2015 by month: March

Today, I'm continuing with my posts to sum up what 2015 has looked like for us so far, month by month.  It's hard to squeeze a month into one post!  I also realized that I'm actually just highlighting the events of each month, while not at all representing what daily life looks like for us here.  These "by month" posts are focusing on what made that month unique from others.  Our daily life and ministry doesn't really change by month.  We're continually living real life here -- discipling our kids, building relationships in our community, teaching classes and leading Bible studies, helping with the growth of our church, encouraging each other and our friends in the faith, shopping at the market, cleaning the house, speaking lots of Spanish, and (I'm just being honest here) sweating a lot, too, here in the tropics.  As you read these posts about each month, keep in mind that a lot of real life and daily ministry is squeezed in between each event and photo highlighted in the post!

With that said, here's March 2015:

Our March started with Timmy's birthday on the 3rd.  I still can't quite believe that our firstborn is seven!  We had a quiet family celebration at home, and took a cake and treats to celebrate with his classmates at school. 

 

The second week of March will probably be one of the highlights of the year for me.  This is really one of the year's events that I want to give its own post, too -- someday.  One of my closest friends from high school, Catherine, brought a team of students from the university where she teaches down to work with our ministry and with a local children's home.  It was so fun have her here and to work together that week.  The team worked on pouring a concrete drive at the children's home, helped take care of the babies and kids there, and built new pews for our church!  They went to church with us on Sunday, and hung out with our youth group after church on Sunday.  It was a great week.

 

friends reunited!

 

 

They were a great team!

I could see God's hand in the timing of Catherine's trip.  I have struggled with intense allergies for years, but by the beginning of this year, I was feeling so sick that I was having trouble breathing and even speaking.  I finally was referred to an ENT, who, after examining me, told me that something muy extraña ("very strange") was going on in my sinuses and that a surgery was definitely in my future.  Weeks of many tests incurred -- blood tests, x-rays, MRI's, CAT scans, etc.  My arms were black and blue from so many needles poking me for blood draws and IV's.  The testing revealed significant damage to my sinuses and that the surgery would be a very complicated, somewhat risky one.  Needless to say, I was nervous, and having Catherine and her team here in the week leading up to the surgery was the perfect timing and distraction for me!  God is good.

 



I am still so often thanking God for a successful surgery, a very smooth recovery, and no complications.  Thanks to the excellent surgeons, I'm feeling better than I've felt in years! I'm also so thankful that my mom got here in time to help with the kids, in spite of a big volcanic eruption that covered every surface in our home with volcanic ash... twice.  Dan and I also had to drive through a wildfire (complete with large burning branches falling onto the road behind us as we drove!) to get home after I was released from the hospital.  Our life is definitely full of adventure here!  (By the way, I almost posted a photo of me with a bandaged up face and swollen nose in my hospital room... but, I decided to post a cute photo of my Mom and the kids instead.  They had a great time together!)

with Gimma

By the end of the month, I was able to be up and about a bit, but still was feeling pretty dizzy and wasn't able to lift anything.  My first outing was to a family day our church hosted during Semana Santa ("Holy Week", the week leading up to Easter Sunday).  The day started with a long bike ride through the mountains (the kids and I stayed home for that), followed by games and a picnic in the park.  It was a fun day that made us feel like we truly have a family among our Costa Rican church friends.  What a blessing! 

 

 

Love the smile on her face as she looks at Yeremy, our pastor!

 



Check back soon for the highlights of our April 2015!



2015 by month: February

Wow!  February was a really full month for us!  Here are some snapshots of February 2015 for our family:

The month began with our annual women's prayer retreat.  Every year, the women of the church gather for a day of time focusing on missions and prayer, and, every year, we choose a different country to focus on.  This year, we chose Japan, and it was so fun for me to contact my conversation partner from my years from KU as I planned for this retreat.  She is one of the few Japanese believers I know, and she was able to explain the spiritual culture in Japan as well as provide specific ways we could pray for Christian families and women in Japan.  I presented this information to the women who came, taught them some Japanese words (!), and led them in a time of prayer for Japan.  Here are some photos of that special day:

time of praise and worship

discussion about missions

discussion on Japanese culture

a tea party!

time of prayer for Japan

such a great day!

I was so thankful that the day went really well.  At the time of the conference, I had been battling what I thought was a terrible sinus infection for over a month, and I was nervous about giving a talk and leading discussions all day in Spanish!  But, it was so encouraging to realize that in spite of me not feeling well, God used the day to awaken these precious women's hearts to the great spiritual needs of a country on the other side of the world.  Being able to pray with them specifically for the family of my dear Japanese friend was a true blessing.  And, when I arrived home, I was greeted with this as an encouragement from my sweet kids:

 

 

Our church also hosts an annual missions conference every February.  This is always an encouraging time for Dan and me since we LOVE seeing Latinos getting excited about world missions.  One of our visions for moving here seven years ago was to encourage Latinos to see themselves as ones who would go as missionaries to the ends of the earth.  We are so incredibly blessed to be working with a Costa Rican church who shares that vision!  In the photos below, please note the chalkboard drawing, with a plane heading from little Costa Rica to the rest of the world.  That is our heart in working in Bible and ministry training here! 

 

singing "here I am; send me!"

Pastor Mark, from our partner church in Alabama, preached at the conference.

We continued to work on settling in to our new house in February.  I was to the point of being terribly sick with allergies and was having trouble breathing by the middle of the month, so we actually had to move out of our house for a while to do some major work (again!) to reduce allergens, including tearing down a giant wall of ivy that was full of mold.  We stayed at a camp in our neighborhood while the work was being done; life is full of adventure here!

