The Clems in Costa Rica!

"Why are you here?"

2011-11-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

During our friend and supporter tour this past August, the Lord gave me this message to share with my church a couple weeks ago. If you have 15 minutes you can see a video of the sermon at: http://vimeo.com/channels/hncsermons#32115741

Here are the photos to go with the message:

8x13x23x4498=August 2011

2011-11-23T21:42:00.009-07:00

August 2011 was the first month of our Home Leave from EMI. We took this opportunity to visit friends and supporters all over the western United States. We saw eight States, we slept in 13 beds over 23 days and traveled 4,498 miles. What an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Our deepest thanks to all who hosted us during our trip. You are such a blessing to us.

Here are some pictures of our adventure.

Our route, August 2 through 25, 2011. We really don't have anything against Nevada.

Visiting Cindy's Dad and her brother's family in Central Oregon.

(I borrowed this photo from the internet since the sign went by before we got our camera out)

We stopped at local parks along the way for lunch. Thanks for your help Garmin GPS!

Our excuse for this trip was EMI's World Staff Conference at YMCA in Estes Park, Colorado. Isn't our Latin team a handsome bunch?

Some days required nine hours of travel. Our kids did great "living" in the car.

We saw beautiful sights and went places we'd never been before...

...like Four Corners, the intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico...

...and for all of us except Cindy, it was our first visit to the Grand Canyon.

We even drove a short bit on Route 66!

Thank you for hosting us Claud and Michele.

Thanks for hosting our presentation Uncle James and Aunt Joyce!

Thanks for hosting us Mike and Cathy!

A generous supporter made our kids dream of a trip to Disneyland possible. Thank you!

I love Tanner's expression!

It was great to go to the beach with Uncle Jason, Aunt Becky and Cousin Ian.

Thanks for hosting us Dorman Family!

Thanks for hosting us Sarah and Tony!

Beautiful Mt. Shasta.

Thanks for hosting us Jim and Jeanne! Thanks for entertaining our kids Jonathan!

Thank you all for your prayers that kept us safe and gave us such a fantastic trip!

Tim

Homeschooling Adventures #1

2011-03-28T15:35:00.002-07:00

So we took the plunge and enrolled the kids in a private school where they have 1-1 tutoring and tailored teaching. The teacher loves them very much and seems to be having a lot of fun teaching them. There is no commute, no uniforms to iron or lunches to pack, and their evenings and weekends are free as they are able to finish all of their school work during the day. The cost is next to nothing and the results have been amazing! The kids are learning a ton and growing in character. Where did we find such a school? Why, we opened one ourselves, right in our own home! You may know the popular name of such a school: "Home School". Makes sense since it is school at home!

What do we teach? Well, Bible, manners, and Christ-like character are at the top. Our academic subjects include math (Saxon Math), grammar (Shurley English), spelling and penmanship (Spell to Write and Read). For writing we do copywork, letter writing, narration, and dictation. They also write sentences for spelling and penmanship and Laura is doing expository writng in grammar. We are doing various unit studies for history and science. We do a bunch of other things in smaller amounts, but I'll write about that at another time.

I've been taking pictures along the way, but haven't had or taken the time to post them. I hope for this to be one of many entries on our homeschooling adventure so that is why it has a #1 after the title.

Bird watching on our rainforest field trip.

Tanner, crowned king of the "Sentence Kingdom".

Hard at work!

Playing Indian campout. Will be much more fun once we have our teepee made!

Studying with their Spanish tutor.

Working on their model volcano.

Nature study on our rainforest field trip.

Fun to study outside...

Or on a bed!

Intermissions Conference 2011 - Panajachel, Guatemala

2011-03-09T10:23:00.001-07:00

Cindy and I had the privilege of representing EMI at the 2011 Intermissions Conference in Panajachel, Guatemala. It was a fantastic time of gathering with other missionaries from Guatemala, praising the Lord together and learning how to be effective in missions. We were so blessed to enjoy a beautiful site for the conference, a hotel on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

Both of us at the last day of the conference

The view of Lake Atitlan from the Conference.

The EMI table at the Conference.

On the trip back to the airport, I was able to show Cindy EMI's project for Colegio Cristiano that I worked on one year ago. The had their dedication in January and are now holding classes. It was a pleasure to be able to show Cindy the work she supports by taking care of the home while I am gone on a project.

Both of us at the Colegio Cristiano building in El Tizate, Guatemala.

May the Lord bless you with a joy in serving Him.

Tim

La Cienega, Puerto Morelos, Mexico - EMI Project trip #6

2011-03-08T09:08:00.009-07:00

Thanks to the Lord, a team of 12 and I were able to join Amor Ministries in Puerto Morelos, Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula as they seek to follow the vision the Lord has given them to build a University. They envision a University offering Spanish classes to missionaries planning to serve in Latina America. They will also offer English classes to the locals to allow them to work in the Tourist Industry. The Spanish school will generate revenue to offset the costs of providing a seminary to Mexican Pastors. According to Amor, there are less than 80 PhD's in Bible Missiology in Latina America and the majority of them are over 60 years old. Amor is called to train up the next generation of Pastors through this University.

Here are some photos from the trip. May the Lord bless the work of EMI's volunteers and may He bless the mission to which He has called Amor Ministries.

May the Lord bless you richly as you support the work of Amor through your support for me and my family! I love my job!

Scott Coughlin shared the vision that the Lord has given him and his wife Gayla for this project.

The Amor Ministries team that came to Mexico to help us design the project.

The hood of a rental car as a layout table. We reviewed the site drawing just before walking the site.

A cenote typical of the project site and typical of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Walking the project site.

We visited a local church of the people who could benefit from the project we are designing.

Scott Coughlin shared a message of encouragement with the people.

The church welcomed us to their Valentine's Day celebration.

These kids could be students at the project.

We visited Rafael's office, a local architect.

Rafael helped us with questions about the project.

We visited a local hardware store where we were asked not to take anymore pictures.

Then we worked in the daytime.

And we worked in the night time.

Insect repellent was vital on this trip.

Sometimes we found opportunities to sleep.

While we were there a passing 18-wheeler ran into the telephone/internet cable. The team nearly came apart before we restored internet.

Local sights of Mexico.

On Friday we made our final presentation to the ministry.

And on Friday night we relaxed at Playa del Carmen.

The interns hung out with Pancho Via.

And we loved the Caribbean beach.

Merry Christmas from the Clems in Costa Rica

2010-12-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

Click image above to enlarge

El Buen Samaritano Hospital, Chichicastenango, Guatemala - EMI Project trip #5

2010-09-23T16:17:00.001-07:00

This is why we went. El Hospital Buen Samaritano (The Good Samaritan Hospital) in Chichicastenango is the only hospital in the area and provides for the needs of the poor for miles around.

From September 11 through 19, I was joined by two EMI Interns, an EMI Staff Construction Manager and four volunteers from the United States to review the existing hospital facility and suggest immediate improvements, remodel for 2-5 years and remodels for 10-20 years to allow the hospital to provide safer care and expand it's capabilities.

Chichicastenango is about three hours by tour bus from the airport. During these last few months there have been landslides on Central America 1 often closing the road. Thanks to the Lord, our team was able to pass without much delay, although we saw lots of landslides along the way.

The team reviewed the existing facility once we arrived.

While we were there we had the privilege of experiencing the sights of Chichicastenango.

Worshipers on the steps of the main Catholic Church

Guatemala style power

Check out the power meters

I love this sign. Hope you can read Spanish.

We enjoyed the celebration of Guatemala's independence on September 15.

And of course visited Chichicastenango's street market.

But all this was second to the work we had been called to do. We started each day with worship and devotions.

And of course we worked as a team and worked with the ministry to come up with a design that will help them fulfill the call God has given them.

Second floor plan sketch for interim presentation

Thanks to the Lord for bonding us together as a team and creating great friendships as we served Him together.

Daily travel to the hospital

Michael Scupien, Volunteer Mechanical Engineer
David Lowe, EMI Intern Structural Engineer (although we're going to turn him into an Architect)
Josh Ayers, EMI Staff Construction Manager
Erika Sanborn, EMI Intern Interior Designer

"That's a surprise!"

Josh and a patient en rout to the hospital

Richal Smith, Volunteer Stuctural Engineer
Roscoe Lawless, Volunteer Architect
Lynn Dee Thomas, Volunteer Electrical Engineer
Michael Scupien, Volunteer Mechanical Engineer

Geber Derek Boys' Ranch, Antigua, Guatemala - EMI Project trip #4

2010-05-31T14:58:00.010-07:00

Much of the following is quoted (with permission) from Emily Gillham, EMI Civil Engineering Intern, who was a vital part of this project team. I find that her writing captures the experience better than I could.

Welcome to Zone 18 of Guatemala City. Known as "Paradise," most families live in small shacks on dirt floors surrounded by tin walls. Gunshots are heard nightly and everyone, including kids, has grown numb to the sight of dead bodies in the streets.

If you're a girl, chances are you'll be molested or raped by 15, have your first child by 18, and three more by 25. And there's no doubt that by that point, the men will be gone and you'll be alone to raise the family.

If you're a male, you'll likely be in a gang by 13. They make promises of a different life than the trash you live on, hunger and hopelessness; which are the only things you know at this point. So, you join; and your life expectancy is...24.

To give a little perspective, this is where they live.

And this is their front yard and playground.

Nathan Hardeman got a nickname in the neighborhood. They call him "grandpa" because he's lived to be 35.

Nathan has ministered to the people in "Paradise" as a pastor at Shalom Baptist Church. But, in his words, "there's always a few boys that fall through the cracks." It's been on Nathan and his wife Claudia's heart for the last eight years to start a home where boys who want a change, that just need a helping hand out of their situation, can actually find hope. This won't be a reformatory or jail, it's for those who want to come. It's not for orphans; there are lots of orphanages. It's for the ones with families, ones the orphanage cannot take. Though the boys are the ones that will come to live at the homes, Nathan will continue to partner with churches and others to minister to the boys' families.

There will be four homes on a hillside site near Antigua, Guatemala. Each home will house six to eight boys and house parents to model what a healthy family should be. Having the house father to demonstrate integrity and godliness will be something many will never have known. Throughout their stay they will have a professional mentor to encourage them emotionally and spiritually and help them reach their professional goals.

Nathan and Claudia's heart for these boys is based on 1 Samuel 22:2 where David is hiding from Saul. Instead of pitying himself and his situation David becomes a leader for the men around him, the discontented and distressed. Some of these same men are listed as David's "mighty men" in 1Chronicles 12. This is Nathan and Claudia's vision; to take the poor and outcast and give them the opportunity to become "mighty men." They have named their ministry "Geber Derek" which means "the way of the warrior."

Here's how we spent our week in Guatemala:

Each day we started with worship and devotions to remind us the reason we came is to glorify our God. Sunday we worshiped at the project site.

Every other day we worshiped at our guest house.

We gathered the information we needed from the site and presented our design to Nathan.

And some of us did work at the guest house.

Then we had the privilege of seeing Antigua, Guatemala.

We got to see a puff from Volcan Fuego from our guest house.

Some of the team even hiked Volcan Pacaya (5 days before it erupted).

Here's the team.

"Yes!" I love my job! Thank you Jesus!

Remembering Memorial Day 1997

2010-05-31T12:37:00.003-07:00

It was Memorial Day weekend 1997 when I called my friend Leroy to invite myself to stay at his house for the weekend that I met my future wife. Thirteen years ago today, My friend Leroy, his wife Jennifer, her good friend and I spent the day touring Seattle and I got to know Cindy.

Thanks Jenn and Leroy for the introduction. Thank you Cindy for your love. Thank you Lord for your blessings.

Chirripó update

2010-04-11T14:54:00.010-07:00

I so appreciate your continued prayers for my trips to Chirripó. The last two trips were in December '09 and March of this year. The next trip will be this coming July. I prayed for help and God sent it! On these last two trips there were other medical volunteers for the first time. In December we had another nurse, a nutritionist, and a dental hygienist join our team. In March the nurse and nutritionist returned and another nurse joined our team. In July another nurse, a friend from our church in Oregon, (Sadie Bertleson for those who know her) is coming to help. It is quite a luxury to have all this medical help! I'm still praying and hoping to have a doctor someday and a dentist to join one or more or all of the trips!

