Pictures

We thought you might enjoy a few recent pictures.


Poas Volcano


I see a modeling career in her future...


Family photo. December 26, 2005


Brooklyn got to hold a Red Eyed Tree Frog!


She's a very good mommy to her new baby dolls.

Good-byes and Earthquakes

• We said goodbye to the Cannons this morning. I don't think we'll ever get used to that. It is always hard. But we had a great time together. Although we don't get to be with family as much as we would like, the times we do have together are precious and unforgettable.
• Brooklyn appears to be a little sick. I'm pretty sure that its mostly just pure exhaustion. She's been playing hard, missing naps, getting to bed late, and waking up early this past week. Even the potty training thing is out the window since we traveled so much. She has been grumpy and weepy today. We're trying to give her lots of rest today.
• We felt an earthquake this morning. It wasn't a very strong one but definately was noticeable. That was a little weird! Little earthquakes are a rather common here, this is the first one we've felt since being here but supposedly there have been several little ones since we arrived in May.
• This next week will be pretty quiet. We have a few little errands to take care of. We'll welcome our new Latin America regional director (read: BOSS) to Costa Rica on Monday. He and his family will be here to learn Spanish. Then my (Becca's) parents come in next Thursday. (YIPEE!) They'll leave the same day we start back to school on the 10th and then it's back to the old routine for us. Wow. Something tells me that our last 4 months in Costa Rica will go by very quickly.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Well, it's December 25.... We are enjoying our time with Sean's family. We got back from the beach yesterday, it was a great trip. Last night we went to a special Christmas Eve program and dinner at our church. The fireworks were going off past midnight last night. A few of them really lit up our room! We had heard that Christmas Eve was a big deal down here. It wasn't very quiet last night but it was festive!

We hope that you are enjoying Christmas with your loved ones. Don't forget to take the time to really think about the "Reason for the Season". The fact that God chose to send His Son, Our Savior, down to us as a little baby is so amazing. He could have taken just a few minutes to accomplish His purpose but chose to work out His plan in a very special way. Christ lived just as we lived - with one difference, He never sinned. But He certainly understands us and how we feel. From little babies, to children, to adults - Christ was there. Thank you Lord!

Merry Christmas. May your day be filled with peace and joy...and a little bit of Christmas fudge.

Countdown to Christmas

In a little over 24 hours, we'll be picking up Sean's parents and sister at the airport! YIPEE!! We are excited, getting things ready and doing last-minute errands. We haven't seen Sean's family since we left home (Colorado) last February. Boy, are they going to be shocked when they see Brooklyn! It will be so much fun seeing them again, enjoying Christmas with them, and showing them around Costa Rica. We're taking them to the beach, to a volcano and showing them around San Jose as well as celebrating Christmas here at our house. This will be my first year ever having the Christmas company in my house and I even get to cook a Christmas dinner for them. I feel so grown up or something. Always before we were going to our parents' houses and letting them cook for us but this is a special treat to host them in our home. The turkey is waiting, the fudge will hopefully not be all eaten up by the time they get here, the Christmas tree is looking as good as it's going to get, the beds are made, the floor is shining brilliantly (thanks to Isabel), and the Pepsi is in the fridge. The only thing left to do is find some egg nog.

Remember as you travel Cannons - "KEEP YOUR TRAVELING HATS ON AT ALL TIMES!" We love you and we'll see you soon!

Climb Every Mountain...

Yesterday Sean and I went on a date. We left Brooklyn with our househelper, Isabel, and went for a hike. It was beautiful. And cold. We climbed - or at least thought we climbed - up to a cross that we can actually see from our house. It is on the top of a mountain that overlooks San Jose (well, for us it was more of a hill than a mountain...hey, we're from Colorado). It was a great hike but we forgot jackets so we were a little cold. We were disappointed, though, to realize that we didn't actually climb to THE cross but just a cross. There are 3 crosses up there, which we didn't realize. We were pretty high up and couldn't see the other one, so we thought we were there. We felt pretty proud of ourselves as we made our way back down the narrow, overgrown trail but when we looked back up to where we had been, we saw that just a little farther up was the real cross. Bummer. Oh well, we had a great time and enjoyed fresh air and an awesome view. Now, of course, we need to go again. Another date!

El Cascanueces

Last night I went to the National Theater and saw The Nutcracker. That was my first live ballet - who knew I had to come to Costa Rica to experience such sophisticated culture?! But it was beautiful. I enjoyed the time with a bunch of other ladies from language school. I was glad Sean wasn't there, though, I just don't see him getting much of a "kick" out of watching people dancing around on the stage...when you put it that way, who would?! Brooklyn stayed home and played with Daddy while Mommy had a nice evening out with the girls. I even wore real dress shoes - not flip-flops! Impressive, I know, but for the record I nearly fell and twisted my ankle so it's back to my old standby again.

There are Giants among us

This morning when we arrived at school, the teacher who I did the spinning competition with had some interesting photos. She had found on the internet our pictures along with all the other participants of the spinning competition. It was pretty funny. Note the difference in size between me and the average tico (Costa Rican). Yes it is obvious to say that we stand out a bit. www.ticomania.com is the website if you want to see more. It is all in Spanish so good luck navigating if you choose to go there. There are other pictures of me, but this one is the best.

I did it!

Yesterday, as Rebecca stated last week, I had a competition of spinning. It was for two hours and I don't think I have sweat that much since at least high school football, maybe never. For those of you who don't know what spinning is, here is the unofficial definition: "Spinning - the act of pedaling really hard and fast for a specified time period on a stationary bike, thus inflicting lots of pain and even more sweat." So there we were yesterday with around 200 people in a dance hall of a nice shopping mall, all pedaling our little tails off thinking we were going somewhere. You might ask , how you determine a winner of a spinning competition. The answer, you don't. Yes, this was basically one of those things I just needed to do, something to conquer, and challenge; as if Spanish isn't enough. I went with my grammar teacher who is a fitness nut, and her friend. They both did great, and after starting about an hour late, ( its Latin America, remember?) we conquered the "spinning-competition" about 2 hours later. Did I mention that every 30 minutes a fresh instructor was introduced to continue the torture with great effect? I hope I don't sound like I am complaining. I am not. I love physical things where you need to overcome your physical pains and just continue on. I think it was Sir Edmund Hillary that said, before becoming the first person to successfully climb Mount Everest in Nepal, "I am climbing Mount Everest because it is there." Those are not his words exactly, but it conveys the idea. Anyway, I would have to say that I don't think I would ever do a spinning competition again, but now I can check it off of my "to do list." Rebecca and I are trying to get geared up for maybe climbing Costa Rica's tallest mountain this next year, maybe in March or so. It is almost 12,000 feet high, which is quite a bit "shorter" than other 14,000 ft. mountians I have climbed in Colorado, but we will be starting a lot lower. Just another goal we have while we are here. We'll keep you posted.

Church was really good today. One of the students from our school that is graduating this week and going to Spain with his family delivered the sermon. He did a great job. I have found it is really hard to speak Spanish when you are not totally relaxed, at least at this point in my skills. Afterward the church really honored them and sent them off with a blessing. It was neat to think we will be there ourselves in a few months. I think I would even try the preaching bit if I was asked. Maybe. On second thought, maybe I would just do another spinning competition instead :)

Christmas Angel

Today was the Christmas Program for the Kinder at school. Brooklyn looked so cute up there ringing a little silver bell with all the other two year olds while the older kids sang. The best part was when she and another little boy started fighting and hitting each other with their bells. Precious. Our little angel.

Prayer Request

Please pray for the program in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian equivelent to FAA has grounded MAF. We have had situations like this over the past couple of years . There is a group in Ecuador that believes that MAF is stealing money and jobs from Ecuadorians and they demand that we hire an Ecuadorian pilot within a month. MAF has had Ecuadorian pilots in the past and there are several Ecuadorians that work with MAF in Ecuador but at the present we don't happen to have an Ecuadorian pilot and this appears to anger some people. Pray for the team in Ecuador as they try to sort things out and resolve the issue as soon as possible.

6 days of classes left!

I know, we're pretty spoiled to get a nice long Christmas Break. But then again, this is probably the last one we'll ever have. It is very possible that Sean may be flying on Christmas day next year! Yeah, I'm pretty sure he'd rather be doing that than having three weeks free. You may remember how terribly bored we were during our last break from school. Neither one of us are very good at "vacations". We love adventures, traveling, doing, and even working... but we go absolutely crazy with a completely "action-less" day. Sean starts cleaning toilets with screwdrivers (don't ask) and I start thinking too much which is always dangerous. Brooklyn is just like her parents. We get pretty grumpy.

We do have lots of visitors coming, though. Looks like we'll keep pretty busy which is wonderful!

Sean is off at a Spinning class right now. He's always really loved riding bikes - especially in the mountains. Pedaling on a stationary bike in a room full of sweaty people isn't quite the same as a ride through the aspen trees in the mountains of Colorado, but it at least gives him something to do. He's even doing a Spinning competition this coming Saturday!

I went to a party this afternoon. It was for a Bible Study group that I'm going to be teaching next trimester that is for househelpers of language school students. As I sat there, looking at all those precious souls I started to wonder WHAT IN THE WORLD I HAVE GOTTEN MYSELF INTO! These ladies are so special and this is just one of those things a person doesn't want to screw up! It isn't really the Spanish thing that I'm worried about (although that is certainly a factor) but it's more the whole idea of leading these ladies in a study of God's Word! Pray for me and for these special women. My prayer is that these ladies come to know Christ in an ever deeper and more real way...and that is also my prayer for myself - so it will be a journey that we take together. This is a God thing and I'm excited to see what He does with it!

