "cafesito" (which is a coffee break that is taken pretty much every afternoon around 3 by Ticos) was really warm milk with a little coffee and lots of sugar. Number two, and more importantly, it felt normal. It felt like friends just getting together to chat. She and her son took me to see some land their family purchased where there are lots for the parents and both children to build a house. It was an incredibly rich time of building relationships of which I look forward to doing much more.

"Next"

2011-01-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

"Next." This word is such a prominent part of our vocabulary as North Americans. "Who's next?" "What's next?" "Where do we go next?"

"Next" carries with it a very linear thought process. After this, then this is "next". Here in Latin America, exactly zero consideration is given to this concept of "next". There is no "next" here; only an infinite abyss of possibility. There are no schedules, no plans, no forethought...only the here and now. What happened a year ago, or a minute ago, was incredibly memorable. What is happening right now is monumental, the notion of thinking about tomorrow is completely off the radar screen.

This morning, before office prayer time, this slight frustration with the local culture instantly and beautifully morphed into a Biblical truth.

"Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

For their entire lives, Peter, James, John and Andrew had been constantly living and working with one thing in mind...."next". Mending their nets for the next day. Fishing for the next meal. Rowing over to the next hot fishing spot. How many fish would be in the next haul? Would there be enough to eat the next day?

Suddenly, along comes a man named Jesus....and the journey and struggle to rid these men's minds of the very concept of "next" and replace it with the concept of "follow" or "obey" begins. For the next 3 years, Jesus works diligently to renew their minds and implant in them a desire to follow and obey, and to extract the selfish and prideful notion that we must always know what's "next". The very concept of obedience does not allow us the convenience of knowing or caring what comes "next".

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

In many ways, despite the frustration, I have much to learn from my latino neighbors, from Peter, from James, from John, from Andrew, and even from Zebedee.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

2010-12-11T09:18:00.000-05:00

When thinking about how we wanted to celebrate Christmas, Josh and I purposefully decided to try to spend more of the Christmas season here in Costa Rica this year. Christmas is actually a pretty big deal here. Because Thanksgiving is an American holiday, the Christmas season is into full swing by early November. People put up lights on their houses and have christmas trees. I was so excited about being a part of the Christmas celebrations here in Atenas before we head back to the States to celebrate Christmas with our families for a week and a half. Now, you have to understand that our family has so many Christmas traditions and we all make an effort to be purposeful about making memories together which is something I have come to love. So, although I didn't realize it, I had a lot of expectations about how Christmas would be "done" here. And let me just tell you, it's been a journey of the Lord showing me things about myself and also of discovering the joy of birth of our Savior. I was so looking forward to having a Christmas tree. Although they only have cypress trees, I've learned that cypress have an incredible and strong christmas tree smell that just fills a room. Well, I went to the fresh market on Friday morning to buy one and they said "it'll be next week." So, I went back the next week and they said "well, our dad was sick so we won't have them til next week" and by then it didn't make sense to buy one for just two weeks. So, my dreams of having our first costa rican Christmas tree didn't come to fruition, and since we didn't really have very many other decorations, I felt a little sad. One of my closest friends here, however, invited us to decorate their families' Christmas tree. So, Josh and I took our ornamens over to their house and helped to decorate their Christmas tree, complete with hot chocolate and christmas music playing in the background. It was a very special memory! And we ended up hanging our stockings and getting a cypress wreath, so we still have a little bit of the smell of Christmas at the house. A week ago, I helped to decorate our church which was so much fun. Our pastor's wife, Cecilia, was the "jefe" (which means boss). She had the vision and we all worked together to get it done. It was so fun to listen to spanish Christmas carols and laugh together as we decorated. And it turned out just beautifully! I also had a realization about some christmas carols, both in Spanish and English. Some of them have nothing to do with Christmas. There's a Spanish one that is called "Pez en el Rio" which means fish in the river, and the song talks about fish drinking on their way to see the birth of Jesus. It's pretty funny. I guess I have never though so much about christmas sons and what they're actually saying. Tomorrow is the big day of Christmas celebrations at the church. In the morning is a Christmas party for the kids, and tomorrow evening is a Christmas concert. Can I please just tell you how fun it would be to be a kid at this church. Each child gets a gift, a legit gift! and they're going to have games and food. It's going to be like a carnival, but it's a Christmas party. I'm really excited about helping out! So, all this to say, at first I felt disappointed about how I was able to celebrate the birth of our Savior here, but he taught me that deepening relationships and learning new ways to worship Him brings glory to Him and to the birth of His son as much as the other family traditions and celebrations we have.

"I had no idea..."

2010-11-14T10:12:00.002-05:00

"I had no idea." For many of us, this phrase marks with distinction many of our most shocking, devastating, life-altering, and meaningful moments in our lives. When suddenly faced with a harsh reality or minute details of a previously unconsidered or unstudied thing, the scales fall from our eyes and we see for the first time in stunning, beautiful and sometimes painful clarity. For some of us, these are personal revelations about ourselves and our own depravity or ignorance. For others, we're shocked to learn that conditions previously considered unthinkable or impossible are precisely possible, even likely. This phenomenon for some marks the beginning of a deeper walk with Christ and higher calling on their lives. "I had no idea" can mark a painful moment of revelation that the life we'd been living was but a shadow of the "abundance" Christ wants for us. "I had no idea" can also demarcate the line between ignorance, apathy, ambivalence, empathy, or action. The natural question that arises then is this: Is ignorance truly bliss? Or is ignorance unacceptable when viewed in the light of what Christ has called us to be?

For Alli and I, 2010 has been a year of 'I had no idea.' Coming into our first year of work on the mission field, we had a certain idea of the "immense" need in the world and what our part in it would be. However, after dirtying our hands a bit, we soon realized, as Washington did in 1774 and American soldiers encountering Nazi camps in the 1940s, that the conditions, extent of the need and the frequency with which tragedy strikes this world was so far beyond our wildest imaginations. Committing to disaster response with EMI has served to open Pandora's box for our understanding of disasters in the world, the frequency with which they happen and the conditions they impose on the affected populations. In a prior world, unless CNN or Channel 2 reported on it and we happened to be watching that particular news broadcast, we wouldn't have had a clue that tragedies were striking people around the world almost constantly.

I chuckle when I think about the Costa Ricans that I coach in american football and their reactions to the violence of the game when they're rudely introduced to it for the first time. The new guys seem so excited to strap on shoulder pads and a helmet and finally do what they've seen their idols do for years on the NFL Network. But, that dream world is abruptly shattered by the shock of snot on their facemask. 2010 has served as a bit of shock for us in our work in disaster response.

According to the Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2009, published by the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), between 2000 and 2008 there have been 392 natural disasters around the world each year, on average. Every year, natural disasters’ victims amount to 230.8 million people. Worse yet, the conditions that affect these populations are beyond anything one can imagine. And yet this is exactly why we feel so called, so compelled, to do what we do.

Rather than discouragement, this cruel education has served to only strengthen our resolve to follow Christ in his calls to love others, to serve the poor, the widow, and the orphan. For to love and serve the least of those affected populations is to love and serve Christ. Often, we are asked what motivates us as missionaries to continue on in the face of adversity. I believe that the Lord has a way of using these shocking experiences to take us by the shoulders and shake us out of our slumber of comfort and ignorance. Perhaps this is why most Christians find it so difficult to find a motivating passion. Perhaps it is because we have not experienced the true depravity of this world and the misery it causes. Perhaps we have not seen it because we are focused on our own corner of the room. Perhaps we are unwilling or lack the courage to turn around and see the rest of the room in all its gruesome need.

I would say that those in the world who have caught that passion for the lost have either made the choice to turn and see, or they've been ripped from their existence by the very hands of God and forced to see the depravity. For us, it seems the Lord has done the latter. And, we are forever changed because of it; gloriously changed; forever changed. In the face of this depravity, God not only shows you, but gives you the courage and the faith to carry on within it, to fight back the darkness, and to win but a few in His name.

I had no idea. We pray this phrase, surprisingly, for all of us.

A day at the cabin

2010-10-28T10:14:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday, our pastor and his wife invited us to their cabin for the day. They visit there every Tuesday as a way of relaxing and getting away. The moment it was brought up, I already started getting nervous. Josh was of course his cool, collected self, but I on the other hand was just plain nervous. Okay, i can carry on a conversation fairly well, but imagine an entire day of trying to put thoughts from an English brain into Spanish. My brain gets tired. Plus, it was our PASTOR. We have loved getting to know the people in our church and are feeling more and more like we have a church home here also, not just back in the States. So, needless to say, I wanted it to go well. My prayer was for the Lord's peace and that He would give me words to say even when my brain was tired. The day ended up being just wonderful. We drove up there on a very precarious road which kinda reminded me of the roads in Haiti. We drove up on this rustic, little cabin that they built themselves surrounded by dozens of fruit trees...lemon trees, mandarin orange trees, cas trees. It was a very neat atmosphere. We ended up just sitting most of the day and talking about everything we could think of. We talked about the church in Costa Rica, about our desire to really take root in the church, about parenting and about life in general. It was such a neat thing. Pastor Javier is not only a pastor but also a psychologist (he volunteers at the orphanage where I also help out), so it was interesting to hear his perspective on things. By the end of the day, somehow Josh was asked to consider being a part of the leadership of our church and to to give a presentation/devotional at the next meeting. This is both exciting, and I'm sure a little scary for him. So, you can be praying for him in the coming weeks.

There has also been a ton going on in our ministry. Josh is currently at the Association of Christian Design Professionals volunteer conference. He is teaching 4 courses on disaster response. He spent alot of time in preparation for this conference, and I am praying that the Lord will bless his work. I am also excited because some of our family and friends gets to meet some of our "family" from here in Costa Rica at the end of the conference. Josh and the 3 guys from here in Costa Rica are meeting up with some of our family and friends for dinner before they fly out. I'm so excited for the two worlds to intermingle. Josh will be home for 4 days, and then leaves on a project trip here in Costa Rica. They will be designing cabins and doing some master planning for a seminary/pastoral retreat center that prepares and equips pastors that will be working in Latin America. Please keep him in your prayers.

On a side note, please pray for me as I have been sick for the last few days. On Monday, I spent the day at the orphanage loving on the kids. It's an absolute joy for me, but the con side is that I pick up whatever they have. This time, I guess it's a stomach virus. I think I'm on the mend, but your prayers would be appreciated.

Celebrating the Steps

2010-09-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

Allison spends time volunteering each week at an orphanage in town. We have both gotten to know several of the families that work and live at the orphanage, and it has been an amazing blessing. One of the families attends our church, and is the tica family we are probably closest to here. The daughter of this family is named Wendy. She is 17, and she wants to be an architect. She has been spending time in the EMI office, learning from the architects there. In order to get into the university here, a person has to pass up to 3 exams. She has taken two of them, with the last one coming up the end of this month. In honor of finishing two of the exams, we had a girls get-together at our house. It was so fun. We sat around talking....in Spanish of course, enjoying brownies and making tostadas. I think sometimes I get carried away with pressing on towards the next accomplishment and finish line, but this past weekend was a great reminder to celebrate the steps, the process. It was great to laugh alot and share Christian fellowship. Please continue to pray for us as we deepen relationships with the tico community here in Atenas.

day one & day two

2010-09-14T08:55:00.000-04:00

day one:

Boarding the plane in San Jose, Costa Rica for what would only be the second time I’ve flown out of Costa Rica destined for somewhere other the

, I was caught off-guard by an altogether unexpected sensation: anxiety. Of all the feelings, emotions or thoughts that I’d expected to encounter, anxiety was one I’d written off. After all, I’ve been to Guatemala, lived there, and it had once felt like home. I suddenly realized, about 30,000 feet above the ground, that the anxiety wasn’t about

Guatemala

at all. It was something else, something human. I realized that the fear of the unexpected had crept upon me. I feared that the team members, who were descending upon Guatemala City in their own respective airplanes like vultures on a hot desert highway, would be difficult to deal with, coming from another world; perhaps the Northwest, or the Northeast. I was afraid that somehow, this unknown group of people would somehow tint or change altogether the lens through which I’d always viewed my precious Guatemala. And, honestly, deep down I feared that somehow

Guatemala

had changed herself.