Here are a few pictures from the last two trips, First the December trip and then the March trip:

This was our December team. There were 19 of us: 13 Costa Ricans, 4 Canadians, and 2 of us from the States.

We set up a clinic in the church. Here people are waiting to get their weight, height, and vitals taken before being seen in the clinic room. We used sheets to divide off a private clinic room.

There were ladies on our team who helped by getting weight and height.

There were ladies who wrote down names, ages, and reason for visit to the clinic as well as height and weight onto 3X5 cards that each patient brought into the clinic room.

Here nurse Crystal takes vital signs.

Inside the clinic room I had a great helper, Yenny.

I did general assessments especially on babies and young children...

...and treatments as needed. This young girl had severely dry, cracked feet which was actually preventing her from being able to walk!

While the clinic was going on inside the church, a dental cleaning demonstration was taking place outside.

The kids practice brushing their teeth.

Humble clinic set-up for serving around 70 people!

Our March team. There were 13 of us: 6 Costa Ricans, 4 Canadians, and 3 of us from the States.

The "Four C's" medical team: Cindy, Cheryl, Candice, and Crystal along with Herbin, our Cabecar transltor.

Nutritionist Candice and translator Beningni with the famous life cycle of stomach parasites poster.

Anti-parasite medication

After seeing Candice the patients would see the nurses.

Public school storeroom turned clinic.

Nurse Crystal listening to lung and heart sounds.

Patient assessment. I can't remember what we where looking at, something behind the ear.

Some patients received boots if they didn't have shoes, a measure taken to help prevent them from getting stomach parasites, which can enter through bare feet.

Looking at very swollen tonsils.

Documenting patient charts.

Chief Arnaldo with a broken wrist. We put on this temporary splint, then took him out with us and to the hospital where he got a plaster cast. Sure hope he remembers to go back on April 14 to get the cast removed!

Thank you so much for your prayers! Our team was kept safe and we had all we needed to treat the many patients we saw. If you would like to see more photos of Chirrpo I have them all posted on my facebook account.

~Cindy

Medical office at Hogar de Vida

2010-04-11T12:13:00.005-07:00

Hogar de Vida now has a medical office/dispensary where I work and any medical staff/volunteers can work. Recently an eMi spouse who is a physical therapist started volunteering and at the end of April a nurse is coming from the States to help for three months. We also have a child-development specialist living on site now who will make use of this space. I prayed for help and the troops are coming!

This is the exam area/work area. It's missing a couple things like a scale and a sharps box. I still mostly do house calls, but expect to have more visitors here as the idea catches on.

Putting together First Aid kits to go in each car, house, and other key areas on campus.

Each child has a medical chart on campus where I keep track of meds, weights, appointments, illnesses, etc.

My desk, a kids desk for little workers, and a well-stocked medicine cabinet!

Almost all of these medications were donated by my church or from teams that come through. Thank you!! Oh, and I wear scrubs now. I love wearing them!

My cute little helper, Lucy. She is living on campus with her missionary family. Tim's mom made the adorable kid-size scrubs and I picked up a few toy doctor kit supplies here. My hope/plan is to do "play therapy" with the kids, especially those who are so frightened of going to the doctor.

~Cindy

Colegio Cristiano Avivando El Fuego, Tizate, Guatemala – EMI Project Trip #3

2010-03-05T17:48:00.005-07:00

Two weeks ago I returned to Costa Rica from my third project trip with EMI. This was my fist trip as leader without a co-leader. We served Colegio Cristiano Avivando El Fuego (Fanning the Flames Christian School) in Tizate, Guatemala. Tizate is a small neighborhood across the highway from Pastores, near Antigua.

Colegio Cristiano is a ministry of Global Shore Opportunities, a Canadian based ministry. They provide Christian education to the poor of Tizate and the surrounding area. Currently they offer classes through third grade and intend to add a grade each year as their existing students continue. Eventually, they intend to have 350 students.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Riding the school bus each morning:

Worship each morning with the students:

The students we served:

The site:

Working:

Final presentation:

Final Architectural design:

Rendering of Courtyard:

The team:

Thank you so much for praying for me and my family once again! This was a fantastic trip full of wonderful memories. I know it is because of your prayers that the project was a success, the team was flexible and my family did well in my absence. Thank you Jesus! I love my job!

Tim

Update/Prayer requests

2009-11-29T22:35:00.015-07:00

I would first like to thank you for taking the time to stop by and read our blog. Until very recently we have been doing our blog using a dial up connection which takes a lot of time and effort. Your interest is very much appreciated! With our new DSL connection we hope it to be less work to maintain our blog. That's right, after almost a year of waiting we now have a DSL connection at our house!

As for updates...

HOGAR DE VIDA:

Some months ago we mentioned the possibility of our family becoming house parents at Hogar de Vida, the children's home where I voluteer as a pediatric nurse. I don't think that I ever updated that information. Well, Tim and I met with the directors to discuss this and it was decided that it was best for me to focus on working as a nurse. Though they need more caretakers the concern is that if I take on the role of house parent I would not have any time to help manage the healthcare of the kids as well. There is also an issue of not enough housing on campus for our family. So it was decided that I would be given office space on campus to work from, which I now have! I have all kinds of plans for the space and will take pictures when I'm all settled in (sometime in January).

SCHOOL:

Another recent update is that we have decided to enroll both of the kids into Tanner's school so that we will all have a more predictable schedule and I wont have to supplement so much at home. We thank God for his financial provision for Laura to go and also for opening up a spot for her! They are so happy that they will be at the same school!

CHIRRIPÓ:

I don't think that I ever posted a blog about my July trip to Chirripó. If you would like to learn more about this trip and to see pictures (I was too busy to take very many pictures) you can visit: http://www.sinoli.wordpress.com/

This coming week, December 2-5, I will be going on my 5th trip to Chirripó! This will be an exploratory trip as we will be visiting two new villages who have asked for some time that we go there. There will be 14 of us going on the trip and several of our indigenous friends will join us. Some of the team will be putting on a church roof in one of the villages, some will be helping me in the clinic, and others will be praying with and for the people in each village.

Prayer requests for this Chirripó trip:

*Safety of our team. It is supposed to be wet, rainy, and muddy the entire time. If the river rises too high the trip will have to be canceled. Please pray that if this happens we will find out before hiking many hours to the river.

*Protection from illness and injury (including snake bites).
*Strength and endurance. It will be a lot of hiking, around 20 hours on the trail over the 4 days.

*We aren't exactly sure what our sleeping arrangements will be like in the new villages. My guess is that it will be a spot on a dirt floor in an indigenous hut. Please pray that it is a DRY spot free of any poisonous critters.

*Please pray that we have all that we need on the trip: enough food, construction supplies, medical supplies.

*Please pray for Tim and the kids while I am away.

As always, we thank you for your prayers! We couldn't serve here without them and that is a fact!

~Cindy

Fundraising tour results

2009-10-23T16:45:00.002-07:00

Thank you to all of you who prayed for me as I left my family once again to speak in Florida about how the Lord is using Cindy and I as His instruments in Costa Rica.

I was privileged to meet with Lou Ritchie and Cory Cragle. Lou is the director of the Árbol de Vida mission that I served in February 2008 and Cory was a volunteer and my roommate for that project.

Both Lou and Cory helped me establish connections with other professionals while I was in Florida. Please pray with me that the seeds planted during my time there would produce fruit: raise up design professionals to work with EMI, motivate Christians to use their skills and experience as an offering to the Lord, and raise needed support to allow my family to continue to serve the Lord here.

Tim with Lou and Cory

Tim and Cory being interviewed on Moody Radio

Tim

Tanner's school

2009-10-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

Tanner goes to "Colina Azul" (Blue Hill), just outside of Atenas. It is a small, private school for preschool through 6th graders. Class size is small and there are several other English speaking students from the U.S. or Canada. Though the school is not bilingual, several teachers are bilingual.

We chose this school for Tanner because of the small class size and better access to English speakers should he need it. Though there are public preschools, the class size is very large with just one teacher and no English. We felt this would be too overwhelming for an introduction to school especially since he was scared to go. The goal for this year has been to get Tanner acclimated to school and help him feel comfortable being away from Mom and home. Next year he'll brave complete Spanish immersion at the public school!

Colina Azul starts it's school year at the beginning of February and ends at the end of November. Tanner's school day is from 8 am - 11:30 am, Monday through Friday. Preschool and Kindergarten share the same large room in a Montessori style setting. They have a classroom apart from the upper grades. Though the preschoolers and kindergartners do many things together, each class or group has their own teacher and there is an aide that helps all three groups. Tanner's group has 7-8 kids. The school is very organized, uses textbooks, and gives good notice of any changes to schedule (basically is run much like a school in the States). The school has a nice, wooden playground so recess is a favorite part of school. Tanner also has swim lessons and P.E. every week.

Tanner takes a bus to school in the mornings and either Tim or I pick him up in the afternoon. We recently started giving his teacher and the pre-3's teacher a ride home which has been so exciting for him. It's fun to learn more about what he's like at school. I have been learning that Tanner is very social at school and quite the talker in both languages. He'll speak English with his American/Canadian friends and then switch to Spanish for his Spanish friends. His teacher says that he makes friends easily and the kids all want his attention.

Tanner's best buddy Jake moved back to the States and he has been sorely missed! Then a new friend moved here from Canada and she even lives at Jake's house.

Tanner has grown up so much since starting school. He has become very confident and independent. It's so nice to see him making friends and being more social, too. He comes home every day and tells me about his friends. He knows everyone's name and says them with a perfect accent. School has been so good for him!

~Cindy

Laura's school

2009-10-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest cultural experiences for us has been to have the kids in local Spanish speaking Schools. This year the kids go to separate schools, Tanner to a private preschool/grade school and Laura to a public grade school. Next year they will both transfer to a small public grade school just down the dirt road from the orphanage where I volunteer. This will allow us to spend more time at the orphanage and the kids can become part of the "family" there as well. They are pretty excited!

Laura is currently in first grade at "Escuela Central de Atenas", in the center of Atenas. She is in a class of 25-30 students and there are 3 other first grade classes with the same number of students. It is the biggest and oldest school in Atenas and I believe is for grades k-8.

The school has a very nice theater, library, computer lab, kiosks that sell food and drinks, and a cafeteria that serves free rice and beans with occasional meat or fruit as well. It also has a playground but Laura says that it is always too hot to play on and no wonder since it's all made of metal! Classrooms open to covered outdoor walkways that surround garden areas with trees and flowers.

The school year starts in mid-February and ends in mid-December. Each school day (at least at Escuela Central)starts at 7 am each day. This means an early morning for our family, but we are used to it by now. Tim and I take turns walking Laura to school each day (about a mile one way)and after school either Tim or I pick Laura up from school in the car, usually on the way to get Tanner from his school.

We never know when school will get out until the day before when Laura comes home with that information, but it's usually at 11:30 or 1:30in the afternoon. They don't use substitute teachers here so if the teacher has a doctor appointment or a meeting to go to then classes are cancelled. The kids get two morning recesses and on the longer days they also have a 40 minute lunch break/recess combined. We can even come have a picnic with Laura on her lunch break.

Laura studies many subjects at school: Science, Social Studies, Math, Spanish, English, Music, Religion, Art, and P.E. She has learned to read, write, spell, and dictate in Spanish and she speaks Spanish very clearly and without any accent (or so I'm told, I can't tell). Of course English is her easiest class and at times she gets to help the teacher. She has a different teacher for English, Music, Religion, Art, and P.E. and a homeroom teacher for the other subjects. Laura has been doing great academically, getting straight A's all year. Her teacher says that she is a good student and classmate.
Laura has easy homework on most days that she finishes in a few minutes and more difficult homework called "extra class" work just before exams that can take all evening to do. She has exams about every 2 months in all subjects except Art, Music, and P.E. Catholicism is the national religion of Costa Rica so there is open prayer in school, Biblical teachings, and before assemblies there is prayer and a praise song or hymn is sung.