Restful weekend

We didn't do much this weekend. It was kinda slow but, then, we haven't had one of those for a while. We have a park right next door and now that the weather is so much nicer, we 've been taking Brooklyn and the puppy there almost every day. Brooklyn is quite the big girl climbing up the slide, swinging on the swings and pretty much telling us where to go. She loves running races with Daddy, too. And she always wins!


Here she is beating Dad for the 5th time in a row! Just call her "Flash"!






















You talkin' to me?

And so ends another month...

• Can you believe that tomorrow is December?!? Where did this year go?
• We are down to 10 more days of class.
• We ate Chinese food tonight. Fed the whole family for about $4 and even had leftovers! And it was very good. Yes!
• The weather has been just awesome! The rain suddenly stopped about a week ago and it is warm and breezy. Didn't realize how much we missed blue skies and sun. No, it doesn't feel like Christmas but we are easily convinced that this weather is more than okay!
• Brooklyn is sitting beside me coloring herself purple with a marker. Cute. She's been sort of hit and miss with the naps (please no!) and also hasn't been going to bed so easily. Last night at about 9:30 (an hour and a half after we put her to bed) she was still going strong. We caught her playing with her toys on the floor - she'd even taken off her pajamas. Why does she have to be so darn cute when she's being so naughty?
• Our puppy Ana is getting big. When we first got her we were amazed at her calm, sweet demeanor. Then we found out she had worms. Now that the worms are gone, she's a real puppy - still sweet but "calm" no longer applies.
• I (Becca) was able to talk to my Grandma for just a few minutes on the phone last night. What a treat! It doesn't seem right at this time of year to not be planning a trip back to Kansas to visit her and all my uncles, aunts, and cousins. Mom and Dad are there right now - Dad is hunting with his brother-in-law for some innocent creature. I have to laugh - most Texans and Kansans go to Colorado to hunt but now Dad goes to Texas and Kansas!
• Have you seen "Beyond the Gates"? It's a documentary about the 5 missionary men that were killed by a tribe in Ecuador about 50 years ago. It's a great film - Nate Saint, one of the men, was an MAF pilot and lived in Shell, where we'll be living. His house still stands - our friends, the DiCrastos, will actually live above his old hangar. Check out the film!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

To all our loved ones - all our family and friends back home...and those of you we may not know that read our blog. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We hope you have a very special day.

If you're worried about us missing out, don't worry - looks like we'll have at least two Thanksgiving dinners here in Costa Rica. I'm making pies tonight. The pumpkin smells and looks awesome but the pecan pie...how do you say "flop" in Spanish?!?! Oh well. Since I still have a hankering for a pecan pie I'll try a different recipe tomorrow. I'm struggling to get used to our oven here, plus a different altitude and ingredients that are just different enough to completely destroy my time-tried favorite recipes! (Not to mention the fact that I packed all my cookbooks and recipes in our shipment for Ecuador...which is sitting in a hangar in Colorado waiting to be shipped.)

We have school in the morning and then are heading over to some friends house to watch American football (YIPEE!) and eat and eat some more. I was surprised tonight (and so was Sean!) when I completely fell apart thinking about not being with family or enjoying the usual traditions - I don't like being so far away sometimes. It doesn't help that we've hit the 6 month mark (when it is normal to have another bout with culture shock) during the holiday season!

I keep coming back to something a fellow student spoke about in chapel on Tuesday. GOD'S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. Wow. Here we are so far from family, far from what we know, far from good old-fashioned traditions that were a part of who we were. We don't have a car (which is really starting to get annoying!), our bed is killing our backs, our couch could seriously injure you if you sat in the wrong spot. We're struggling to learn a language, being corrected over and over again, we're still learning how many ways we've offended people with the Spanish we do have, we don't understand our church services.... BUT GOD'S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. The wonderful thing about where we are in life - in a new country, learning a language, "camping out" for a year - is that it drives us that much closer to God. And we have discovered that in every trial, every situtation GOD'S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving season? God's grace.

That and the fact that Brooklyn is now potty trained. YES!

ThanksWHATing?

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this week. Call me crazy (or ignorant) but until we lived here I really never made the connection that Thanksgiving is really just a North American holiday. When we lived in Canada they had Thanksgiving, although it was on a different day. But here it's just another Thursday. We even have school that day - ohhh the humanity... We'll survive somehow. But I'm taking pumpkin pie to school anyway (thanks Mom for bringing down some canned pumpkin). Those of us that are gringos and feel we must stuff ourselves with turkey and ,well, stuffing will be getting together on Saturday to celebrate the big day. My sweet Mom brought down some little ceramic pilgrims so that I could remember that special day and so they have a prominent place on our bookshelf. They don't particularly stand out and they seem like a pretty sorry attempt at creating a fall-like Thanksgiving atmosphere in the tropics ...*sigh*. But I can really relate with the pilgrims that came to the New World to make a new life for themselves in a strange new land ...

Christmas, on the other hand, has already begun. Because there is no Thanksgiving here people started getting out the decorations at the beginning of November. Although there is Christmas stuff everywhere, it is very hard to believe that it isn't still July. We read in the news that it is
1 degree (F) with wind chill back home in Colorado while here it has been in the 80's. I relate Thanksgiving and the beginning of Christmas season with the first day of ski season ... not the beginning of summer! And that is what they call the season we are getting into here in Costa Rica - "summer" as opposed to "winter" which is the rainy season. On bright, sunny days our teachers say "Oh, it's beginning to feel like Christmas!" WHAT?!?

We went ahead and bought a cheap $9 plastic Christmas tree, a string of lights and some ornaments. Let me just say that the tree looks worth about $3. Somehow, that attempt at making it feel more "holiday-ish" only made me feel worse! I'll take a picture of the tree and post it later - I want to wait till it's at least dark and the tree doesn't look quite so ridiculous and pathetic! But, we have a beautiful HUGE poinsetta plant that somebody came by our house selling for about $4. It is beautiful - better than we usually get at Wal-Mart every year and we can plant it outside and have a tree!

Most importantly, we have lots of family coming to see us over the Christmas break. We feel blessed to be here and to be able to share such a different experience with our families. A weird thought is that Brooklyn's idea of Christmas will be very different from ours as she grows up in the mission field in tropical climates! She'll probably have a hard time adjusting to snow and cold at Christmastime when she's older. She'll be 5 the first time she sees real snow and remembers it, when we come home on furlough in 3 years. Wow. But she'll have some awesome experiences that your average, every day kid in the US may never experience. We figure it all balances out. We might miss seeing the snow but Brooklyn won't care at all.

The dog ate my homework

Yesterday when we came home I was looking out in our yard and saw something interesting other than dog scat. Oh yes, upon further inspection it was just as I thought. You see, here in Costa Rica, there are no addresses per se, and thus no mailboxes, well almost none. So any mail we recieve from the electric, water, and phone companies just gets stuck in our gate, and they hope it just stays there and the wind doesn't blow it away, that it doesn't get rained on ect. Well in our case yesterday, add a new one to the list, that your dog doesn't eat your bill. I was able to find out enough from what few remants were left to determine how much we owe, but I do not know when it is due. They sometimes get delivered late. You never know.

Last night Brooklyn just melted mommie and daddy's heart when we were putting her to bed. She told us for the first time in her own words that she loves us. Except to make it even sweeter, it was in Spanish. "Te amo" is the phrase in Spanish that she used. How sweet!!!

American Futbol

We had a chance this afternoon to watch the Denver Broncos play the much hated Raiders. I have not been able to watch much football here in Costa Rica for obvious reasons, we're not in Kansas anymore Toto! But there is a couple here at language school from Denver and they are Bronco's fans as well. So they found out that the Broncos were going to be aired this week down here and invited us over to watch and also eat dinner afterwards. It was a lot of fun just to see football and to be reminded of some of the things of home. The funny thing about watching this afternoon was this, the game was televised by CBS, but here FOX bought the rights and showed it on Spanish FOX. Because of this the commentating was also in Spanish. So in one corner of the TV screen was the CBS logo, the other corner was the FOX logo with the score, and then the commentating was in Spanish. But it was still fun and the Broncos even won. It is funny the things you take for granted like just watching a simple football game in your own language. For those of you that don't like commentators much anyway, I think you would prefer them in your own language anyhow.

On a side note, tommoro begins our last of 5 weeks for this trimester. It is going to go very fast as our schedule is already packed with various things and activities, and then it will be all over. Only one more trimester to go! We can't wait.

Survival of the Dumbest?

Yesterday on our way home from school we went with another MAF couple's to their house to pick up some things real quick. They basically live in a duplex, but it is a little more intimate than that. Their neighbor is a “taxista” or a taxi driver. So what this means to them is that Mr. Taxi man has a lot of other “companeros” or co-workers over at anytime of the day. It was reported to us that Thursday night was one of grand celebration for the taxista and his friends, girls, alcohol, you get the picture. Well, when we arrived yesterday (Friday) around 1:00 in the afternoon, the garage had turned into a repair shop. At our co-workers house they also “share” the garage. Like most garages here it is very nice and clean and even laid in tile. Anyway, all the taxistas were involved in this mechanical endeavor somehow. There were about 5-6 taxi cars in the street, and about that many drivers in the garage. Two of these were underneath the car being worked on while the rest stood around with their arms folded in approval. Then things got interesting. The garage has a slight pitch to it so that water will run out into the street, and you must remember that the floor is nice clean, slick, tile. You know those dinky little jacks that come with your car for changing tires? That is what they were using. All of a sudden, without warning, the jack came shooting out and the car went flying down, yep, on top of the two taxi drivers underneath. Immediately, my coworker and I were doing what we could to lift the front of the car up and get the two guys out. Praise the Lord that they came out just fine and were just slightly banged up. One had a pretty swollen nose, but that may just have been his normal looks. So afterwards, as everyone’s heart rate was slowing and we were all catching our breath by how close that had been, the Cannon’s were off to their house. But not before the Taxi drivers began to jack the car back up without doing anything different to prevent the same thing from happening again. SCARY! Now we know why there are warnings on everything and how to operate it. You cannot teach common sense. Last night we also watched our co-workers kids, 5 and 7 years old, while they went on a much-needed date. Tonight we are going over to have a casual dinner and we (the guys) are going to play flight simulator. But this is no ordinary way of playing a computer game. We run it through my co-worker's computer projector and display it on the wall. So our “screen” becomes about 8 feet by 8 feet. I think we will call this the “missionary wide-screen T.V.”

