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.
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'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.
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!
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:)
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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!
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:
Hopefully it won’t be so long till we write again!!
For our King,
Josh & Alli
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.
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.
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!
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
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