Laura's only textbooks/workbooks are for her Spanish class, but she has a different colored notebook for each subject. Daily the teacher writes things on the blackboard for the kids to copy into their notebooks or she gives them photocopies to glue into their notebooks. This takes the place of any textbooks.
With all those notebooks, her book bag is heavy! For this reason she only brings home the notebooks she'll need to do her homework on a daily basis and on Fridays she brings home everything for us to review together over the weekend. This is how we also catch any work she didn't finish in class or loose papers that need to be glued into notebooks.

So homeschooling has become more or less supplementing what the kids are learning in school to give more hands on experiences plus we do English studies and some Math. Just for fun and as time allows we also do art, music, science, and history using curriculum I brought with us from the States.

Laura has adjusted very well to Atenas and has seemed quite at home here. She seems to have adopted the food, culture, and language of Costa Rica and has made some great friends here. If you ask Laura on any given day how school was she'll give a thumbs up and reply "Fantastic!" or "The best day ever!"

~Cindy

Prayers for funding

2009-10-08T07:58:00.004-07:00

In a few hours I fly away from home again. This time I'm headed to Florida where I will be presenting what the Lord is doing through my family here in Costa Rica. Please pray that this time will raise up additional support for our family.

During the past summer, the Lord brought new supporters so that our regular monthly expenses are now covered, but that leaves annual or once-in-a-while expenses that are still not supported; things like our airfare home once a year, car repairs, doctor appointments, birthday gifts and etc. Please pray with us, that during the time I am in Florida there will be people who hear the Lord's direction to join in the ministry He has called us to as financial supporters.

Please also pray for my family. I was gone for ten days last week and now will be gone for seven. Pray for strength for my wife. Pray our kids will be a joy to her.

Thank you for your prayers. May the Lord bless each of you for your faithfulness to His purposes.

Tim

YWAM Gonaives, Haiti - EMI Project trip #2

2009-09-30T15:10:00.012-07:00

Three days ago I returned to Costa Rica from my second project trip with EMI. We served YWAM in Gonaives, Haiti by designing a new base camp for them. We worked with Maula Jean-Marie a native of Gonaive. Maula was born in a Voodoo temple and after living a life overshadowed by the rituals of voodoo recognized its futility and offered his life to Jesus. Once delivered, he soon began to preach about the saving grace of our Lord. Suddenly, he was referred to as Pastor Maula. Recognizing the need to have more training, he attended Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in St. Marc, about 45 minutes from Gonaives. Now he desires to start a YWAM camp in Gonaive to reach and train the people in his home town. Here are some pictures of the trip.

The team's arrival in Port au Prince, Haiti airport:

Travel from Port-au-Prince to Gonaives. 13 guys in the back of a truck, six hours each way:

Gonaives, Haiti:

Starting each day with Worship:

Daily travel to the project site:

People who live around the project site:

Avery surveying the site:

Avery playing with the locals:

The project site:

Working on the project:

The final presentation in-country:

The team:

Thank you so much for praying for me and my family while I was gone. It was a difficult trip, fraught with spiritual oppression. It's because of the prayers of our supporters that we were able to be effective. Thank you.

Praises

2009-09-05T09:13:00.002-07:00

Thank the Lord with us! Because of your prayers and gifts our income now covers our regular monthly expenses. This means we can stay in our house! We are so grateful to those of you who have joined our supporters; those of you who have increased your support; and mostly for the many of you who lifted our need before our Lord. Thank you.

We still need to increase our support to cover non-regular, but necessary expenses such as annual trips to the States, car repairs and emergencies. Please continue to ask the Lord to provide from His boundless resources to cover these needs.

September 19, I lead my first trip to Haiti to serve YWAM by designing a new base camp in Gonaives. Please pray with us for an effective team of volunteers who work in a spirit of unity as unto the Lord.

October 8-14 I will be in Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg, Florida to join two supporters who have arranged to have me speak about what EMI does and how the Lord is using my family for His purposes. Please pray with us that this time would show believers that God has a plan for each of them. Please pray that this time would raise up new volunteers for work with EMI. Please pray that I would connect with people the Lord has intended to support what the Lord has called us to here in Costa Rica. I would love to connect with any of you who are in the area while I'm there!

May the Lord bless each of you for your faithfulness to His call.

Tim

Waiting...

2009-07-21T10:25:00.005-07:00

God teaches us a lot about ourselves and about His sovereignty through waiting. It’s something difficult for us “gringos” whose culture is based on get-it-now mentality.

Costa Ricans are good at waiting. Patience is required to live here where people line up for everything and even at scheduled appointments, it’s first-come-first-served among the many scheduled for that same time slot.

Right now we are waiting on the Lord; waiting on Him to show us what we should do about raising support; waiting on Him to show us where we should make presentations about what the Lord is doing through us here in Costa Rica; waiting on Him to clarify what our role should be with Hogar de Vida, an orphanage here where Cindy works; waiting on Him to direct us whether or not we should move from our current house.

All the while we continue to become more and more a part of the ministries we serve here. Cindy returned last week from her fourth trip to Chirripó where she held a health clinic serving indigenous Costa Ricans who live six hours from the nearest road. Cindy continues to oversee the healthcare for the 35 kids at Hogar de Vida. I issued my first project with EMI and am coordinating a trip to Haiti to serve YWAM in September. The kids both are enjoying their school and are making friends in the neighborhood.

We praise the Lord for wonderfully generous one-time gifts that covered $1,000 of needed car repairs. We praise him for a new monthly supporter to help offset our monthly budget deficit. And we praise him for several people have said they are considering supporting us.

Thank you, our friends and family, for supporting us in prayer. Thank you for your encouragement and faithfulness to us. May the Lord bless you and guide you as you follow where He leads you!

Tim

Opportunity to pray

2009-05-25T13:24:00.002-07:00

To the many who have joined us as we follow God’s call on our lives:

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be participating in the ministry to orphans in Guatemala and Haiti; to feeding under-nourished kids in Guatemala; to the preaching of the Gospel from a Missions base camp and a church in Costa Rica; to housing missionaries in Guatemala. Because I am fulfilling the purpose to which God has called me, these ministries are helped to fulfill the purpose to which God has called them.

I am also unspeakably grateful to the Lord as I see Cindy managing the healthcare of nearly 35 kids at a local orphanage; and when she makes the hike to a remote indigenous village to hold a health clinic for people who have not seen a doctor in years.

Because you have joined with us in our ministry, we want to share our need with you and ask for your prayers. For various reasons we have lost several supporters over this past year and as a result we are receiving $400-600 less than our $2,000 monthly expenditures. We are currently making up the difference with one-time gifts. We are looking closely at our budget to see where we can make cuts because at our current rate our one-time gifts will be gone and we will need to return to the States early 2010.

In 2008 we committed to three years with eMi and have been talking with the Director about staying longer as the Lord provides. However, we will follow as the Lord leads, even if that is to return to the States.

This email is not intended to get you to give more, but rather to pray more. Please pray with us for the Lords provision and direction. Please give us your counsel; let us know how the Lord leads you.

If the Lord leads, I may be returning to the States sometime this summer to present what the Lord is doing through us here. If the Lord gives you a location He may want me to visit while I’m home, please let us know.

Thank you for being our partners as we minister as God has called us. ¡Dios les bendiga!

Tim

January-April update

2009-04-09T15:07:00.021-07:00

Well, I guess it's about time for an update! If Tim had not posted an entry about his first project trip it may appear that we are still in Oregon!

The last three months have been full of changes for our family and it has been a very busy time getting settled into life here in Atenas.

After enjoying the month of December in Oregon we left winter and snow for summer and sun in Costa Rica.

Our first couple weeks back were spent setting up house in Atenas. Never before and I doubt never again will we have to furnish an entire house at once! With our house feeling more like a home by mid January, Tim started working at the eMi office.

At the end of January I went on my third trip to Chirripó to work with the indigenous. It was a longer trip than usual and we had a large team of 26 people, mostly teens.

In February the kids started their school year and I started volunteering at a local orphanage, all while Tim was away on his first project trip!

The kids are very happy in school. Laura told me that school is "changing her life" because she loves it so much. Tanner had a rough start, crying every day for the first three weeks. Now he proudly tells me each day: "I didn't cry at school, mom!" He even takes a little bus to school in the mornings which is the highlight of his day.

Tuesday-Thursday mornings I volunteer at "Hogar de Vida" while the kids are at school. This orphanage has 30 kids ages infant to 7 years. While there I do everything from updating medical charts and taking kids to doctor appointments to giving medical advice and care when needed. The other day I had the joy of pulling large pieces of cotton out of a toddler's nose. This toddler has a chronic runny nose and I guess she found that this "treatment" worked well for her!

After school the kids play, work on homework including English studies, or we visit the library or orphanage or go to a friends house to visit and play. Then it's dinner, showers all around, pack school bags, put out school clothes, family devotions/prayer, and lights out at 7-7:30 pm (at least for the kids).As for prayer requests, we are still trying to adjust to all the changes and to a very busy schedule. Please pray that soon we will be in a "rhythm" that works well for our family. We've had some minor bouts of illness in the family recently, passing around the same cold that I probably picked up at the orphanage. Also, we are looking into why Laura has not been gaining weight. She'll have some tests (blood, stool, urine) at the end of this month. Please join us as we prayerfully consider becoming house parents at the orphanage. The director asked us to pray about it and get back to him by the fall. We are excited about the possibility, but not sure if it will work for our family.

We have felt the hand of God in our lives and we are so thankful for your prayers! We hope to do a better job of updating our blog now that we have internet at our house!

Cindy

Árbol de Vida, Guayabo de Bagaces, Costa Rica - eMi Project trip no. 1

2009-03-03T10:31:00.017-07:00

The staff and interns left our homes in Atenas, Costa Rica around noon on Valentines Day for my first Project trip as staff with Engineering Ministries International (EMI) in Central America. We followed Central America 1 northwest for about four hours, turning off the highway at Bagaces toward Guayabo where Árbol de Vida is located.

Árbol de Vida’s vision is to be a launching point for missions throughout NW Costa Rica and SW Nicaragua. Although they currently are operating out of a house, they have already launched medical teams to serve the poor in Nicaragua.

EMI came to provide a Master Plan for the nearly 100 acre site including team housing, single family cabins, staff housing, a large multi-purpose building and space for other ministries to utilize the site such as an orphaned boys home, Going the Distance Ministries (GTD) and an extension campus for a Christian University.

The entire team arrived on Saturday: two Architects, a Landscape Architect, Structural Engineer, Surveyor, Civil Engineer, Water/Waste Water (W/WW) Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Draftsman and the EMI Staff and Interns. As with every EMI project, we walked the site and reviewed the Ministry’s vision for the project on the first day and started in design the next.

The Architecture team developed a first draft Master plan on the first day and work began on phasing the project. A local builder was a great reference for many questions about local building techniques. The survey crew began work on developing contours and locating landmarks to allow refinement of the Master Plan. Civil began work resolving current water management issues. W/WW began researching quality and availability of city water.

As the week progressed, all disciplines tightened up their designs. As the Master plan became more accurate with the survey information, the Structural engineer was able to research bearing capacity at the building sites. W/WW began measuring the soil capacity for septic drain fields. The Architecture team began design on the individual buildings based on their sites. Electrical researched the local Electrical utility and began design of the distribution for the site.

The team made a final presentation to the ministry on Friday, receiving confirmation that the Schematic plans developed were what the ministry was looking for. From this work on site, the team will continue to develop the design from their respective homes. We were able to leave a copy of our presentation with the ministry for their use in publicizing the project.

It always amazes me how God puts together a team of strangers who, united by the Spirit, work so effectively together while develop amazingly close relationships in such a short time.

I am incredibly excited for how the Lord will use our work as Architects and Engineers to reach to the poor and needy by the teams that launch from Árbol de Vida, and how He has chosen to use me.

Tim

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T00:19:00.029-07:00

We want want to wish you a very Merry Chirstmas! Thank you so much for visiting our blog and for all your prayers and support. We have felt that we have quite a team backing us up and we so appreciate each of you!

We have been enjoying record breaking snow here in Beaverton, Oregon. The kids have had a blast in the snow and we have enjoyed being "snowed in". Quite a weather change from Costa Rica!

