craziness and peace

Today, I found myself taking a big breath, fighting back a few tears, and hoping for things to calm down - to just calm down.  It's a frequent feeling for me here, but this was the first day I'd gotten to that point since our latest visit back to the States.  The past week has been crazy for us. 

Part of it was a good craziness; our new set of interns arrived last Monday!  Intern orientation week is always one of the busiest in a term for us, so last week we were constantly on the go from one training session or event to the next.  Dan led training sessions in the office every day, and planned a lot of activities to help the new interns get to know Costa Rican culture and Atenas.  We had two new interns and a new volunteer staying with us at the beginning of the week, and then every day from Wednesday to Saturday, we had groups of people in our home for everything from a lunch with the interns to a movie night, pizza with our whole team, cultural and language acquisition training sessions, and a painting project!  In the midst of this, I had a crazy allergy attack and was having more contractions that I felt comfortable with and Timmy wasn't feeling well with diarrhea, so an unexpected trip to San José to see our doctors had to be squeezed in (we're all ok, by the way).  I needed to take it easy because of the contractions, which is always hard to do because of the extra work housekeeping is here, but the added hosting of events made it even harder.  The week was made more complicated by our car being in the shop the whole week; we're hoping we'll get it back today. 

The craziness culminated with Sunday's event, which was definitely not a good craziness.  I will write in more detail about this icing on the cake soon, but, basically, our house was broken into and our laptop and our digital camera were stolen.  There are so many emotions that come with this - anger at the injustice of it, frustration that maybe we could have done something to make our home more secure, fear that the thief will return, sadness of the loss of the secure feeling we've had living in this house...  We are thankful that more wasn't taken and that no one was hurt, but we are still struggling a little with the repercussions of this theft.

So, all of that information brings me back to my place of almost crying and my desire for calm this morning...  As I took that big breath and blinked back the tears, I was reminded that my only true peace is in our Lord, just as my only true place of security, rest, comfort, and joy is in Him.  God has been bringing the last two verses of Psalm 29 to my mind over and over again the past couple of days:

"The Lord is enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever.  The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace." 

Why do I feel like my world is at all shaken by one crazy week, by one bad event?  The Lord is always on His throne and everything is governed by His sovereignty.  Praise Him!  Please join with us praying for our strength and our peace.

Photo Friday: Happy boy

As much as Timmy misses his abuelitos (grandparents), he's happy to be back in the familiarity of our home in Costa Rica.  We all are.

¡Feliz Día de la Madre!

Just a few days after arriving back in Atenas, we celebrated Mother's Day, which is on August 15th in Latin America.  It's a very big holiday here; mothers are really revered in this culture and families do their best to make their mother, aunts, and grandmothers feel very special on this day.  We saw a lot of people walking through town with flowers and cakes for their mothers and the cemetery was filled with flowers people were taking to mothers' graves.

I went to a Mother's Day party with church friends on the 14th.  It was a sweet time of praise and worship, a lunch, a devotional and a gift exchange.  It was fun for me to catch up with these dear ladies after being gone for a month.  At church on Sunday, they called all the mothers to the front of the sanctuary to thank us and to sing a special song for us.  I was greeted over and over with "¡Feliz día!" (happy day).  And, Timmy presented me with a very sweet card that he, Daddy and his little friend Maria José made me for during Sunday School.  After church, Dan and Timmy treated me to a fun lunch at a little café, followed by a walk in Atenas' central park. 

This year was an especially special Mother's Day for me, since this year I'm a mother of two!  I am pretty sure that everyone who reads this blog already knows our fun news, but I've never made an official announcement on the blog.  Our baby GIRL is due November 28th and we are so very excited.  In some ways, it's hard for me to believe that I'm already almost 26 weeks along; at the same time, I can't wait for the next several months to go by so I can hold my little girl in my arms.  We came home with a bassinet and lots of pink clothes, and just can't wait to put our baby in them! 

Towards the beginning of the year, we were praying hard for a second child, and are so thankful for the blessing of this pregnancy.  We have been praying for a safe, healthy pregnancy, a healthy, full-term baby, and no bed rest for Mommy like we experienced in my first pregnancy.  Please join us praising God for the blessing of our little girl, and in praying for health and protection throughout the rest of the pregnancy.  Thank you!

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.)