But, the Lord is good. He is faithful. He has certainly pulled together a team of brilliant engineering and architecture minds from various parts of the US: Nashville, Oregon, Minnesota, Atlanta, and Washington State. Through this team, I can already sense that the Lord has great plans for this hospital here in Chichicastenango.

We spent the night at a hotel in Guatemala City. We all had dinner together and we were able to share in one of the team member’s burden for his family. God certainly ordained that dinner and the subsequent conversations to begin welding together our separate paths and bring our hearts closer together. I wouldn’t have said it a year ago, but the arts of engineering and architecture take on a distinctively different light when viewed as an act of love and service. There is fellowship and brotherhood in sharing the gifts the Lord has blessed us with, though they be technical.

I went to bed that night giddy, noticing that my anxiety had melted away into the cool, reassuring breeze of promise, hope, and expectation.

day two:

I awoke this morning well rested and went down to breakfast. There was certainly a more expectant attitude among the team this morning as the exhaustion of travel had been slept away and the new morning was established with Guatemala City as the backdrop. Waking up in the destination country has a way of resetting the baseline, of washing away the grit and grime of travel and setting the purpose for your arrival on level ground. We talked at breakfast about plans and schedules and the exciting reason we’d all arrived: to serve with our gifts. Who knew that specifics could be so refreshing. After months of planning and preparation, we’d finally reached the tipping point, the point where the rubber met the road.

We all piled into the van and made out for Chichicastenango. Expecting a 3 to 4 hour ride, we settled in for a journey into the “wilderness” of Guatemalan hillside. We made a few stops along the way to tour an existing hospital, drop off some materials to a missionary we’d served on a previous trip, expose the volunteers to a real Guatemalan construction project, and to use the restroom. We encountered “derrumbes” or landslides along the way; some of them containing pine trees as thick as 55-gallon barrels. In some places, the hillside roads had been washed away from underneath. We made it safely to Chichi in the late afternoon.

After getting settled in, we had a quick tour of the hospital we’d come to serve and were whisked away to church. Church was like a twisted match of dueling banjos with Spanish and Quiche (a local dialect of the old Mayan language) pitted against each other.

We retired to our rooms after dinner and the feeling was somewhat like the hush that comes over the crowd at the first home game of the regular season after the first play for a gain of 2 yards is over. After the hysteria and excitement of a new season is gone, there is a comfort that comes flooding in; a comfort that the first play of the game wasn’t a fumble return for a touchdown. There was an overwhelming peace that we could take a deep breath and get settled in for the full 60 minutes; we could settle in and begin chipping away at the design one day at a time for the next 8 days.

2010-09-10T13:58:00.001-04:00

AN UPDATE FROM SCOTT POWELL
(currently in Pakistan)

Yes, we made it out to Malik Ibrahim today....

They have two operating hand-pump wells, but no protective concrete aprons, so theyâ€™re probably contaminated with floodwater. We saw that theyâ€™re currently digging a new borehole well by hand (using a tripod, twine, some serpentine belts, and a metal bailer). Very cool to see them do that with improvised tools. Theyâ€™re also building their own shelters with thatch and scavenged sticks. The shelters are pretty crude, but it shows they have initiative. No one else is helping them, so theyâ€™re pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

We had a meeting with the community leaders to hear their needs. Clean water was tops, as well as shelter. We distributed 14 of the Sawyer filters (two per 10-L bucket, see image attached). Lots of other needs, too, so we made a list. More photos here: http://ping.fm/1gQ8R

Looks like FH and ILAPâ€™s shelter, shelter kits, hygiene kits, and kitchen NFIs are all procured and en route sometime next week. ILAP is working on leasing a warehouse in RYK now. Theyâ€™re hiring people left and right: interpreters, field officers, program managers, cooks, finance folks, you name it.

Tomorrow, ILAP is going on a tour of the affected area with some CRWRC, ERDO, and Mission Aid (Danish) visitors. If we can get a vehicle, the EMI team will be procuring supplies for a demonstration shelter to construct near the new warehouse over Eid. ILAP hopes to settle on that tomorrow, too.

Hope you guys are well!

For His Glory,

-Scott

Mudslides & Landslides in Guatemala

2010-09-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

As most of you know, I'll be leaving Saturday for Guatemala. Recently, there've been stories in the news about landslides and mudslides all over Guatemala, some of them fatal. Our ministry contacts on the ground in Guatemala have all confirmed that these landslides are widespread and that the ones in the news are only a fraction. Many smaller land and mudslides have affected roads and bridges throughout central Guatemala. Chichicastenango, our ministry site, is located about 87 miles northwest of Guatemala City. In order to get there from the airport in Guatemala City, we'll be travelling by road through mountainous terrain. Please pray with us that the roads to and from Chichi are clear and passable. If not, we have developed some alternative modes of transportation. Please pray also for the people of Guatemala that are dealing with the landslides and are grieving from lost loved ones.

Boys Will Be Boys

2010-09-07T17:20:00.000-04:00

One things that I love about the culture here, but that has also been a bit of an adjustment is that latin american culture is very open and social. Sometimes, in Costa Rica especially, this can be limited to family where your whole family lives close and you end up staying in those circles. We've been so blessed with Costa Rican friends that have opened their hearts to us and loving us despite our "gringo-ness" and encouraging us in our attempts to adapt into the latin american culture. Part of Josh's ministry here in Costa Rice is working as a volunteer coach for an American football team. He not only has a huge passion for football in general, but finds that it is a great way of connecting with guys that are seeking leadership and a purpose in their lives. Well, yesterday at about 5 p.m., one of the guys that plays football rides up to our house on a bicycle. From this point on, whatever else we had on our plates that night went out the window, and it was so great. It was so amazing to see that our home feels open to our Costa Rican friends and neighbors to stop by for a visit. We invited him to stay for a dinner of breakfast burritos, which I'm sure was a totally "gringo" dinner for him. We talked and laughed over dinner. And, although we don't usually get any football games on our television, they happened to be showing the Boise State vs. Virginia Tech game. You would've thought both of them had just won the lottery. For hours, the boys just sat there, giving their own personal comments, advise to players and shouts of joy and disappointment. All in Spanish! Not only was I super impressed with Josh's Spanish and his ability to pick up slang/colloquial terms and sound really very "tico", but also that no matter what language you speak, when it comes to sports (whether american football or futball a.k.a. soccer here in latin america) boys will be boys.

El Buen Samaritano Hospital, Chichicastenango, Guatemala

2010-08-18T14:30:00.001-04:00

(Chichicastenango, Guatemala)

In Josh's preparation to leave on September 11th for Chichicastenango, Guatemala, we'd like to ask that you pray for the project team and their travels to and from the ministry site in Chichi. Also, pray that the team would be affective in their ministry their to the people opening the hospital and that the Lord would bless the works of their hands and the words they speak. This hospital will serve the local indigenous indians of Mayan ancestry which typically are too poor to afford medical care and often resort to witch doctors and spiritual cults for hope of healing. Please pray that this ministry's hospital will serve to bring Christ's healing hands to these people and that it would provide an opportunity to share with them the healing news of Jehovah Rophe, my healer.

What a week it has been

2010-08-13T12:57:00.001-04:00

What's that saying? "TGIF"-thank goodness it's Friday. Well, in Spanish, it's "GDEV"-Gracias a Dios es Viernes! I actually love Fridays, but not just because it's the weekend. In Atenas, Friday morning is the weekly fresh market. Farmers from the surrounding areas bring their fruits, vegetables, plants/flowers, breads, etc to sell in town. So, I head to downtown Atenas out in front of Escuela Central (central school) and do my produce shopping for the week. I love the sights and sounds there. This morning, there was lively music playing, and everything was bustling because this Sunday is Costa Rican Mother's Day or El Dia de la Madre. Here, this is one of the biggest holidays of the year. The mother in Costa Rican families is highly respected and has pretty much all the responsibility for the household. It was funny to see something a little familiar also. Normally, a bunch of flowers at the market is about 2,000 colones, or $3.50, but we have a pretty smart florist I guess because this morning, they were almost double that. There people clamoring around the flowers trying to pick just the perfect flowers to arrange as a gift for their mother or grandmother's special day. Kinda reminded me of Valentine's Day in the states when all of a sudden a dozen roses is outrageously expensive. Of course, outrageously expensive in this case is only $7, but still:)

This week, there has been alot going on. One of the staff wives, Beth, gave birth yesterday to a healthy baby boy, her first. It was the first time I have seen a baby on the day of it's birth, and boy was it tiny. I've seen infants, but I can't ever remember seeing a baby literally the day it was born. He was so cute!. And I am so excited for Beth and Micah as they begin this new season of their lives as parents. I'm also excited because part of what I do here in Costa Rica is member care and family development which means I am super excited to be able to serve our friends however I can, including planning meals, laundry, cleaning, and pretty much anything else they need. It was a little funny when I discussed my ideas with Beth a few weeks ago. I guess they don't do a whole lot of the bringing-meals-to-the-house thing in northern Washington, where they're from. I told her, "Listen, I'm from the south. This is what we do." We both laughed about it.

Also, another family returned from a visit with their family in the States. Still in another family, the wife, Michelle, had her birthday yesterday. They live at the orphanage where I volunteer, and we are going there tonight to help celebrate her birthday. So, overall, it's been a pretty eventful week, and we're loving it!

What's happenin'?!

2010-08-03T16:16:00.006-04:00

Since diving back into life and the work God has called us to here in Atenas, Costa Rica, things have been a little crazy! From exploding water heaters to leaky roofs to every outlet in our house going out, there hasn't been a dull moment. But, there's been a lot of positive things going on as well.

Josh has been busy working with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Gonaïves, Haiti to figure the costs of building their project which EMI designed back in 2009. YWAM is an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world, whose calling is to know God and make Him known. Since its establishment in 1960, YWAM’s main focus has been to get youth into short-term mission work and to give them opportunities to reach out in Jesus’ name. YWAM Gonaïves is the most recent branch of YWAM’s ministry to the youth of Haïti. Under the leadership of Director Maula Jean-Marie the ministry serves the large impoverished youth population in Gonaïves. Forty percent of Gonaïves'population is eighteen years old or younger. Combined with the extreme poverty, two devastating floods in the past five years, and the earthquake in January, 2010, there is a sense of hopelessness in the city that needs the light of the Gospel. The vision God has given Maula for YWAM Gonaïves is to “Restore the city, heal the nation, and touch the world.” Currently, to fulfill this vision, Maula and his family have opened their home to hold weekly church services and youth meetings. Also, the ministry holds public rallies that include the YWAM Gonaïves’ King’s Kids ministry presenting the Gospel through dramas and musical productions, as well as Maula and other speakers preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a further means to advance the Gospel of Christ to the youth of Gonaïves, Director Maula purchased an 11-acre property northwest of Gonaïves near the town of Marose. Maula’s vision is to use the property as a YWAM Campus that includes a Bible college, church, missionary apartments, YWAM office, school, shop, and student dormitory. The focus of this EMI project was to propose a master plan for the site and present the ministry with construction documents for the first phase of the student dormitory.