Even with the snow we've been able to see several friends and get lots of time in with family.

From our family to yours, have a blessed Christmas!

~Cindy

Our new home in Atenas

2008-12-20T19:33:00.028-07:00

We spent one week in our new home in Atenas before returning to the States for Christmas. We're looking forward to the chance to make our house a home when we return to Costa Rica in January.
Frontyard.

Backyard.

Kitchen and playroom under the stairs.

Living room and hallway to back porch.

Bedrooms.

Bathrooms downstairs and upstairs.

Utility room at back of house.

Destination: Chirripó

2008-12-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it has been a month already since I had the priveledge of going to Chirripó a second time. Here are some pictures from the trip. A complete album will be posted on my (Cindy's) facebook account.

Forging a river on the two hour drive to the trail down into the Chirripó reservation.

Heading out on our long journey by foot. My shoes after walking down the mountain in ankle deep mud.

Stopping for a break, a chance to wash up, and to grab a snack. We arrived to our destination after dark where we had a church service.

Using the wood we carried in to finish building volunteer housing.

A finished project aside from shutters. Working with the beautiful kids.

Cindy

How to make cocoa powder

2008-12-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

First you buy a cocoa fruit.

Then you find a strong person to crack it open.
Remove the slime covered chocolate beans.Bake the beans until toasted, stirring occassionaly to prevent burning.
Shell the roasted beans.
Pulverize beans in a blender and viola, you have chocolate powder to use for baking!

Cindy

November Update

2008-11-08T15:21:00.014-07:00

We only have two weeks left of language school! It is hard to believe how fast the time has gone. I have been wanting to post an update, but we no longer have Internet at our house. Now we have joined the ranks of people here who go to an Internet cafe or use a friends Internet. We are also able to use the Internet at our school which is about a 10 minute walk from the house.

Here are some answered prayers from the last prayer report:

Our "Cedulas" or residency cards arrived safely in the mail on October 29 and the next day Tim was able to sign us up for "seguro social" or social security here without any difficulties. So now we have temporal residency in Costa Rica and we are also part of the social health care system here.

Last weekend we went to Atenas to look at a couple of houses and we found a house to rent! It's so nice to know where we will be living soon. We´ll be moving to Atenas at the end of this month. November 21st is our last day of school, November 22 we'll pack up our things, and November 23 we'll be moving to Atenas! We´ll have the last week of November to get somewhat settled into our new house, get the kids registered in school, and any other business stuff. Then we head to Oregon for the month of December!

We found good plane tickets last week so it's official that we are going to Oregon in December!

Laura is doing better and seems less homesick. She is very excited about our new house and about moving to Atenas. She is also very excited about going to Oregon soon!

Tanner is still a skinker, but less of one with my being home more. Now we'll see how it goes with my having a very busy schedule the next couple of weeks!

I will get to go another Chirripo trip again before we move from Tuis! I'll be going this week, November 12-14. Our team will be able to complete a building a project, some will work with the indigenous kids, some will teach the indigenous women how to sew, and some of us will be running a medical clinic. It will be a 4-5 hour hike in, carrying 1-2 heavy wooden planks plus our packs. It is a very tiring trip, but well worth it. I am very excited to get to go again!

These are our biggest prayer requests:

-A smooth transition to Atenas.
-That we´ll make wise decisions on what schools the kids will attend.
-That some medical documents that I need from the States will arrive shortly.
-A safe and productive trip in Chirripo for our whole team.

Thank you so much for your continued prayer support. Your prayers are being answered!

~Cindy

Atom or Adam?

2008-10-26T19:21:00.005-07:00

The other day Tanner brought me a science book and pointing to an image of an atom asked, "What's that?" I told him that it was a picture of an Atom. God used Atoms to make everything in the universe, everything that we can see and touch. Laura overheard this and with a puzzled expression asked, "Even the sun and Jupiter?" When I answered, "Yes, even the sun and Jupiter", Laura said, "That can't be true because God made many things before he made Adam."

~Cindy

Boys will be boys

2008-10-21T06:32:00.024-07:00

A day (or two) in the life of Tanner...

Tanner and his cars watch "Cars"...

Helping dad wash the car...

Natural progression of boy meets bucket of soapy water:

Hmm, that looks like fun...
Just one finger, 'K mom?

Maybe just one hand?
Ok, I'll just go ahead and play with the water!

Playing in mud and water, what more does a boy need?

"Look mom, I'm an engineer and this is my train!"

"Now I'm 'Super Sir Topham Hat'!'"

And best of all, building tracks and playing with trains! ~Cindy

Prayer requests/Praise reports

2008-10-19T19:03:00.016-07:00

It has been some time since we listed our prayer requests. That's mainly because they haven't changed much. We thought it was time for an update!

We are just about a month and a half away from finishing language school! It's hard to believe that we have been here for almost six months! Life in Tuis has been good. Tuis is a peaceful little village surrounded by beautiful farm covered hills. Everyone knows everyone here or seems to be related somehow. People are friendly and bend over backwards to help us when or if we ever need it. Several people have adopted us into their family. It will be hard to leave, but we are so thankful for the time we have had here!

Our Spanish is coming along. Tim is progressing rapidly and his teachers are impressed. I am needing to work on confidence when I speak, but this is improving with more practice in my classes. The kids' Spanish is great or so we hear from many others. They don't (or rather won't) speak much Spanish around us. We speak Spanish at lunch and dinner but they often speak "Spanglish", mixing the two languages. Please pray that we will have sufficient ability to communicate in Spanish by the time we leave language school.

Our car is doing great with no major problems. We had another flat tire that only cost $4 to repair. Our car radio/CD player stopped working and a favorite CD of the kids was stuck in the player. It is the only Bible memory CD they own so it was a bummer to think that it was gone indefinitely. Well, Tim and I took the car to go on a date yesterday and in answer to prayer the radio worked perfectly! I took the CD out before it got stuck again and the kids have been listening to it over and over again today! Please pray that our car continues to be the nearly trouble free blessing that it has been to date.

Our sink faucet was broken for a couple of months. We have been using a screw driver to turn the water on and off, but as of a week ago even that didn't work. For the last week we've been washing our dishes outside where we wash the laundry. We had told our landlord about the faucet and just last night prayed again about what to do. We were thinking it was time to hire the work done ourselves when today, in answer to prayer, the landlord came to put in a new faucet! It is so nice and works great!

A big praise is that we are now officially temporary residents of Costa Rica and our residency cards will arrive by mail on the 29th of this month. We'll each have an ID card with our picture on it. At the end of two years we can renew our residency simply by paying something like $20/person/year. Please pray that our ID/residency cards arrive safely in the mail and arrive at their expected time.

Once we have our residency cards we will try to buy voluntary insurance here so that I can get my medication and we can be treated within the social system. It has been amazing to see God provide my medicine since the company that makes Coumadin closed down in Costa Rica shortly after we arrived here. People who don't even know me have been helping me get my medicine. I do not have it in my hands now, but a total of 3-6 months supply of Coumadin is waiting for me at the local hospital right now! This is enough to get us through the process of getting insurance and to make our visit to the States in December! Please pray that we will be approved for the insurance here so that I can get properly set up with a doctor, a protime clinic, and be able to more easily get my medicine.

We have been watching flights to find the best "deal"on tickets to come home for Christmas, but with gas prices so high the flights are more expensive than we expected. Our hope is to go to Oregon for the month of December, but we are also trying to visit some friends on the way. Please pray that we can find some good tickets and soon.

I think our biggest prayer request is for patience and wisdom with our kids. Laura is pretty homesick and has been sad a lot lately. As a result she is often grumpy and easily irritated or offended. She gets canker sores in her mouth when she is stressed and she has eight sores right now! Poor thing! It hurts to eat, hurts to get her teeth brushed, hurts to talk. Her best days are when she has time in prayer. I will find her praying with beside her bed or in a quiet room. Sometimes she'll suddenly jump up from what she's doing to go pray. She tells me mostly that she prays that God would help her to make good choices. I can always tell when she has been praying because she is so loving, cheerful, and helpful!

Tanner is happy, but very much a stinker. Costa Ricans don't like to say no to children and he has taken advantage of this. To keep him happy, Tanners nanny often will let him do what he wants. Things he knows are not ok with mom and dad like watch T.V. all day or eat candy and cookies for snacks, just to name a few. This has not been good for him as you can imagine! I'll be cutting back at language school again next month. He'll then be with the nanny for just two days a week.

Often I feel like I don't have the wisdom and patience it takes to do the job of parenting God's way. Well, that's because I don't have what it takes on my own! I'm daily knocking on God's door, asking for wisdom and patience. He is faithful to give just what I need when I need it. I'm often amazed how just after praying an idea will pop into my head and I'll try it with the kids and it works! Thanks to God! Often friends give such great advice, too! I'm reading two great parenting books right now: "Don't Make Me Count To Three!" by Ginger Plowman and "Shepherding a Child's Heart"by Tedd Tripp. Both books focus on getting to the heart of behaviour and with changing the heart and not just the behaviour. Both books are excellent and I highly recommend them!!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read our blog and to lift up our family up in prayer!

~Cindy (and, as always, edited by Tim)

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit!

2008-10-04T15:03:00.036-07:00

Last week my parents came to visit from Oregon. It was so nice to have them here!!! It makes them seem so much closer now. It was the first time for either of them to travel to another country aside from Canada or just over the border into Mexico. They loved it here and plan to come again soon and often! Yeah!!

Here are some pictures from their visit~~

We went to the beach for the day. The water was clear, warm, calm, and perfect for swimming and playing in. We found a nice shady spot close to the water, perfect for playing in the sand.

We visited the produce market in Turrialba where we do our shopping every week.

We saw the sights of Cartago, visiting the Bacilica de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles, a pilgrimage site as well as Las Ruinas de la Parroquia which are 16th century ruins of colonial Cartago.

Lastly, we went to Atenas to show my parents the eMi office and to let them see our future home town. We stayed at a B&B where we all shared a room, enjoyed a yummy breakfast, and the kids and I had fun swimming in the pool. Thank you grandma and grandpa!

Cindy

Ramblings about school...

2008-10-04T10:41:00.034-07:00

Over the last month our home has turned into a classroom as we have been working with the kids daily on home school work. Our walls are decorated with charts, school projects, and Laura's artwork. Our time has been very full with our own Spanish studies as well as teaching Laura and now Tanner who was begging us to do school with him, too.

It is very fun and rewarding to teach our children and to watch them learn and grow. It is also a lot of work and is very tiring! The biggest challenges are keeping Tanner from distracting Laura and working around Laura's short attention span.

Laura likes best to write, draw, do hands on projects, and memory work. Tanner likes anything from workbooks to puzzles and games. I think he loves the attention more than anything else! Tanner is also doing early reading and writing which is exciting for him and for us! The lessons we do incorporate songs, poems, chants, artwork, and/or hands on activities.

In Math we play store to help Laura learn to count money and to add two digit numbers. She got to set up a store and called her store "Old Maid Checkers". Tanner likes to play cashier. Another thing we do is sing a silly song we made up called "The Congruent song" where Laura finds shapes around the house and sings whether or not they are congruent to a particular shape that I hold up.

In grammar Laura learned to classify groups into subgroups using things from around the house.

In History Laura got to be an "archeologist". I buried things in the dirt and Laura got to dig them up and talk about what she could learn about a civilization if that was all the information she had. She later played archeologist on her own and found a toy in the yard that she cleaned up and brought inside to show me how she discovered that a little girl used to live at our house. I tried hard not to laugh as I told her that it was her own toy that she had left out in the yard the previous week!

In Science we decorated the house using fall decorations and dried leaves from Oregon and the kids also got to hang up a mobile, stickers, posters, and a border of outer space. Today Tanner didn't want to get dressed because his pj's were his spacesuit and he wouldn't be able to breath without it. I told him that his room was a space station with oxygen and that it was safe to get dressed into his new space suit (his clothes for the day)! For Bible Laura made a collage of the earth and drew pictures of what happened each day of creation. She is memorizing the days of creation along with different Bible verses about creation. Laura usually learns her Bible verses in one sitting and then tries to teach them to Tanner who isn't so interested and says "I can't do that, I'm not in first grade."

