Pink shirts, lots of heat, and 15,000 Costa Ricans.....

     That was my morning yesterday at the San José 10 K run for breast cancer. And I am not exaggerating when I say there were 15,000 people at the race. Even the President of the country participated in the race. She was the forerunner. I ran with 3 of my friends from language school, and we had a blast. It was a fun way to see downtown San José, as well as learn more about their culture.

My friend Audrey and I after the race

      Nathan's friend from medical school, Lee, arrived in Costa Rica on Friday. He and Nathan went to one of the beaches for the weekend, and had a good time catching up. When they got back last night, Lee came to dinner at our house. Mamí and I cooked a Mexican feast, and we all ate dinner together. It was fun for him to get to interact with our Costa Rican family. Lee speaks only un poco Español, so I actually got to translate a little :=)

     This week is spiritual emphasis week at our school. The school has brought in a speaker from the United States. This morning he spoke about our call as missionaries. It was a really challenging message. We look forward to seeing what the rest of the week holds. Our teachers are not giving us homework this week, so that it can be a time of refocus and rest. We pray that this week is just that for us.

Preparing for Peru.....

  A few weeks ago, we had 2 missionary couples from Peru come to do a training weekend in Costa Rica for our team. Both families have lived in Peru for at least 6 years. We will be working closely with one of the couples in Cusco, so it was good to get to spend time with them. For those of you who know me well, you know that I love logistics and details. This training weekend was perfect for me because we spent a lot of time talking about the logistics of living in Cusco. I was able to ask questions about grocery shopping (what you can and cannot get), obtaining a drivers license, renting a house, what to bring/what not to bring from the States, etc. It was really helpful for me. At times, it is easy to get bogged down in language school and momentarily forget that there is a larger goal at the end of our time in Costa Rica. This was a great weekend to help refocus and remind us of the Lord's big picture for us.

   One of the more sobering sessions included a session about safety in Peru. The missionaries let us know that they had all been robbed on multiple occasions, and that we need to be prepared for the likelihood that this will be true for us as well. We knew that this was a possibility, but as we get closer, things become more real. This produced two emotions in me: anger and fear. Anger because of the injustice of being victimized, and fear of being hurt or worse. But I also learned something in the midst of this discussion. I realized that this experience would allow us to participate in the outworking of the call to follow Christ.

     Jesus willingly and knowingly submitted Himself to be victimized in order that He might bring life to the lost. He also taught His disciples and others to do the same. In Luke 6 Jesus says, "To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back......Love your enemies." We pray that we have the mind of Christ in these situations because we know that it will be difficult for our sinful and fearful hearts.

   On a lighter note, Nathan and I did get out of San José over the weekend. Yesterday was a national holiday in the country, so we had the day off. Nathan and I spent a couple of days in the mountains just north of the city. It was just what we needed to refocus on our marriage and a really a sweet gift to me.

   This coming weekend we have our first friend coming to visit us! It is one of Nathan's very good friends from medical school. We are excited to see him in Costa Rica.

Our weekend together

a little shaken up

As I mentioned before, tonight we had a fairly significant earthquake. It lasted about 3 minutes and measured 5.9 on the Richter scale. See the link below.

Costa Rican earthquake

And the learning continues....

   Wow, I cannot believe that another week of language school has flown by. We have been fairly busy the past few days.

   On Wednesday night, the Lord blessed us with a meeting with a Costa Rican physician and his wife (both are physicians) serving in the very rural, poor areas around San José. They have seen the Lord work in ways that they could never have imagined. There have been many hardships along the way for this couple, but the Lord has used those things in mighty ways to impact others. They were very kind to share their wisdom and advice with us. It was exciting to dream and think about all the Lord is going to do in the coming years in Peru. We wait with great expectation to see what He will do with us!

    Something fun this week was that we had a birthday party at school for my grammar teacher (yes, I am in 3rd grade again). Nathan and I decorated her classroom with balloons and streamers that we were able to find at the store. It was a fun break from studying. (My teacher Gracella is in the middle next to me).

    ESL classes went really well this week. I am team teaching with another student from the Spanish Language Institute, and she and I were very surprised to have so many students. We had prepared for about 8 at the most, and ended up having double that amount. We scrambled a bit, but the students seemed to enjoy the class. It has been a lot of preparation, but worth it each week to see them excited about learning English. Continue to pray that we would have more opportunities to share the love of Christ with them through language learning.

    As I have been writing this, I just experienced my first earthquake in Costa Rica. We have heard that they happen often, and we will occasionally feel them at school, but I have never felt one like this. It actually knocked the mirror off the wall. Seems that everyone around us is fine. Just another interesting tidbit about living in Costa Rica.

    Here are a few others pictures of our school and my class

 My classmates in my language class

 My sweet language teacher, Rita. She is fantastic

The atrium between the classes

 

Roles reversed

     So this week, I went from being a language student to a language teacher. I started teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) classes with a local ministry here in San José. It is every Wednesday night from 4-6:30 pm. We have two, one hour long classes with a break in the middle for singing and a short gospel presentation in Spanish. In total there are about 50 students, but my class only has 6. I am teaching the advanced English speakers, which is really fun. Most of them are very conversational in English, but need to work on their pronunciation. They also don't understand many of our idioms in English (which I am realizing there are more than I thought). This time of teaching has been really enjoyable for me, as it has been a break from studying Spanish. Pray with me for these students, that teaching English to them would be a way for them to see the love of Christ and to hear the gospel clearly.

     This weekend Nathan and I had planned a "little getaway" just the two of us to a place called Arenal in the mountains. Today is a school holiday, so it was going to be nice to have a three day weekend. As of yesterday, there were 29 closed roads in the country due to rock slides and flooding from the rain. The roads are not built very well here, so because of the heaviness of the water, many roads are collapsing. It has been a real mess. Needless to say, we cancelled our trip b/c we did not want to get stuck on a bus trying to leave San José. We did take a little outing last night to a local mall and actually got to see a movie with popcorn! Fortunately, (we were not sure) the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles. It is amazing how a small thing like a movie with popcorn can make our day. It was nice to have the familiarities of home.

    The Lord has been gracious to continue to grow my relationship with Mamí, even though we really do not speak the same language. He has really allowed me to feel understood by her, which has been a great encouragement to me. She knows when I have had a hard day, a good day, or when Nathan and I have struggle. It has been amazing to hear her every morning sing praise and worship songs in spanish to our Lord. It reminds that one day we will all sing together and worship our Father in one language!

    I was reading a devotional the other morning and was struck by this quote about missions. It has really helped me to regain perspective on what a gift it is that the Lord has called us to missions.
            "No one is righteous enough to deserve God's call; no one is good enough to have the privilege  
              of participating in the mission of God. The call of God is a gift of His grace."
The Lord has graciously and generously called us to Peru and has blessed us with this time in language school. It is much easier to study this language when He allows me to have this perspective.

    Think that is all for today. More to come. Hopefully will have some pictures of our school and ESL soon! Grateful for you!