Looking ahead to the next 5 months, we've been preparing for a conference in October and 2 potential project trips! EMI's Association of Christian Design Professionals (ACDP) Conference will be held in Asheville, NC this October. During the conference, furthering education classes are offered and Josh will be teaching 3 classes! They will cover (1) Staying Healthy Emotionally, Mentally, & Spiritually in a Disaster Response Scenario, (2) Incident Command System, and (3) Transitional Shelter Design for Disaster Response.

The first project trip will take place in September. Josh will be part of a team of engineers and architects going to help the Good Samaritan Hospital in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. Good Samaritan Hospital was started around 50 years ago when a Methodist church began offering medical services from what had been a rent-by-the-hour hotel. There was no other hospital available to serve the people in this area. Mostly native peoples, even today most are unable to pay for medical services. In addition to providing medical care, Good Samaritan Hospital's purpose is to reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All patients and their families are visited by local pastors while they are at the hospital. This project will review the existing hospital facility and create a strategic plan for their continued growth. Phase one of their expansion will be construction of an infill building to accommodate an eye clinic.

The second project trip will take place in November. Josh will be co-leading a team of volunteer engineers and architects from the U.S. to Orosi, Costa Rica to serve El Jardin Sagrado, a ministry of Global Outreach Mission. Meaning "The Sacred Garden", El Jardin Sagrado is a camp and retreat center begun with great vision for the future. For years Global Outreach hoped and prayed that they could establish a multi-purpose orientation center close to North America, easily accessibile to those who God would raise up to serve the work in ministry. These prayers were answered in 2006 through the purchase of property in the Orosi Valley of Costa Rica. This camp and retreat center on five acres will be a place from which churches can be planted, local pastors can be trained and encouraged and candidates from around the world can receive cross-cultural orientation in a developing country. The team will help design the remaining elements of this camp which was partially design by an EMI team in 2007.

God has certainly filled our plates with plenty of work to do! Please pray for us as we continue to follow after Him. Also, please pray about how you can be involved in our efforts here, either through volunteering with us or by supporting our work here financially. We cannot do this without your help and your prayerful support! We miss you all and wish that you could be here serving with us!

Pics from the Week

2010-07-28T17:19:00.005-04:00

Well, we've made it safely back to Costa Rica! One of our bags did not make it here with us, but, praise the Lord, it arrived yesterday with all of its contents. We have been settling back into life here well. Josh started in the office again the day after we got back. I've been getting everything together at the house and getting everything in order. It's been a crazy few days, though. The first day we were back, it rained really hard in the afternoon. Suddenly streams of water started flowing down our living room wall. I had known that it could be a problem with the heavy rains here in Costa Rica, but thankfully it waited until we arrived to start flowing again. That night, we realized our toilet wasn't working properly. There was just no water coming into the tank. Sadly, I forgot at least two times and had to run back and forth between the kitchen sink and the toilet with our pitcher trying to fill up the tank. Then, this morning, Josh and I are in the bedroom getting ready when we suddenly hear this super loud hissing sound. I had no clue what was going on, just that it was loud. I wasn't sure if our fridge was about to explode or what. We look around into the kitchen, afraid to see exactly what was going on. Josh, of course, trying to be ever the protector, peeked around the corner first. He says that he thought that the propane tank we use to cook with was blowing up. All I saw was our kitchen filling up with TONS of steam. We realized that there was steam and water spurting out everywhere from the pila room. The pila room is a room off the kitchen that holds a big sink called a pila, very typical in latin american houses. We also have our washing machine in there. It was so crazy because, at first, we couldn't figure out where the water was coming from, just that it was spraying out everywhere in the pila room and a small flood was making its way into the kitchen. Finally, we realized that it was spraying out from where our mini water heater connects to the wall. After unsuccessfully trying to hold the connection to the wall, Josh found where to turn off all the water to the house. As he was working at the top of the driveway to turn off the water and water continued to gush out the broken pipe, I stood there sweeping all the water out the pila room door into the backyard. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. We finally got it turned off, and Josh called Jose Luis, our go-to plumber, to fix it. The Ayers do alot of things, but plumbing isn't one of them. He just spent the afternoon fixing our hot water heater, the wiring to it, and the toilet. As I started blogging, Josh was sitting out on the porch with Jose Luis chatting. It's so amazing to see opportunities the Lord is giving us to meet people and make and impact for His kingdom, even if it's through broken water heaters and leaking toilets. Oh, when he was fixing the hot water heater, he found empty gecko eggs. So, yes, our geckos are multiplying:) The last picture is Josh holding the tiny egg.

Gecko egg
Jose Luis hanging out our pila room door fixing the leak
Jose Luis under our pila trying to fix the water heater

The Latest From Haiti

2010-06-25T20:21:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since our last post. Since then, we've been extremely busy. In the past month, we've been able to construction about 200 shelters and have worked out the kinks in the system to eventually build a total of about 1000 shelters by the end of July. With the season's first tropical storms now churning in the Caribbean, this is surely good news for those Haitians still living in tents and bedsheet shelters. Also, Alli has been coordinating a team of Korean doctors and dentists now for about a month and they've finally arrived! They have been seeing hundreds of Haitians in need of basic medical care and dental work in the mountain villages south of Port au Prince. Tonight is there last night and Allison is up there now with the team as I right this post. We'll be finishing up our time here in Haiti and leaving on June 30th for some much needed R & R. I've posted some videos below. Enjoy!

The Clinic

2010-06-07T20:27:00.005-04:00

Part of what I (Allison) is doing in Haiti is volunteering in an outdoor physical therapy clinic that is affiliated with a local hospital. A P.T. named Donna came down to Haiti in April and saw a need to start an outpatient physical therapy clinic for post-earthquake injured patients. Physical therapy pretty much does not exist in Haiti. There are no accredited training programs. So, people don't have follow up care after injuries or surgeries. It has been sad to see problems that patients have just from lack of education about how the body works. For example, somewhere, somehow, a lady I'm seeing was told that after her femur (thigh bone) was competely broken in the earthquake and she had some pins put in, she should keep her foot turned out to the side. Because she had no reason not to trust this information, for the past 4 months she has kept her foot turned out to the side 90 degrees, and now is so tight in that position that she cannot turn her foot back in to walk normally. It's just very sad. Volunteer physical therapists from the states rotate in every 2 weeks or so. It has been a very interesting experience. We have seen alot of patients with crush injuries, amputations and anything else you can think of..including a guy who came in today with deep cuts in his arm from being in a knife fight earlier this morning. Thank goodness we had a doctor present who was able to get him fixed up. It has been really amazing to use the skills the Lord has given me to serve Him. I always knew when I was in P.T. school that I probably would not lead the normal P.T. life, working in a clinic for the rest of my life. It has been so amazing to see the journey the Lord has taken me on in regards to my skills as a physical therapist and how He is allowing me to use my gifts to life out scripture by serving the poor, orphaned, widowed and suffering. I wanted to post some pictures of the clinic and some of our patients.

The view from the sidelines...

2010-06-06T08:46:00.005-04:00

You've, doubtless, heard me say something in the past about how the sense of smell is the strongest sense tied to memory. That's never more true for those hot, humid Georgia summers. Alli and I were talking the other day about the differences in "hot" for Haiti and Georgia. One thing, we decided, was that Haiti lacked that sweet, green smell of freshly-cut grass at dusk. We all have memories of that smell: picnics, summer chores, summer jobs, road trips with the windows down. For me, that sweet odor plops me instantly on the baseball diamond, the 50-yard line, or the first cut of rough on the first hole at Oak Mountain.

On the practice fields at Central High School comes ever more memories: the smell of cut grass, yes, but the soggy wet field having just been watered, the grass clippings clinging to my sweaty arms and legs, the weight of the helmet in my hands, the wet blanket of shoulder pads, the ringing in my ears thanks to Brian Maxwell, the taste of water-hose water in the coolers at water break, expletives filling the air from Coach Bailey and Coach Kay, the deep grunts of linemen pushing forward, the cracks of helmets and shoulder pads, and shrill ring of whistles stopping and starting the endless drills. Suddenly, I remember, at least in ninth grade, most of my memories of playing are of me standing on the sidelines, watching and learning, studying the movements, the plays, joking with other freshmen, chewing on my mouthpiece anxious for a chance, wondering when or if my chance would come. And, I suppose if I were to be completely honest, all this was to mask the paralyzing fear in my heart of what would really happen as I imagined myself lining up across from "Max". You see, my freshman year was the first year I'd ever really played football.

I was big and that was about it. I had no experience to speak of and I can remember that I wore gel in my hair to school those days. The gel, I would quickly realize, burned my eyes like fire when mixed with sweat. I remember having to be taught what a three-point stance meant. As I learned the terminology, I learned to pair those terms with what I'd seen on television and to make my body do what I saw the men do on the screen. I remember how easy it had been to sit in front of that television and criticize these gigantic men of the sport when they would fumble the ball, drop a pass, miss a block, jump offsides, miss a 15-yard field goal, or forget to run out of bounds with 5 seconds left and down by 6. I remember throwing my pillow at the screen in disgust when Chris Chandler would throw one of his many interceptions. But, just the same, I remember standing on the practice fields that year and idolizing guys like Scotty Pless, Alonzo McPherson, Brandon Smith, Donny Lathery, and Brain Maxwell. I remember wishing and praying that I could, one day, be as strong as them, as fast as them, as popular as them. They wore their pads differently, they carried themselves differently. There was a certain air about them. They were like men who'd been in battle so long they no longer cared to wash off the blood. They no longer noticed flesh wounds. They never showed weakness, except for those final Friday nights when we would, inevitably, lose in the first round of the playoffs. Close on the tails of this admiration was my own youthful pride. I would go from admiring their strength and toughness, to bragging to other freshmen that I could hit harder, run faster, and jump higher than the seniors. We'd stand, in our starched white practice uniforms untouched by grass, dirt, and especially blood, and criticize and brag quietly, just out of earshot of those giants that were on the field.

I dare say, we all still do this today. We sit in front of our high-def flat screens and criticize coaches, yell at players, make character judgments based on a botched 4th and 1 play, and jab at players that show up to training camp overweight, all the while munching on pizza and downing "cold ones." You see, its easy to stand on the sidelines in our freshman years of life having never really touched that soggy, torn-up field of play or sit in our armchairs and criticize the men out their doing it from our air-conditioned living rooms. Our ignorance of what its like to be in the game allows us the audacity to think that we could do it better; that somehow we hold a secret that no one else has ever held before in the history of the game. But, as I quickly and abruptly learned that hot, humid Georgia afternoon, seeing and doing are two very different things. The grunts and sounds of clashing armor take on a very visceral tone when you find yourself "in the trenches". The "weak" tackles don't feel so weak anymore. The slightest collision makes your ears ring louder than the whistles. The game moves faster than you ever could have imagined. The shoulder pads that were so comfortably unhooked while you stood on the sidelines suddenly constricted your breathing as you toed the line of scrimmage. Standing on the sidelines ultimately affords us the privilege of pretending that we could do it better. Removed from the pain, the emotion of the fight, the fears and triumphs that come along with it all affords us the privilege of criticizing others when they come up short. It also, unfortunately, allows us to continue in our romantic views of the game, with their virtue, the popularity it could furnish, and the gain it offers.

