February 2012 – Five Folks Following Him

We’ve Got Mail!

And it is not of the electronic type!! 🙂 What’s the big deal you may ask? Well, for about 2 years we went without any mail coming through our mailbox. Then about 5 months ago, the Lord must have laid us on the hearts of some folks that have mailed us some boxes of goodies!!! This has been such a boost to our moral and an encouragement to us!! Over the last couple of weeks we were so excited to receive 2 packages from some fantastic friends!! I cannot tell you what these two packages did for our family, especially our children!! God used these to really boost us when we needed it! So a big THANK YOU for the Nelsons and Lynn – the senders of these packages!!

Why am I letting you all know about these packages? Because I wanted to give these guys an official thanks and let them see through photos the excitement they created with their efforts and gifts! And I wanted to encourage the readers of our blog to consider how you could encourage people who you know in ministry of any sort…. pastors, youth pastors, missionaries, counselors, secretaries, etc….. You never know how much you doing something small to encourage someone may then affect their ministry and strengthen it!! It is a way to be a part of that particular ministry!

1 Thessalonians 5:11

New International Version

¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Here are some pictures!!

Earthquake last night!!

So there was a 5.8 earthquake this morning about 30 miles from our house here on the volcano here in Costa Rica this morning. Although this is nothing new to us here, many of you who read this blog have never been through an earthquake, so I thought I would give you our perspective on what it was like.

We have been through, I don’t know, perhaps 5 earthquakes since we have moved to Costa Rica. From the start, I would say that I am quite fascinated by them. We are also living in a country where the buildings are sound and in our first week of living in Costa Rica we were taught how to handle them and protocol as to what we are supposed to do during one. There are some of you that have been to our house here on the volcano and know what it looks like. For those of you that have not, we live in a log cabin that is more like a converted barn. So I wanted to give you the perspective of everyone I talked to this morning.

First of all from Jacob and my perspective…. We have a pretty stout bed that Jacob made. We were already awake due to an unfortunate text message earlier around 4am from someone whose baby had died during the night. So we were already awake, but we were trying to go back to sleep. Around 4:55am our bed began to rock pretty hard back and forth. Jacob sat up and I just laid there thinking, “This is awesome!” It felt like someone really strong taking our bed as if it was a baby’s cradle but back and forth instead of side to side. Earthquake protocol says to open your doors because the house could shift and you may not be able to open your doors and become trapped. We did not do that. There are some wind chimes that hang from our rafters so that if an earthquake happens in the middle of the night, it will wake you up. So eerily, those chimes are sounding, the bed is rocking, car alarms begin going off and Jacob and I are not following any of the protocol we learned because it is also kind of shocking and you are just trying to register what is going on. Sure enough, this morning when I went to go open our back door to get our kids’ school uniforms ready, I could not get the door open. However, Jacob was able to get it, but for a moment I was like, “great, we should have gotten up and opened the doors like we were told, now I cannot get the door open.” But school as normal and I went on getting the uniforms and waking up the kids!

Over in my girls room….. 4:55am…. Sophia feels the her bed moving side to side, “Lizzie what is that? A hurricane?” Lizzie, “No it is an earthquake. It will be ok.” Sophia, “This is creepy!” Lizzie, “No, this is cool! Just try to go back to sleep.” Sophia, “Do you hear those bells (chimes)” Lizzie, “No. It will be ok.” Sophia, “Ok.” So I went and woke them up around 5:30am and they were like “Mommy, there was an earthquake last night! My bed was moving!” Lizzie, “It was so cool!” Sophia, “No, it was creepy!” Then they got up and got ready for school and we left!

Benjamin’s room….. Now Benjamin’s room is in the loft in the house, so normally, he feels things even stronger than we do! He was very calm and cool about it all and said that his bed moved side to side. He said that he was not scared. He is growing up so quickly and he demonstrated his braveness!

Our friend Kelsey (also living in Costa Rica) said that she had dreamed that there was an earthquake last night, but did not feel it! That too was are first experience when we had a strong earthquake during the night. We dreamed it and so we slept right through it and so we did not know it really happened until someone told us and then we were bummed because it was our first earthquake and we missed it.

So all in all, it was a pretty intense and yet relaxed experience. It is something that is hard to grasp until it is over. But in the end, life just goes on as normal. We woke up, made coffee, fixed school lunches, left and went to school. Our safety and hope are in God’s hands so when things like this happen, we do not fear, we rest in Him. So that is our perspective on living in a country where we experience earthquakes and experiencing an earthquake and perhaps you guys can get a glimpse of what it is like!!

Psalm 5:11

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

¹¹ But let all who take refuge in You be glad,
Let them ever sing for joy;
And may You shelter them,
That those who love Your name may exult in You.

School is Back in here in Costa Rica!!

So summer is officially over for the kids here in Costa Rica and that includes our household! School started back for Sophia on Monday! The school had all of the kindergartners and first graders start school on Monday and 2nd grade through 7th started on Tuesday! So Benjamin and Lizzie started on Tuesday! Boy did 5:30am come quickly!! Guess we have to get back in that routine! All 3 questioned why they had to get up in the night time! But school starts at 7am here, so we have to leave the house no later than 6:25am! That is one reason that I love school uniforms because at least we don’t have to figure out clothes, it is mandated by the school down to even their socks and shoes and even hair accessories! The school colors are red and navy and white, so they are to only wear hair accessories in those colors! Good thing there is Pinterest because I am going to have to get to making new hair bows and flowers for them because we only have one flower that Sophia can wear! She loves accessories! Lizzie does too, just a bit less blingy than Sophia! Ok, so on to their first days…..