In Penmanship Laura is learning cursive writing. She loves it and is doing so well with it. I keep finding little pieces of paper around the house with her cursive signature written on them.

Laura still does kindergarten at the local public school from 7-10:30 am. She then has free time to play with friends and do as she pleases (within reason) until we start homeschool after lunch at 1:30 pm. We then do homeschool for 2-3 hours. After school we do outside activities like go for a walk or play at the local soccer field until it gets dark at 5:30 pm.

In Spanish both the kids are doing great! Tanner knows the difference between Spanish and English so often translates his Spanish into English for us in case we didn't understand his Spanish. Laura knows many Spanish songs from school and church that she sings while she's working and playing. Their teachers from school and church say that they understand everything and speak well.

We have started to incorporate Spanish in our home by speaking in Spanish during lunch and dinner. It's fun to hear Tanner and Laura converse with each other (and us) in Spanish.

Tim and I are feeling like "we're going to make it." It is less work to understand things and we are able to converse with relative ease. We are far from fluent and still make many mistakes (which we often recognize as soon as the words are out of our mouth), but we are happy with our progress. When do we have time to do our homework? I do mine when Laura is working on any written school work or after the kids have gone to bed at 7pm. Tim gets his work done any spare moment he has. Our lives are full of school these days!

Cindy

el Dia de la Independencia

2008-09-23T18:18:00.027-07:00

A better name would be "la Semana de la Independencia" for the celebrations start almost a week early. Fairs, parades, civic activities, bull fights...September 15 is Independence Day in Costa Rica and they know how to celebrate (minus fire works)! Costa Rica celebrates their Independence from Spain which took place in 1821. There was something to go to every day for a week (at least if you have a child in public school here).

Laura memorized in Spanish a song, a poem, and a short history about the Costa Rican flag. She got to recite these at one of the "actos civicos" along with her kindergarten class.
While I was off rafting with friends (sorry, no pictures), Tim and Laura spent hours working on a "Farol"(Lantern) . The theme was some type of house and Laura wanted a "Castillo"(Castle). It got a lot of attention at the parade of Faroles that was held on the evening of September 14.
This parade is to remember the night before independence was declared. It is a parade for children, but really the parents do all the work!

On the morning of September 15 Laura got to perform with some other girls in her class the same "baile typico" dance that they performed on July 25. They were so adorable!

After singing many patriotic songs, hearing the pledge of allegiance, and watching many dancers perform, Tanner was ready to do something else! No worries though because...

following the morning activities the children from the school were in a parade. They WERE the parade! The batteries for our camera ran out before we could get a picture of Laura's class in the parade. They waved pom-pom's of red, white, and blue while they did a marching routine.

This was a different kind of parade than we are used to. Instead of sitting on the sidelines to watch, people walked ahead of the parade, followed the parade, or walked IN the parade with their kids. We did a little of all three.

In the evening we headed to the small town of La Suiza (10 minute drive from Tuis) where we went to a little carnival. The kids got to go on a couple rides and they also got to taste cotton candy for the first time! It was a fun (and busy) week! ~Cindy

Our Church

2008-09-23T17:32:00.006-07:00

I have meant to write about our church for some time now. I took pictures over a month ago, but haven't posted them.

Our church is held at Laura's grade school, in the outdoor gym. In November the church will be able to move to a new building that is almost finished. There, the indigenous home and the church will share the same building. That way the church will be used for full time ministry 7 days a week. CISA, the church, and the mission, "Voz Que Clama" (the indigenous home) are all connected by the same leadership. So, we start our day at school with devotions, worship, prayer, and giving thanks with some of the same people we go to church with!

We have been blessed by the people at this church who have welcomed us into their circle. The services and music are in Spanish. Though we often understand most of the message, we have yet to get the jokes. It's kind of embarrassing when everyone is laughing and you have no idea what the punch line was.

The kids go to the same class. It's one class for preschool through 6th grade. That teacher has her hands full, but she does a great job! The kids are very comfortable in the worship service and often sit with other "parents" in the church.

Note: dogs are welcome at the service, too!

~Cindy

August highlights

2008-09-15T18:50:00.030-07:00

Here are the highlights from August since we didn't find the time to post August photos:

We spent July 30-August 10 in Atenas house sitting and dog sitting for our friends, the Bastians. Our good friend Wendy spent the first 2 1/2 days with us. We got to know Wendy in Tuis as she worked for CISA and was my walking partner. She has now moved back to the States and we sure miss her!!

This is what the kids did all week in Atenas! They had a blast on that trampoline! They also had fun playing with a playmobile castle, with Cindy the dog, and with LEGOS. Laura also spent hours drawing and painting. Tim and I played with the kids, read lots of books, and enjoyed sitting on the porch. We all enjoyed watching old classic Disney including all the Herbie the love bug movies. It was a great time to rest and rejuvenate.

Tanner was happy to be home in his own bed. (He really does sleep like this!) This is Henry, my teacher for the month of August. He kept me very busy with homework (which explains why I did not have time to blog). A very good teacher and very funny. Tanner learning to be like daddy.
Tim and I went for a 3 1/2 hour hike together, including a swim and a stop in La Suiza for some gatorade! It was such a nice time together without the kiddos.

Tim is now officially "in his 40's". Doesn't he look good for 41? Muy guapo! We had chocolate cake and burritos for his birthday. Our friends Andres, Carla, and their daughter Catalina came over to help celebrate.

Our first (and maybe last) care package. Tim's parents sent birthday gifts for Tanner and Tim. It took over one month to get here and the shipping was exorbitant. Thank you Oma and Opa! It was such a treat!

Tanner finally has another boy his age to play with!The kids "graduated" from CISA. They now have a nanny who comes to our house every day. It's very handy because she lives next door to us! Her name is Mireya and the kids love her. So do Tim and I. She has been a God send. She even does our laundry and cleans house. We can't stop her, it's the Costa Rican way. The kids love to help her. She also plays with the kids, digging in the dirt or having pretend birthday parties!

We drove 1 1/2 hours to get to a McDonalds. We had sundae's and celebrated Laura graduating to the first grade (at least at home). Congratulations, Laura!

~Cindy

Tim's Testimony

2008-08-25T16:02:00.002-07:00

More about Chirripo...

2008-07-28T14:28:00.030-07:00

I am sorry to take so long to post my pictures of Chirripo. I hardly know where to start in sharing my experiences there. It was like nothing I've ever done before and aside from childbirth (and maybe nursing school), it was the hardest and yet most rewarding thing I've ever done or accomplished!

Our team gathered for prayer at CISA early Wednesday morning (July 9). We then loaded into the back of a cattle truck and rode for two hours on a bumpy road through the mountains to get to the Chirripo reservation. We rode until the road ended and from there we had to go on foot. We hiked for 7 hours that first day! We hiked down a large mountain on steep trails through thick forest/jungle, we hiked over a dried riverbed, across a huge and dangerous river, and through rushes taller than us.

We carried in wood to finish a building project at the village of Madarin. We had to leave the wood at another village as we were running out of time and the last two hours we hiked in the pouring rain. My pack kept throwing me off balance and I must have fallen 4-5 times. Both my knees looked pretty raw and I had bruises and scrapes up and down my arms and legs from my falls, from being slapped by branches, and from the wood tablet I helped carry which kept pinching my arms.

We stayed our first night in the village of Palmera where we helped to dedicate a new church. This was the first time that a team from CISA visited this village so it was a huge honor to be there. There were around 30-40 people present and many of the people of Chirripo had traveled farther than we had to get there. Mom's carried babies on their backs and crossed a wide and rapid river to get there! The service was by flashlight and candlelight with folk sounding guitar music and songs in Spanish. Our paster from Tuis gave a message in Spanish that was then translated into the local dialect.

Before the service I took a "shower" in the rain, washing my clothes, skin, and hair all at once. I then put on clothes that thankfully remained dry in my pack through the rain and waist deep water. Thank goodness that people who had been on the trip before gave me the tip to put all my things in plastic bags before packing them!

We all slept in a bamboo house with a thatched roof. It was a large house with three rooms. You entered the house through the first room and this is where we dressed and where I kept my bag. The dirt floor had turned to slippery mud so you had to watch your step. You then entered into a second room that had a small fire burning in the middle and had bamboo beds along the walls. The third room was similar to the first.

Since the majority of the people present had traveled many hours by foot to be there, we all slept under the same roof. I got to share one of the bamboo beds in the second room. Others from our team slept on pads on the floor. The indigenous people slept on large banana leaves on the floor and shared a log for a pillow. The small chickens lived and slept with the people. They were good for chasing and eating the various cockroaches and bugs that roamed the dirt floor.

I didn't sleep so good and was awake at first daylight. I was very aware of how sore I was from such a long hike which ended with sleeping on a hard and bumpy mattress of bamboo sticks with only my sleeping bag as a cushion! I first lay awake and listened to the indigenous people laugh and joke together and then I sat with them around the fire and waited for the rest of my team to wake up. I shared some snacks with the kids and tried my Spanish with them. It was a surreal experience.

Early that morning we set out for a 2 hour hike to the village of Madarin, which is where the teams from CISA usually go to minister. I asked how CISA became involved with Madarin and learned that some men from this village came into Tuis and asked for help. Since their village is so hard to reach and the trek to civilization is so arduous they needed the basics such as food and clothing and medical care.

In Madarin some of the team worked with the kids teaching them songs, making balloon animals, and sharing the gospel with them. Others would have worked on construction but since we weren't able to bring the wood all the way they spent time talking with people. Some of the team and I opened a small clinic in the church. We saw many people who have never been to a doctor or a dentist, who don't even own a toothbrush, and who have medical problems that started two and three years ago!

How wonderful it would be if a team of dentists and doctors/nurses could go there to treat the people. I did my best to advise and use the tools I had to assess and treat what I could. Others simply need to be seen by a doctor or a dentist. It was very rewarding and very sad at the same time. I am so thankful to have had help from others on our team in taking notes, translating, taking measurements of the kids, for bringing me drinks, saving me lunch, and helping me to pack up when we were done! Now I'm working on a spread sheet with patient information to pass on to a Costa Rican doctor who plans to visit this region... but not until Christmas time!

The second night I slept again on a bamboo bed, but this time I had a foam pad. I didn't even care that it was totally filthy. I also got my sore legs and back massaged with Cofal (similar to Ben-gay) which was sheer torture, but helped me to relax and sleep and then be able to hike again the next day.

I was up again at the crack of dawn and held another clinic from 6:30-8:30am. I also had a small line-up of team members, including myself, who needed blister care before we headed out. We made much better time going up and though I was sore, my "uphill muscles" were fresh so I found it much easier to go up than down or on flat ground. I have never hiked such a steep trail before and was very thankful that I hired an indigenous man to carry my pack. I think he made the trip up in 3 1/2 hours! I was proud of myself for making it back in 4 hrs and 20 minutes. Either way he got there long before I did! I should have hired him to carry me!

Once we all reached the top we took another cattle truck back to Tuis. It was so strange to go back to civilization, and I felt that the people of Chirripo stayed close to my heart and mind the whole trip. I am now training more by hiking even steeper trails around Tuis in preparation for returning to do another trip at the end of August. Now that I know what to expect and what the people need there I can expand my health kit. A member of our team is providing toothbrushes which I will bring on my next trip. Each person I see at the clinic will get a toothbrush with instructions on how to care for their teeth as well as how to care for their brush. I hope to add to the health charts that I started and see how some of the people are doing since I last saw them.

I recently found out that there is a Friday clinic in my neighborhood which serves the indigenous people of Tuis. I met with the doctor this last week and asked if I could volunteer at this clinic. He said yes and I should be able to start in about three weeks when he gets back from vacation.

If anyone is interested in sending supplies to Chirripo you can send them to the CISA at: CISA, 28-7150, Turrialba, Costa Rica. Care packages with clothes for children and adults (size small-medium for both men and women), sewing kits, baby blankets and supplies, small toys, hygiene supplies would all be much used and appreciated. Another big need is long, dark colored, athletic or hiking socks to wear with their rainboots--the only shoes they wear if they wear shoes at all.