Remembering that smell of freshly-cut grass took me to all these places I've just mentioned; all the while standing in the middle of the disaster of Haiti and mission field of Costa Rica. I've realized that I no longer hold dearly the notions of what I thought a missionary was or should be. Nothing fits quite as neatly into boxes like it used to. Seeing and experiencing the suffering and pain first hand has ruined my rosy images of serving the Lord. "Sharing the love of the Christ" no longer has its clean edges. Loving the widow and the orphan isn't so Bounty-fresh anymore. The sounds of grunts and cracks coming from the field aren't just a backdrop to celebrity anymore; they are very real cries for help. The Bible stories I wish I'd paid more attention to in Sunday School are no longer felt-board cutouts but, rather reels of film meant to teach me something about my opponent. Holding up four fingers at the beginning of the fourth quarter is no longer something cool to do (knowing all along that I had no chance of touching the field in such a tight game), but rather a rallying battle cry of perseverance. To put it simply, the novelty of "serving the Lord", in the face of the suffering we've seen, has lost its romance, its luster, and with it its preconceived notions of "what its supposed to be like."

But, just as I would realize towards the end of my freshman year, the real game, with its struggles, trials, pain, blood, and bruises, would forever hold my devotion. What keeps Brett Favre coming back for more punishment from defensive ends is not unlike the fight we find ourselves in now. The hope of glory.

"Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me." (Colossians 1:24-29)

Seeing and feeling the reality that is serving the Lord will forever hold my heart. Serving Him has suddenly taken on a very grim reality, but a reality so beautiful and intriguing as to never really lose my attention. Pray for your teammates!

Load 'Em Up!

2010-06-03T12:47:00.002-04:00

Community Meeting

2010-05-31T18:20:00.003-04:00

A typical Haitian market (above).

We called a meeting with the local community leaders in the neighborhood where we plan to build these transitional shelters. The meeting was called to discuss the criteria that we were using to select the beneficiary families that would receive shelters. We wanted to make sure that everyone in the community was well aware of the reasons why some families were receiving shelters and others were not. Obviously, we cannot provide shelters for every needy family in Haiti. So, we must try and provide shelters to those families that are most vulnerable.

Pulling up to the destroyed hillside church where we planned to meet, I quickly understood another small part of the plight of these people. Things look quite different standing among them than they do viewed from the car. I was terrified to even stand near the battered and crushed church building. Columns were completely sheared off and the walls of the church had long since fallen. Chickens hunted and pecked the ground in search of anything edible. Old road signs lay on the ground claiming that "siLoE", the neighborhood in which we stood, lie somewhere in the sky, beyond the dark gray rain clouds ominously rolling overhead. Amongst a small group of women with their heads bowed praying, chairs of a dozen shades of rust, bent, some missing backs, others missing legs sat scattered about. Below us, in the valley to the west. lay Port au Prince, shrouded in dust, terrible, suffocating dust. That terrible dust seemed so thick as to block out the noise and commotion surely happening among the crowded streets and back-alley markets. One by one, community leaders and representatives began to file in, each wearing what was presumably the nicest clothes they could muster. In Haiti, what a man wears does as much to define him as his name. Most men entered and took a seat, heads held high, dress slacks covered in dirt and dust, dress shoes missing heels and holes over their toes, and white dress shirts soaked in the sweat it took to get them to the meeting.

I found my mind wandering as the meeting began. Sitting before them, surveying the sea of shiny, black faces, I quickly realized that I was the only foreigner there. A rush of self-awareness slowly made its way up my wet back to my neck and my ears began to burn. I scanned the room to get a feel for the overall attitude; one man smiled pridefully, another's eyes portrayed fear, and yet another's sweaty brow advertised anger and frustration. The heat under this church was stifling. Or was it the tension?

We began the meeting with introductions: our names, where we were from, what we were responsibly for, and one negative thing and one positive thing about ourselves. I was shocked at the relative realness with which Haitians seemed to conduct themselves and their business. After all, to introduce your faults and successes to a strange group of people only happens at cheesy corporate retreats or church camps in the States. So, I stood and introduced myself and why in the world this "blanc" had come to Haiti to help and shared with them that my biggest fault was that I tend to see the bad in people first. To break the ice a bit, I then explained that my most positive trait was that I had a wife that makes me see the best in people. That, thankfully, drew a few laughs from the group. The meeting trudged along as the shiny black faces turned to each other with excited looks, then disappointed looks, then confused looks again. Every major point that was discussed was relayed to me via translator and I slowly began to understood the reason for the looks being exchanged at each crossroads. Long stints of babbling in Creole were broken periodically by violent, forceful, monologues bellowed from the strained throats of impassioned community representatives describing the plight of their respective peoples and beseeching us to meet needs here and there. Finally, one quiet old lady stood with hands clasped, curtsied, and began to speak in a still, small voice. She began to thank us for what we were doing and apologize that the meeting was getting so far off track. Her petite, frail words were buried in an instant by thunderous naysayers trumpeting their causes. Shriveling under the heat of these bursts of anger, she dropped her head to sit again; pausing for a second as our eyes caught. With an understanding and appreciative smile, in an instant she and I connected.

Closing the meeting, we asked one of the pastors present to pray for our efforts. And, as if on cue, the rain began; a weary sigh growing into rapid taps of thunder on the plastic roof overhead. Under the blankets of water falling from the sky, the pastor's words faded away until all that could be heard was an occasional deep guttural Creole syllable. I've always known that the devil was alive and well in Haiti. The way the rain stopped abruptly at the end of this man's prayer only solidified my suspicions. There are forces here that do not want us to succeed. There are things that happen here that are beyond rain.

We stood around for a while afterwards as we all individually discussed the topics that were brought up during the meeting. As it turns out, in Haiti, this is when you really get to know what's on a person's mind, what's on their heart, and how they really feel about certain issues. They'll share things with you during these times they would not dare share within the group. In many ways, I was told, this is why the meeting exists; for these times afterwards when the real "business" gets handled. Over fruit punch and croissants, we came to understand just how complicated helping people in Haiti can be.

The roads through Siloe, by the time we pulled out of the muddy embankment where we docked the car, were raging torrents of rainwater, sludgy sewage, and a thousand plastic bags. The rainwater had risen in some places to the bottom of the doors of the car. In many places you could not see where the road ended and the storm sewers began. I learned something funny this day. Passing countless goats huddled under palm branches, old rusted-out cars, and overturned wheelbarrows, I realized: Goats don't like to get wet. My chuckles were cut short by what I noticed behind the goats. It seemed that every child in the streets was making the most of this opportunity; to take a shower. Under every gutter and every ledge where rain was rolling off, a child stood naked with a bar of soap, white suds rolling off their bare, black bottoms.

We rode back to the office, trudging through mud and water I could not believe. The rain, it seemed, was washing away the filth of Port au Prince. At least for today.

Video Update 5.23.2010

2010-05-23T14:01:00.003-04:00

Click here for more photos of the current situation!

The Tent Cities of Haiti

2010-05-23T11:42:00.000-04:00

The Tent Cities of Haiti

Gettin' Gas

2010-05-21T19:42:00.002-04:00

Pictures from the Week

2010-05-15T12:20:00.009-04:00

This little boy was sleeping on the walking path next to the tent in Hatte Perat. He was so incredibly cute, but was definitely baking in the sun so we woke him up and moved him to the shade.

These boys were flexing their muscles for me

We saw this man walking up the mountain

This little guy was having a rough hair day, but was so cute

This little girl's name is Jessica

Houses along the side of the road

Hatte Perat

2010-05-15T12:01:00.002-04:00

All this week, I have had the pleasure of accompanying a team up into the mountains south of where we are staying in Petionville to gather information and take pictures of the children for child sponsorship packets. Number one, I have to tell you that the road is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It steep and rocky with big crevaces...bumpy doesn't even begin to describe it. We went Tuesday to an area a little ways up the mountain road, then Wednesday, we went further up to an area called Aux Cadet. Well, yesterday took the cake. We hear of a new community where there has been minimal work done, so we decide to visit to see if FH can help out. We go past Aux Cadet by another hour. As we go, the road turns into a two-person walking path. Yes, we are trying to get a 4-runner down a two-person walking path with bushes and cacti on either side. Multiple times, the passengers had to get out and walk in front of the car, moving rocks to the side to allow it to pass through. The whole way there, the pastor of the church there, who we had picked up on the road when we first entered the Aux Cadet area, is telling us about his community, called Hatte Perat. They are a community of about 3000 people. There is one school and one church, but the closest water source is a 2-hour walk. The closest clinic is about 2 hours driving. I cannot imagine how long it would take to walk it, especially if you are sick. There is no good road to get in/out of the community, so it is very difficult for the members to get their produce to market to sell. The ones that do, walk all the way down the mountain to Petionville (where we live-a 2.5 hour drive) to sell their produce once a week. This place was seriously out in the boonies. But I wish you could've experienced the heart this pastor had for his community. He was young, maybe early 30s, and he had such a great vision for what his community could be and things that FH could do to help the community grow and prosper. We arrive there and there are more than 200 people standing inside this tent so intently looking at us and excited that we're there, but wondering what we are doing there also. The pastor had told them we were coming to take their picture, so we had the awesome opportunity to tell them what FH will be doing to help their community. You could just see everyone's eyes light up. They could help them get a better road? maybe a well? It was such a neat thing to experience. We took a ton of pictures of the kids, and the FH staff that speaks Creole talked with each child, and found out all about them, what their life is like and what they want to be when they grow up. I'm not even sure they know what they SHOULD want to be. They're so removed from the city that I'm not even sure they know what's out there past the farm labor that their parents do. Hopefully FH can bring hope to their community and help them grow. Then, on the way down the mountain, our brakes overheated and we slid about 10 yards down this rocky/gravely hill. Praise the Lord everyone was safe. We cooled them off with water, and sat for a while and they seemed to work again. I"m just glad we made it down the mountain safely! I will post some pictures I've taken in the past week so you can get an idea of what we've seen here.

The sights and sounds

2010-05-07T15:30:00.003-04:00

I can't believe we've been here a week. In some ways, it's been much longer, in other ways, it has absolutely flown by. As I sit here, there is a very distinct stinch that hits my nose. Josh says it's burning trash, but it has the smell of diesel fuel and some other things I've never smelt before. There is a buildup of sweat on my forehead as there has been every day from the moment I leave for the office until I get into the bed at night. The air is humid and heavy and has a hazy whiteness from the dryness and dust that vehicles kick up. I pictured Haiti being very flat, but the Port au Prince area is actually very hilly, almost mountainous. We've been getting used to the flow of the Food for the Hungry office and what our life will be like here for the next 2-3 months. I think our day-to-day routine will most likely change fairly often. At some point, I (alli) will be volunteering as a physical therapist at a local hospital. I am still waiting for confirmation from the person in charge of aid coming to that specific hospital. Josh dove head-first into his work in the office. He seems to be having to somewhat start from scratch in the planning and mobilization of his team, the "shelter" team. After spending several months collecting information about families that need transitional shelters before we got here, Josh is having to go back and do training in the basics and revisit some of these same sites to gather more information. Being out in the community has been a surreal experience for me, and I am not quite sure what I do or should feel about it. There are cars and people everywhere, even worse than Costa Rica (and I didn't think that was possible). There are collapsed buildings everywhere. Even where the buildings are still standing, there are taller-than-me piles of rubble on the sidewalk where they're trying to remove rubble from some other building that's down. I just can't imagine what must be going through the minds of the people walking around. I've heard that there is a sense of hope, and I truly do hope this is true. Yesterday, we drove past what used to be a 5-story, huge market place, and it was almost completely flattenned. The earthquake occurred at 5 o'clock, and I'm sure there were hundreds and hundreds of people there, buying food from produce vendors. I just can't, or maybe don't want to, imagine what a child thinks on their walk to school everyday when they walk past this building and their mom had been shopping. They walk past every day and think to themselves, my mom's is in that rubble somewhere. It's such a sad thing to contemplate. The only thing I can pray is that the Lord continues to give hope to the Haitian people. Please continue to pray!

hope.

