Photo Friday: el carrusel de caballitos

We may not be going on hay rides at pumpkin patches this October, but Timmy did get to enjoy un carrusel de caballitos last weekend when there was a celebration in the central park in honor of our town's patron saint, San Rafael.
 

taking a break

"I need to wash the dishes... oh, the water's out... well, I guess I'll take a break."  That was my sequence of thoughts earlier today.  I like days like today, when not having running water in the house is a welcome opportunity for a break from laundry, cleaning, and dish washing.  Timmy and I had a great time playing together all day, which I was glad of because tomorrow we won't get to play together much at all.  I'm going to have my first experience with surgery in Costa Rica.  Thankfully, it's nothing serious, just the removal of one little wisdom tooth that's been causing me a lot of pain for months.  Still, it will be a whole day event, driving from our little town to the center of San José for the hour long procedure, then driving back for a couple of days of a chubby cheeked recovery.  But, I can think of it as another opportunity for a break, a time of rest and plenty of fruit smoothies! 

Introducing... PHOTO FRIDAY!

Now that we have the wonderful high speed DSL connection, I'm hoping to be able to blog more, including regularly posting photos of our family and what life is like for us here.  I'm starting this out with some beautiful photos that were taken by a teammate's sister who was visiting Costa Rica.  We're really thankful for these great photos, and for her willingness to bless all of the families on our team with her talent.  Here are just a few of our favorites (and you may be seeing some more in future posts):

Our first package!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a wonderful surprise: the arrival of the very first package to be sent to us here in Costa Rica!  A sweet high school friend of mine knows how much I love fall and heard that I just might be missing it a little here in the tropics, so she sent me my favorite season in a padded envelope!  I was incredibly excited when Dan brought home the package she sent.  She was very creative thinking of what she could fit into an envelope: two kitchen towels with pretty fall leaves on them, some packets of apple cider (yum!), fall-themed stickers for Timmy and some pretty decorative leaves.  I'm going to have to have a day when I spread the leaves out on the table, sit back to sip a steaming mug of apple cider, and pretend that I'm feeling the cool, crisp breezes of fall. 

Receiving the package was a good reminder not just of fall back home, but of friends far away who are thinking about us and praying for us.  We miss you all, much more than we miss fall!  Muchísimas gracias, Bree, for your thoughtfulness and these fun reminders of fall.  (And, just for fun, you can look back here to this post to see how we celebrated fall last year).

Some good news

I thought after the rather sobering post about dengue, I should share some good news.  Here are a few tidbits of good news from our family:

First, we finally have a high speed internet connection at our house!!!  We requested a DSL connection in February, and now after about 9 months of waiting, we finally got it!  Dan's persistence in repeatedly visiting the government office in charge of installing it paid off.  Now that we have this new high speed connection, we should be able to keep in touch better with family and friends back home.  Please e-mail us, skype us, comment on our blog, etc.  We would love to hear from you. 

Some fun, but not so important, good news is that we found canned pumpkin in a grocery store in San José!  I know that doesn't sound that amazing, but after not finding even one calabaza (pumpkin), much less canned pumpkin, anywhere last year, I was really excited when we found it last weekend.  So, this Saturday, I hope to treat our Costa Rican friends to some good American-style desserts de calabaza at our host family appreciation event!

And, some much more important good news is that Dan had a very good, very encouraging trip to Haiti a couple of weeks ago.  It was his first time leading a project trip on his own, and he was blessed with a great, unified team.  He will write more about his time there soon, so I won't write any more about it.  But, please praise God with us for blessing his team and their interactions with Haitian brothers and sisters, and thank you very much for your prayers about this trip.  For now, here is a sneak peak of his time there:

with Junior, our Haitian brother and friend

Dengue strikes...

A fever of up to 105F. Extreme joint and muscle pain. A rash covering your whole body. Severe headache and pain behind your eyes. Nausea and vomiting. Such extreme sweating that your bed sheets need to be changed a couple of times a day. This is mild dengue fever, a disease found in tropical and subtropical places like where we live. Like malaria, it is contracted through a mosquito bite, but unlike malaria, there is no vaccine or medicine you can take to avoid getting it.

We had heard about dengue while we were in language school and we knew that it was prevalent in our province of Alajuela. I remember thinking that the symptoms sounded awful, and knowing that contracting it a second time was potentially deadly made it scary. However, we didn’t know anyone who had had it and I hadn’t really thought about it, or worried about it, at all… until recently.

About two months ago, Iveth, our pastor’s wife, came over to our house on a Wednesday and told us that her husband Jeremy had dengue. As the days progressed, Jeremy was in and out of the medical clinic, and then in a hospital in a nearby, bigger city, but still managed to preach on Sunday morning! Iveth told me tearfully after the ordeal was over that she had honestly thought on that Friday that she was going to become a viuda (widow). We were amazed at Jeremy’s quick recovery and praised God for healing him.

Two weeks ago, one of our new interns, Nick, was diagnosed with dengue. This made it seem even closer to home since he is the first EMI intern (or staff) to contract the disease. Based on Nick’s account of his experience, dengue is now referred to as the “bone crusher” in our office. He was really, really sick for a week with an extremely high fever and terrible pain (hence the new name). We praise God for bringing him through it and causing another great recovery. Last week, he rested and regained strength, and yesterday he headed back into the office for a full work day! Praise God! It was great to see him looking like his normal, healthy self as he sat in our living room last night during Bible study!

I'm happy to be able to write that I'm still really not that worried about dengue (and those of you who know me well know that is something to attribute to the Lord, not me!).  God took care of our friends, and I trust that He will continue to take care of us as well.

Please praise God with us for His healing, and please also pray for protection from this disease, especially for Jeremy and Nick. Contracting it a second time is much more serious. From what I understand, catching it again can cause hemorrhaging, significant damage to blood vessels and the lymph system, and potentially a sudden deadly drop in blood pressure. So, please pray that neither of these men would get it again... and, for the rest of us, pray that God would keep those nasty mosquitoes far, far away!