Our Costa Rican Christmas

This will be our first Christmas in Costa Rica!  Last year, after graduating from language school in mid-December, we returned to the States to celebrate Christmas with our families.  Even though lately I've been having a few tinges of nostalgia and homesickness thinking about what Christmases have always looked like for us before this one, I have been really excited all year about experiencing Christmas here for the first time. It is fun to learn how another culture celebrates Christ's birth, and celebrating Christmas here with our Tico friends makes this seem more like home.  I'm also excited about being in our own home for Christmas so that we can start to form some of our own traditions as a family.  I love thinking about believers around the world preparing for this special celebration, worshipping the Lord during Advent, and identifying with those long ago who anticipated the coming of the Messiah.  For the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing here about our Costa Rican Christmas. 

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

la fuga

Unfortunately, the Spanish word la fuga has become a way too frequently used word in our house.  In fact, we have had four major fugas and countless smaller ones.  We never learned the word fuga (which means "leak") in language school, but we have used it way more than we would have ever wanted to all year long living here in Atenas.  After living in the house for about a month, there was a leak in the bathroom plumbing which resulted in the whole house flooding... twice.  The first time, Dan woke up at 3am and stepped into standing water as he got out of bed.  At 5am, we were still tossing buckets full of water out of the windows of our house, mopping, and wringing out towels.  Thankfully, the fuga that caused those two big floods has been successfully repaired for a long time. 

We have had another fuga in the bedroom wall, and another outside, and more recently, we have had fuga after fuga in laundry room.  For several weeks, our laundry room (and sometimes the area of our house next to it) was completely flooded about every other day!  Then, our hot water heater started erupting, so that there was very, very hot water spraying out of it into the laundry room sporadically throughout the day.  The first time this happened, Dan was working on the fugas in that room, so he was really close to the hot water heater; I'm so thankful he didn't get burned!  I just heard a loud popping noise and then the sound of rushing water, and then saw Dan sprinting out of the room faster than I've ever seen him move before and into our bedroom to switch off the breaker for the hot water heater!  Whew!  Never a dull moment in our house!  (note: our water heater is not like ones we have in the States.  It's very small and just heats the water that runs through it as we use hot water in the house.  We have had similar types of water heaters in the showers only, which are called "widow makers", unfortunately.)

After repeated tries to repair the most recent fugas, it seems that they are finally repaired (thanks to our new friend Jose Luis, expert plumber/electrician and former mayor of Atenas!).  We're still working on the hot water heater.  At best, we have lukewarm showers, which is way better than cold showers, but we'd like to get back to hot showers and not needing to flip the breaker on and off each time we want to shower.  Hot water or no, I'm so thankful to not have a flooded house anymore.  May the word fuga become a much less commonly used word in our household once again!

Honoring our host families

A month or so ago, Dan and I planned our second host family appreciation event (I never got a chance to blog about the first, but those of you who receive our newsletters heard about it and saw photos).  I love this event because it so fun to get the families who host our interns and all of the EMI staff together in one place.  We provided a dinner to honor the host families and to thank them for all of the ways that they bless our interns and our staff.  Dan and I are continually amazed at how these families so wholeheartedly welcome the interns into their families, treating them as their own sons and daughters.  The interns are always blown away by the love and acceptance they receive from their Tico families.  These families are our closest Tico friends and we are so, so thankful for them. 

We asked the interns to share with the host families about their project trips to Haiti.  The host families really appreciated this because it showed them how they are partnering with us in ministry by hosting our interns.  The interns did a great job explaining everything in Spanish.  It's amazing how much they learn living with these families!

Here Christy and Ben talk about their trip to Arachaie with Dan...

...while host families listen intently. (sorry the photo quality is so bad!)

This is what I consider our whole EMI team: the EMI staff families, the interns, AND the host families!

Thankfulness

This post is going to seem a little outdated as it is more than a week after Thanksgiving, fall back in the States seems like it is over as snows and freezing temperatures arrive, and preparation for Christmas is in full swing.  It's hard for me to realize this quick passing of one season to another and one holiday to another here where the weather is sunny and warm year round!  Rainy season does seem to be over, so there is a slight change and our Tico friends are telling me that this is the weather of Christmas time, but so far, I'm still getting used to the fact that fall and Thanksgiving passed so quickly. 