2010-05-05T18:04:00.002-04:00

Our Cows

2010-04-07T12:26:00.003-04:00

Since I had mentioned "our cows" in a previous blog, I thought I would post some pictures for your enjoyment. They're not actually our cows, they belong to a farmer who is a neighbor of ours. They do, however, stay in a field that is right next to our house, so they greet us every morning and are part of our entertainment as we eat breakfast.

This is a picture from our front porch and the brown cow in the background started a trend of sticking his head through the fence to try to eat the sugar cane plants that are on the other side. It was funny to watch six cows sticking their heads through barbed wire fence, stretching their tongues as far as they'd go to grab a leaf of sugar cane plant.

Un Dia para Conocernos Mejor

2010-03-30T17:43:00.001-04:00

The past week has just been a whirlwind of activity. Praise the Lord, Josh returned safely from his 2-week disaster response trip to Chile. The 3-man team was able to perform structural assessments on close to 50 buildings, including churches, houses and even a jail. Josh was surprised and excited to see the desire of the Chilean government to work with EMI, as well as the government's response to the devastation of the earthquake. There seemed to be a desire to help their fellow Chileans, a stark contrast to what he experienced in Haiti: an "everyone-for-themselves" attitude. Overall, the team accomplished alot and was able to make a difference in the lives of the townspeople and pastors of the villages they visited. He will be posting pictures soon. So stay tuned!! We had a fun and interesting weekend of activity with our church here in Costa Rica. It was called "Un Dia para Conocernos Mejor" which means "a day to get to know ourselves better". We would call it "dinner on the grounds". This was like no homecoming or dinner on the grounds I've ever seen, though. The day started with worship, then in place of a sermon, there was a singing competition. Yes, a singing competition which was followed up by a "Reina Infantil" competition which is pretty much a child beauty pageant where the winner is named randomly. They had lunch catered which was delicious. We had a choice of tamales, rice and chicken, picadillo or a slice of pizza. Picadillo just means diced foods. It can be made any number of ways, but this one had diced potatoes, some kind of pork, garlic and other things that were indistinguishable, but very yummy! Josh and I both opted for the picadillo with soft corn tortillas. They also served granizados, which is kind of like a snowcone on steroids. It's sooo yummy and they top it off with a little sweetened condensed milk. It's a very typical treat for ticos. Often, there are guys pulling carts around town with granizado makings, like a portable ice cream shop. During the lunch portion of the day, they also had a sort of mechanical bull rigged up to the side for the kids to play on. They strapped 4 ropes to 4 corners of a big metal barrel and strung it off the ground with a hand-made bull's face on it. Anyone who dared could straddle the barrel as guys manned each of the 4 ropes and tugged and pulled as hard as they could to get you to fall off. With my clumsy nature, I thought it best not to attempt this attraction. After lunch, they had a bible trivia competition on the book of Romans. Overall, it was a really...interesting experience, but we had so much fun getting to know people in the church and enjoying some typical Tico (slang for Costa Rican) food. So, the event fulfilled its purpose of allowing the church to "get to know itself better"

Hogar de Vida

2010-03-22T23:19:00.005-04:00

When the Lord called us to work with EMI in Latin America, we were sure of His call, but unsure of what doors He would open for me to minister. As a physical therapist, working in an office of engineers is a little outside of the norm for me. I had been praying that the Lord would direct me to a place of ministry here in Atenas. When we moved to Atenas in January 2010, I approached the directors of an orphanage called Hogar de Vida about volunteering. Hogar de Vida is a children's home run by Children of Promise ministries and works, in partnership with the Costa Rican government, to care for children who both are orphans or need to be removed from their home due to neglect or abuse. Most of the children that come into the orphanage are delayed somehow, whether in language, physically or socially. They were in need of someone to evaluate the children for developmental milestones and do follow-up treatments with those falling behind in various areas. Over the past month, I've had the chance to play with and get to know the cutest kids with the biggest smiles. To have one of them run up to me and want me to hold them as I'm walking into the house still makes me smile. I'm in the process right now of slowly going through each of 3 houses, with a total of 35 kids, performing evaluations that take about 2 hours per child. Even in this, the Lord is teaching me patience and I'm learning more about latin culture. Growing up in the U.S. culture, we are used to having a focus of productivity and efficiency. It's engrained deep in our thoughts and perspective of the world around us. So, to show up one afternoon, ready to jump into evaluations, and the kids have other activities planned, or the majority of the kids are sick with a virus or it takes almost an hour to round up the child and get them ready for the evaluation has been a challenge. The Lord has been showing me that my biggest call is to love on the children and show them HIS love. The evaluations that are completed are just on top of that. I look forward to so many more days of loving on these kids. Here are some pictures of some of the kids!

This is one of the little ones that have stolen my heart!

A Call to Fasting & Prayer - Haiti

2010-03-16T21:12:00.002-04:00

On February 12, 2010, President Préval of Haiti called his nation to 3 days of fasting and prayer in place of the regular Mardi Gras celebration. Several of the Nations Christian Leaders had 5 days to set up and arrange this event, Pastor Rene Joseph of Loving Hands Ministry was one of the head leaders and over 1 million Haitians attended this epic event.

(IF THE VIDEO DOESN'T SHOW, CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO GO TO THE WEBSITE TO VIEW THE VIDEO)

A Call to Fasting & Prayer

February

2010-03-09T12:22:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe how fast the past two months have passed. It seems like we have been doing so much. The house continues to feel more and more like home. Josh returned from Haiti on January 31st. Although it took a few days to get rested and have a normal level of energy, we praise the Lord for his protection of Josh's mind and heart during his time there. Since their return, there have been 5 more teams go to Haiti to continue EMI's response to the devastating earthquake, and there will be many more to come. Josh and the team were not only able to assist in designing Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps, but also train locals to perform simple structural assessments. Micah, a structural engineer who was also on the team to Haiti, and Josh worked hard in the weeks after their return to design a tool to be used for many years into the future to teach locals how to perform these assessments. Therefore, giving them power to help themselves and their community return to their homes whenever possible. Josh was actually interviewed for an article in World Magazine about the work he they had done. He also wrote an article on the IDP camp design for a quarterly newsletter that the Association of Christian Design Professionals distributes to its members. Needless to say, there has been alot of work for Josh to accomplish including the 4-5 projects that he is now project managing throughout Central America. It has been a very exciting time for us as we feel purpose in what we are doing each day and having opportunities to serve the Lord with our lives on a daily basis. We ask that you pray for us, especially over the next few weeks, as Josh is leaving this Thursday for two weeks in Chile. He is part of a disaster response team that will be working in the areas between Santiago and Concepcion, Chile performing structural assessments and setting up water filtration systems, partnering with several different ministries including Samaritan's Purse, Christian and Missionary Alliance and Campus Crusade. Pray that the Lord will give him strength, endurance and wisdom to know how best to use the skills of the team for His glory as well as for Allison while he is away.

More photos....

2010-02-17T14:24:00.000-05:00

I found a few more photos....

Haiti Disaster Response Photo Journey

2010-02-16T16:57:00.003-05:00

Well hello!! I'm finally back and able to breath a little....so, I thought I'd share with you some of the photos from my time in Haiti. I figured the best way to share my experiences with you is to simply show you images of what I saw...at least for now. Later, I hope to write about some of the difficult emotions and spiritual challenges that were laid before me during my time there as well. For now, enjoy......

EMI in the News

2010-01-27T22:53:00.001-05:00

EMI's disaster response work in Haiti was highlighted by a news channel in Colorado Springs. Colorado is the location for EMI's international headquarters. I am posting the link below. Check it out:

http://www.krdo.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=4482198&flvUri=&partnerclipid=&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Engineers%20Help%20With%20Water%20Crisis%20In%20Haiti&d1=88467&redirUrl=&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=68742154

Please continue to keep Josh in your prayers as his days are very long and tiring. I've been praying that their work would be fruitful and that the Lord would continue to be his physical and emotional strength as each day goes by.

Update from Josh

2010-01-26T09:52:00.002-05:00

Josh is still in Haiti and will be there until January 31st. He will then fly in the 1st from Ft. Lauderdale to Costa Rica. He sent this update.

"The last few days were spent master planning and designing a site layout for the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. Most people think of these as refugee camps and they all get a bad rap. However, if you could see the current living conditions of those that have lost their homes to the earthquake or are too afraid to reenter their cracked and damaged homes, you'd understand that a well planned out and engineered campsite with sanitary latrines, safe sources of drinking water, irrigation and drainage for rainwater runoff, and safe spacing of living areas so as to prevent as much disease transmition as possible is an extreme upgrade. Yes, these IDP camps tend to become long-term slums, but the immediate need is to save lives and improve the lives of those living in the streets and the deplorable conditions of spontaneous and sprawling tent cities. Working in conjunction with the UN, World Food Programme, International Organization of Migration, and other NGOs, we've been able to identify 9 sites and have completed site planning of 2 of those sites. They began digging latrines on the first site yesterday and will begin placing tents there today. Once we complete these designs, we'll begin hosting training seminars with local Haitians to teach them how to identify and understand, in general terms, which structures are safe to enter and which are not. Then, we will be teaching them the proper techniques of controlled demolition of the damaged structures so that they can begin to take down unsafe structures and begin reusing the concrete and rebar they can scavage from these sites to begin rebuilding their homes. This is one of the only long-term solutions to the Haitians' problem of shelter. We must prepare these people for the psychological tolls that will begin to take hold as they move from this 2 week point forward. There's been a social psychologist here with Food For the Hungry who is very experienced in working with victims of disasters like these and in speaking with him, he outlined the typical process that the Haitian people have/will go through. I've outlined the process below:

1. Heroic Phase - Time of Impact to 1 Week Post-Impact
- Perform heroic acts to save lives and property
- A sense of sharing with others
- Sense of "family" - immediate support of family members, agencies, governement disaster personnel, strong media support of the plight of victims and needs of the community, pain and losses may not be recognized

2. Honeymoon Phase - Immediately after impact to 2-3 months Post
- Development of a strong sense of a shared danger or experience
- May experience physical symptoms such as digestive problems, changes in appetite, difficulty sleeping, migraines
- Anger, suspicion, apathy, social withdrawal, heightened anxiety about the future
- Shelters become source of support
- Involvement with cleaning out debris, sorting things out, anticipating the help they will recieve to restore their lives
- "Super Volunteers" (haitians) who are not ready to deal with their own losses, work from dawn till dark helping friends and neighbors get back on their feet
- Unrealistic expectations towards help from governmental agencies

3. Disillusionment Phase - 1 Month to 1-2 Yrs
- Diminishing of media attention, feel that they are objects of the media, isolated and let down by the media who has moved on to other news
- Questions as to whether or not the disaster could have been avoided
- Survivor's Guilt - feeling guilty for being spared or not having as much damaged as others
- Relationships begin to be neglected, estrangement of family members begins
- Domestic violence begins or is aggravated
- Children are emotionally at risk as they react to signs of stress in parents
- Survivors may have to move from their old neighborhood and lose their social support
- Overwhelming amount of paperwork
- Long lines for assistance
- Anger and frustration increase rapidly
- Victims begin to file law sites
- Depression, moodiness, and crying increase
- Physical health begins to suffer
- Relief efforts by government agencies decrease
- Increase in use of alcohol
- No financial security
- Job losses

4. Reconstruction Phase (happening even now)
- Survivors come to realize that the rebuilding of their homes and businesses and community is primarily their responsibility
- May take several years or the rest of their lives depending on amount of damage
- If rebuilding is delayed, recovery is delayed

Hope that wasn't too lengthy. I just thought it would be good for people to understand that just because help has arrived, these survivors are only just beginning to work through the hard part."

