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.