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)