Please continue to pray for him and the team!

While the Cat's Away....

2010-01-22T10:42:00.002-05:00

As most of you know, Josh left Monday for Ft. Lauderdale, then Haiti. I've been able to receive two updates by email from him which has been such a huge blessing and comfort. From his descriptions, things are very chaotic there, devastating and sad. He described it as death being everywhere and the stinch being sometimes overwhelming. One of the other team members, Micah, who is from the Latin American office (our office in Costa Rica) is a structural engineer and was able to do structural assessments yesterday. He was able to do an assessment of a huge hospital that was completely empty because people were afraid to re-enter due to cracks in the walls. The structure was completely safe as the cracks were in non-structural walls and now there is a huge hospital that can be used to save lives. Micah gave the director of the hospital an offical placard and spray painted in creole on the front of the building that it was safe to use. One thing that has overwhelmed me since they left and hearing of their experiences is how important EMI's work is. Hospitals and clinics have been just sitting...unused because people were afraid to use them and the U.N. wouldn't allow their medical relief workers to use the buildings until they were cleared for safe occupancy. The water purification systems they're putting in are so needed also. Josh described tent communities that have been formed all over Port au Prince. He said they would be driving down the road and would see sheets hanging out by the street with words painted on them simply saying "We need help. We need water. We need food." It just breaks my heart for the people of Haiti and the devastation they're enduring right now. Josh's team has 100 water purification systems to put in, and he is hoping to be able to set up some in these tent communities.

On the home front, it has been a week of big and exciting change. Some of our team members helped paint the inside of our house and some of the furniture was delivered. It's actually starting to look like a home. My hope is that Josh will come back to a place he feels like he can relax, debrief and process all that he has experienced....not one where there are still a million things he needs to get done. Obviously, there will be things to do, but I want it to be a place of refuge for him, not a distraction from processing through things.

I've had several fun and interesting experiences at the house. I've discovered that in the lots next to our house, there are mixed use fields. In the past 4 days, they've held cows, turkeys (which are pretty rare in Costa Rica), horses, sugar cane and there have been several iguana sightings also. I never know what I'll wake up to in the fied outside our window. Also, there seems to be a large gecko residing in our house that seems to scare the begeezes out of me every night. Somehow, it always makes it into our bedroom when I'm coming in at night. By reading online, I've found out that they eat their weight in insects each week so I don't want to get rid of it, I just wanted it not to scurry along the wall. It surprises me every time:)

Hello there...

2010-01-17T12:08:00.002-05:00

Hey guys! Allison and I just wanted to let you know that we are here in Costa Rica safely now that we've returned from Christmas with family! We know its been 2 months since we posted a blog. It seems that the last month or so of language school was incredibly busy and preparing to come back to Georgia for a visit with family during Christmas took more time and effort than we thought. We returned to Costa Rica on January 5th and have since been shopping for appliances that we can afford and furniture that is worth sitting on! Our home that we're renting doesn't come with any furniture or appliances! So, with money that was donated by people like you, we are able to boil a pot of water and keep our sweet tea cold in the frig! THANK YOU!!! :) On a slightly more serious note, I found out yesterday that I will be on a 5 man team going into Haiti to do structural assessments and installations of water purification systems and waste-water assessments of Haiti's current water system conditions. We will be leaving Costa Rica tomorrow and flying to Miami where we will catch a chartered flight to Port Au Prince around noon on Tuesday. We do not know how long we will be there or how easy returning to Costa Rica will be. As with most things in disaster response, everything is very fluid and "make-it-up-as-you-go". I've posted our prayer requests below:

1. Pray for me. I will be encountering things I've never imagined and the psychological, spiritual, and emotional toll it takes could be difficult.
2. Pray for our team, that we would be effective and that the Lord would bless our efforts to help the people of Haiti and that we would be a light in a very dark, grim situation.
3. Please pray for Allison. This will be the first time that she will be without me in Costa Rica. Pray that the other missionary wives would support her and that she would find peace and rest while I'm gone.
4. Please pray for the people of Haiti. I think we all understand that what is, and has been, going on in Haiti for the past one hundred years has more to do with spiritual poverty than emotional, physical, or economical poverty. Please pray that the Lord would use this as an opportunity to beckon Haitian hearts to himself.

Allison plans on blogging more in the next week or so. So, stay tuned for her blogs while I'm gone! Again, thank you so much for all that you do for us in allowing us to be here and in your prayer support for us. We love you all very much.

For our King,

Josh & Alli

A weekend in the life.....

2009-11-02T10:20:00.003-05:00

I had the thought last night that it was the most amazingly weird thing that we live in a different country....that we live in COSTA RICA! And Josh responded, "You´re just now realizing this?" with a chuckle. It´s not that I´m just now realizing, but each time it comes to mind, it is still a funny thought. The Lord has brought us so far, yet we have so much farther to go until we feel a part of this culture. I had a friend email me this past week and comment that it must be so exciting living here. And, yes, it´s an adventure every day and amazingly full of beauty, but at the same time, it sometimes feels like just every day life. So, I thought I´d take you guys through a few typical days for us in an attempt to let you guys see and understand what our "normal life" looks like these days.

It´s the rainy season here right now, and October is the rainiest month of the rainy season. This means TORRENTIAL downpours for sustained periods of time!. It hasn´t been a typical rainy season this year as there has been less rain than normal, but the rain during October is not limited just to the afternoon. You could have rain in the morning and during the middle of the night (as happenned last night). So, Saturdays start out making the grocery store rounds before the rain sets in. It´s interesting here because there are few stores that have a vast array of everything. There´s a grocery store called Palí that is the cheapest, but I can find only about 1/4 of the items on my list. So, we make the rounds to 3 different grocery stores trying to find all the items without paying an arm and a leg or without getting run over by other drivers. As I do love to grocery shop, this is just fine by me. As a side note, it´s been interesting adjusting to having one car because Josh now gets to accompany me to the grocery store the majority of weekends:) Every other week, I have the chance to go to El Comedor, a soup kitchen for kids that Josh blogged about last time. One thing I love about Saturdays is that, with school during the week, it's our main day of service out in the community. In alot of ways, it is refreshing and the Lord always teaches us things through it. The football team Josh is coaching has practice every Saturday from 12:30 to 4, which sometimes turns into 5 or even 530. It´s been so amazing to see how God has worked through Josh´s witness and testimony with the team. We can truly see the Lord´s hand at work and he continues to build stronger relationships with the guys on the team. After he gets back, we try to have a date night which sometimes involves watching movies on our laptop (we don´t have a television at our apartment), making a nice dinner, or even going out to the movies. Even the nicest movie theaters here in the city cost about 4 dollars to see a movie, which is a nice reprieve from the arm and and a leg at theaters in the states. If we don´t go on a date, we´ll have a game night with friends. Cities and Knights is our favorite game to play (Thanks Sibleys for the introduction).

Sunday mornings, I wake up about 630 which is actually one of the later wake up times in our week. This is the morning to go the market. During the weekend, there are large farmer´s markets throughout the city. Farmers from all over the country bring their produce into the city to sell, as well as replenish supplies for the families in their villages and towns. I love market days. We´ve learned that it´s uncouth to bargain with the farmers, so I walk up and down the rows and rows of fresh vegetables and fruits trying to find the freshest vegetables for the best prices. I´ve found that bananas and lettuce require the most looking to avoid bruising or speckling of the lettuce leaves. A normal market day includes purchasing fruit for every morning of the week...usually bananas, strawberries (which are in season right now and really inexpensive), pineapple and sometimes watermelon. We usually get lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and potatoes every week, too. All this comes about to around 2000-2500 colones which is about $4.50. We come back to the house and have breakfast. We´ve made a tradition of eating breakfast together each morning and we have our specialties. Josh is the expert fried egg maker and pancake maker. And I make the cinnamon vanilla oatmeal and anything else that we make. So, we´ll have something like that along with fruit. Once we´re done, the dishes have to get done (it´s just become routine that the dishes are washed after EACH meal due to the vast amount of intelligent ants and small sinks that we have in Costa Rica). Then we head off to church which has become an actual time of worship again. When we first arrived in Costa Rica, church was more of an act we went through because I was only picking up about 30% of the Spanish, but now we can actually worship and focus spiritually. It feels almost normal...lol. Then, Sunday afternoons are spent spending time with friends and doing homework in preparation for Monday. The Lord´s blessed us with a community of believers and friends that sharpen us daily.

This is a pretty long post, but we wanted to give you guys a peak into what has become "normal life" for us. This may sound exciting or adventurous, but it just goes to show God´s faithfulness that it has become more like normal life for us.

Home

2009-10-19T22:14:00.004-04:00

I was once told, “Your home is here.” And, in a way, they were right. Yet, in a way, they were wrong. My home, as they thought it, was a place: a small town, pretty street-lamp decorations at Christmas time, small country stores, where everybody knows my name, Wal-Mart, Friday night lights, the smell of freshly mowed grass, peach cobbler, Waffle House, sweet tea, the sound of wooden bats, a Border burrito, red clay, dirt roads, honeysuckle, and red, orange, and yellow leaves. What I’ve come to learn, through following Christ to this place, is that “home” is not a place at all, a grouping of things, experiences, or even memories. Home is the place where we find love: love for ourselves, love for others, and love from others. Did I find those things in a small town in Georgia? Certainly! Yet, for now, God has blessed us with that love here, in San Francisco de Dos Rios, Costa Rica. We’ve come to realize in the last few days that God, seemingly behind the scenes, has been slowly building the four walls of home around us. He’s been steady at work growing those warm arms of love and acceptance from thin air to homely embrace. We find ourselves in this current state, oddly at home; in a culture not like our own, speaking a language not like our own, loving those not like our own, and being loved by those not our own. This strange land has magically become our home.

Allison and I have recently found “home” with a few unlikely people. We’ve slowly begun to use my influence with the football team to introduce the love of Christ to the young Costa Ricans. Recently, we were able to show “Facing the Giants” in Spanish to our players after a team meeting. There were 41 young men there that night and the reception was stunning. Even more stunning was the fact that one of the players’ mothers is my grammar teacher at the language school. Today, we had our mid-term evaluations and during my interview with her, she, with teary eyes, commenced to explain her son’s history and how thankful she was that God had called people like me to their corner of the world to share with them the Christ that so radically changed us. She could not stop thanking God for providing a mouth to speak to her son in ways that she never could. In an instant, in that small concrete classroom, I found home.

Allison had the opportunity to help with a ministry to a poor neighborhood called Los Guizaros. A local Costa Rican woman, in a call to meet a need in the neighborhood, opened “El Comedor” (The Dining Room), to help feed the dozens of hungry children in this small, dirty, barrio. The ministry has quickly grown from a feeding center to a daily vacation bible school (given to the kids as they eat) to a day care facility; all of which happen in a small hut built of bamboo measuring only 25 feet by 25 feet! Allison has been able to help with whatever needs they have. Saturday, Allison visited El Comedor to hang out with the kids and help with the Bible lesson and food. Unexpectedly, she found home as well. In a small, bamboo shed, Allison found home in the dozens of kids to love, in the smiles filled with food, and smiles missing teeth. Below are some photos of that time.