Tidbits

Tidbits on our surprisingly ordinary life as it stands today:

• Our puppy, Ana, is doing very well. She has a very sweet nature. Brooklyn has learned how to say "NO, Ana, NO!" and they get along much better. We've been making our own "homemade" dogfood and it seems to be working well...not to mention that it is sooo much cheaper. No Ol' Roy here!
• Brooklyn seems to be getting the hang of potty training. We might just be diaper-free by Christmas!!!
• School is going well. We're moving right along through our grammar book. I was encouraged today when I read an entire news article in Spanish and understood it all. Maybe we are getting somewhere! Just for fun, I bought a book (for ages 8-10) in Spanish and have been able to understand it. It is very rewarding to learn a new language. VERY. "Vale la pena." - "It's worth the pain!"
• Our househelper, Isabel, is busy as ever. She is looking forward to going to Mexico in 5-6 months or around the same time that we head off for Ecuador. Until then, (because she didn't have enough to do looking after us) she is taking on a soup kitchen for kids in a poverty-stricken area of the San Jose area. She will continue working for us so that she can feed herself and her own kids. I admire Isabel so much. She has so little but is always looking for ways to give what she does have to those that need it even more than she does. I have learned so much from this special lady and praise God everyday for providing such a wonderful person to help us adjust to this new culture, keep our tile floors shiny, help us with homework, feed us tasty, Costa Rican food, and allow us to practice our bad Spanish at any moment of the day.
• Sean is at the school right now installing the NEW SOUND SYSTEM in the chapel. This is a huge praise. The sound system was ordered from a company in the US, shipped to Texas, then driven to Mississippi, and from there, hand-carried to Costa Rica. And it all arrived in one piece without problems...well, except for the extra soundboard that was sent along with it. We'll have to contact the company and see what can be done about that! Anyway, PRAISE THE LORD. Now just pray that Sean and his buddy are able to get the thing installed!

What do we know?

Today during dinner Brooklyn noticed a moth that was flying around the outside of the dining room window. She was very fascinated with it and so we decided to use it as an opportunity to teach her a new animal name.

"That's an insect." says Dad.
"That's a moth, Brooklyn." says Mom.
"A moth is a kind of insect," we explain. "Can you say moth, Brooklyn?"
Brooklyn looked at us both and then back at the moth. "No, dat's a ducky."
Says Dad, "Yes, it flies like a ducky or a birdie but it is a moth."
With wide, knowing eyes and a rather superior tone, "NO, dat's a ducky."

End of discussion.

A new addition...

Well, we want to make the happy anouncement that there is a new Cannon in San Jose. She's blonde (of course), and has the sweetest eyes. She's got long legs and a tail that wags non-stop. Her name is Ana and we love her so much already! Ana is a 3 1/2 month old golden retriever puppy that we "adopted" on Saturday. Brooklyn is in heaven - she's always loved "puppeeees" It has taken some time for the two of them to get used to one another. Ana is all puppy and is, consequently, always anxious to play which makes Brooklyn a little worried. On the other hand, when Ana has played out all her energy and wants to sleep, Brooklyn has found she is even more fun to play with than her stuffed toy puppies. It has been fun to have a dog around, though somewhat tiring. We've always loved dogs and for years have talked about getting a golden retriever puppy. When the opportunity presented itself we just couldn't resist getting one and so...here we are! Granted, we hunted this opportunity down but...anyway. Ana will make the move to Ecuador with us when that time comes.

One thing is for sure. Our work is cut out for us. A puppy and a toddler. Here's what it sounds like to our neighbors: (Remember Ana is the dog.)

"No, Ana, NO. Give me my shoe." "Brooklyn, yuck, get that out of your mouth."
"Brooklyn, don't touch that." "Ana, NO! DOWN!"
"Fetch it, Ana." "Brooklyn bring Mommy that marker, RIGHT NOW!"
"Ana, drop it." "Brooklyn put that down."
"Brooklyn, next time you need to go peepee, tell mommy." "Ana, NOOO! Outside!" (praise the Lord for tile floors.)
"Sit, Stay." "Ana, you too."
"Atta girl!" "Such a big girl." "Such a good dog!"













Ana




















Brooklyn reading Ana to sleep...

Cold in Costa Rica

Yes, cold. It has been rainy, windy and crisp here the past few days...at least we think so, those of you in Colorado where it has already SNOWED might think we've gone bonkers to think we are cold here. But really, San Jose is much cooler than you might think due to our higher elevation here. It's hard to imagine that anywhere south of the border could possibly be anything other than hot, humid and tropical but we're here to tell you COLD still exists down here. Of course, we're just putting on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, not heavy winter coats. We both had to laugh and give our street guard a hard time - he wore a thick down coat all day yesterday.

We don't have heaters, just fans, so I turned the oven on high to try to get some warmer air circulating. Sean thought I was being ridiculous.

Chili for dinner tonight! (Thanks to Mom for bringing some chili seasoning down for us.)

A Trip to the Hospital

Don't panic, we're all fine. But we did have a rough weekend. Brooklyn was running a fever all weekend. She was a real trooper - in fact, other than the fever and loss of appetite we couldn't figure out was going on. Finally on Sunday we decided it would be best to take Brooklyn in to an urgent care clinic located in downtown San Jose. The hospital is a private, Christian hospital that was started way back in 1929 by missionaries. So, at about 6:30 pm we got a taxi and headed out. We were able to see a peditrician. He was excellent with Brooklyn. He only spoke Spanish so it was a good test of where we are with the language after 6 months of study. We did fine, between the two of us - with four ears, four eyes, and two brains we were able to understand it all just fine. Well, the important stuff anyway. We think.
As we were waiting in the waiting room, our poor, sick little baby was bouncing off the walls, jumping, running, laughing and singing. Then when the doctor was asking us questions she was being just as friendly as could be. I could tell the doctor was thinking, "so, she's been pretty sick, huh? whatever you say, gringos!" Brooklyn was perfectly comfortable as the doctor poked and prodded her. It was funny to see her respond so readily to Spanish. When the doctor asked her if she was ready for an examination she nodded her head yes in all seriousness. Not only was this doctor an excellent physician but he has great kid skills - he got Brooklyn to agree to something. Not even her parents can do that! We didn't even know that "si" or "yes" was in her vocabulary. By the way, we haven't heard it since. *sigh*
Anyway, turns out Brooklyn had an ear infection and a horrible looking infection in her throat. We honestly never even suspected it was so bad! She apparently has a very high pain tolerance. The same thing happened the last time she had an ear infection just before we left the US. We got the same "yeah, right" look from the doctor and then he exclaimed, "She does have an ear infection....and it's a really bad one, actually." Guess we'd better be careful, she is so tough that it's hard to know when something really is wrong. Well, she's doing much better today. We got some antibiotics and she no longer has a fever. By the way, our trip to the hospital was relatively painless, even when we went to pay.
Well, except that the cashier was so hard for Sean and I both to understand. The cashier kept saying something and we'd keep looking at each other trying to guess what he'd said. Then we'd look back at him with probably the most confused, "duh" faces he'd ever seen so he'd repeat himself. Sean and I just kept looking at each other. Sean was thinking "surely Becca understood that" and I kept thinking "Sean must have understood and I should be coming up with an answer". Finally, we got it - he wanted us to pay! Well, the whole thing - medicines and doctor visit plus an extra fee for a visit with the pediatrician, cost less than $50.

Volcanos and Mid-terms

This morning we were off to the airport once again to take Becca’s mom, sister and niece so they could fly back to Colorado. We have had a whirlwind week! What a time we had – it was great to see loved ones and show them around this beautiful country that we have called “home” for the past few months. Over the weekend we went to see a volcano called Volcan Arenal in the northcentral part of Costa Rica. It was a stunning sight. This volcano is active and has lava and smoke continuously coming out of it, as well as audible eruptions. It was a very surreal experience to see such power and realize that if the volcano decided to really get serious, we would be history. Such is the power of God’s creation. It actually is a miracle that we even saw the volcano. October here in Costa Rica is the rainiest month of the year. The entire weekend was perfectly clear at the volcano, but we heard it rained all weekend here in San Jose. So I guess we picked a great weekend to go. The hotel we stayed at had three pools and 3 water slides. It was a blast and really fun to see Brooklyn get a huge kick out of the swimming. Even Grandma Vicki went down two of the slides - at night, but we do have a video that recorded all her screams, just in case you need proof that she did it! Last night we ate our last dinner together at a nice restaurant that has a special “show” every Wednesday. The show followed a buffet of typical Costa Rican food, which we thought was good (I don’t know if our visitors thought the same). The food is definately different, and it is NOT Mexican for those of you who think nothing exists except tortillas, tacos, and burritos south of the border. The show was very entertaining. The first part consisted of traditional music and dancing with beautiful garb worn by both the men and women. The second part was dancing again but this time with people wearing really unusual masks. Becca’s niece Catie was dragged out to dance – she was horrified but was a really good sport! Finally the night was finished up with fireworks. All in all, a neat experience to see this side of the Costa Rican culture. Tommorow we have “mid-terms” at school. It is hard to believe that we are already half way through this trimester, which also marks halfway through school for us. Six months down, six to go. Man has the time flown. We did find out this week that we now have a house in Ecuador. It is exciting to see that come together, although Becca and I both won’t be able to believe it until we are actually setting foot in Ecuador.













