Torrey's Birthday!!!!

The school took some of the guys to a camp for the weekend. Torrey joined them and had fun with paint ball, ropes activities, and Bible study. I had another girl from my class stay with me. Monday was Torrey's birthday. This is a big deal in Costa Rica so in every class they sang Happy Birthday in Spanish! It was also neat that the Southern Baptist think birthdays are special so his name was on the Birthday list that went out via email for people to pray for him on his special day. Other students had checked their emails and told him Happy Birthday when he arrived at school.

We went with the Murphree's (who will live near us in Peru) to a place to get cake after school. It is a restaurant but was part of someones house. The carport was transformed to hold 5 small tables and serving area. The cheese cake was GREAT! The kids had a really delicious piece of Chocolate cake. I surprised Torrey with a Costa Rica coffee mug to go with his collection.

Studying takes up a lot of time:)

It's been a few days since we have written. Our days seem long and our brains are tired! Leah changes back and forth with Spanish four times a day. So homework can be challenging some days. Trace wakes with the sun at 5:00 so by 4 or 5 in the afternoon he falls asleep. Torrey and I have to study a lot. We seem to get more words each day. I have hit a wall and could not remember any words...I just keep studying, others say it will all come back.

Things we have done lately......Feed some more Tico's who come to our gate. They rattle the gate and talk a lot of FAST Spanish and we give them some food. Sometimes we give out a witnessing track too. It's fun to try and practice Spanish with them.

The ice cream man comes by every day and finally we bought one. It was great to have a treat! The next day he came by ringing his bell real slow and hung out by our house but we can't have treats every day.We hung out with Dan and Brenda Boatright on Saturday. They are other missionaries who work in Costa Rica with very poor people. It was great to see someone we had seen in our church from home.

High Points of The Week

The journey of learning a new language can be rough waters to navigate! We have one trimester of school and then we are emmerced into a place where we will be using Spanish or Quechua as the only options for communications. This is a scary concept, but we are trusting that God is already aware of these things. We know God will be working overtime on us.

Every Tuesday & Thursday there are chapel services for the students on campus. One thing that we took from the message this week was to understand that God does not depend on us to accomplish his purposes and we should not expect special blessing because we are missionaries. We are starting to see how everything (good or bad) that happens to us and others will work out for His Glory. However, we may not understand why most things occur in life until we get to heaven. But I guess that's where faith steps in. Language learning is just one of many things God wants to teach us while here in Costa Rica. Please pray for us to discover what they are and not miss any opportunities that He has for us. God Bless!

Saturday

After a long FUN Saturday, on our way back home, they sleep!

Week two

May 3, We were ready for church at 9:25. It started at 9:30, our landlord called and said he was coming to check our stove. When he arrived he also had called for the lock guy to come. They were working hard and took the locks off. We finally left for church in Tico style (late:)). They were still singing. Then he preached for 1 hour. The kids went to a Sunday school while the pastor preached. It was all in Spanish so we did not understand anything. Later we went to a park for the kids to play. All the locals were there playing 7 different games, mostly soccer.
May 4, We woke up to no power! they said get use to it. Finally at 6:30 it came on and we all flew through the shower and left in 40 minutes!
May 5, woke up to very little water pressure. They said to get use to this also! Keep water on hand for these moments. Torrey is still trying to figure out our bank info. We can't find our pin number. We have had to borrow money.
May 6, First day of classes. We met all the other students. The kids have some local Tico students in their classes. Trace's teacher only speaks Spanish.
May 8, first day for a quiz for Stephanie. It seems that your head starts to hurt after the second class. Stephanie was tring to translate something her teacher said but it happened to be in English:)
May 9, Saturday FUN DAY!! We went for a tour with a local who tours the missionaries. We went to the Sarapiqui river for a boat ride. We saw the Haller monkeys, iguana, Jesus lizard, and a crockidile. We went to a swinging bridge on the way home where we saw the little jean frogs, cool flowers, and a centipede. It was nice to talk English and see things of Costa Rica.

First Week In Costa Rica!

April 27, We left Florida going to Costa Rica with only 8 suitcases but two carry-on each very stuffed! We made it with all luggage and bags to our new home at 2:00am Florida time. Then we tried to find our sheets for the beds. The kids fell asleep on the couch.
April 28, We went to the kids orientations, unpacked, went shopping then ate at a typical CR restaurant. It tasted pretty good.
April 29, We had orientation at 7:30am. This was easy to get to because the sun rises at 5:15 and so do we! The kids liked their school day. We went to a Wal-mart like store to get things. We ate out again because of time. When we arrived home we locked ourselves in the carport and the house lock would not open. The key was stuck and we were kind of trapped! After praying we got the key out but still could not get in. We walked down the street to someones house we knew and after an hour we finally got in.
April 30, This was our first night without the help of our big brother and big sister. oh what a night!!! We were needing to eat but the packages were written in Spanish! We burned the pizza but the cheese did not melt all the way. Sad thing is we ate half of it. Torrey then made great sauce for spaghetti but the water for the noddles took an hour to boil. Finally we ate some spaghetti.
Friday May 1, this was a CR holiday. We had time to unpack more. Our big brother and sister had a Tico come and make up arroz y polo for dinner.......wow it tasted great!
May 2 we went to the fruit and veg market. The kids played at the park with some friend they met in Virgina. We went to McDonald's for lunch to celebrate a birthday of a friend. Yes McDonald's! It cost a lot more here. We babysat our big brother and sister two kids. So we went to a big lots type of store with 4 kids and then took a taxi home. It went well.