VBS

Outrigger Island VBS



Madison helping out the young kids with craft


The older kids in the gym playing games


Yep, even in Costa Rica we can have vacation bible school. This week the adults are involved in what is called Spiritual Emphasis Week. We have two speakers come and we have lectures twice a day. The one in the evening is from 5:00 - 6:30p.m. So, instead of just providing child care, this year a couple offered to lead a vacation bible school. This was the first day, and I was helping out with the kids. There were over 60 kids in attendance! Awesome! The theme is Outrigger Island, and it's about the sovereignty and reality of God. Great times! The kids really seem to be enjoying it and learning.

Mission Trip to San Carlos, Costa Rica

We are back from our three day mission trip to San Carlos. We had a great time organizing a youth event for 50 kids.

Take a look at this 4 minute and 30 second video to see what we did:

San Carlos Mission Trip

San Jose to San Carlos

Today, after school, we leave for a three day mission trip to San Carlos, Costa Rica. This is a poor community about three hours outside of San Jose. The Pettengills are responsible for organizing a Youth program for 80+ kids. We have dozens of fun games and a Bible program planned.

We are very excited that Team Honduras (that’s you) was given the ability to sponsor a couple of boys from La Carpio to be missionaries for the weekend. These boys have found the Lord and a desire to serve in a ministry that Mike works at every Thursday. We will get to guide them and have them work under our supervision. It is great to be able to act as missionaries training other missionaries.

We will return Sunday night and report back to you how it all turned out. Sorry in advance for the lack of posts between now and then. Please pray for us this weekend.

I’ve Got The Power…NOT

One if by land...

In the six months that we have lived here in San Jose, Costa Rica we have experienced periodic power outages, internet lapses, water shutoffs and phone disconnections. One of our utilities usually goes out once a week or so. But, seldom do any of the outages last more then an hour. However, it has never been as frequent as it has in the past 10 days.

In the past week and a half both the power and the internet have been out for some duration most every day. The power has not gone out for more then an hour and a half, but, has gone out as many as five times in one day. And, the internet has barely worked during that time.

Neither is a crisis. And, as we are fond of saying, “It’s not bad, just different.” These are simply inconveniences that we must learn to adapt to. We have learned the hard way to frequently save documents you are working on in the computer, and we have also perfected the joy of studying by flashlight.

Dinner With Friends

mmmmmm


mmmmmm.....seconds

This evening we hosted a dinner for some students from our language school. Including Maddy and Lucy there were 10 people in attendance. Not bad for our little apartment.

Our missionary friend Cam cooked Middle Eastern food for everyone. And, our friends Jessica and Zoe made dessert for everyone. All we did was host…yeah!

This is a busy time for all of us at language school. Everyone has multiple tests this week and it was a great chance to eat, laugh and blow off a little steam.

Everyone had a great time. The food was great and the company was better. Now, back to our regularly scheduled studying.

Yo Estoy muy frustrada!

Translation: I am very frustrated! Class these days - it's a bit overwhelming! Learning so much new stuff! It's one thing to think that a test is hard/difficult and receiving a good grade on it, and a whole other thing to think a test is fairly straight forward and receive a bad grade. Well...that was today. And, of course, we are moving on. No time to reflect on how we did poorly and digest how to do better because we have so much more to learn. And where we go from here in learning is even more difficult. Oh joy. The other frustrating thing - it's "only Spanish" for goodness sake! It's not trying to start a church, and receiving a difficult time from the government, or starting street children ministry and trying to "get through" to the kids - it's "only Spanish" afterall! So...I need to keep things in perspective - but why my frustration is because I NEED Spanish for all of the above to happen - so I know how important it is. So forgive my ramblings, bottom line - just pray. Pray for my brain to soak up new information, for my frustration levels to decrease, and for my learning to increase - and the bottom line - for God to be glorified in all that I do.

The beach

Cam and Madison


Playa Hermosa (Hermosa beach)


Madison riding in a wave


Taking a break


Zoe


Yesterday Madison, myself, my friend Cam, Zoe, and another friend from school all went to a beach on the Pacific coast. This is a 2 1/2 bus trip from downtown San Jose, and then another 15 minute taxi drive to the beach. It's a beautiful black sand beach, and perfect for surfing. But, because it has great big waves, it has quite an undertoe - so we had to be very careful with the strong ocean currents. A few times we were caught by some waves, covered, and pulled under - but - we stuck together, and never were in real danger, just had to be careful. We only spent the day - but 6 hours in the sun was sufficient - caught the bus back, and arrived home by 8:30 at night. Exhausted, we both fell into bed and slept soundly! A great day overall.