Volcan Arenal















Costa Rican Wildlife

Update on Isabel, Company coming, and thoughts on Language school

• First, an update on our househelper, Isabel. She is doing very well now. Feeling fine and back to her normal self. She really scared us there for a while. Praise the Lord, she is fine and still pursuing God and His will for her life with all her strength!

• Well, today we receive our first visitors! We're so excited we can hardly stand it. My (Rebecca's) mom, sister, and niece are flying in tonight at 8:30. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to see loved ones and can't wait to show them where we live and what we do! We are planning a trip to a volcano this weekend and hope to take them to see the sights around San Jose. We feel very blessed that over the next several months both Sean's family, and mine, plus a few friends will be able to come see us here in Costa Rica. It helps take the bite out of being so far away from family when we know they'll come see us! Yeah, we know they aren't coming to see us, they're coming to see Brooklyn.....

• We're both feeling very tired lately. Somebody mentioned that our blogs sound tired. Well, we're not sure how that came through but it's the truth! Gee, learning a language takes much more energy and work than we ever imagined. Our classes are very challenging this trimester. Suffice it to say, we doubt we'll be bragging so easily about our grades at the end of this trimester! But, while we are tired and almost overwhelmed, God has strengthened us and has been our strong tower in time of need! We're still having fun, still loving our life as missionaries, still learning Spanish (somehow) and still enjoying the process!!! We appreciate your prayers for continued strength, energy, and grace to learn Spanish well. We want to wring out our year in Costa Rica for all its worth!

Bugs and Futbol

Phew…! What a week, once again. We had “Spiritual Emphasis Week” last week. It was really good. It is a week that the school designates as one to be refreshing and encouraging to the student body. The teachers are not allowed to assign homework and tests, and a special speaker comes in to minister to us twice daily. The couple that were our speakers were from Tennessee. They had been missionaries to the American Indians in Arizona and New Mexico, and then to the Spaniards of Spain. He and his wife had some great wisdom and experience to lavish on everyone. Becca and I were also greatly involved in the worship aspect of the services. Of the 9 total services we were involved in 5, which began to tire us out by the end of the week, but it was still good, all to God’s glory. I also started a tutor last week, two times a week. Jumping up to Becca’s class has been bittersweet. While we are going over some useful things, I incurred some gaps in my foundation from making such a big jump. Therefore I have a tutor twice a week after school for an hour. It has already been helpful, but that extra hour can sure drain whatever brain capacity I may have left.

O.K., ready for another weird experience? Yesterday as I was sitting on my couch I looked across the living room (its not that far) to one of our houseplants and thought I saw a spider, or at least something caught in a web. It was in a palm tree type plant that we have inside our house. So I went over to investigate and saw a very weird looking spider underneath one of the palm branches. As I looked a second time, a little closer I about fell over backwards with that creepy crawly feeling only bugs can give you. Not to mention I was leaning sideways practically upside down to see the underside of the palm leaf. Of course this provoked Becca’s interest and I let her run her own investigation. It was the same as mine. She thought she saw the same “spider” I did and didn’t think much of it. I told her to look again, just as I had, and her reaction was just like mine, she just about fell over backwards with that creepy crawly feeling only bugs can give you. Now that you are all wondering what it was, it was a caterpillar. But this wasn’t your ordinary bug. It’s head (which we thought originally was the spider) was about the size of a small thumbtack, and disguised in such a way and to make the back part of its head look like a slug or snail, with those two creepy little eyeball things. The color of the head was tan/reddish. Now, upon further investigation, there were a few more inches to this thing. The rest of its body was completely camouflaged with the rest of the palm leaf, green mostly, but at its tail end were again those funny things that looked like the eyes of a snail. I am assuming that these are defense mechanisms to confuse prey as to which end to bite. So Becca and I cut that particular leaf off and took Mr. Scarylookinguglything outside to investigate more. As I tried to coax him off the leaf, not only was he weird looking, he was downright aggressive. He did not like to be disturbed, and let me know about it. We finally got over our “willeys” and got him off of the leaf and took some pictures of him. Upon further investigation, we found a LOT of caterpillar droppings in and around our palm plant, and of course many leaves that were all chewed up. Looking back we had both been hearing something occasionally falling (yep, it was his droppings hitting the floor) or had seen the plant move out of the corner of our eyes. I never thought such a little thing could give such fear, but that is usually the way life is huh? The things we fear tend to give us the “willeys” and make us want to run and go back to our comfort zone. So whether it is a caterpillar displaying all of God’s greatness, or a language and culture that is different, fear comes in many different packages when we don’t understand something.


"Mr. Scarylookinguglything"



Leaf or Grasshopper? (taken by Becca)

On to other news, last night (Saturday) I had the chance to go to the World Cup Soccer game between Costa Rica and the USA. In a word, AWESOME! The Latin’s, and the world for that matter, have a reputation for being crazy about their soccer, or “futbol”. I wasn’t disappointed. Luckily, for my own personal safety, the USA got beat soundly, 3-0. But to see all of these people, going this nuts for this long, in the POURING rain, was amazing! Half of the entertainment was the people. For those of you into soccer, you no doubt saw the game stateside on ESPN or some other network. But it is very likely that most of you did not even know that the USA had a National team and they played Costa Rica last night. Last night confirmed for C.R. that they are now going to the World Cup, held next summer in Germany. The USA had already secured their slot, as well as Mexico, from our region. Since the USA had already secured their slot, they basically sent down their Junior Varsity. Which was a smart move, but we didn’t see all their star players who previously had beat C.R. the last 2 times they played each other. So today, Sunday, we are definitely making a day of rest. We both have studying to do, and various other projects to get caught up on. We have been running so busy and loving every minute of it. It is amazing how fast time is flying, especially that we are quickly approaching our half way mark here at language school

When did October Start?

I missed it. When did we start another new month? Yes, I realize we are already a few days into October but, well, I missed it. Maybe my brain has a short somewhere...yup, there is strong possibility...

We had a nice but quick weekend. I went to a ladies retreat put on by our school. It was a nice time and my first night away from Brooklyn. For the first night in two years I slept all through the night! I mean I didn't even move! I woke up on my own without a cold little hand patting my cheek...but then again I missed that pudgy little hand. Sean did great without me. Such a good Daddy. In fact, according to Sean - and I say "according to" because I don't really believe him - Brooklyn did better without me around. She never got into things or did anything bad in the whole 25 hours that I was gone. If that's true, I guess I'd better get away more often....hmmm, I've heard there are some pretty nice spas here. Suppose I could get a special missionary deal (i.e. free)?! Probably not.

This is Spiritual Emphasis Week at school. No tests or homework...praise the Lord! We have a guest speaker and his wife here from the U.S. We are really enjoying their messages. There are two meetings each day - in the mornings between classes as well as in the evenings. It means Sean is especially busy with worship leading and playing and organizing but it is going very well and we are both being refreshed.

Please Pray

We would really appreciate your prayers for our househelper, Isabel. Last week she had an episode very similar to a heart attack. At this point she doesn't believe it was a heart attack but is instead some sort of virus. The medical system here is socialized and she hasn't really had the quality of care that we feel she needs. The doctors that she has seen can't seem to pinpoint the problem and she has to wait ten days before she can get in to have any tests done. She has been extremely tired and has been feeling just awful. We've given her some time off to rest and recuperate. Please pray for Isabel that she would be healed and return to her normal energetic self!

What I long for...

I'd love to have an intelligent conversation in Spanish. Would you believe that all of a sudden I can't pronounce words that I never had trouble with before? Isn't it supposed to go the other way? Aren't I supposed to speak better with more time and practice? And I can't seem to say one sentance without getting either a gentle correction or a funny look. I really wouldn't mind so much if a few people would just smile and nod and act like I'm not sounding ridiculous.

On the upside, I'm learning humility. Like never before. They say that is the upside anyway...

I'm also learning how to keep my mouth shut or at least I'm learning that I need to keep my mouth shut...whether or not I have learned this lesson is still very questionable. I realized today that I am always arguing with one of my classmates just for the sake of arguing. (By the way, this classmate is not Sean, although we won't go into how much I argue with him just to hear myself talk.) I suddenly realized how bad it is today when this classmate was just innocently trying to do an oral description about contact lenses and I kept piping up with my two cents that he wasn't right. My mom and my husband know better than anyone that I can get very argumenative at times. I've been in class with these people far too long when I start picking a fight with them over gas-permeable contact lenses!!!

Long Time NO Write!

