We're back!

We were in the States for the past month visiting family and friends, and just returned to Costa Rica less than a week ago.  We had a wonderful time visiting 4 different states and getting caught up with people (and eating lots of good American food!).  As always, it was sad to leave when our time in the States was up.  Saying good-bye is hard, especially when we know it will be a long time before we see people again.  I definitely felt like I left home when we came back last week, but now that we are back in Atenas, I feel like I'm home as well. Two homes, two lives...  It's easy for me to dwell on it being hard to leave, but I'm so thankful to be here again.  It's been good to visit with some of our teammates, to get caught up with Tico friends, and to worship with our Tico church family yesterday.

We've been working hard to get settled back into our house and work.  Our new group of interns arrive next week, so there is a lot to do this week! 

memories

Lately people back home have been telling us that they can't believe that it has already been two years since we moved here.  They feel like the time has gone by really quickly.  I  don't quite feel that way; my thought is usually more like, "it's only been two years!?"  It often seems longer than that to me; I think that that is because there has been so many changes and new experiences in the past two years!

When I think over the past two years, so many memories flood my thoughts. I think of moving into our partially furnished apartment and being overwhelmed by our semi-automatic washing machine and by the need to quickly buy all sorts of household supplies that we were not expecting to buy. The image of me clutching onto Timmy in the backseat of a taxi as we sped through the unfamiliar streets of San José flashes through my mind. I now laugh at the memory of Dan pushing Timmy's stroller laden with much needed kitchen supplies (complete with a casserole dish strapped into the seat and a lamp sticking out of the basket) across a crazy 3 lane highway roundabout.  I was running beside him with Timmy in a sling, my hands full of bags of silverware, pots and pans, and muffin tins. We were the crazy gringos (actually, we probably still are the crazy gringos...).

in front of our San José apartment, where we lived during language school (2008)

I remember sitting in a classroom at our language school, studying Spanish with my tutor while pushing sleeping Timmy's stroller back and forth with my foot. I remember continuing to push the stroller back and forth in the covered walkway of our school, waiting for Dan's class to finish and listening to the rain pelting against the metal roof. I remember Dan and I taking turns studying each evening while the other played with our boy. I remember graduating from language school and wondering if we knew enough Spanish to do the work that was ahead of us.

with Jonesí, our grammar teacher, at graduation in December 2008

The emotions I had as we moved into our empty, unfinished house in Atenas are still so vivid to me.  While we waited for our kitchen cabinets to be installed and a laundry room to be added on the back porch, we drove all over this part of Costa Rica in search for furniture.  It took longer than we expected, which we eventually were thankful for when our still empty house flooded.  And, how happy I was when we finally moved our clothes out of plastic bins and into a real, live dresser - a whole year after moving to Costa Rica!

exploring our new backyard in Atenas in mid-2009

 

I think of meeting our first group of interns, our first intern orientation, our first time getting all the host families together.  Now we are about to say good-bye to our third group of interns, and we feel like we have a well-established intern program ready for the next group arriving in August.  I was so nervous the first time Dan went on a project trip; now he has returned to Haiti a second time, and has done a third project in Costa Rica.  He recently finished all his pending projects and has been preparing for his upcoming project trip to Honduras in September.

a recent photo of Dan at his desk in the EMI office

I clearly remember Dan telling me one week after we had been visiting various churches here in Atenas that he felt strongly that God wanted us at the little Baptist church we had visited first. How thankful I am now for that conviction of his! We now feel so at home in our church here and we are so blessed by the relationships that we have there.

worshipping with our church family at a baptism service in March of this year

I have had (and still experience at times) days of intense loneliness and discouragement; we also are blessed with days of great fellowship with the Lord and with people here.  There have been so many times that I prayed to God with unsettled questions of "Why?" and "What if?" and was answered with His calm, gentle answers of assurance and peace.  Of course, I could ramble on and on about more and more memories.  As I said in the last post, the past two years have been hard, but good and right, and we wouldn't trade them for anything.  It has been an adventure and a journey, and there is still so much learning and growing to do.  After all, we've only been here for two years!

two years

We've now lived in Costa Rica for over two years!  On June 3, 2008, we left the USA with our 3-month old baby, several plastic bins, some suitcases, and a lot of anticipation and nervousness. 

Were we crazy?

Yes, actually, looking back, it does seem like we were!

Did we know what we were getting into?

No, we sure didn't!

Wasn't it hard?

Yes, it was hard.  It is hard. To be honest, it's the hardest thing we've ever done.

Was it the right thing to do?

Yes, it was, even with all of the challenges and struggles we've gone through in the past two years. 