 

before

 

after - a clean, mold-free area to dry our laundry

The Costa Rican academic year goes from mid-February to mid-December, so the kids went back to school this month.  Timmy moved up to the primary school, and Tabitha started her second year in the preschool.  Timmy also went back to art class, and Tabitha started taking ballet.

 

first day of first grade!

first day of kinder, and pretty proud of herself!
 

SOLAE, our Bible Center, follows the Costa Rican academic year as well, so we started the first trimester of 2015's classes in February.  Each trimester is 12 weeks long, and this trimester Dan taught two classes - the Principles and Essentials of our Faith, and Theology.  In February, the Theology class studied the Apostles' Creed in depth. 

 

set up for our first class on our new porch

Christian, one of the Bible Center's students

Julian, another Bible Center student

And, that's our February... in one very long post! 

2015 by month: January

I think it is a very good thing when life is too full to actually blog about it.  However, we do want those who pray for and support our life and ministry in Costa Rica to know more about what our days look like, so over the next few months, I'll be sharing this year's events by month.  There are so many things that I would love to write whole posts about, but these monthly lists will have to suffice! 

Here is January 2015 in the life of our family:

moving Costa Rica style

At the end of 2014, we made a much needed move to a safer and healthier house.  The first weeks of January were busy with trying to get unpacked and getting the house ready to live in (a bigger job in a rental here than what is typical in the States), in hopes of being completely settled in by the end of the month.  We hit some pretty major roadblocks in this process.  One was discovering that our new house had some really bad mold and mildew issues.  It took us weeks to get this cleared out; thankfully, now our new home seems to be mold-free!

Another major roadblock was a week without running water.  Those were just stinky days (literally).  And, then, there was the day the owner of our house told us that we would need to move out ASAP because someone wanted to buy the house (after telling us that she would not sell).  We had only lived in the house three weeks, had just finished most of the unpacking, and, since it had taken us over six months of searching to find this house, we couldn't imagine moving again!  We started a frantic search for a new place.  We, and many of our friends, were praying hard... and, the sale fell through!  Praise God!

The other huge roadblock was finding out that we had lost a very significant amount of monthly financial support.  It's taken us a while to process this emotionally, and we are still in need of raising more money to be able to continue working here long-term.  The task is daunting, but we have seen God provide for us over and over again for the past seven years, and we trust Him. 

In the midst of all of this craziness, God had a special plan: January was a month of so many visitors!  Two of the families from our EMI team came back to visit Costa Rica, and, during their trips, spent time with us.  It was so great to connect with them.  A couple that had been in our newlyweds small group ten years ago came to Costa Rica to celebrate their anniversary, and took a day out of their trip to spend with us.  These visits provided such encouragement during an otherwise difficult month!

exploring San Jose's children's museum with our life-long friends and former teammates

January is a month off of school and our church's and ministry's regular Bible classes and studies, so the main ministry focus of the month is planning and carrying out la escuelita del verano (VBS).  Many new kids from our church's neighborhood came, and, as every year, I loved seeing the young people of our church serve out of love for Jesus.  This year's program focused on missions, and the kids learned about godly people from the Bible and faithful missionaries of the past.  It was a great week!

I was the official snack lady most days

craft area

Bible teaching area

lots of songs

acting out a skit about the life of John Patton

water games

Timmy loved all the games

Tabitha completely surprised me by answering a question... in Spanish!

2015 VBS team

To end, I have to share a funny story.  The jovenes (youth) from our church had done the skits, dances, songs and teaching all week, while us señoras handled things like snacks, crafts, and general crowd control.  At church on Sunday, they made a surprise announcement that they would choose a couple of adults to do one of the dances with them.  They chose one of the dads and... me.  Being pulled into an impromptu dance routine is pretty much the stuff of bad dreams for me.  I tried to hide in the back and pray no one noticed, while the dad (in the green shirt in the photo below) played his part perfectly.

trying to hide in the back!

Can you tell I was blushing?

January 2015 was definitely a month of highs and lows for us, but looking back now, it's the fun highs that stand out!

He is risen!

He is risen indeed. 

I love those words -- such hope, such victory, such joy!  Christ, who died for us, is risen. 

Every year, when I hear those words on Easter, I think of the remote little villages in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine, where the tradition among some is still to greet each other with "Христос воскрес!" ("Christ is risen!") and then the other person answers back, "He is risen indeed!" all year long, any day of the year.  Can you imagine how beautiful that is?  Unfortunately, it is so traditional now that most (maybe even all) of the villagers don't really think about the significance of their words as they say them.  I remember being there and praying that someday, revival would happen in those villages and that that traditional greeting would be the joyful expression of understanding the importance of the resurrection.  Can't you see it?  Every day, greeting your neighbors with "Hey!  Christ is alive!  He died for us and now He's alive again!!", and then they answer back "So true!  He is alive! And, we get to live with Him forever!"  I get tears in my eyes imagining it!

And, now, so many years after my time in Ukraine, I'm imagining what it would be like if we as believers all over the world greeted each other this way, not just on Easter, but every day... always remembering that Christ's resurrection is what validates our faith, always remembering His victory over death after His sacrifice on our behalf, always remembering the hope of eternity we have in Him.... always living every day in the joy of Easter.  Really, we should live this way, shouldn't we? 

So, this year, after dressing in our pretty Easter dresses, painting and hunting for our eggs, and singing the traditional Easter hymns in our church, I'm praying that Easter will carry on in our hearts.  I'm praying that my heart will want to exclaim to everyone I meet, "He is risen!" all year long, every day of the year.  Join me in praying for this, friends?

 

He is risen!  And, we'll be celebrating for eternity!

 

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.  Do you believe this?"

(John 11:25)

¡Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas from Costa Rica!