Phew…what a week. For those of you who regularly follow our blog, sorry for the gap of information and news left over the past week. I am sure you all had an intense longing for great and big news from our lives that we have left you without, sorry! This past week has been crazy. With my increased workload from moving into Rebecca’s class I had tons of homework and studying to do. In fact I still do, but it is a little more manageable now. We had a lot to cover in my tutoring sessions last week, which consisted of about an hour after lunch (a great time for a nap) with a tutor going over an amount of material that probably would have taken 1-2 months in the normal classroom setting. So needless to say I am still recovering from having my brain fried repeatedly last week. I can’t think of anytime in the past when my brain literally hurt like this and caused me headaches. Not even in all my flight training, maintenance training, college, high school, ect, had my brain hurt like this. There is nothing to compare learning a language with any of my past experiences. The greatest thing and perhaps the weirdest as well is that I am loving learning Spanish, we both are. It is a joy daily to learn more and more Spanish and the different ways to say things, and then try and use it in real life and make a complete fool of yourself. Oh well, you have to crawl before you can walk, and at times I feel like I am even far from crawling. Life outside of the USA is really getting easy for us as well. Not that is was ever extremely hard, but we are slowly becoming attached to the Latin culture and their language. An answer to our prayers indeed, and I am sure some of yours as well. This week has no great things happening out of the ordinary. I am parenting solo this coming Friday-Saturday while Becca goes to a women’s retreat. That should be fun for her. It will be Brooklyn’s and my first time “alone” without mommy, prayers are accepted…please. Next week is Spiritual Emphasis week. What this means is we have a special speaker for 2 services a day, every day. As the worship coordinator it means a high workload for me and my 4 teams, but it should be fun. I am in the beginning stages of gearing up for that. I should actually be studying right now, and even desire to, but there is a point in my brain that I have been reaching a lot lately, that the brain cannot handle any more information. It is kinda like when you are running a lot of programs on your computer and all of a sudden…nothing but a frozen screen and locked up processor. Well that is what would happen if I studied right now, nothing but brain freeze. Sometimes I wish I could get my processor updated for a newer, faster one, but there is nothing wrong, or for that matter unspiritual, with relaxing until my current one can catch up with all the new Spanish words and grammatical concepts. Therefore, I think a bowl of ice cream is needed. (By the way, it is better here that in the USA.)

Quick Update

• Friday - Yes, last Friday was my birthday. It was a very nice day. I have the most wonderful, thoughtful husband in all the world. He bought me roses, had our neighbor make a cake for me (she has her own catering/bakery business) and then surprised me by getting a babysitter and sweeping me away (with the help of a mini-bus and driver) to a favorite restaurant of ours that overlooks the city. It was a great evening. The waiters really enjoyed talking with us. They kept coming back to our table asking for help with their English... Waiter: "Que es esleeeepeeeng?" (Accompanied by funny motions of falling) We answer: "Slipping!" He walks away saying: "Esleeepeeng. Esleeepeeeeng. Esleepeeeng." Then he comes back with a little piece of paper that he must have copied from the English side of a milk carton that says: "Partially skimmed.....breast milk is best for ....nursing" Why he chose those words of all the words on that milk carton I don't know but we did our best to explain it and pretty soon he was blushing realizing what he had asked us!
• Saturday - I like to stretch my birthdays out. A fellow MAF wife and I went out together. We ate at Outback Steakhouse (yes, free refills, American style hamburgers and french fries so good you don't even need ketchup) and then headed to a scrapbooking store so I could buy some things to start a scrapbook. I'm just getting into this whole scrapbooking thing but the other two MAF wives here at language school are both really into scrapbooking and making handmade cards so I have them to point me in the right direction. I don't consider myself artistic or creative but I'm ready to give it a try! I think this will be something fun to do with all that spare time I have...when Brooklyn is sleeping. So, in other words, between Midnight and 4 am...
• Sunday - Another attempt at going to church. Brooklyn hasn't been too excited about going to Sunday School for some reason...actually she's terrified and that just isn't like her at all. We're guessing she might have had a bad day with one of the other kids a few weeks ago. The teachers are great and she's always loved going until recently.... Anyway, it is next to impossible to keep her still and quiet in church so we ended up leaving after worship. Looks like we might have to go to church in shifts (one of us first service, the other for second service) until Brooklyn warms back up to the Sunday School idea. At this point we don't feel we need to push the whole church thing. We really hate to see her have such a terrified reaction to church when she should be looking forward to it. We'll wait a few weeks for whatever it is to blow over and try again. We spent the rest of the day "re-confirming" boundaries with our precious two-year old. Some days (and usually on the weekends) she likes to test us to see what she can get away with. Days like these make us very happy with just the one child!

The Rest of the Story...

Rebecca did clarify clearly that I am being moved into her class, beginning tomorrow (today is a national holiday, no school). What she failed to tell you is this. I have to jump up about 6 levels. She has been in the class where only the gods come to learn, there is no higher class. They are up there in the clouds. On the other hand, I was in a class with more normal people, commoners. So to be elevated to this level is quite an honor, no doubt. Rebecca also failed to mention that I can make some mean pancakes as well.

It's happening

Well, a while ago I expressed my worry that Sean would pass me up in Spanish. It's happening. He's just been bumped up to my grammar class. The Academic Director made the decision to move up Sean and one other classmate who were ready for a bit more of a challenge. They will take a crash course to catch up to where our class is in the book (they will have a tutor for an hour everyday till they are caught up).

This is a sad day for me... when we used to have arguments I would turn things in my favor by saying "you just wouldn't understand, you aren't as advanced as I am. I'd explain it to you but I don't want to confuse you." What now?! Okay, I'm a bit competitive and, although my Spanish was only .000012% better than Sean's to begin with, it was one thing I could actually beat him at. Those days are gone. *Sniff*

Not only do I have to share my classroom (okay, glory) with my husband but I also have to learn to keep my mouth shut. This is the conversation we had when I found out he was coming to my class:

Becca: "Wow, honey, congratulations! They're really moving you up?" To MY class?!?!

Sean: "Yeah, I can't believe it. I just hope I'll be able to catch up and stay on top of everything." Just please don't try to -

Becca: "I'll help you!" Hmmm, this could be fun. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so great for our relationship.... "Or maybe you'd rather -"

Sean: "I'll let you know if I need your help." Too advanced for me, are you? We shall see. We shall see.

That's about how it went. The best advice we ever received about language learning and marriage was to never, not ever, correct each other. Sean is great at keeping his "help" to himself but I, on the other hand... well, we'll need your prayers!

This is a great thing. Sean has been needing more of a challenge for some time now. And, believe it or not, I think its awesome that I get to have my husband in class with me. We're going to have so much fun! He belongs in this class. I have no doubt that he'll do great. He has that "language gift" - he's improved SO FAST in the four and a half months that we've been here. And considering that his life could depend on his Spanish skills someday I'm especially happy to see him in a class where he'll learn more...even if he will pass me up. I should have known it wouldn't last for long. Hey, at least I can still cook better than he can...although he can make a mean macaroni and cheese...

Yes, I know marriage isn't about competition....
I'll bet he'll never take up scrapbooking, so I might have him beat there!

Just an ordinary average day...

Today was a great day for us. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, we just enjoyed our classes and the day overall. I began to ask, as part of my homework, some of the community members some questions for my weekly report. This week it is over the independence of Costa Rica, which is celebrated this Thursday. Because of the importance of this national holiday we do not have school this Thursday, which is bittersweet, because we can’t do much as far as fun in a day. But it will still be nice. Friday is Rebecca’s b-day. That should prove to fun, we shall see. I had to prepare a report also tonite on a famous person that is dead, I chose Abe Lincoln. I also began to prepare a Bible study that is due this Wednesday, is has to be only about 20 minutes. So like I said, not much to report. Life is pretty ordinary. That is good, because we have enough to worry about trying to learn Spanish.

Brooklyn Gets a BIG Star!

Today when we picked up Brooklyn from the kinder we got word of something monumentous. I described yesterday a little of the classroom format for Rebecca and me. Well Brooklyn has high expectations as well. She started this week in the pottie training class. And on only her third day she went without 1 accident and even communicated in Spanish and English when she had to go. What a smart little stinker. Mommie and Dada were, are, so proud of our little girl, on her way to diaper freedom. Granted there will be many mistakes and miscommunications with Brooklyn in this process, but that is what her parents are perfecting as well. We love to do things like mess up and miscommunicate as a family, for us it happens when we speak Spanish.

On a lighter note, the butterfly picture below I took today when we got home from school. This photo is totally staged, so no huge acolades for this photagrapher. Brooklyn and I found this butterfly on the street, alive, on the way home from school, yet is was unable to fly. So I let it crawl on my hand and brought him to my house and found a better backdrop and took some pictures. I don't know what it is called other than pretty. There are sure a lot of neat butterflys here. I tried once to get a picture of a moth that was bigger than my hand, like a big bat, but he flew off to quickly. I did get stung one day at school though by a caterpillar. It hurt like a bee sting but not for as long. It was about 2 inches long with lots of green spikes on its back. The pain thankfully was short lived, about 20 minutes or so.

Back at the grinding wheel...

