Our amigos from Nicaragua

Jose is the guard on our street. He invited us to come to his wife's birthday party, her name is Georgina. She turned 21, she is also pregnant with twins. Being a part of people's lives like this is why we are here. Jose and his family are immigrants from Nicaragua. Angela made the cake for her.

Un buena cancion

Dame tus ojos quiero ver
Dame tus palabras, quiero hablar
Dame tu parecer

Dame tus pies, yo quiero ir
Dame tus deseos para sentir
Dame tu parecer

Dame lo que necesito
Para ser como tu

Coro

// Dame tu voz, dame tu aliento
Toma mi tiempo es para ti
Dame el camino que debo seguir
Dame tus sueños, tus anhelos
Tus pensamientos, tu sentir
Dame tu vida para vivir //

Déjame ver lo que tu ves
Dame de tu gracia, tu poder
Dame tu corazón
Déjame ver en tu interior
Para ser cambiado por tu amor
Dame tu corazón

We love this Spanish worship song.
Here is the translation:

Give me your eyes, I want to see
Give me your words, I want to speak
Give me your view/perspective

Give me your feet, I want to go
Give me your desires for feeling
Give me your view/perspective

Give me what I need
To be like You

Give me your voice, give me your breath
Take my time, it's for you
Give me the way that I must follow
Give me your dreams, your longings
Your thoughts/mind, your feelings
Give me your life for living

Let me see that which is your time
Give me your grace, your power
Give me your heart
Let me see inside you
To be changed by your love
Give me your heart

Strength in Weakness

I've been reading a book by Stormie Omartian called "Just Enough Light for the Step I'm On." It's very relevant to where I (Angela) am with learning Spanish, where we are, and I'm sure will be relevant to many of you, which is why I wanted to share some of it.

"Learning to walk with God is a process. And just when we think we have it all figured out, God leads us into a new place where our old tricks won't work....We enter unfamiliar territory and are soon reminded that, on our own, we stumble......God moves us out on a path to someplace we've never been before, and we believe we're failing if we have to depend on Him to get there. We try to make it on our own because we think that dependency is a sign of weakness, instead of understanding that it signals our willingness to allow God to be strong in us. If you are at a place in your life where you feel like you can't take one step without the Lord's help, be glad....God has you on this path, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem right now, because you are willing to follow Him....He wants your undivided attention because you can't do these things on your own. The path is not a punishment; it's a privilege. It's not a restriction; it's a reward."

I hope this speaks truth to you as it has to me.

School Days

It's been a while since we've added any photos. Thought y'all would enjoy this one of the kids in front of our garden. Sam and Georgia are wearing their school uniform shirts. I think it's a law here in Costa Rica that all school kids have to wear uniforms.

Yellow Fever Shot - Another Adventure

One of the shots we needed for Bolivia but not Costa Rica was Yellow Fever. The Health Department ran out in December, and Ty was the only member of our family who didn't receive one. We just figured we'd get him vaccinated when we return to the states before going to Bolivia. Well, since we have to go to Panama now to renew our visas, it may be necessary to have been vaccinated to reenter the country. A girl at school here went to Columbia over Spring Break and couldn't come back until she had been vaccinated and then waited 7 days for it to be effective! Not willing to risk this, we decided to take care of Ty now. Well, here if you need any vaccines, you just go to the pharmacy and request what you need and the pharmacist gives you the shot. The pharmacy we needed to go to is downtown. I assumed Bubba would take Ty since his Spanish is better, and I would stay here to be able to pick up Sam and Georgia after school. Well....He wanted me to take Ty since I have more patience in those situations (ie screaming kids :) - his words, not mine. He felt confident in my ability to navigate all this in Spanish, I wasn't so sure. But, wanting to try, Ty and I set off this afternoon after school. After much praying on my part in the taxi, we arrived at Clinica Biblica, asked directions from 2 different people, and ended up where we needed to be. I was able to communicate with the nurse what we needed, and I understood (more or less) what she was asking me/telling me. After Ty received the shot, I asked her about the card that is needed to prove you have received the shot (this is necessary to carry with your passport when traveling to many countries in the global south). At the health department in the states, they give you the card right there, stamped with an ink stamp and signed. I should have known from our experience at immigration that it wouldn't be that easy. She proceeded to tell me that I needed to go to the Ministerio de Salud (Ministry of Health) to get the card. So....Ty and I took another taxi to the Ministerio de Salud. Once there, the woman took our form, and asked if I had the stamp. When I said no, she said I needed to go buy one at the Red Cross across the street. When she saw my bewildered look, she said the man out front (who was parking cars) also sold them. I think he marked up the price, but at only $1 I was willing to buy from him to save the effort of trying to find the Red Cross and communicate with yet another person. So, once the stamp was purchased, we were able to obtain the necessary documentation. Even though I know I didn't say everything perfectly and didn't understand all that was said to me, it was a huge victory. 3 months ago, I wouldn't have been able to do any of this by myself!