Thank you so much for your prayers. There were many times on this trip where we had to have had guardian angels watching over us. Steep trails, crossing a dangerous river four times, etc. I also could not have gone without Tim's support and willingness to parent alone in a foreign land while I was away. Thank you Tim!

Cindy

Prayers answered

2008-07-28T12:11:00.014-07:00

Has it really been 3 weeks since we've added an entry to our blog? What have we been up to? Well, I did not get lost in the jungles of Chirripo and Tim did survive his three days alone with the kids!

School/studies have kept us very occupied and preoccupied! The more we learn, the harder it seems as we have so many new words and ideas swimming around in our heads. It gets hard at times to keep it all sorted out! Sometimes I feel like my mind is a tangled mess of Spanish words and grammar. Other times I feel that my head is so full of new information that nothing else will fit and I just can't take anymore in. I hear that this is normal and I look forward to the time when I either have a bigger head or a more organized mental filing system!

The kids are doing well and are very happy and content. Tanner eats like a horse and has gained a whopping 5 lbs. in the last three months; a 15% increase! He is in a rapid learning stage where he is talking tons in Spanish, even to us at home. Laura still loves school and this last week she got to perform in a traditional dance, being the first non-Costa Rican to participate in this activity in the history of Tuis (at least as far back as anyone here can remember!)

One thing that I am really enjoying is to see our kids take delight in the simplest of things. Today I filled a laundry tub with water and put the kids in swim suits. They were tickled and have been playing in the water for over 2 hours. Laura said that this is the most fun she's had since we've been here!

For Tanner's Birthday Laura made a necklace out of leaves, tape, and paper. She never asked if she could buy something for Tanner and Tanner was so excited about his new "bib" that he wore it all day yesterday.

We have been approved to stay here in Tuis until November to continue our language studies and get beyond the "beginner" and hopefully even the "intermediate" stage to be at a place to better communicate and minister here. Our plan is to finish language school the last week of November and then we'll go home to Oregon for December. When we return to Costa Rica at the beginning of January we'll get settled into a place in Atenas and Tim will begin working full time for eMi!

What else? Oh yeah, we found out just this week that our visa's went through! This happened very fast! Another family still awaits their visa and they have been in Costa Rica for 9 months! Now we are legal to live and work here without having to leave the country every three months! This also means that we may qualify to get health insurance here for very cheap and that I'll be able to get my medicines here for free and be able to use a local anticoagulation clinic!

God is very faithful and we continue to thank and praise Him for His great care. Thank you so much for your prayers. As you can see, they are being answered!

Cindy

More prayer requests

2008-07-05T18:59:00.015-07:00

We thank you so much for your prayers. We can't say how important your prayers are!

Here are some things that we would so appreciate prayers for:

*It is possible that we could extend our time here at Tuis. EMI said if necessary we could stay longer and when we talked with CISA, we were told that they would work with us to make it possible. The school quiets down in the fall and we would get more individual attention. This could help us work on our weaknesses in Spanish and help "polish off" our Spanish so we are better equipped for ministry. This is the time to focus on our Spanish and we are realizing how important it is to ministry to be able to communicate effectively in the language here. Please pray for wisdom as we make this decision.

*I have been moved to a more advanced/accelerated class. This has required way more time devoted to study and it has been overwhelming. Please pray that I can keep up with my studies without neglecting my family! I have been so tired mentally from the added challenge, but am thankful for all that I'm learning.

*Tanner decided that he did NOT want to attend the preschool here. He is content to be at CISA with us and is doing well there. He often has one-one attention in his class which he loves. Lately he has been pretty clingy and talks about wanting to jump into the computer and go to Oregon. He misses all his "buddies" back home. The only friend that he has who is his age has only one week left at the school. Other than her all his friends are older or are adults who he talks into playing with him.

*Our car keeps having minor issues. Now something is wrong with the electrical system where the fuses to various lights (dash lights, brake lights) keep burning out. We believe that something got damaged when the alarm system was removed since that is when the problem started. It is a challenge taking the car to the mechanic because we must rely on the help of locals who know the system and language better than we do. Though we are thankful for the help, it is hard to have less independence than we are used to.

*The company that makes Coumadin in Costa Rica recently shut down. I'm in the process of figuring out how to get my medicine through the government as it is not available in the pharmacies. Monday I'll try to get a card that will allow me to obtain my medicine at the local hospital. I've been told that it will not be a problem for me to get this card. In the meantime the local pharmacist that I use was able to get me a two month supply of Coumadin from the hospital and told me that he can get me more when I need it. The good news is that the medicine is now free! I also found out that there are doctors here who are trained in anticoagulation therapy and that there are 3 anticoagulation clinics in the country. Now I just need to be in contact with one of these doctors and/or clinics and find out how I can be a patient! Then I'll be set up just as I was in the States!

*Tanner is at the age that we had hoped to be able to adopt 1-2 more children. We have been in a "waiting" mode on this, just praying that if it is God's will He will pave the way. Well, Tim was asked recently by his teacher if we want more children. Tim said that we would like to adopt, but have been told that it isn't possible for us to adopt here. The teacher said that he knows someone who helps people adopt and that this isn't true. Tim's teacher talked with his friend and now we will be setting up an appointment to meet with him! This friend said that we should start on our paperwork now as it will take a year (which may mean more than a year) to complete and process. We will take this one step at a time and trust that God will work out all the details...

*I'm going to Chirripo this coming week (see "I'm going to Chirripo!" post below). Prayer for safety/protection for our team and for sanity for Tim as he is on his own with the kids.

*Praise that Laura is doing so much better here. She loves her school, has made lots of new friends, and is very happy and content now!

*Praise that our family is staying healthy, that we see God at work in our lives, that we see his protection daily, and that we are learning the language poco y poco (little by little)! God's richest blessings to you!

Cindy for our whole family

She ran for her life!

2008-07-04T21:35:00.004-07:00

This week an indigenous woman fled from her village with her 2 year old son. She traveled with him for 4 days with only the clothing on their back. Why did she flee? Her son is crippled, probably from complications during childbirth, and she feared for her life and her son's life. Another boy in her clan was hung because at age 5 he could not speak. She feared the same fate for her son or herself. Now here she is with nothing and she can't go back to her village. She is 29, illiterate, malnourished, without a clue about life in the "outside" world.

It has been amazing to see how the town here has taken her in. People have donated food, clothing, money, have taken her to the doctor. She is living with another indigenous family here where she is safe, they do not have the same attitude about her son. They are very poor though so having extra people in the home is very difficult. I do not know her name, but please pray for this woman. We do not know what the future holds for her and her son.

Please pray for Priscila and her mom.

Cindy

I'm going to Chirripo!

2008-07-04T20:41:00.010-07:00

CISA (our language school) leads a ministry to the indigenous people of Costa Rica. The school runs a home next door for 7 indigenous people with disabilities. (You can click on the link to the right to learn more about CISA and this ministry). Every month a team from CISA travels to Chirripo to minister to the indigenous people there. It is a grueling trip with a 5-6 hour hike through jungle and mountain terrain.

For the past two months I have been training to go on this trip by going on many hikes in the mountains around Tuis. I'm so excited to be a part of the team going July 9-11--next week! Please pray for our team: for safety, good health, and a productive trip. We will be carrying lumber in to continue work on a building project there. We'll be visiting another village to help dedicate a new church there. In Chirripo the guys will work on the building project (I'm not sure what they are building) and the ladies will work with the kids (I'm not sure what we'll do). We'll have a meeting on Monday where I'll learn more about what we'll be doing.

It looks like I will also be using my nursing on this trip as well. The pharmacy I go to in Turrialba donated some medications and I'll bring what I have as far as medical supplies. I have no idea what we'll find there, but expect to find parasites, poor nutrition, poor hygiene, and various skin or other infections. It will be a challenge as they have their own language and only know some Spanish. I'll also take blood pressures, weight, height, etc. and make a "health card" for anyone who wants it. I also have growth charts for the kids.

Please also pray for Tim as he'll be a single parent while I'm away!

Cindy

Vacaciones--The Caribbean!

2008-06-30T16:23:00.027-07:00

Our trip to the Caribbean coast was quite an adventure! We stayed near a little town called Puerto Viejo, on the Southern coast of Costa Rica. To get to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast we drove 4 hours. We drove past banana plantations, inlcuding a "Dole" banana farm. The last 5 miles was on a terrible road full of huge ruts. Sometimes it was rutted pavement, but mostly it was loose gravel with rocks of various sizes. I spent that last 5 miles wondering why Costa Rica didn't keep up it's only coastal highway (on the Caribbean side). Later I saw on the map that we had taken a road off the main highway.

We stayed with our friends in a house across a small dirt road from the beach. There is a reef where we stayed and where we played so it was safe for the kids--no under toes to worry about. In total there were 13 of us, including the eMi staff and interns.

The Caribbean Coast is amazing! Very beautiful! The days were wonderful at the beach. Laura and I had lots of fun swimming and letting the waves carry us back to shore. Tanner and Tim were content to play in the sand. Our friends joined us both in the Ocean and at the shore!

The nights, however, were awful! Mosquitos are a problem where we stayed so we had to sleep under mosquito netting. The kids would not keep their arms and legs in the netting so Tim and I each took a kid to sleep with and spent the night pulling their arms and legs back into our protective "tents."

There was a misunderstanding about how many beds the house had, so we ended up with one double bed and one single mattress on the floor--in the kitchen. We think this mattress had bed mites. Tanner ended up with around 100 bites! And thats after putting repellent on his skin, clothes, and the netting. The rest of us fared much better.

In the morning, just as the sun was coming up, we would listen to the howler monkeys "howl". They howl low, deep, and VERY loud, especially considering the monkeys were in the trees just outside our window. I felt much better after learning that it was a monkey making that howl and not a jaguar or something. Our windows did not have glass, just wooden shutters. Since it was so hot there you just sleep with the shutters open. I kept thinking something was going to come in the windows.

By day those same monkeys played, ate, and swung in the trees lining the driveway. When we walked to and from the beach they would throw fruit down at us. Luckily they had terrible aim. The kids love the Jungle Book movie where the monkeys do the same thing so they kept singing the "Bear Necessities" song from the movie as we walked down the driveway with fruit pelting the ground around us.

On our last day all the rest of our friends left in the morning and we stayed until 3 pm. There was no check out time which was so nice! As we drove home we got a flat tire. We pulled over at a restaurant/bar where we could all take a bathroom break (the restrooms had no light and the ants bit our feet) and find out where we could get a wrench which we needed to remove the spare tire cover. Thanks to God we were told that there was a mechanic shop nearby and we were able to borrow a wrench from there (we now have our own wrench). Tim finished changing the tire just as it was getting dark and starting to rain. God really looked after us because after this point the majority of our trip was on lonely mountain roads.

Shortly after arriving to Puerto Viejo our breaks began making a terrible grinding sound (though they still worked fine). For this reason we drove slowly all the way home. This added another hour to our trip. The mechanic later told Tim that something was "Muy peligroso"(very dangerous), but Tim didn't gather WHAT was dangerous. We thank God for his protection, and we thank you for your prayers!!

We were all very happy to be back "home" again in Tuis. We realized just how much we all feel at home here. The kids keep asking us when we'll go to the beach again so we'll have to plan another trip, when we're up for another adventure!

Cindy

Vacaciones--Volcan Irazu

2008-06-30T15:27:00.018-07:00

After every six weeks of school we have planned a week off to rest our brains. Our first week off we spent doing various fun things. Monday we went swimming at a local pool, Tuesday we visited Volcan Irazu and Wednesday through Friday we went to the beach on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.

To get to Volcan Irazu we drove 2 1/2 hours through beautiful countryside with spectacular views of valleys and lush green farmland. We arrived to the volcano at 9 am and already the clouds had rolled in. Had there been no cloud cover it would have been possible to see both the Pacific and Caribbean. Next time we'll have to visit in the dry season so we can see the views from over 11,ooo feet!

We were glad to have warm clothes as it was in the low 50's with a misty rain. It felt like a normal day on the Oregon coast, complete with sand for the kids to play in!