Cultural Day

2009-10-13T11:10:00.002-04:00

We just celebrated Columbus Day here in Costa Rica. Because there are people from all over the world studying here at the Institute and people will be going to places throughout Central and South America to serve, we call it Cultural Day. The day itself celebrates when Christopher Columbus landed in Central America in 1492, thinking he had reached the coast of India. But, in reality, he had discovered a new continent. The Institute celebrated in grand fashion. Two teachers paired up to turn their classroom into a festival about a certain country in central or south america. There were people dressed in typical clothing from that country, they served typical food from that country and had lots of information concerning the country. It was fun and interesting to try food from the different places represented. A highlight of the day was a pinata for the kids. It was fun for the kids, but also highlighted the fact that there is no way this would happen back in the States. I am thoroughly surprised that a child didn't get wacked in the head with the bat. The pinata was pretty strong, so it took many hits to actually break. And, of course, mayhem ensued afterwards. An interesting twist of pinata games here in Costa Rica is that it's on a string and the person holding it is actually moving it up and down so that the child has to work harder to hit it. It was pretty amusing.

We also took advantage of the long weekend to spends some time with some other families at the beach. It was a very relaxing time and God used it to refesh us and give us a renewed energy for school and learning the language. We are glad to be back in San Jose now and back at school. We cannot believe that the semester is half over already and the Christmas break is quicky approaching. Please be in prayer that these last 8 weeks will be a great time of learning. We realize there will probably never be another time in our lives like this where our focus is on language learning only, so we pray for focus and discipline to finish strong. Thank you so much for your prayers! You are the support and prayer warrior for our family and we couldn't do this without you!

Poco a Poco

2009-09-23T10:29:00.004-04:00

This is a phrase that the mom of the Tico family we lived with would say to us very regularly. It means literally "little by little" and gives the meaning of taking each day at a time. This is something that God has been continually teaching us as we live here longer and longer. Not only do things such as language learning come little by little (although at times we´d like to just wake up one morning and be able to speak Spanish fluently), but also this rule applies to things in general in this culture. Life is meant, not to be rushed through, but to be lived each day....taking each day at a time. It´s been somewhat of a hard lesson to learn. We are so used to speeding from one activity to another and trying to fit as much into one day as we can. We´re learning that here, that´s just impossible.

This week Allison is having the opportunity to participate in a seminar called Peace-Makers. She has been praying about opportunities to be used by God once we get to Atenas, and looks at being able to be used in the area of member care as a possibility. Member care involves encouragement and development of interpersonal relationships among the Latin American team. She sees this as a useful preparation tool that God could use down the road. Although we have a great team in our office, we´ve heard that the number one reason missionaries leave the field is due to interpersonal conflicts.

A big praise is that we´ve been getting more rain this week. It has rained almost every afternoon this week. This is a huge praise because Costa Rica´s power comes mostly from hydroelectric sources. So, if there has not been alot of rain during the rainy season, come March or April, the power will have to be rationed. Due to the fact that we actually LIKE taking hot showers and being able to cook our food, we´re very glad that it seems to be getting back to a normal rainfall pattern for the "rainy season".

Please be in prayer for the teams that are going out this week and next week. There are two different project trips that are happenning this month, both to Haiti to work with various ministries. One is a children´s home that is needing to expand their facilities and are in desperate need of our expertise so they can serve the poor and abandoned children of their community. Pray for safety for the team and efficient and effective us of the time on site as this is a very crucial time of gathering information and building relationships with the ministry so we know better what they need and how we can serve them best.

Snapshots

2009-09-19T10:59:00.004-04:00

Well, we just finished our 3rd week of this semester of language school. Even though we are reviewing topics that we covered in the intensive course, it has been great to have more practice and have a deeper understanding of the language. We have found this course to be different for many reasons, but one is that we are absorbing more of the intricacies and able to use alot of the things that we might have covered last semester, but we're actually integrating it into our language skills this semester.

God has allowed us to also use some of our skills to serve him while we're in language school. Josh has been a part of the praise teams that lead worship at Chapel each week. He's playing the djembe (a big bongo drum) and guitar. It's been very refreshing to see how God has already been using us in ways that we might no have even thought to do before we came here. The Lord is so willing to use each person when we make ourselves available. We decided before we arrived in Costa Rica that we wanted to find ways to get involved in the local community so as to have a ministry to those around us, not just those in the countries where EMI has projects. The Lord has already provided that for Josh. An opportunity has come up to be a volunteer coach for a football team here in San Jose. There is a new league of "American football", which we have to distinguish here between soccer which is also called football (futbol). He is coaching the Jaguars, which funny enough, the son of one of our teachers plays for the Jaguars. It is a team of 18 to 24 year old Costa Ricans. Most of them have a huge passion for American football, but are not Christians. Josh's experiences in football gives him automatic respect with the players and opens doors to allow him to share the love of Christ.

We are also official Costa Rican residents...well, temporary ones, at least. We just received our "cedulas" (identification cards, a lot like our Social Security cards in the States) yesterday! We were accepted for two years, and then, after two years, we'll reapply for another couple years before we can apply for permanent residency. I can't say I exactly feel like a "Costa Rican", but I know that the Lord is slowly making this place our home.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers:
1. continued language learning
2. the wife of one of the guys in Josh's class just found out she has a tumor on her kidney, so pray for wisdom and healing.
3. continued peace during a time of transition
4. finding ways to meet and make relationships with locals

Back to School!

2009-09-03T18:18:00.005-04:00

Welcome back! Alli and I have been busy during the break between language school semesters! We apologize for being out of touch a little. As you know, we spent a week with Alli’s mother and younger sister. Alli’s older sister flew in towards the end of their stay and we were able to spend a week with her, relaxing and gearing up for school again. We’ve posted a few photos (taken by Christi, Alli’s older sister). After a week of orientation, we’ve begun our last trimester of school. Its already apparent that this trimester of language school will be very different from the “intensive” course we endured the last two months. The pace is much slower and it seems that we’ll be given time to actually commit things to memory!

A FAMILY PLAYING WITH THE THOUSANDS OF PIGEONS AT THE PARK

US AT THE OROSI VALLEY IN CARTAGO, COSTA RICA

During school, we have chapel services twice a week. Those have been a huge encouragement. They have a time of worship followed by a speaker. This trimester, the speakers will be fellow students (missionaries) who are sharing their testimonies and experiences. The emphasis of this trimester’s chapel services is God’s faithfulness. So, all the messages and testimonies will all, in some way, be geared towards or focused on God’s faithfulness in our lives and the lives of the missionaries we’re attending language school with. Today’s chapel service was given by a missionary couple from Bowling Green, Kentucky. They’re in their late 40’s, early 50’s, and will be working with orphans in Honduras. The husband's story was very encouraging and inspiring. He owned his own heating and air company in Kentucky. With no college or seminary education to speak of, he felt the Lord calling them to work with the orphans at an orphanage he and his wife had been volunteering with in the past. After several mission trips to this orphanage, they finally realized what God was asking them to do. They sold his business, she left her job as an accountant and came to language school to try and learn spanish! Their testimonies were very heartfelt and were an inspiration to all of us listening. It is always impressive to be surrounded by people who’ve felt God’s call on their lives in much the same way and to hear their responses. It, somehow, has the ability to impart courage and strength in a time preparation, frustration, and sleep-depravation! HA! Praise the Lord for His faithfulness, not only to us, but to others around us!

Now that we have a secure internet connection, we’ll be updating the blog more often. We continue to pray for all of you and hope to hear from you soon! Please write us whenever you can! We covet your prayers!

Robbed!!!

2009-08-22T08:20:00.000-04:00

Hola!! I know, I know. Its been an eternity since we’ve blogged!! We’ve been in transition lately; moving out of the host home and into our own apartment here in San Jose. I’m sitting here writing to you from our “pila room”, a small porch off the back of the apartment that contains the clotheslines and a pila: a small concrete sink used to wash everything from clothes to shoes to dogs. The sounds of the city in the distance are pretty typical of our mornings here: the sigh of cars passing by, the drone of them accelerating and the screeches of them braking, trucks honking, dogs barking, chickens crowing, sirens, car alarms, and the occasional gecko chirping. The sunrises are pretty here when its not concealed behind clouds off the mountains. If you can believe it, I’m actually a little chilly! We moved out of our host home officially last Sunday and into the apartment only about a 10 minute walk from the school! It was quite an emotional event leaving the host home. Our Tico mom cried crocodile tears and didn’t want to release her hugs as we made our way out the door; quite an attachment for only 2 months! In Hollywood movie fashion, she saw us off, waving to us all the way down the street until we rounded the corner, tears and all. We will forever be grateful for our time with Orlando, Flora, Josue, and Orlando Jr. We spent all day Sunday trying to unpack the boxes we’d checked onto the plane about 2 months prior. We hadn’t opened any of them yet, so it was as if Christmas had come early….only we knew what we were getting! It was kind of nice to be surprised by things we’d forgotten we’d packed! I never thought I’d be so excited to see a set of bedsheets or an ice cream scoop!

We went to the outdoor market on Sunday to stock the kitchen with food…something we hadn’t had to think about while we were living with the host family! It was quite an adventure! Sorry, we didn’t take any photos of that trip because we wanted to avoid, as much as possible, looking like gringos or Americans there for the first time! We thought snapping photos and “ooohing and aaaaahing” might get us the “gringo price”. The “gringo price” phenomenon is basically when, because you look like a gringo or an American, they jack the price up substantially…sometimes double! We spent the weekend comparison shopping for each item on our grocery list. At the end of the day, we had a spreadsheet complete with every item we thought we’d EVER need and every place that sold it and a price from each of those places. I think you can probably imagine whose idea the spreadsheet was! ;)

Our neighbors just moved in next door. They’re a couple from Las Vegas who are here to learn Spanish and will be missionaries in Honduras or Nicaragua. Below us, on the first floor, are two Costa Rican families. We’ve met them both and they seem like very sweet, kind-hearted people. Hopefully we can form relationships with them over time.

Alli’s mother and sister came to visit us on Monday and will be here through this coming Monday. Alli’s older sister will also be visiting us next week! It has been quite the blessing to have family come and help us move into our new home. This three week break between school semesters would have been quite long and lonely if it weren’t for them! While we were out visiting another town, our car was broken into and some things were stolen. Alli’s purse was stolen, which included her wallet. Her wallet had debit cards, a check book, her Costa Rican driver’s license, and few other things. However, the ladrones (lah.-drohn-ays), thieves in Spanish, were probably pretty disappointed when they looked through it and found no cash! Our small suitcase was also stolen which had a few more personal items in it. Alli’s mother and sister had a bag that was also taken. We were able to call and have all the cards cancelled and the banks are in the process of issuing us new ones. They hadn’t charged anything at the time we cancelled them. Our clothes we’d packed for the day were all taken, so we spent the next day in smelly, sweaty clothes until we could find somewhere to wash them. All in all, it was quite an interesting few days!! All this has served as a reminder that we are in enemy territory and that things will be done at all costs to rob us of our joy and hope. However, the Lord has used this experience to reinforce the fact that our joy and hope should not be placed in the things of this world. After all, they are just that….things. All the things of this world will pass away, but the word of the Lord stands forever!