It is also hard to believe that we have now celebrated two Thanksgiving days in Costa Rica!  This Thanksgiving, we felt so much more settled, so much more at home, than we did last year and that is one of our biggest praises to God in this season.

We started out el Día de la Acción de la Gracias (literally "the day of the action of thanks"; isn't that a great name?) with a special family breakfast of French toast and bowls of great tropical fruit.  As we ate, Dan and I wrote out the blessings that we are praising the Lord for this year as we "come before Him with thanksgiving."  This is a tradition I'd like to continue each year on Thanksgiving day so that over the years, we can look back and joyfully praise the Lord for His faithful, constant working in our lives.

After breakfast, Timmy got to experience some fall fun with the fake leaves that I had used to decorate our breakfast table.  I had no idea he would have so much fun having the leaves dropped over his head again and again!  His giggles reminded us of one of our biggest praises: the joy our little guy brings us. We might have to make fake leaf games another Thanksgiving tradition, at least as long as we live in the tropics!

In the afternoon, we joined our team for a Thanksgiving feast.  The food was exactly what you'd expect at a traditional Thanksgiving meal: turkey! (last year we had chicken), stuffing, pies, etc., but the atmosphere was not traditional.  We ate outside in a rancho (a covered patio) surrounded by a beautiful garden with a river running by us.  A short walk away from the rancho took us to several waterfalls.  It was a lovely afternoon!  Here are some scenes of our celebration:

eating together

It's hard to believe that last Thanksgiving, Timmy got turkey in a Gerber jar!

me and my boy

exploring the dark river area with Daddy

one of the beautiful waterfalls

There is so much to be thankful for - Jesus and the salvation we have through Him, our little family, the joy Timmy brings us as he grows and learns, the Lord's provision and grace for us during our first year here in Atenas, the opportunity to live in this beautiful country and to serve God's people in Central America, our health, our marriage, our family and friends around the world, those who support us financially, our church both here and in the States, new Tico friends, the amazing gifts of God's Word and prayer...  We are so blessed.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.  Let us come before Him with thanksgiving, and extol Him with music and song.  (Psalm 95:1-2)

Photo Friday: So happy together

I am so very thankful for YOU, mi amor.

Meet our interns!

We have had a great group of interns with us since the end of the August. It is really hard for me to believe that they will be leaving us in just several more weeks.  As coordinators of the intern program for our office, the interns are a big part of what we do here, and we are so blessed to get to spend a lot of time with them.  Because of this, it's kind of crazy that I'm just now introducing them to you all, but better late than never! 

I love this photo because it just epitomizes the dynamics of this group.  They are so much fun and are always laughing together!  On a day that they were scheduled to a present their trips to Haiti at a staff family meeting, all four of them showed up to work wearing the matching outfits... completely by coincidence!  They had great fun with it all day, and took the opportunity to pose for some cheesy "family" photos. 

The guys, from left to right are Nick, recent graduate of Virginia Tech; Ben, recent graduate from University of Colorado; and Avery, recent graduate of Texas A&M.  And, Christy graduated from Southern Methodist University in Texas.  This group is obviously different from our previous group that represented five different countries!

On that same day, I showed up to the staff meeting wearing a black shirt and white skirt, also completely coincidentally.  So, of course, another cheesy photo had to be taken (like I said, these interns are funny!).

I meet with Christy every week as her mentor, and I have loved getting to know her.  She gave her life wholeheartedly to Christ just a year ago, and immediately decided she wanted to use her engineering skills to serve Him.  Isn't that so encouraging?  She has a tender heart for Jesus, and a merciful heart for people.  We have been working on scripture memory together by going through the good ol' TMS (for all of you Navigators out there). 

These interns are also in our home once a week for a Bible study that Dan leads.  We are studying faith, and have been doing character studies on the people of faith listed in Hebrews 11.  We have all been encouraged by the study and Dan and I find ourselves challenged by the interns' insight and questions, as well as their great definitions of faith based on what we've been studying. 

Please pray for these new friends of ours as they have less than a month left of their internship.  Please pray for their ability to finish their project work in the office, for continued blessing of their time with their Costa Rican host families, and for God to be working in their hearts to use what they have been learning of Him here to prepare them for what He has planned for them in the future.