Today was the second day back for us at school. We truly love learning Spanish. Nothing worth doing is easy, and this definitely holds true here. Here are a few of the things that will be expected of us throughout this trimester, which ends in December. For me, Sean, in my conversation class, I have to create a “route” of about 5 or more people outside of the school in the community to go and ask pre-specified questions every week. From their responses I have to make a report and turn it in to my teacher and also discuss it with my classmates. This happens every week. I will also be responsible for a weekly Bible study of just around 20 minutes. Twice this semester I will have to prepare a Bible study for a full hour. And even today we started to discuss things such as the Big Bang Theory, kids of missionaries, some humorous things that happened to me in the past, and what I think of violent sports like boxing. This is just part of the format for my conversation class. At times it is hard to get your point across in English let alone Spanish with topics like these. I will also have to give a “trade” type presentation. Since I am a pilot and mechanic I will be expected to teach my classmates all the parts of an airplane, what they do, and then explain how it all comes together for the miracle of flight. Again, this is no easy matter in English, but I will need this anyway, so the course is very practical for us to not only obtain Spanish, but know it as it relates to our respective trades, pilot, pastor, doctor, ect. Rebecca’s conversation class is very similar to mine. Supposedly next trimester, our last, we will have to give around a 2-hour presentation on the country of our expected service, for us, Ecuador. They really challenge us, but one of the quickest ways to grow is by being stretched (how do you say Gumby in Spanish). We also have grammar class, which we are learning is getting deep quickly. It is hard sometimes to file some of this information for use when there is nothing remotely close in English to compare it to. Yet, we are learning this language and still having fun. On top of all of that we are involved in other things at the school. I am the worship coordinator, which means not only do I have a worship team of my own to lead, but I am also responsible for all the other teams that I need to manage and make sure they are scheduled for the appropriate chapel service, which we have twice a week. This is fun though, and I really enjoy it. Rebecca on the other hand is the treasurer for student council. What this really boils down to is I now have to opportunity to get us a new sound system at the school as well as take Becca out on a few more dates. Wait, this is beginning to sound something like Enron. I wonder how that translates to Spanish. Maybe sleeping with the treasurer isn’t full of all the perks I thought. Needless to say we are really busy, which is a vast difference from our recent break. I believe I experienced a level of boredom unprecedented in my life before. It was awful. Now we are at the other extreme, barely getting our homework done, making dinner, cleaning the dishes (we are the dishwasher here), putting Brooklyn to bed, ect, ect, ect. And then we go to bed around 9-10 at night. Yes I know this sounds early. But I am up at 4:30 a.m. to get the day going on the right foot, and overall this culture just rises earlier than we did back home. It took a little adjustment at first, but it is pretty easy now. Costa Rica being close to the equator experiences close to 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness every day, regardless of the time of year. So this schedule suits us fine since the sun is up around 5 a.m. and goes down around 5:30-6 p.m. And when you don’t have T.V. and are finally done with homework, there isn’t much to do, so you read a book, or something along those lines and go to bed. It is already amazing to us how fast our time is going here, and all the Spanish we still need to acquire. We have been told that this year will lay the foundation for our Spanish, and afterwards in Ecuador we will actually build upon it. We are beginning to believe this. Although we are getting pretty good at understanding conversations and overall what is happening around us, we are far from fluent. Anyway, if our little girl Brooklyn has taught us anything, language isn’t something you can order at a drive up window or in a nicely packed box. It happens little by little every day.

Too much laziness...

Tomorrow we will start back to classes!!! We had a nice vacation but we are (all 3 of us) ready to get back to school. The past week has been a bit too boring and quiet. There was a time when I could lay around and do nothing for months on end. Not anymore. Would you believe that I actually got tired of reading?! You know it's bad when I don't even want to look a book in the face anymore.

Sean is at the school right now practicing with his worship team for this week's chapels. He is the music director at the school this trimester, so that will keep him awfully busy. I'm the Student Council treasurer...they're going to trust me with money!! Anyway, I say all that to say that starting tomorrow our lives will suddenly get very, very busy. Just pray that we will be able to keep up after two and a half weeks of progressively sleeping in later, staying up late, taking long naps just to waste time, and lounging around wondering what to do with ourselves!

Sean and I have had headaches for two days now. We've finally decided it must be atrophy of the brain. Seriously, we haven't done anything to stimulate our brains cells. They must be dying off by the millions. Boy are we in for a shock tomorrow!

God's Blessing to us in Costa Rica

When we arrived here in Costa Rica we were advised to hire house help. This wasn’t an easy decision to make but after much prayer, we felt the Lord was telling us to go ahead. We ended up hiring Isabel, a mother of 5 with two still at home, to come to our house 2 days a week. We expected that having someone to help with housework would be beneficial but what we did not know was what an incredible blessing Isabel would be in our lives. We couldn’t have realized how much we really needed Isabel – not just for help keeping this house livable (it is a bigger job here than we ever imagined) but we also needed Isabel for her spiritual wisdom, patient help as we learn Spanish, and advice in everything from how to store our food to where to pay our bills! There have been many occasions when Isabel has quietly and lovingly encouraged us with the simple Truth of the Bible and God’s faithfulness. Other times she says things just as my own mother would – loving, helpful advice that we so often need!

Isabel is a great woman of faith. She loves the Lord and this is obvious in all she does. She works harder than anyone I have ever met. She provides for herself and her children by working for two families (ourselves and another family) that are studying Spanish. But that is not all. She is also currently leading two discipleship/Bible study groups through her church, working through her church to start new churches and working to unite the Body of Christ, taking weekend mission trips with her son, Andres, helping her daughter, Deborah, study for high school exams, attending prayer meetings and conferences and preparing to become a missionary herself!

God has called Isabel to Monterrey, Mexico. There she will work with impoverished families, teaching them about Jesus and discipling them in the Word. She is studying and “practicing” both evangelism and discipleship, applying for visas, and raising her support in order to go to Mexico as God has called her. Her task is not easy but Isabel has a smile on her face and a faith in God – after all, He has provided in miraculous ways before, He will do it again. I wish I had the space to share some of the awesome testimonies of God’s work in Isabel’s life – her stories of God’s faithfulness and miracles in her life could fill books. We have seen what God has done in her life in just the past four months that we have known her! And even when things have looked very badly for her she was still saying “Dios tiene control” (God has control). And she is right, God has complete control!

I want to ask you to pray for Isabel. She is working hard and certainly needs God’s strength and grace as she continues to work toward the goal that He has called her to. Her current plan is to head to Mexico in the next 4-6 months with her daughter Deborah. This all depends, of course, on the necessary funds being raised* as well as the visa process going smoothly. Pray for Isabel’s daughter Deborah, 15, who will leave friends to join her mom in Mexico. Isabel's son, Andres, will stay home to continue his studies as a seminary student. Her three older, married children will also remain behind in Costa Rica with their own families. This family will go through a big transition and will need an extra measure of God’s grace to go through the upcoming changes. And we’ll need your prayers as well as we will be saying “good-bye” to a new friend and will be without her help for our last few months here!

*If you think you’d like to help Isabel financially or would like to know more about her, her family, her ministry or her specific prayer needs, please contact us at holy_man77@msn.com (this is not our MAF email account but is set up for this type of use) and we will get you the necessary information.

Hot Water and New (English) Words

We've been without hot water since Saturday. We've been "real" missionaries for a few days - boiling water to wash dishes, using a "widow maker" to take showers. (this is a tiny electric hot water heater attached to the showerhead, I guess I don't need to explain why they are called widow makers!) Blessedly, our landlady's brother came by and fixed the problem. It was a matter of simply reconnecting a switch with a little peice of wire. We were without hot water for 3 days and all we had to do was reconnect the switch?!?! Sean could have fixed it himself, except that he's never seen this kind of switch before in his life! We're pretty sure that the landlady was trying to tell him how to fix it on the phone but, well, that was in Spanish and even in English it would have been confusing! Oh well, at least now we can take normal, "safe" showers and wash our dishes! And next time it happens, we'll know what to do. Funny how much you take for granted even knowing how to flip a switch!

We have been helping a family from the UK settle in. They are here for language school and will be going to Ecuador to work with HCJB. Martin is a water engineer and will be working all over Ecuador but will be based in Quito. Sean will probably be flying Martin around in Ecuador! They are a great family. We've been learning yet another new language - British English! Here are a few new terms we've learned:

• Plaster (bandaid)
• Crisps (chips)
• Chips (fries)
• Bin lorrie (garbage truck)
• Cooker (oven)
• Tea (evening meal)
• Trolley (shopping cart)
• Buggy (stroller)
• Mince (ground meat)
• Nappy (diaper)
• Cheeky. . . . we have no idea!

We've been having a splendid time learning all these new words! We feel so much more civilized now! Of course, we've completely forgotten our Spanish and we speak with British accents but it has been a fun diversion. It is great to meet people who will be partnering with us to reach the people of Ecuador. Please pray for the Harrisons as they adjust to life in Costa Rica, start language study, and settle in to their new house.

Misadventures of Rebecca Cannon

What is so funny about watching me fall?! Is it because it happens so often? Or is it the funny sounds I make as I am hitting the ground? Or is it the look of sheer terror on my face as I (yet again) hit the ground? It’s probably the moment just after I fall when I’m sputtering, crying, laughing, screaming, scrambling to regain my composure and hollering at my husband that it isn’t funny. Okay, maybe it’s all of that. Whatever it is, I’ve given my dear, oh-so-sympathetic (NOT!) husband lots to laugh over lately. If you haven’t figured it out by now I fall down often and it seems to have gotten worse with time in Costa Rica. I personally blame it on the fact that none of the surfaces here are level or predictable and the fact that my mind is so full of new words and sayings that I just can’t concentrate.

Just today, don’t ask me how, I fell stepping off the curb in front of our house. I let out some kind of death cry as I hit the street – at least something made a noise, maybe it wasn’t me because it did sound sort of “beastly.” I managed to land only on my left knee, which is now very purple and swollen and hurts to bend. I was actually pushing Brooklyn’s stroller at the moment and so the stroller (with Brooklyn in it) went flying across the street. (Don’t panic, we live on a very quiet dead-end street so there wasn’t traffic) Sean, while doubling over with laughter was trying to figure out if he should run for the stroller or help me up. He chose the stroller (major daddy points but lacking in the caring husband department) and left me to roll in misery in the gutter. The man working outside of his house down the street stopped to stare at the pathetic Gringa wallowing in the wet gutter. Somehow I even managed to scrape the top of my toes. How did I scrape the top of my toes?!