Sophia gets settled in and her precious teacher “Teacher Jessica” says, “Hello Sophia. Welcome.” And that really soothed Sophia, hearing her speak in English. I got to meet some other parents and then it was time to go and leave my baby to her school work. Sophia calls to me and I go over there and she says, “Mommy, I am the only one with yellow hair! But I can do this. I will face it like I do karate. I will focus!” I almost cried right then, but I did make it back out to the car. I picked her up from school and she was all smiles. I had been prepping her for first grade by telling her how it was not going to be like kindergarten and she would have a desk and have to sit still and raise her hand and less play time. So she quickly and happily informed me that first grade was easy! They colored and played outside and she even made a friend! Hopefully, she will like the rest of the school year as much as the first day! 🙂

So then Tuesday we pack everyone up and we are off for Benjamin and Lizzie’s first day! We all first headed to Lizzie’s class. We walked in and were looking for her name on her desk and she saw a desk with the name Lisa and was just thrilled! If you recall, Lisa was the sweet friend she made last year that started school a week after Lizzie and her dad is from California so she speaks English! So we were optimistically hoping that it was the same Lisa! I met her teacher and helped her get settled then we had to take Benjamin to his class. Last year Benjamin entered 5th grade, even though he should have been in 4th because 4th grade was full. So we decided that although academically, he could advance, we wanted him to be with his age group, so he is started 5th grade again with his age group! His home room teacher is the man that taught him Spanish last year! He really liked Benjamin and had complimented me on what a polite and nice boy Benjamin was, so he seems very happy with it! He is missing his old friends, but he saw some on the playground, and they got to hang out there, so hopefully he will be making new friends in his new class quickly! When I picked them up at the end of the day, I found out that Lisa was in fact the Lisa we were hoping for, Lizzie’s 2nd grade teacher, teacher Hazel, had been promoted to 3rd grade and was Lizzie’s teacher again (she was thrilled) and everyone had had a wonderful day!

God is so good to our children. Being in school can be difficult. It can especially be difficult if you look completely different from everyone else and speak another language from everyone else. However, God has given our children many blessings and has shown this is what He wants for our lives! He has blessed them with friends. The teachers have seen God’s light in them and have shared that with me. He encourages them. But I do ask that you pray for each of them. It is not easy to learn reading, math, science, social studies, writing in a language different from your own. They are in a bilingual school, so they are also being taught English grammar and reading and so their friends also are coming to learn the heart language of our kids. So that will continue to improve as our children’s Spanish improves and the others improve their English. In the meantime, we are just enjoying each day in school and taking our time to enjoy what we do have in common and that out weighs the differences!

Makes me hope that this might encourage the readers of this blog to reach out to and make friends with someone else that is different from you. If you see someone who does not speak English somewhere and they could use a helping hand, I hope this might encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and see if you can assist them or just offer a friendly smile and helping hand. I know that love and friendliness from strangers here has really encouraged us. 🙂

Ephesians 5:2

New American Standard Bible

² and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Here are some pics!

Another First!!

So after last week’s first wedding and first leadership training, yesterday we had another first! Cristo Rey is a Nicaraguan village at the base of the volcano and right off of the main highway between San Jose and Cartago. It is extremely poor. We started ministering there during language school with our friends the Frederiks! Not sure if you guys remember the start of this part of our ministry so I will give a quick review….

As we would take taxis from San Francisco de Dos Rios (where we lived during language school) to church in Cot here on the volcano, we noticed a very poor squatters village on the side of the highway. The Lord kept moving Jacob’s heart to go there. We spoke with our friends the Frederiks and Jacob and Danny decided to go down there together one Saturday! As their taxi driver was dropping them off, the driver was very concerned asking them if they were sure they wanted to be dropped off there. The driver was worried that they would be mugged and he made a motion with his finger across his throat …. if that explains his thoughts to you. They went on anyway and from there began to go once a month to share the gospel with the people there. After langauge school, it kind of dropped. We got busy with the ministry here on Irazu and did not seem to have time to get all the way down the volcano to Cristo Rey. Then perhaps a year or so ago, someone asked us if we could take them down to that village and check it out. When Jacob returned, he was excited and knew he needed to make an effort to go down at least once a week to Cristo Rey. He said there were believers there and no one to teach them! So he began and continues to go down once a week!

So now you are up to date!! Well, Jacob was asked last week if he would dedicate a baby of one of the believers to the Lord. Her name is Mebel and her baby is Ashli. She did not want to take her baby to the catholic church! She wanted Jacob, just in her house, to pray for the baby and dedicate the baby to God! So he did just that!! We are so excited to see how the Lord keeps building His church here and moving forward!

Proverbs 22:6

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁶ Train up a child ^[a]in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Footnotes:

Proverbs 22:6 Lit according to his way

Here are some pictures!