Sunday School Translating

Today at church when I (Angela) took Sam and Georgia to Sunday School there were a ton of new kids, who didn't know any Spanish (they were from a church in Florida on a mission trip with their families). I asked the Spanish speaking teacher if she needed any help. She looked at me without hesitating and said YES! So I stayed to help her out. She asked me how my Spanish was, I told her "Mas o Menos" which means more or less but is commonly given as an answer to many questions here. She asked me if I would translate for her. I told her I would try. "Vamos a ver" meaning, we will see! It was actually really fun. It was hard at times, but for the most part, I was able to translate her Spanish and relay her message. Granted, she was talking to 6-9 year olds, and it was a Bible story I was familiar with, so it was a little easier than say translating something off the t.v. But it was a great experience, good for my spanish practice and it gave me a boost of confidence.

Teacher Pics

Friday was the last day of school for our kids. They had a great semester and now will enjoy some Bible School and "Summer School" while we finish up our last month of language school here. They were each blessed with great teachers!

It's Been Too Long

It's been way too long since we wrote a blog entry. Sorry!!! We've been wanting to write something for a while, and I keep trying to think of something profound but I can't. (Guess we've got too many Spanish verbs floating around in our brains :) So I figured I'd just write about the everyday happenings over the last few weeks. Soon after the new trimester started in May, our grammar teacher asked us if we wanted to move up a class. While the classes study the same material, the more advanced ones just move at a faster pace. Knowing that we're leaving at the end of July, we decided that going faster was a great idea. The class has been good. Our teacher, Alejandra, makes us do everything orally. No writing answers down on paper first. It's been really good especially since once we're in Bolivia I know I can't be filling out worksheets on the spot before having conversations with people. When we first moved up, we were just learning the last 4 of the 13 tenses. We passed a bag around, each drew 2 cards with verbs, regular and irregular, and then had to conjugate the verbs in all 13 tenses out loud! It was such good practice.

As for the kids, they are all doing so well. They seem to truly be enjoying their time here in Costa Rica. Sam and Georgia finish up school this Friday and then they will have "summer camp" while we're in school. They have both done super well in their classes, made great friends, learned some good Spanish, and had fun! Ty love his preschool. His teacher did end of the year evaluations on each child, and then we had a conference (in Spanish) to go over Ty's. He did great, but told his teacher he didn't know his full name, our names, or where he lives. We told the teacher that in English he knows those things :) Well, except for his address here in Costa Rica. I don't know how to teach him that since nothing here has a real address!!! Directions are all relative here - like the blue house 25 meters from the park that is 50 meters south of the Shell station. It's confusing enough for adults, much less a child trying to learn his address. She did say he understands all the Spanish that is spoken to him, but he needs to practice speaking it more. We are so proud of all three of them.

Some of our good friends from language school left yesterday to go back to the states. This is such a transient place with new people coming every few months, and people leaving just as often. God has really blessed us with good friends, but it's hard at times knowing you have to say goodbye. Almost everyone here is in the same situation as us. Most are here for 8 months to a year and then are off to another country. When you have so much in common, and you see each other everyday, it's easy to form good friendships. But it's always hard to say goodbye!

We only have 5 weeks left here. It's so hard to believe how quickly time has gone by. We're looking forward to being in the states for 2 1/2 weeks before heading to Bolivia on August 7. We can't wait to visit family and friends, eat at Chick -Fil-A and Bodo's, and go to Target! That's the last few weeks in a nutshell. Hopefully we'll be better about posting more often. Thanks for loving us, supporting us, and praying for us!