I mentioned in a previous blog that I was nearly swept out to sea at the beach. I suppose I should be more honest. Actually, I was knocked over by an unexpected wave, tossed around a bit and came up sputtering with a rather unsavory mixture of sand and salt water in my mouth and nose. All this while Sean looked on in amusement. He was kneeling, watching me flail around in about 2 feet of water as though I was drowning -and I thought that I was drowning, how was I to know that if I just stood up I’d be fine? Okay, this actually happened three times in the hour or so that we were at the beach. Have I mentioned that I'm actually very afraid of the ocean and that I was concerned that Brooklyn really would get hurt? Yeah, that probably isn't much of a defense on my part, is it? So, I suppose I'll admit it. I'm a klutz. That's about it. Just pray that Brooklyn doesn't inherit my grace.

A great Vacation for the Cannon's

We made it home! Oh, but we didn’t want to come home at all. A few more days at Manuel Antonio National Park would have been so nice but * sigh * we had to come back to the real world. If you ever come to Costa Rica, the place to go is Manuel Antonio. It is just simply beautiful – awesome beaches, lots of wildlife, and great rainforest hikes. We stayed at the Costa Verde Hotel from Saturday to Tuesday and were not disappointed in the least bit. The park is closed on Mondays so we actually spent all of Monday at the hotel and had a great time just hanging out there and swimming in the pool. Actually, other than visiting the park, we didn’t leave the hotel at all. There is a great restaurant there and we saw lots of monkeys while eating and enjoying a breathtaking ocean view. Brooklyn was pretty crazy about the monkeys. By the third day, they had gotten pretty brave and were actually sitting at the tables and even peeking in at the chef as he cooked! We were able to see lots of wildlife – squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, white-faced capuchin monkeys, large iguanas and lizards (who said dinosaurs are extinct?), an armadillo, a three-toed sloth, a raccoon, red-headed woodpecker, a white ibis (bird), a snake (a tiny one, praise the Lord), a crazy-looking spider (not so tiny) and a coati (related to raccoons). That was the wildlife we saw…something tells me there was a lot more out there watching us than what we saw!

We arrived on Saturday after an uneventful ride on the bus from San Jose. We checked into the hotel and after relaxing for a while, we went to the beach. Brooklyn and I nearly got washed out to sea (that will be another blog soon since I know you all enjoy reading about the Misadventures of Rebecca Cannon and this is a good one) and we got sand in every crevice of our bodies. Sean and I pretty much decided that the beach isn’t much fun with a toddler. Don’t get me wrong, Brooklyn loves the beach….especially the sand. Clean-up afterwards and the screaming that goes with it really outweighs the fun hour we had at the beach.

On Sunday we went into Manuel Antonio Park. It was so awesome. We walked along white sand beaches and then hiked through the dense jungle to a great overlook. This is where we saw a lot of the wildlife. Sean got some great pictures and we had a great time. Brooklyn was very good about hiking along with us or riding on Dad’s shoulders. She was pretty tired by noon or so and we went back to the hotel to rest, take a nap, and swim in the pool.

Monday we just sat in our nice air-conditioned room and played at the pool. The park was closed. We could have gone into the town of Quepos to do some shopping or looking around but it was really nice to sit and do nothing. Our room had a TV (we don’t have one at home) so we watched a lot of the Discovery Channel (in English)!

Tuesday we came home. We were able to get very cheap tickets to fly home. This was probably Sean’s favorite part! We flew in a Cessna Caravan, for those of you are interested in that kind of thing. Basically all Sean said the entire time was “This is awesome!” Nobody could ever accuse my husband of lacking the passion to fly! Anyway, the trip that took us 3 hours in a bus took just 20 minutes on the plane. I must admit flying really is the way to go!

Well, in a nutshell, there is our trip! I’ve posted some pictures from the trip as well. Stay tuned for more…I know you are all waiting on pins and needles for the next edition of “The Misadventures of Rebecca Cannon”. At the moment, I am still healing both physically and emotionally from my most recent adventures. I’m just not ready to talk about it,so it will have to wait for another day!
(CHECK BELOW FOR PICTURES)

Manuel Antonio Pictures

An Iguana at the beach.



Brooklyn loving the sand!



Squirrel Monkey at the restaurant.



White faced capuchin monkey.



Brooklyn and Papa.



Sean and his favorite little girl at the beach.



Brooklyn at the entrance to our hotel.




Mommy and baby girl at the beach.



The view from our hotel, it was ok.



What's a good trip w/o an airplane? AWESOME!

Model students...

Well, I hate to brag...but I'm going to brag. Sean and I both received straight A's in all of our classes for our first trimester. Sigh...too bad that doesn't also mean that we are expert Spanish speakers! Really, though, we (especially Sean) have improved a great deal over the last four months. I just don't think that Costa Ricans would believe us if we told them that we got straight A's in Spanish! Oh well...poco a poco. (little by little)

Our night out at the National Theater was fantastic. The theater was built in 1897 and it is truly magnificent. They just don't make buildings like that any more. The string quartet and pianist were so talented. It sounded like a cd - I was sure they weren't really playing but they were! It was actually an American group that performed. We had great seats, even though they were the cheapest at $10 each. It was a benefit event to raise money for an orphanage here in Costa Rica. So, we rubbed shoulders with some pretty well-to-do people. And there I was with my flip-flops drinking my diet Coke while all those sophisticated ladies in high heels drank their Merlot! Funny, I guess, when you think about it! You think they could tell we were missionaries?!

We went to the graduation today. A lovely ceremony. In 8 months that will be us. Is that possible?! It was a little sad to say goodbye to new friends...something tells me this isn't the last time we will have to part ways with friends. It seems to be part of the missionary life.

Well, I'd better get off to bed. Tomorrow we will catch a bus to Quepos at 6 am. We're going to stay at a hotel on the beach for a few nights and visit Manuel Antonio - a well-known national park here in Costa Rica. We've heard wonderful things about this place. We're looking forward to a few days to catch our breath after a busy, humbling, fast, jam-packed, over-stimulating, too-much-to-learn first four months in Costa Rica!

Mid-week

Well, here it is Wednesday already. This is the last week of our first trimester in language school. Yippee! Tomorrow we will receive our grades in our classes and then on Friday there is a graduation for the students that have completed their time in language school. Then we get nearly 3 weeks off. I think we'll have a good break, although we're scratching our heads wondering what we'll do with all that free time. It will be a good opportunity to do a little bit of "catch up" on various little things we've been meaning to do since we got here. We are helping out with the orientation of the new students during the break. We have "adopted" a couple coming in from England for language school and so we will be helping them get settled into their house and showing them around. We are planning a short trip to the beach this weekend as well - it's time to put this Spanish to good use on a public bus!

We are really looking forward to tonight. We are going to a benifit concert at the National Theater in downtown San Jose. We bought the tickets last week and then realized we didn't have a babysitter so we had decided we couldn't go. We offered the tickets to another couple here and rather than take our tickets, they offered to watch Brooklyn so that we could go! Wow. What a huge blessing. We haven't had a night out like this (other than our anniversary) in ages! Anyway, we are looking forward to our big night out. Stay posted - we'll let you know how it goes. We even get to dress up...even though the only dress shoes I own are flip-flops! (To my sister: Yes, I know, what's new?!)

Living in a Glass House

Sometimes it can be very discouraging to be so limited in our language ability. We are ready to minister and share Christ with people! But we realized recently that we just don't have the vocabulary to do such a thing in Spanish. It is our natural tendency to measure our "value" as missionaries by how many Bible Studies we lead or how many of our neighbors we have led to the Lord. Our current language ability, however, isn't exactly conducive to such a thing. The Lord has been very clear in telling us that our current work is to learn the Spanish language well. Why must we learn this language so well? "And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent." Acts 22:2 We must be able to speak the heart language of the people or they simply will not want to listen! But we are very aware that, although we can't share Christ yet through our words, we are every day being lights for Him by our actions. We are very aware of the fact that we live in a glass house. Most everybody knows that we are missionaries here to learn Spanish. We are the only Gringos on our street. More than we realize, we are being watched!! Although we can't communicate all that well yet, our lives, our behaviour, our actions - all of these things have the power to show the love of Christ to others. Yikes! I'd almost rather lead a Bible Study! Please pray for us - that our lives would shine for Jesus that others may be drawn to Him. Here are some specific prayer requests:

• Neighbors. We have slowly begun building relationships with our neighbors. Pray that we would always shine with the love of Christ, that we would be open and friendly (even when we don't feel like it) and that we could build friendships with them.
• Our Guard. Our street guard is quickly becoming a great friend. He adores Brooklyn who yells "hola" to him every time he passes our house. We occasionally take him a plate of food for dinner and Sean has been able to sit and talk with him often. He needs Jesus! Pray for openness - we aren't the first Gringo missionaries to live in this house and we know he's been approached often with the Gospel message before. He has probably heard the Gospel presented to him in broken Spanish more than he cares to! But, he still needs Jesus. Pray with us for Jose.
• Our family life. We do live in a glass house. Our neighbors hear everything, see everything and know more than we think they do about our daily life! Pray that, as a family, we could be strong. Our neighbors will naturally form their ideas about Christ by the way that we, as a family, live. Without realizing it or seeking it, we have become a "City on a Hill" - it is VITAL that even in our personal life, we are Christ-centered, loving, respectful, kind, patient, hard-working, etc.
• Spanish. Keep praying for our language acquisition. Yes, we are progressing - praise the Lord! But, we still have so much to learn. We want to speak this language well. Let's face it, "Tarzan Spanish" would probably be pretty annoying to listen to! We need Supernatural help in learning this language and applying what we learn to our every day lives. Right now we are able to talk to our neighbors about the weather, our plans for the weekend, our likes and dislikes, our favorite food, etc. We pray that by the time we leave, we are able to talk on a deeper level, especially about spiritual matters.