We met some creatures like the pesky Pezote (Caoti in English) who followed us after we fed him some crackers. He even tried to climb the leg of our friend Bernal who had joined us for the trip. We saw various birds, including brilliant blue and green hummingbirds.

Bernarl found unripened blackberries which we thought were raspberries. They were pretty sour! I was impressed with the size of the plants near the volcano. One leaf was bigger than Laura.

Tanner wanted to be carried the whole time and was quite unhappy that we wouldn't comply. He needed a nap. And lunch.

The kids and Bernarl all slept on the way home. I could have slept, but I didn't want to miss any of the incredible views!

Cindy

Visiting new friends

2008-06-30T14:17:00.011-07:00

Our friends Andres, Carla, and Catalina invited us to visit their extended family in a nearby village. Carla's family owns and runs a beautiful coffee farm. We made corn tortillas with cheese along with fried plantains which we ate with coffee. Very yummy!!

Cindy

Girls' day out

2008-06-30T12:04:00.005-07:00

A couple weeks ago Laura came with me to do the grocery shopping since she was to get a haircut. We made it a girls' day out and also went to the park, got ice cream (note the "ice cream face" in the photo), and after her haircut we went out to eat at a popular "soda". It was a lot of fun!

We arrived on time for Laura's haircut appointment and then we sat for over an hour before they were ready for Laura. This is an example of "Tico time". They did not apologize and did not seem at all concerned that we waited so long. Understanding that this is just part of the culture here helped me to not be angry. Laura looks so cute with her new haircut, which only cost $4 at a very nice salon!

At the soda I ordered us both a soda pop and hot dog. Since I have never gotten Laura pop before (except at the movies), she hugged me and cried. I guess it really meant a lot to her! She wanted to keep her bottle, but we both forgot to take it home.

Cindy

...he "choo-choo'd" his heiny to the toilet as I barely contained my laughter.

2008-06-18T07:05:00.005-07:00

As any of you with kids know, it can be difficult to interrupt the playtime of a three-year-old for anything as trivial as going to the bathroom. My son loves imagining he's Thomas the Train and as he was playing I asked him to go to the bathroom. He was dancing the subtle dance.

He responded, "But I'm a train and I don't have a penis or a butt so I don't need to use the toilet."

I'd love to say he gained an extra five minutes of play for his wit. However, he "choo-choo'd" his heiny to the toilet as I barely contained my laughter.

Tim

Friends in Costa Rica

2008-06-13T07:01:00.017-07:00

Tim and Cindy with Sonia, our Maestra (teacher).
Notice Cindy has acclimated. She's wearing a jacket at 75 degrees.

Laura with Laura, the language school director, and her son Santiago (6mo). And Tanner's arm, too.

Tanner, Laura's brother, with Andres, the Director Laura's brother.

Laura with her best friend Catalina (7yo), Andres' daughter.

Laura and Tanner with Stephanie, a fellow language school student.

Ruben

Tim and Tanner with Bernal, Ruben's son.

Mireya, Evelin and Shender, our neighbors.

Laura and Shender (4mo).

Tanner and Lilly (4yo), a fellow language school kid.

Laura and Joe (6yo), one of Lilly's brothers.

Laura and Brittany (4yo), our neighbor.

Muy rico!

2008-06-12T20:08:00.010-07:00

One of the highlights of my week is going to our cooking class where we learn to cook meals that are typical of Costa Rica, especially in this region of Costa Rica. The food here is (as the locals say) "Muy rico!" (literally, "very rich", but means something like very good/delicious). Our whole family goes to this class and the kids love it. Tim loves it that I get inspired to cook at home!

I have a new hobby now of cooking "tico" style. I am learning not only from cooking class, but from new friends who either describe a dish to me or who have actually come over to teach me how to cook.

Last Sunday some friends came over and taught us how to make home made corn tortillas. Tim's tortilla turned out so perfect that they were amazed!

This Saturday we are traveling with some other friends to visit their family who want to teach me how to cook "platano"(plantain), my favorite food here. Muy, muy rico!

Cindy

"Arte" at the Clem's house

2008-06-12T19:33:00.014-07:00

For the last two Saturday mornings we have set up an arts and crafts table on our front patio and we invite the neighbor kids over to do "Arte". Other language students from CISA come to help as well.

It has been a good way to meet the kids in our neighborhood and there are always kids who stay longer to play with Laura and Tanner.

Cindy

Laura's class goes on a field trip

2008-06-12T18:59:00.009-07:00

Yesterday Laura's class went on a field trip and I got to go along. It is not cultural for dads to accompany their kids to Birthday parties or field trips so only the mom's are invited. This has been hard for Tim, who would love to come along.

Laura's Kindergarten class traveled by bus about 10 minutes farther up the country road from Tuis to an even smaller town called Platanillo. We met with a couple other Kindergarten classes at the very small country school in Platanillo.

This small school has a huge soccer field where the kids played games and had picnics while the moms watched, visited, or joined in on the games. It was a fun day and I enjoyed getting to see Laura interact with her classmates and teacher.

The girls in her class "fought" over who got to hold Laura's hand, who got to sit next to her, etc. One girl followed Laura so closely that if Laura stopped she ran into the back of Laura. There is not a "hands to yourself" rule in Costa Rican schools and it is seen as a good thing to be affectionate with your friends. Laura fits right in, but it is a little much when the other girls hang on her or try to lick her arms! After a while Laura was trying to hide behind rocks or trees to have a break from all the attention.

Cindy

Laura and Tanner go to their first Birthday party in Costa Rica

2008-06-12T18:26:00.009-07:00

Laura and Tanner went to their first Birthday party last Saturday. What a "Fiesta" it was! Lots of food, games, two pinatas, and lots of kids! Laura joined in on all the games and had a great time. Tanner was content to watch from the sidelines, and I did my best to understand the Spanish spoken all around me and to me.

The party was scheduled to start at 1pm, but typical to "tico" time, it started at 2 pm and guests were still arriving at 2:30 pm. The party did not end until 4:30 pm. I'm not sure if that was a typical party and I hope not because it will be a tough act to follow if we have a Birthday party here for Tanner!

Cindy

Kids say the funniest things!

2008-06-12T18:12:00.007-07:00

I'm sure that all parents have their share of stories about the funny things their kids say. Here are a couple things our kids have said in the last week:

Tanner has some chapped skin that I put vaseline on. He has been telling everyone how I make him feel better by putting "gasoline" on his owies.

Laura, who would much prefer being in charge at all times, said to me through tears of frustration, "I just wish that I was the Queen of the world!"

Cindy

A few minutes later a man rode up on a bicycle with a few tools in one hand

2008-06-11T12:58:00.008-07:00

Sorry no pictures for this one, just the story to explain the title.

When we purchased our car, with our limited Spanish we understood that the car had an alarm but that it was disconnected. We were happy with this since the alarm added value to the car but since we both really dislike car alarms we were happy it was not connected.

We took the car to school one day when Cindy had planned to take some fellow students to Turrialba as part of the class. Unfortunately, once at the school, we could not get the car to start. We tried everything we could think of with no success. The locals from the language school also tried but the car would not start.

Because Tuis is such a small town, we were surprised when one of the locals said his relative in town was an auto mechanic. Relieved, we agreed it was time to call a "professional." A few minutes later a man rode up on a bicycle with a few tools in one hand. You can imagine my surprise when I realized this was the auto mechanic. Something I never imagined I would see.

He shortly determined that the alarm was in fact active and only the horn was disconnected. We deactivated the alarm, drove to Turrialba and had the entire system removed. Total cost for the bike riding mechanic and the alarm removal: $12.

Since this episode, we have had no problems with the car. By the way, our car got 8.8 liters per 100 kilometers on the first tank of fuel; or for us gringos: 27 mpg. Fuel costs 621 colones per liter or $4.70 per gallon, and rising.

Tim

Laura and Tanner go to school!

2008-06-10T20:41:00.011-07:00

Today would be Laura's last day of Kindergarten in the States! Congratulations to Laura and her classmates who are now first graders (at least in the States)!

As you are all starting your summer vacations, school is still in session here in Costa Rica. The school year runs from early February through late November. School starts early each day at 7 am and goes until 10:30 or 11 am or from 12 pm until 4 pm. The older kids rotate their schedules every day so that one day they go in the morning and the next in the afternoon, but always for just half day classes until 5th or 6th grade. Kindergarten is always in the mornings.

We were not sure if it would be possible for Laura to go to public school until we moved to Atenas, but God opened the door for Laura to go to school here in Tuis and she was able to start one week ago today.

Our Spanish instructor, Sonya, is the sister-in-law of the kindergarten teacher at the local public school (just across the street from our language school) so she was able to arrange for Laura to "try"out the class. The kindergarten teacher, principal, and students are very welcoming and are happy to have Laura at their school. Laura loves going to school and it has been the best thing for her. After a successful first week, Laura now has a uniform and is officially enrolled.

Kindergarten is pretty relaxed here with lots of play and hands-on art. It isn't so academic like in the States. The school work is mostly a review of what Laura did in preschool and early kindergarten. This is so good for Laura since she is not really getting a break from school this year. She will end up being in Kindergarten for over 13 months straight!

School for Laura has been such a success that we took Tanner to preschool yesterday! Both kids are very excited about school, making new friends, and learning Spanish. Laura has learned more Spanish in the last week than in the previous 5 weeks put together. I'm sure that she and Tanner will soon surpass us in their ability to communicate in Spanish. They are already correcting our pronunciation!

It was so precious to see them on their first day at school. Both were so timid and shy and scared. Both were resolved to be brave. Both were so proud of themselves for being brave and both were so excited to go back.

We are very proud of Laura and Tanner and very relieved to see them doing so well and settling into their new home! Thank you so much for all your prayers on their behalf.

Cindy

Feeling more independent

2008-06-10T19:34:00.009-07:00

As we learn more Spanish and can converse more we feel more comfortable venturing out on our own. It has been fun to go on family outings to Turrialba to take the kids to the park, out to ice cream, or to just walk around town. Next week we have a week off and we hope to do some day or possibly overnight trips to see the surrounding sights.

A couple weeks ago I got to go into Turrialba with three other gringo friends. Boy did we turn heads. It is very unusual to see women, especially gringo women, without a male escort. It isn't looked down upon, it is just very unusual. We all had a great time getting to know the town better. It was my first time to do all the driving and thanks to God we didn't get lost once!

After those experiences, I felt comfortable driving into town with our instructor, Sonia, who doesn't speak English. I needed to find a school uniform for Laura and she offered to show me around to the best shops to get what I needed.

We had such a great time! We went out to eat at a local restaurant that serves delicious dishes typical of Costa Rica. We had great conversations and at times I forgot we were speaking in Spanish. We searched all over town for Laura's school shoes (which Tim and I had to take back after we discovered that the store had given me two right shoes). I was amazed that Sonia thought nothing of giving her time to help me shop, even in the pouring rain with only one small umbrella between us!

Cindy

"Is your husband a macho man?"

2008-06-10T19:07:00.012-07:00

Our class had been pretty serious until one day we had to take turns answering questions that other students asked in Spanish. The questions went round until Tim asked me with a straight face, "Esta su esposo un hombre macho?" which made us all laugh for a very long time and still remains the class joke. Since this time our class laughs a lot together.

What do you think? Esta mi esposo un hombre macho?

Cindy

Prayer requests

2008-05-27T10:27:00.007-07:00

We have entered the rainy season. It is usually sunny or overcast and dry each morning. It then starts to rain around lunchtime and rains the rest of the day. It is still warm (in the 70's) and humid. In this environment colds and viruses are common especially if you are new here. I have felt cruddy since Friday and Tanner had a fever yesterday so we are both home sick today. It's great to finally have a chance to write all the things that have been floating around in my head, but I don't like to miss school. Tanner seems to feel better today. We would appreciate prayers for good health as we experience rain and dampness that beats Oregon!

We are all learning Spanish slowly but surely. We would appreciate prayers that our brains would be sponges to soak up the language that we hear all around us. Laura is having the hardest time since she resists learning Spanish. She understands more than she will speak. It is very hard as a parent to know that if she would only try it would come easy.

