they're here!

4 guest beds set up

air mattresses inflated

every pillow in the house in use

6 folders on our table filled with Bible studies, observation activities, and cultural tips

little lessons on "don't flush the toilet paper" and "how to use the widow-maker"

waffles, eggs, tropical fruit, and strawberry syrup ready for breakfast

three tables and many chairs set up on our front porch

What's going on at our house?  Intern orientation! 

This is always a busy week for us since Dan coordinates the intern program for our office.  But, this week is truly the busiest of all.  With only one other staff member here this week, we couldn't really delegate out many of the responsibilities of this week.  It always is a jam-packed, full week, and there is even more to do this week than usual.  Throughout this week, in our home, we will be having a total of 7 overnight guests, we'll be hosting about 5-6 meals for varying sizes of groups, and we'll be having various meetings and Bible studies here every day.  Whew!  Good thing we love this intern program coordinating thing! 

Our new interns, along with the EMI intern director and his wife, arrived here in Costa Rica last night.  All four interns stayed with us, and, as crazy as it was, I loved having them all here!  We were up late talking with them, and it was fun to just see them feeling comfortable in our home.  This morning, our other team member, Josh, and then the intern director and his wife, joined us all for a big "welcome to Costa Rica" breakfast, followed up by Bible study on our front porch. 

Please pray for us this week.  Even though it's good and we love the interns, it's going to be tiring and trying on us and our kids.  Pray for wisdom and favor on Dan as he leads meetings and Bible studies.  Pray for me as I act the hostess, which isn't my best gifting.  Please pray for health for us and the other staff and interns.  Please pray for our other staff member, Josh, who will be hosting people on his own this week.  Pray for us to trust the Lord for all the things that we need to get done for our upcoming trip to the States (more on that later), but that we simply don't have any time to work on this week.  Pray that God would be honored this week in our home and in the EMI office!  Thank you!

¡Feliz día de las madres!

August 15th is Mother's Day here in Costa Rica, and this year I had a special surprise for this day: my very first serenata!  We woke up at midnight to sweet voices singing at our gate.  We went out on our front porch and listened to a dozen members of our church's youth group, along with Pastor Yeremy, sing some beautiful songs about the love of a mother.  With some calls of "Feliz día, Sarita!", they piled into the back of a truck and were off.  We had just gotten back from EMI's world staff conference in Colorado, USA late Saturday night, so the serenade doubled as a wonderful, sweet welcome home.

 

It took me a long time to fall asleep afterwards.  I just lay there feeling so loved and blessed.  Blessed to be a mother of these two precious children.  Blessed to be the wife of my husband who knew what the youth group had planned and was ready with treats for them.  Blessed to be at home in a foreign country.  Blessed to be sharing life with the jovenes ticos (Costa Rican youth) here in Atenas. 

Dan took some great photos of us on our front porch in honor of el día de las madres.  I can't believe how old they both look in these photos!  Seriously, Timmy looks about 12!  And, I know they're my kids so I'm biased, but they're pretty cute, aren't they? 

Nine month old Tabitha

Three year old Timothy

tears and hope

Dan and I are seeing more and more that when we're involved in ministry, and in people's lives, we become more and more part of the emotions of what they're experiencing.  We've invested a lot into building relationships with our church family here, and now after a couple of years of growing friendships, we feel very deeply the joys and sorrows of these dear brothers and sisters.  And, so, I find myself in tears, crying over the hurt and sadness and sin and pain and sickness that come as we live life in this fallen world. 

I cry over broken marriages,
over unforgiveness,
over young people straying from the truth,
over a young boy from a very poor family being diagnosed with leukemia,
over that boy's grandmother being diagnosed with the same several months later,
over situations of poverty in which I feel helpless to know how to counsel,
over the fear and pain of a woman trying to support her children after her marido (unofficial husband) left her,
over my own fears and sin and weaknesses...

As the tears fall down my face, I praise God for the promise that there is a Place where there will be no more tears.  I'm so thankful for the Hope that we have in Jesus!  Please join us in praying for our brothers and sisters here.  Pray for us, too!

While it's still July...

... I should post about our celebration of the USA's Independence Day here in Costa Rica...

I really love the 4th of July.  I love the patriotism of celebrating our country's freedom, I love the fireworks and picnics, and the time together with family.  It's funny, though,  that I've spent a lot of 4th's of July in other countries: 2 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia and 4 here in Costa Rica.  This year, Dan worked like it was a normal day, but we did get to do a few things to celebrate.  Here are some photos of our day:

our little family all in red, white and blue

our little dual citizen sporting her American side on Independence Day 

having fun together before our celebration

grilling out at the EMI office (interns Tripp, Andrew and Wes, and our teammate Micah)

 
We did get to have a little celebration at the EMI office for lunch.  All the staff families and interns got together to grill hamburgers and hot dogs (real American style burgers - such a treat!).  Here in our basement office in a small Costa Rican town, we sang America the Beautiful, shared things we love and miss about our birth country, and prayed for the USA.  We finished off our celebration with some good apple pie (again, another special treat here).

That night, I happened to have tamales, seasoned beans, and Tico-style rice on our meal plan.  After our lunch of burgers, hot dogs and apple pie, I laughed at how bicultural we're becoming... even on the 4th of July!

Brother and Sister

Timmy and Tabitha are having more and more fun together every day, it seems.  Our parent hearts swell with joy when we see their love for each other; it is so sweet.  Tabitha adores Timmy, and when she is awake, all of Timmy's energy is expended on getting her to smile and giggle (which always starts out cute, but often ends in more hyperness than Mommy can handle!).  Timmy likes to make sure Tabitha is never alone, and Tabitha has a cute little razzing sound that she makes only when she is looking directly at Timmy or when he's running away from her, as if she's trying to call him back!  Here are some photos of our two cuties (taken last month; I'm really slow on blogging, mainly because of these two!):

Three Years!

June 3rd marked the three year anniversary of our family living here in Costa Rica.  Last year, I was very nostalgic and pensive on this blog about the changes our move here brought to our life (in this post and this).  This year, my thoughts were more along the lines, "Wow, it's been three years... we've had a baby here, we're established here, we love our church family, we see God using us in His work here... this is home." 

We didn't have any plans to celebrate the three year milestone, but, in view of the dramatic flair our life has here, we ended up having it be fittingly memorable.  The power meter for our house, which is located down by our front gate, caught on fire!  Dan and I heard really loud, cracking noises and looked outside to see big electric flames shooting across our driveway repeatedly. A small fire was ablaze on top of the box, very close to some branches of our neighbor's mango tree.  The next few moments were a little crazy as we were running around turning off all the breakers in the house and calling 911.  We heard the sirens of the firetruck a few minutes later... just as the afternoon rain started and did its part in putting out the fire. 

Timmy was thrilled to see the firetruck at our house and to shake the fireman's hand.  He's been pretending to be a Spanish speaking fireman ever since!

We were thankful that the rain began just then, that the power box is down by our gate and not on our house (!), that our Spanish speaking empleada and friend was here to help call 911, and that it wasn't just me at home by myself... because, to tell the truth, living on the mission field for three years still hasn't given me the clear head you'd think I'd have in these circumstances.  I'm still more the type that runs around in circles screaming before figuring out what to do... I've definitely gotten a lot more tranquila (calm) about such things in the past three years, but I wonder how many more years I'll need before I'll be that Tough Missionary Wife that knows just what to do calmly, bravely, and, of course, fluently in Spanish in the face of any crisis?  I'm thinking it's going to take quite a while longer...