Cultural lessons

Our situation here at language school is very different. We are like children all over again, trying to figure out not just the language but also the culture. It can be frustrating at times. Here are a few things we are still trying to figure out after almost four months here:

• Haircuts? (on Saturdays you need an appointment but every other day of the week you may walk in .... or so we think)
• Whether or not to tip? (don't tip your waiter but do tip the guard that watches your car outside of the restaurant)
• Why can't we pay our bills? (we go to pay them and, for some reason, they won't let us pay the bill. The only thing we do understand is that we still need to pay the bill...somehow)
• When shopping...why can't we start loading our things up on the counter while the person ahead of us is paying for their things? (Apparently this is very rude...but it is not rude to stand in front of somebody when they are trying to pass you in the aisle.)
• Why do the taxi drivers start yelling at us when we close their door? (Don't ever slam the door in a taxi, even if you have to re-open and shut the door a zillion times just to get it to latch)
• Why does everybody think we're German?! (Yes, we are white, blue-eyed, blonde and tall...we did just discover that there is a rather large German population in Southern Costa Rica - perhaps this is why we are immediately taken for Germans?!)
• Why is it so dog-gone hard to make a hotel reservation? (Call, call again, ask the right questions, call again, give the correct email address again, fill out first form, email form back, receive second form, fax this one back, call again, ask language school secretary to write a letter to prove we are students, fax that, call to confirm and bam you've got your hotel reservation!)
• When driving...why does everyone cut us off, walk in front of our car, or pull out in front of us? (HONK! A few short honks at every intersection will warn others not to get in your way. If someone is taking too long and is in your way, let them know they need to move. If you don't honk, then you don't care...In the U.S. honking is rude but here it is just another way of communicating, nobody will ever be mad at you for honking at them, they expect you to!)

So much to learn! But, as we learn little by little, we find ourselves actually seeing the logic behind many of these cultural practices. Many times we embarass ourselves without really knowing why. Sometimes we look very rude but we think we're being kind! We have learned that we must un-learn many things from our own culture and re-learn how to do things within this culture. Gratefully, we do stick out here and so the Costa Ricans are very understanding when we screw up...and once we open our mouths to try to say something intelligible, then we are just plain pitied!!!

Much to celebrate...

This past weekend we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary and Brooklyn's 2nd birthday. Wow. Time "flies" (pun intended, of course)! It was a great weekend. We gave Brooklyn a kitchen set for her birthday and she loved it!! We spent most of the weekend making some delicious meals on her little red, blue, yellow, and green stove. We are stepping on little plastic salchichas (hot dogs) in every room of the house but it is worth it to see what a great time Brooklyn is having with this simple toy. She had a few more packages from Grandma and Grandpa C. to open as well (Thanks!) and we also took her to the park on her big day. We had considered doing a little birthday party but we just aren't brave enough to invite over four or five other toddlers. So, instead, we took cupcakes to school on Friday and Brooklyn shared her birthday at the school with her friends and teachers. (I'm sure her teachers loved us after that - we left behind a bunch of sticky toddlers on a sugar rush for them to deal with for the rest of the day...God bless those dear, patient ladies!) Here are a few pics of our baby girl's special day.
Two candles in a chocolate chip pancake for the big day!

Sunglasses compliments of Grandma and Grandpa C. Jammies compliments of Grandpa and Grandma E. Without grandparents she just wouldn't be so stylin'.

Playing at the new kitchen set.

"We are the Champions..."

Whew! What a busy weekend! Rebecca and I have both been all over the place this weekend doing various things. Yesterday we woke up early and took our “loaner” Land Cruiser for a drive. We had intentions of going to watch the sunrise, but when I got up at 4:30 it was raining. So I happily went back to bed until about 6:00 and then we woke up. By then it had stopped raining and we still jumped in the Cruiser and went to our predetermined spot. It is about 20 minutes from the house and it is at about 6500 feet. Our house is at 3500 ft and the view from this spot is really pretty. San Jose sits in a valley and from this vantage point you can really see the whole city and across to the other side of the valley. Supposedly on a really clear day you can see the volcanoes on the other side, but there were too many clouds Saturday morning, although we were not disappointed. The temperature change is also remarkable. We took along our jackets and luckily so. They came in handy. We returned from the valley view and back to our house and then went out to breakfast for a typical breakfast dish called “Gallo Pinto” the painted rooster. Don’t ask how the dish got its name because it is basically red beans and rice, but it is very good and cheap, which is another bonus. Most Saturdays we have gone to the farmers market and the bakery, but we really didn’t need anything from either place this weekend so we just came home after eating.

Now, for explanation of today’s title, “We are the champions.” Yesterday the school hosted a 3-on-3-basketball tournament. For those of you who know me, my height is deceiving as I am not much of a basketball man. I have never been what you would call great, although I enjoy playing. So for most of our time here in Costa Rica, I have gone to play basketball on Tuesday nights at the school. A great time to speak English and not think about homework, conjugating verbs, and putting sentence structures together. So fast-forward to yesterday to the tournament. The crazy thing is that people actually asked me to be on their team. I humbly said yes knowing there are better people, although most are smaller. Size does help, and when you play “Ghetto” ball like some of these people, (my fellow students and the Costa Rican’s) it helps to have a big man down under to take care of business. We formed a team of 4, which was nice as it allowed us to rotate a bit and stay fresher. There were a total of 12 teams that showed up. Now mind you this tournament was open to anyone, open to the community and the students alike. We played our first 2 games and lost heartbreakers. Our first was lost in overtime to a good team and our second to another good team in which we lost by only 1 shot. Regardless those first two games placed us into the tournament. Our first game was fairly easy and we handily won, which was a confidence booster after our first two losses to good teams. This whole tournament got started at about 10:30. After winning that game we were slated to play the team who had beat us previously in our second game. They were a tough fight but we ended up beating them solidly and it was sweet redemption since it was single elimination once the tournament officially began. Our next game was a nail biter. Technically it could be considered a semi-final game and we were already farther than we expected. The competition for the semifinal game was great, but we hung in there actually keeping a lead most of the game. The games were 2-10 minute halves for a total of 20 minutes of half court play. With the score tied and about 20 seconds left the opposing team shot and went up by 2. We knew it would be tough to either tie the score or shoot a three and win, but with 2 seconds left my teammate Kevin shot a three point shot and made it. It was AWESOME! We won the semi-final game by 1 point at the buzzer. So by now we are a lot farther in the tournament than we anticipated. The championship game slated us against the very first team we played and lost to in over time. It was again a HARD fought battle and once again at the end of regulation we were tied, so we played another overtime tiebreaker of 2 minutes. And as the title says, we are the champions. We prevailed to beat this team by 2 points and it was awesome. I have never been the champion of anything, even though this was just a simple weekend 3-on-3 tournament. And to cap it all off, we all received great prizes. My team each received a bottle of Gatorade, and the runners-up received a Snickers candy bar. That is what you call a tournament on a budget. But the pride was greater than the prize. So finally after playing ball all day my team left about 4:30 or 5 and went to eat some pizza and talk glory stories. I am pretty sure my teammate Kevin made the newspaper with the Costa Rican play of the day with his buzzer-beating 3-point shot, but I have not heard yet. All told it was a great day, although I am paying for it today. After 6 games of rebounding, and taking a pounding under the basket I am pretty sore, in fact really sore, but it was worth it. Lots if fun.

So where was Becca during all of this? Here is the other side of the story. She stayed home for the morning and early afternoon. We both were planning on going to a “Quincenera.” It is a 15th birthday party for girls and they are very important. This one happened to be for the daughter of our maid. We where slated to leave at around 3:30, but when we kept advancing in the basketball tournament, I stayed behind and Rebecca and Brooklyn went to the party without me. It sounds like they had a good time and enjoyed seeing what happens and a mellow version of this popular party. Luckily there were a few other couples from the school, which made it a little less foreign to Becca. She and Brooklyn returned home at around 9:00 pm and all three of us went to bed exhausted.

We awoke for church this morning and made it for the 8:00 am service. Once again it was great and the pastor spoke about planning for the future. It is good to sit under the teaching of this pastor and hear him tell it how it is. What's even better is the fact that we are actually able to understand him!!! Maybe we are learning something after all....

After church was over, we attended another birthday party. It was for one of my teammates from yesterday, Steve. It was more of a brunch and actually really enjoyable, until Brooklyn let us know it was time to leave and take a nap, if you know what I mean. So we promptly came home and took naps, and woke up and my girls went to another birthday party. This one is for a 10-year-old boy at one of the local churches. I stayed behind to do homework and other logistics and now here I write this. They are still gone and after a busy weekend I think I will just relax and have cereal or macaroni and cheese for dinner. We are both looking forward to school once again this week although it is going to be very busy at least for me with a lot of worship practices and chapel services and who knows what else will just come up. All this and we even have another national holiday Tuesday, which means no school. Anyway, we still feel more and more each week as a part of this community and as we meet more people and learn more of the culture we are living in, it becomes more exciting to be doing what we are doing. Our calling has nothing to do with airplanes or hospitals or things. It has everything to do with people. And as we invest ourselves in getting to know more people, their lives, struggles, praises, and lives in general, then do we see our calling begin to bud, and it is exciting!




(Picture of a nearby Catholic Church on the way to our lookout point)