James says:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

1 Peter says:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

Please pray for our break between semesters. Pray that we’d find rest and thought we’d be refreshed and have renewed energy to tackle the new lessons in September.
Pray that our new home would feel like just that…a home.
Pray for opportunities to minister where we are. Pray that the Lord would bring along opportunities to share his love with others, even if its missionaries in transition.
Pray for time with family as they are here.
Pray for EMI’s ministry.

Hopefully it won’t be so long till we write again!!

For our King,

Josh & Alli

A break....

2009-08-12T19:12:00.003-04:00

Hey guys! Alli and I have finally finished up our intensive course. Our last day was August 7th. We both made straight A's! We had a little graduation ceremony that Friday also! We feel as though our Spanish has tripled or quadrupled in the short 2 months that we've been studying. Our teachers were excellent! Oscar, my grammar teacher, really understood how to teach an english speaker how to arrange spanish grammar. There are so many more verb tenses in Spanish than there are in English and it sometimes seems like a calculus equation to put together the correct conjugations: conjugate it in the first-person singular form, take off the ending, add this ending, but only if its used in this form following this certain rule. WAY more complicated than I ever thought it could have been!!! But, we're looking forward to a few weeks of break so that our brains can hopefully recover and who knows, maybe we'll begin to remember how to speak English!! Believe it or not, studying spanish vocabulary and grammar so much has extremely negative effects on your ability to speak and write English well! We'll begin the new "regular" semester on August 31st. Pray for us!!

There've been a lot of developments in last few weeks since we've finished up the first semester of language school. We recently learned that our apartment here in San Jose will be ready for moving in a day or two earlier than we were originally told! So, we'll be moving out of the host home and into the apartment this coming Sunday! WOOHOO!!! We're so excited to have our own space where we can relax and feel "at home".

On the housing note, we also recently learned that there was a family, the Dormans, that was coming into Costa Rica in September, who've worked with EMI some in the past. They are coming to Atenas to lead and develop "Hogar de Vida", an orphanage. However, they will not have a place to live at the orphanage officially until January of 2010. So, we are going to be able to offer them our place to live temporarily for those 5 months or so until their place comes available! That's right! We've been blessed to have already found a place to live in Atenas once we finish up language school in December!! We actually had to put in a deposit today to hold it until the Dormans can get here in September. They'll pay rent on the place until January when we return from the States after the holidays. So, this helps us to know that we already have our perminent housing handled and we can relax and enjoy the holidays with family and not have to worry about where we're going to live when we return! What a blessing!!!

We spent this past weekend in Atenas with friends and the office staff. We were helping Micah & Beth build a "rancho" behind their apartment. A rancho in Costa Rica is a lot like what you and I would call a "pavilion". He'd cut down a few trees behind the apartment that had died and were in need of being removed. He then milled those trees into lumber to be used for the rancho. He plans on building a brick pizza oven underneath the rancho! We spent Saturday standing all the posts and Sunday preparing all the beams and rafters to be put into place. Alli and Beth scrubbed and cleaned a bunch of the used roof tiles Micah found that had been removed from an old house. I attached a few photos below.

Micah and I standing the posts (trees that had been debarked)

Alli and Beth hard at work! Looks like she got ALL the dirt from the tiles on herself!

Making progress....

As I mentioned earlier, we were able to find a permanent place to live once we return from the States after the holidays. We decided to stay in Atenas after Sunday to look around for places to live. We'd originally planned to leave and head back to San Jose on Sunday, but decided to take this time off from school to home search. So, we spent Monday and Tuesday looking and we were able to actually look at about 12 places! Atenas being such a small town, we decided that the one place we found that we thought we could live in was probably as good as it was going to get. So, we pulled the trigger!

Pray for us as we prepare to begin another semester of language school!

The Annexation of Guanacaste

2009-07-30T12:01:00.007-04:00

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!!!

2009-07-21T15:04:00.001-04:00

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

2009-07-12T16:34:00.005-04:00

We're Back!!

2009-07-01T12:19:00.002-04:00

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

Latest pics!

2009-06-20T21:14:00.005-04:00

our neighborhood

the view out our window

our humble abode (for now)

the widowmaker!! (little white thing where the shower head should be)
water passes through this electrical device (sound dangerous yet?) to heat the water

our bedroom

our "living room"

our neighborhood

typical tico houses

a log jam of crocodiles!

Say cheese!

Language School

2009-06-19T11:03:00.002-04:00

Hey folks! Sorry its been so long since we've posted anything. We've been a little out of touch since we've moved to San Jose to begin language school. Our host family doesn't have internet, so we can't check email all that often, much less post a blog. The first week or so of language school has been good....tiring, but good. Since it is an intensive course, they're moving at a break-neck speed. It seems like there are so many words floating around in our heads that we'll never make sense of them all. As our "mama tica" says, "Poco a poco" or "little by little". The family is great. Flora and Orlando are the wife and husband and they have two sons, Joshua and Orlando, Jr. The boys are both our age or older. Culturally, kids typically live with their mother and father until they get married. For some, that means till they're 20, for others 40! Flora serves us typical tico food: rice & beans, eggs, bell peppers, fruits and veggies, and fresco (typically a blended up fruit drink). We've also had the pleasure of having "gallo pinto" for breakfast. Gallo pinto (pronounced "guy-oh peen-toe") is a typical tico dish made of onions, black beans, rice, garlic, a little bit of Lizano (Costa Rica's version of Tabasco) and peppers and fried together into a blackish mixture. Yum! All in all, things are going pretty well. We figured out why the 4-wheel drive on the car was always engaged. The sensor that tells the car that it needs to go into 4-wheel drive had gone bad. Since we're still under the 30-day guarantee, they're going to fix it for free! However, the part will take 8 days to arrive. Just another chapter in the get-used-to-things-taking-more-time-here saga!

I'd like to make it a habit of listing prayer requests at the bottom of each blog posting. So, here's the first installment:

(1) Pray that our minds would continue to be open to the language. Concentrating on every word everyone says to you all day long can be pretty tiring. By 7pm, my brain begins shutting down.

(2) Pray that we would continue to form relationships with the locals here and that our ministry while in language school would be fruitful.

(3) Pray for my (Josh's) grandmother. She is now in hospice care and they are having to administer morphine to aleviate the pain she's feeling in her neck and head. It doesn't sound like things are going very well and she could pass away soon. Pray that we would have wisdom in decisions to come home and be there during this time.

(4) We are constantly in the process of support raising. We've had supporters fall off recently and we need to be vigilant in our efforts to raise support. It's hard not having access to communication to do this.

(5) Please pray for the families of EMI's staff here in Atenas. Pray that they're ministry would be fruitful and honoring to the Lord.

We look forward to hearing from you all!

Dinner with Jim and Nancy

2009-06-12T10:29:00.003-04:00

The President/CEO of our organization is visiting for 9 days. Their names are Jim and Nancy Hall and they flew in Wednesday night. Josh and I had the pleasure of taking them out for dinner last night. During the afternoon yesterday, we had our regular weekly staff meeting where all the families of the staff get together at someone's home. Normally, we take one family and pray for them and have the focus on their family for the week. Well, yesterday was about getting to know Jim and Nancy who have a long history of working with international missions, mostly in Uzbekistan. They worked there for many years until God closed the door for their ministry there several years ago. Jim was instrumental in the early years of EMI also. It was so great sitting in an outdoor restaurant with the sun going down and hues of pink and purple around us, just talking about what the Lord has done in both of our families. We went to one of our favorite restaurants called Guanacaste which is up on a hill so it has some pretty views and it has pretty good food. Can you believe I actually got barbecue short ribs. Now, they were nothing like pork ribs you get in the states, but pretty good. It was just great sitting and sharing what the Lord has done in our lives and hearing all the stories of faith and provision that God has given them over the years. It was definitely an encouragement. Jim and Nancy will be here for another week which is full of all kinds of events taking place so they can meet everyone involved with EMI in Latin America. Tonight, we're having dinner at Tom's house and all the families and interns will attend. Then tomorrow, we are heading to the beach with all the office staff. Josh and I have not seen the beach yet, so we're very excited. I can't wait to see the beauty of the Costa Rican shoreline. We'll definitely post some picture after we get back.

TARANTULA!!!!

2009-06-11T16:08:00.002-04:00

We ran across this tarantula as we were walking into the apartment the other night. He was munching on a beetle. If you look really closely, you can see his fangs!

Some photos

2009-06-08T22:13:00.007-04:00

Costa Rican Fencepost (a little sturdier than what we're used to)

Typical streets

The local squirrels:

The Car Search

2009-06-08T15:26:00.000-04:00

We’ve spent the last few days looking for some sort of transportation. We’ve looked high and low, near and far, done all sorts of research, asked questions of the locals about what is better: manual or automatica, diesel or gasolina, “cual estilo” (which style: “todo terreno” (SUV), cars, trucks, vans, etc.), and what is easiest to repair or find parts for in case of a repair. With the roads here the way they are and the mountainous terrain, we’ve arrived at some sort of todo terreno (SUV) with some decent ground clearance, power, and suspension. Diesel would be nice (cheaper fuel and more fuel efficient) and an automatic even better! We test drove a manual, but the consensus was, “Why make life harder on ourselves than it needs to be?” So, automatic it is!

Actually, it turns out that automatics are cheaper here since the majority of people (maybe 75%) drive manuals. So, away we went. We hit the internet pretty hard searching out ads for cars that might fit our style and budget. Having a handful in mind, we set out for outlying towns to check out what might be sitting in someone’s yard or in an “agencia de vehiculos usados” (used car dealer or agent). A long, rainy day of looking, test driving, and talking ended with one very real possibility and one “worst case scenario” possibility.

The next day, after much moaning and gnashing of teeth, we were able to get the owner of the best one we found to meet us at a mechanic we knew in town. Five minutes later we were apologizing to them for their trouble and saying we were no longer interested (some sort of serious oil ring issues in the engine). So, we were back to square one. Apparently this is fairly typical here when searching for cars. On the way back home, we stopped off at a few more places and, in what took us a whole day the day before, we were able to find two more possibilities within an hour and a half! So, the plan as it stands right now is to follow up on these on Monday. We’ll keep you posted on how these go!

Sunshine

2009-06-08T15:22:00.000-04:00

Every morning we’ve been here, we’ve awoken to the brightest, most penetrating sunshine I’ve ever seen in my life…at 4:45am!!! It’s pretty ridiculous, actually. Then as if that weren’t enough, the birds here have some serious pipes, and they love the show them off…at 4:45am!!! So, the idea of going to bed around 10 or 11pm and getting up around 7 or 8am is completely out the window. Ticos (locals) tend to live on a much earlier schedule, mainly due to the fact that the sun comes up so much earlier here. And to boot, the sun’s schedule stays the same…all year round! So, inadvertently, without even trying, we’ve quickly adopted the Tico lifestyle: early to bed, early to rise. We’ve hit the sack every night so far around 8pm and risen sometime around 5:30am!

It’s funny (and sometimes uncomfortable) how the Lord works sometimes. The Lord has used the sunshine to allow me some serious time alone with Him. Before, it was way to easy to sleep in when it was pitch black dark outside every morning. But now, I’m up and at ‘em around 5 and to sit out on the porch on such beautiful mornings and dig into the Word has been an awesome improvement. In the same way that the Lord held the sun and moon still for a day to allow Joshua to destroy his enemies in Chapter 10, the Lord has given my enemy, sleep, into my hands. Pretty sweet huh?