Wisdom as we parent our children in a different land and culture and as they go through the ups and downs of culture shock.

Prayer that we won't get distracted or forget to pray together as a couple, together as a family as well as to study the Bible alone, together, and as a family. Also that we will be fed through the sermon's we brought from home until we can understand the Spanish preaching at church.

Thank you so much!

Cindy

The mail system in Costa Rica

2008-05-27T10:08:00.007-07:00

Many have asked us if they can send us things by snail mail. It is possible and we are told it should arrive to us within 2-3 weeks; although after two weeks we are still waiting for something from Tim's parents. It isn't a good idea to send anything valuable or brand new as we may never see it. The school we attend has a post office box in Turrialba that is checked every week. The address is: Christian Immersion Spanish Academy (CISA), 28-7150, Turrialba, Costa Rica.

We live in a house with no address. There is no house number and the three roads that intersect at our house do not have names. The only way to have a mailing address is to have a post office box in a town of relatively substantial size.

It's fun to read addresses on labels of products made in Costa Rica. If it does not list a post office box, it will say so many meters from some well known factory or public school, or other such building.

We have an important document to send to our lawyer in San Jose. It is needed to complete our visa paperwork. To send it to her office, we take it to the bus station in Turrialba where it is addressed to her courier. The bus takes it to San Jose where her courier will pick it up and deliver it to her office. We already used this method once and it worked great! The bus company provides a tracking number so we can make sure the delivery arrives.

One last thing. Laura sent a card to her class in the States and it cost less to mail it from here than to mail it within the same town in the US! Now that I know this we'll have to try snail mail more often!

Cindy

Bugs

2008-05-27T09:47:00.004-07:00

I'm sorry that I don't have some cool pictures of a couple bug visitors that we've had in our house, but I've been too busy running away and screaming. I don't mind bugs in general, if they are small. Most of the bugs here are small, but occasionally a big one likes to make itself known.

During our first week here we stayed at a little cabin/bungalow at an orphanage. They had misunderstood that we were coming the next day so they had not cleaned house for us. When I went to put our groceries away in the fridge I found a giant cockroach in the vegetable crisper. It was dead, but I really wonder how it got in there and if it got so big from feasting on the left over food in there. I threw out the food and Tim threw out the cockroach.

When I was putting away groceries for the first time in our current home I opened up a cupboard to be greeted by a huge brown spider the size of the palm of my hand. The man who had taken us shopping told us that it was not poisonous, just a common house spider. He was kind enough to kill it for us. I have not seen any more of these, but I do open the cupboard doors cautiously.

The other day Tim looked above the archway to our kitchen and saw a huge cockroach. He would sweep it out the door to the pack porch only to have it run back in under the large crack at the bottom of the door. He eventually was able to scoop it up with the broom and throw it out in the yard.

Other bugs here are small and mighty, like the little "hormiga's" that look like sugar ants but have a king size bite. They swarmed up the kids legs one day and left several bite marks. Bigger red ants like to tear apart leaves and carry huge pieces on their backs. They make trails from a tree or bush to their anthill and it looks like a bunch of walking leaves.

We have several loud crickets in our back yard that are black with orange stripes. The kids love to look at them. There are also a large variety of pretty butterflies. The variety that we have seen are black with some type of red or yellow marking.

Not a bug, but also very fun to watch are the gecko's that like to come into our house through the windows each evening to feast on small moths, flies, flying ants, etc.

The kids have an assortment of toy bugs that they love to play with. Some are outside and some are inside. I wonder when the time will come that I go to pick up a fake bug only to find that it is alive!

Cindy

Cooking in Costa Rica

2008-05-27T09:21:00.005-07:00

Our diet, as well as the local people here, consists primarily of rice, beans, tortillas (corn), chicken, eggs, a small amount of beef, and a large variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. I love the way we eat here and I'm having fun trying out new and local foods with recipes in Spanish.

I do most of our shopping in Turrialba, but if I need something in a hurry there are little kiosk type shops throughout our neighborhood. Produce trucks drive around the neighborhood and you can buy things from them, but I never know when they will come. They seem to come less now that it is raining more.

On Friday and Saturday there is a large farmer's market in Turrialba. Farmers come from all around to sell their produce. There you can buy any number of fruits and vegetables, some of which I've never seen or heard of. We tried this one vegetable that looks like a giant root w/ bark on the outside and white flesh on the inside. You can cook it like a potato and is very rich and delicious. I made a kind of pizza crust using this vegetable that was first cooked then mashed and topped with vegetables covered in cheese. It was a veggie pizza! I could hardly stop eating it.

A very common meal for us is home-made refried beans (very easy to make and w/o any fat either), scrambled eggs, and cheese (like "squeaky cheese" in the States) on a corn tortilla with home-made salsa. If we are missing American food we usually have French toast, oatmeal, or hot dogs. Peanut butter is a treat and we try to keep it in the cupboard. It is only available in Turrialba, but the last time we went shopping the store was out of Peanut Butter.

I cook on a propane stove. It took me some days to learn how to light the thing, but now I have it down. I will be a pro at using our camp stove in the States! The oven is a little tricky since it does not tell you any temperatures. I tried to find an oven thermometer in Turrialba, but was told that it would be very expensive. So now I just babysit any food I'm cooking and adjust the heat as needed to prevent things from burning.

All said, I am really having fun with cooking--much more than I ever did back home. It is always an adventure!

Cindy

Doing laundry

2008-05-27T09:16:00.008-07:00

I could easily spend a large portion of my day doing laundry. People here do laundry every morning and I see now why this is so. It takes a long time!

The typical washing machine here in Tuis is one that requires you to first hand scrub your clothes, then have it soak in a gentle cycle, then hand rinse, then machine spin (the most helpful thing the machine does), then hang your laundry to dry. What isn't dry after a day is then put in the dryer to get out any dampness (when it isn't standing in a pool of rainwater).

Laura loves to help me with laundry. She likes to also copy what I'm doing and wash all her doll clothing.

Cindy

Cindy it is

2008-05-27T09:03:00.002-07:00

For all of you out there who are curious to know, I have kept the name Cindy. Relieved? As it turns out, Cindy is a common name here so it is easy for people to remember. I'm already used to the way people call me "Seendee". I think I might even like it...a little.

Cindy

How we spend our days

2008-05-27T08:04:00.014-07:00

We have been in Costa Rica for one month! It seems like we have been here much longer and at the same time it seems like we just arrived since so many things are still so new and different to us. We are finding our way, settling into a schedule, and adjusting to the changes.

We are up at sometime between 6 and 7am each day, depending on the road noise and when Tanner comes to our bedside to say, "It's morning!" Once we are up, we do the normal stuff like eat and get ready for the day. Laura does the first half of her Math assignment for the day and we read and discuss a chapter from Laura's new Story Bible. The kids play, I go for a long walk, Tim checks e-mail, we have our personal quiet time and if there is time Tim may play his guitar and I work on chores like laundry.

Language school starts at 9 am and we walk so we are out the door by 8:40ish. It is a nice walk and we pass many people who must stop and tell us how cute the kids are. We all have class from 9-12 each day and then we walk home. After lunch we all have a siesta for one hour. Tanner usually sleeps longer and Laura never sleeps, but plays quietly during her siesta.

Laura then does home school. We are working on her Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Math until the fall and then we'll add English grammar as well. Laura is eager to learn though often doesn't like to be taught.

By 4 pm the kids are playing, Tim and I are studying Spanish, doing chores, or Tim plays the guitar, checks e-mail, etc. Life runs at a much slower pace here and life is also much more simple. We are home most evenings, except that we have cooking class at 4 pm on Tuesdays and church at 4pm on Sundays. On Wednesday evenings we listen to a sermon in English at our house.

We are all to bed by 9 pm though sometimes it is earlier and occasionally it is later. Last night the kids and I were all asleep by 7:30 or 8 pm.

Sound boring? We are loving it, though I must admit that at times I am bored. What I am learning is that my home is not here on earth so it is ok if things don't feel like home to me. I am just a pilgrim here for a short time before I go home to my "true" home. It is difficult to feel the impact of this when I am in the States because I am so "at home" there. Here I realize what it means to be a pilgrim. Another thing I realize is that in the States I fill up my time with so many things just to keep busy when God desires me to slow down and spend more time with Him and be content to just "be".

Cindy

About Costa Rica and our first week at CISA

2008-05-11T10:06:00.002-07:00

I guess we were warned, but it didn't prepare us for the shock to our system. We heard Costa Ricans get up early but we figured that meant SOME Costa Ricans and that they would be quiet. We were wrong.

Since it is warm here year-around people use the outdoors as part of their living space. When the sun rises at 5:30am people come out of their houses and start their day. Our neighbor is adding a back porch to their house; hammering and sawing started before 6am.

The animals here seem to be confused. This morning a cacophony of birds began chirping, chattering and singing at 3:45am and continued until 6:00. The roosters seem to understand this culture too since they crow from shortly after midnight until the sun rises and then they stop.

This was our first week of Language School at Christian Immersion Spanish Academy (CISA) www.cisacostarica.com. As with most of Costa Rica, we've felt warmly welcomed. Although we came knowing almost no Spanish we are excited about how much we have learned already. The staff assures us, via hand motions and Spanish baby-talk, that after four months we will be chattering away in Espanol (I wish I could find how to include the "~" on the "n").

Our tuition includes a furnished three bedroom rental house. It's small by US standards but perfect for us. We have kept Tanner and Laura's favorite toys packed until we arrived here and once we unpacked Tanner's toy Thomas trains he never wanted to leave the house, crying all the way to language school for the first three days.

We even enjoyed our first houseguest. Josh, an intern with eMi-AL, spent the first couple day with us helping us adjust to Tuis and giving him an opportunity to visit the friends he made while he was a language school student here a few months ago.

We walk about ten minutes to language school each day. The kids have a separate class where they do crafts and play games. Just like our classes, theirs are all in Spanish.

CISA is in a small rural town called Tuis. The town is surrounded by sugar cane fields and coffee plantations. The closest air-conditioning is in the neighboring town of La Suiza at the bank, not the best place for a family outing.

We have learned of a couple places with swimming pools where we could take the kids in Turrialba, the larger city about a half-hour drive away. And La Suiza even has ice-cream available.

We are so grateful for our neighbor Mareya who helps us figure out our washing machine and lets us park our car in her yard. We're grateful for Andres who guided our tour of Turrialba as we made our initial shopping venture to get the supplies we need to set up a household. And for Andres' six year old daughter Catalina, who has come to visit twice already this week.

Cindy is doing so well on her Spanish and is digging into the studies. She enjoys the challenge and enjoys talking in general so she has good incentive to practice. She will learn much more quickly than I will since talking is the last thing I want to do when I am tired.

Our comprehension class on Thursday read a story totally in Spanish. Hormiga is pronounced or-mee-ga. I had not heard this word before. It means ant. However, I had heard the word amiga (u-mee-ga), which means a female friend. The teacher illustrated the story by drawing the ants and an anthill, but since I thought we were talking about amigas, the anthill looked like a volcano. I spent the entire class wondering why these friends were running up the volcano and jumping in. Cindy had to explain it to me after class.

My first Costa Rican sunburn is peeling already.

Tim

"Set-up" week in Atenas

2008-05-10T16:16:00.001-07:00

Our first week in Costa Rica was spent at the Hogar de Vida para la Ninez, a Christian orphanage in Atenas, the city where we will settle after language school. We rented a 325s.f, two bedroom cabin.

This was our first taste of Costa Rican living; walking to town on a dirt road, showering with a "widow maker" and figuring out how to buy groceries. You can't flush the toilet paper, but you can drink the water...from the tap, not from the toilet.

We spent this first week finding our car, a 1996 Hyundai Santamo. It seats seven with the third row seats up. Cindy and I both got Costa Rican drivers licenses. I got two licenses; one for a car and one for a motorcycle. We opened a local bank account, got a cell phone, got local fingerprints for our missionary visa and handed the visa paperwork to the lawyer who will handle the application for us.

We also learned to add at least two hours to the amount of time we think we need to accomplish anything; like posting pictures via a dial-up connection.

Tim