We felt that God was calling us to join EMI in Latin America and, out of obedience, we moved here even though the timing of it didn't make sense.  Not only was Timothy only 3 months old, but I had had a difficult pregnancy followed by some difficult issues following his birth.  We were tired, and were just starting to get used to being new parents after weeks of packing, moving, many doctors' appointments, and even more good-byes.  And, quite honestly, we were not really prepared for what was ahead of us.  But, it still was what God wanted us to do.  He has worked in our hearts and changed us, molded us, challenged us, convicted us, and strengthened us in the past two years more than either Dan or I have ever experienced before.  Yes, it's been hard, but it's also been good and right.

(In my next post, I'll share some of the memories that run through my mind as I look back over the past two years.)

VBS follow-up

A long time ago, I wrote a post about our church's VBS, and ended it with a promise to write how we followed up with the kids and families we met during that week.  I'm finally getting around to writing that promised post!  You might want to reread about our VBS program here to remember what we did...

On Friday night, after a full week of programs with the kids from two different poor neighborhoods in Atenas, we had a program for the families of the kids who had attended throughout the week.  We had it in the town plaza, in front of the public school and next to where the outdoor market is (so a very central, well-known location).  A lot of the kids came dressed in blue jeans and white shirts like how we had dressed all week, and they were ready to perform the songs that they had learned, complete with dances or actions, for their parents.  It was fun to watch how excited the kids were to do this, and everyone did a great job.  Then, we showed a clip from a movie similar to the Jesus Film, and gave a presentation of the gospel.  Our pastor, Yeremy, spoke to the parents afterwards about the importance of Jesus being Lord of the family, and gave the parents an opportunity to commit their lives to Christ and to pray for their families.  It has been so encouraging to see some of these mothers, one of the fathers, and many of the kids still attending our church months later. 

Here are a few photos from the event:

Do you see Timo right in the middle?

Yeremy talking to the crowd

a girls vs. boys singing competition

Ever since this event, each Sunday morning, members of our youth group go to these neighborhoods to pick up any kids or families who would like to come to our church that morning.  Several women and quite a few children have come to faith through this ministry and attend our church regularly.  It is such a blessing to see their faces in our congregation each week!  We continue to pray for the neighborhoods el Invu and los Olivos.

I remembered that I still needed to write this post because we recently found a house for rent in el Invu and considered moving to it.  What stopped us was finding out it was going to be quite difficult to break our lease on the house we are currently renting.  Please pray for us to have peace about staying here if that is the Lord's will.  If it is not, please pray that we would be given wisdom on how to make the move possible.  Of course, we want to be living where God wants us to be, and that seems a little unclear to us right now!  Thank you for your prayers!

los volcánes

We are constantly amazed by the beauty that surrounds us here in Costa Rica, especially living in a more rural area.  The landscape is definitely very different from our native Midwest USA!  I love living in the mountains and seeing so much green (especially now that the rainy season is beginning!).  The scenes that seem most impressive to me, though, are the volcanoes.  A month or so ago, as we walked out our front door, Timmy said, "Mommy, I wanna see 'cano."  I realized he was talking about volcanoes we can see from the side of our house, and I had a "We're not in Kansas anymore" moment when I realized that these volcanoes we see every day here are normal for my little boy.  Here a couple of photos of one of them, Volcán Turrialba, with smoke pouring out of it (taken from our porch)  I was greeted by a similar scene yesterday morning when I woke up with the sunrise at 4:30am (yep, it rises early here!):

(The photo at the top of this post is of us in front of Volcán Arenal, which we visited while Dan's parents were here.  It was our second time there, but our first time to see even part of this huge volcano that is often covered in clouds.  We were excited!)

because it's already two months later...

Timmy turned two years old two months ago, and while I did post about that, I never got around to posting some photos of his birthday party. It’s been my plan to do that, but, basically, I just don’t have time to, SO, I'm letting you all in on a little secret: I have another blog.  I started it a couple of months ago as a way to keep our parents more informed on all of Timmy’s funny stories and sayings. That blog is truly all things Timmy, so I’ve thought that it would just be a bit much for anyone who’s not Timmy’s grandma or grandpa to handle… BUT, you can go here to see some photos of his birthday party!  That blog will continue to be geared just for Timmy's biggest fans, but at least now I'll feel like I can cross this post off of the ever growing list of posts-I'd-like-to-write-but-can't-find-time-or-a-good-internet-connection-to-work-on.  Enjoy!

(also, if anyone knows how I can easily copy a post from one blog to another, including the photos, please let me know!)