La Oficina de Migracion

Last Monday Angela and I spent three hours at the Immigration Office in San Jose. Visitors to Costa Rica are allowed 90 days in the country as a tourist, and afterwards they have to either leave the country for three days then return, or obtain a 30-day extension to the tourist visa but then still leave the country for three days at the end of 120 days (we plan to do this at the end of April, to Panama). Now it is necessary for us to acquire the 30-day extension, so we went to the Immigration Office to do so.

Angela and I were the only non-Latino people at the office. Of maybe 300 people, we were the only ones with different skin color. We were nervous, a bit apprehensive, wondering if we would successfully make it through the filing process, if we could understand the communications. After 2 hours of waiting in line we finally had our chance to turn in our required documents.

We presented our papers, and promptly the immigration clerk told us we had insufficient documents. Also the 5 letters we had written (one for each of us and a requirement) expressing our reasons for wanting to stay in Costa Rica contained inappropriate information so Angela and I sat at the counter and handwrote 5 new letters. Both of us sat there nervously, trying to understand what was going on and what we would need to do, when we would need to return to complete the process, how much time it would take, would we even get the extensions (if we don't get them we will be illegal in Costa Rica when we travel by car to Panama. It should be easy to cross the border into Panama, but getting back in 3 days later could be problematic since we will have left illegally. We have heard of at least one family who was deported because of this.)

Well, three days later, on Wednesday, I returned with: complete copies of each of our passports, about 100 copies worth; 5 copies of our credit card; 3 passport photos of each of us; 5 copies of our return tickets to the states; and receipts indicating that I had paid all the necessary processing fees. When I arrived at the office at about 7am Wednesday, there were about 200 Nicaraguans waiting in line. My hunch was that they were there for different reasons than I, all I needed to do was hand off my documents. So I walked to the entrance and front of the line and spoke to a security guard, who paraded me in front of everyone as he explained to an escort what my needs were. The escort then walked me in to complete the process. An hour later I was done...

And now we wait, within 10 days we should receive a fax with the approved extensions, or we wont, and we will spend our time in Panama wondering if the border patrol will be kind to us when we re-enter.

Things I Never Thought I'd Do and Be Okay With

I can think of three off the top of my head...I'm sure there are more, but here are these for now.

1. Picking ants out of the honey and then using it. (the ants are really little, I promise. But now we make sure the honey lid is closed really tight.)

2. Getting my haircut by a barber (this is Angela writing). I've heard that getting haircuts here is quite different. They are very reasonable (less than $20) at the really nice places, BUT they cut your hair how they want, not how you request. And given that my Spanish is still on a beginners level, I decided I wasn't ready for that kind of cultural experience yet. So, there is a man at school who was a barber before coming here. While cutting the boys' hair I asked him if he'd trim my hair. The best part - it was free!

3. Riding in taxis with my children all in the backseat WITHOUT seatbelts. I never thought I'd be used to this, but it's such a normal part of life here. For those who are worried for their safety (namely Nana and Mimi :) we don't ride in taxis very often. Usually we walk or take buses.

What Then are We Fighting, and Why

Lately, we have heard a lot talk of the metaphor "Life is War".

I read recently a quote from Joseph Conrad in which he speaks of our "beclouded and tempestuous existence".

Some mornings, during the time between sleeping and waking, these sort of just-below-consciousness thoughts occur to me; yesterday's was "our lives consist of thousands of quiet revolutions". Again, life is a battle, a revolt against something...

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."

What, then, if we concede that life is war, are we waging war against? We are warring against ourselves—fighting not to be the center of our worlds; fighting others that we may find a way to love them; fighting death—we have to remind ourselves that what we know here are not the most beautiful things; fighting our perversions—we are afraid of who we can be if we allow ourselves; fighting our anonymity—God I will do anything for you just don't ask me to be no one...

And why, why do we fight? Why do we engage in these daily upheavals? Because we know the the world is not as it should be and we are restless for it to be right.

Our Confused Spanish Part Deux

Ok, here are some more anecdotes to demonstrate how sometimes we just cannot get this language right:

—I walked into PriceSmart (Costco) the other day and to the clerk checking my card at the door I said "Ooola" instead of "Hola".

—At lunch on Sunday I attempted to get the waitresses attention by saying "Disculpe, Mom"...I called her mom, some strange combination of ma'am and senora...

—The other day in class I prefaced a question to my teacher with "In esta casa" which means "In this house" instead of "In this case" like I meant to say ("In este caso" is the correct way)

—Most of you know "esta bien", which loosely translates "it is good"....I responded the other day to my teacher with "esta bwee-in"...

—"Forma corta" means "short form" and we use it in class when we are learning how to use direct and indirect object pronouns...so, for example, the "forma corta" of "I give money to John" is "I give it to him"...comprende?....the other day a classmate of our's asked the teacher "Que es la forma shorta"...

Some days we just cannot get it right...

Cultural Learning

Last Friday was Cultural Day at school. We danced and cooked. See these pictures of Angela and I doing the Colombian Cumbia and a traditional Costa Rican dance that I cannot remember the name of...