I am Thankful for my Wife

This year, Thanksgiving day landed on Ali's birthday! Thomas, Claire and I are truly thankful for our mama and esposita. She is an excellent and gracious wife and mom, and a tremendous blessing to all who know her. Please pray that on this day she would know how deeply she is loved and appreciated.



Last night, some friends of ours surprised us with a little party for Ali. Here is Ali and Claire getting ready to blow out the candles. Andres and Hazel, his wife, and Georgiana are in the background.



We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving (/ Ali Day)!

Part II: October is the Cruelest (err…Rainiest) Month

It is winter in Costa Rica. In reality, there are just two seasons here: Rainy and Dry (a.k.a. summer). The tourism savvy Ticos have aptly renamed winter, the “Green Season”. It is true that is rains everyday, but this produces a verdant landscape. The rainy season stretches from May until early December. We just happened to arrive during the wettest month, October.

Now, in general, rain does not affect one’s life adversely. However, when you do not have a car, and rely on public transportation and taxis, constant precipitation is a bit of a challenge. We have had to figure out how to hold Claire and an umbrella at the same time. Thomas, though, loves to walk in the rain. He greats each approaching puddle by name (“Oh, there’s big Water”) and then quickly stomps his foot in the middle before we can grab his hand (or, get out of the way!).

We did bring a rain cover for the kids’ stroller. This works well in a normal shower. However, we were caught in an unusual downpour on our way back from the store last month. Claire was scared from the sound of the rain and cried the whole way home. I tried my best to hold an umbrella with my chin as I navigated the stroller up a flooded, potholed street. Needless to say, Ali and I were soaked when got home. Claire was dry but traumatized. Thomas was perfectly content; he had enjoyed the ride!

The upside to winter is the temperature. It normally drops into the upper 60’s at night and rarely surpasses 75 degrees during the day. In summer time it will warm up to the low to mid 80’s, yet, it is never uncomfortably hot. We live in the Central Valley and are insulated on every side by mountains. These mountains keep the San José and the valley from the intense heat and humidity of the coasts and southern zone.

On Saturday night it dropped to an atypical low of 59 degrees. On Sunday morning at church, the Ticos were wearing winter coats and scarves. One lady even wore gloves throughout the service! Now this is hardly long sleeve shirt weather for us, but for the locals it is a deep freeze!

Unlike our friends in Georgia, we are looking forward to summer and the rainless days. The kids will be able to play more often in the small parks in our neighborhood. I know they will appreciate playing somewhere other than the “courtyard”. Thomas will miss the puddles, but I’m sure he would gladly trade his raincoat for sunshine and hours at the park.

Claire's Walking

Claire decided she was tired of crawling on our cold, tile floors and started walking! She actually took her first steps in September, the night Ali and I returned from our scouting trip to Costa Rica. However, she stayed on all fours until she was sure of her pedestrian skills.

“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”

Part I: Our House and Neighborhood

By American standards, we live in a very small house, maybe 800 feet square. There is a 6 foot by 16 foot “yard” in the back, adjacent to the cuarto de pila (laundry room) and another 50 square feet of grass beside the front gate. The major attraction for us was the large, tiled garage (which I like to call the courtyard). This is the kids’ main play area. Thomas rides laps on his tricycle at high speeds and Claire pushes around her walker (until she grows bored and moves on to Thomas’ Matchbox cars).

The house has three bedrooms and two baths (which is one of each more than we were expecting). The owner installed cabinets in the kitchen and wardrobes in the bedrooms (both rarities in Costa Rica rental homes). Thomas and Claire each have their own room (and for this, we are very thankful!). Each of bathrooms has a shower with an electric water heater. This is a heater connected to the shower itself. Water runs through electric coils before is falls from the head. Now that may seem somewhat dangerous, but it’s perfectly safe (as long as you do not touch it while the water is running).


As I’ve written before, our house is in a newer section of an established neighborhood, Villas de Ayarco. Villas is about 20 minutes from downtown San José on the main highway to Cartago (the old capitol city) and Panama. It is a working middle-class area, nearly self contained with a grocery/hardware/clothes/shoes/housewares store (Pasoca), countless corner shops (pulperías), two panaderías (bakeries) and a few restaurants.

Charging a fare of 155 colones (30 cents), the local bus winds slowly through the neighborhood, picking up passengers headed to San José. The buses stop near the center of the capitol city and then turn around after collecting the passengers on their way back to Villas. The buses are clean and great view from which to watch people and learn the area.

Every Saturday morning, the main street is closed off for the fruit and vegetable market. Everything from bananas, watermelon and green beans to exotic fruits (that I still do not know the name of), is sold by farmers from the surrounding countryside. In general, the prices are cheaper than in the stores. This morning, among other things, I purchased 10 bananas for about 29 cents!

For less of a cultural experience, HiperMas is just on the other side of the highway (about a twenty minute walk from our house). HiperMas is like Wal-Mart in Spanish. There you will find everything from ovens, to clothes, to groceries, to fresh tortillas. And just like a Wal-Mart in a small town, it is community meeting place on Saturdays and Sundays. On these days the lines are like long trains of carts, many full to overflowing with a month of food.

Villas is a friendly neighborhood. People are quick to say good-day or smile. Since we do not exactly look the same as everyone else (we have not seen any other gringos around), many people have kindly asked if we were new to the neighborhood. Everyone speaks Spanish, so our language skills are continual stretched and, hopefully, expanded.

We look forward to the rest of our year here. The last two weeks have been excited and new, but not been easy. Nothing is convenient. Everything takes a longer than you expected it would. However, this is all part of living in another country and culture. It will be an adventure and this house and Villas de Ayarco will make a great home base.

Stay tuned for Part II and Part III, on Costa Rica and on the ministry we are working with.

Paz

We're Here!

We've now been in Costa Rica for a little over a week. It's taken some time, but we are starting to get settled in and figure out our new neighborhood. Our house is in a new section of a established community. The house is perfect for us and our family. Thomas and Claire like it a lot and play well here. They expecially like garage (aka Courtyard). They spend most of the day playing out in this walled in area in front of the house.

Thomas has quickly taken to riding in buses and taxis. Every time we get near the front gate, he asks to "go ride in bus?". Taxis here are red and whenever we see a red car he points and shouts, "Taxi!" I think he considers "Taxi" to be the personal name of the red car (and the red car's driver), like "Thomas" and "Diesel" from the train show. Everything here is a new experience and he is soaking it all in.

We'll post more pictures at stories when we get a chance. The sun is shining outside and we better take advantage of this time. So far, the rainy season has been true its name.

Coffee

Coffee (or, "Foffee", as Thomas calls it) is a national treasure of Costa Rica. Coffee farming and exportation has played a major role in the history of the country. Though much of the original coffee land has been replaced by homes and roads and sprawl, there are still countless hectacres of active plantations. These farms are mostly on the mountain side in the highlands of Costa Rica.

I learned to drink coffee in 9th or 10th grade. These were days before the fame of Starbucks and coffee shops. The only places to get coffee, around here at least, were country cooking (a.k.a. "kountry kooking") restaraunts, usually between the hours of 6 and 9 a.m. One of these places was "Vittles" on Whitlock. For $4 you were served an unhealthy amount of food, with all the coffee you could drink.

Vittles was regular meeting location for a Bible study group I was in with my youth pastor (Tom Tanner). Now Tom was (and is) a big coffee drinker, but the real pressure to try coffee came from the atmosphere of Vittles, not from him. You just don't go to a place like that and order milk or orange juice like it's the your middle school cafeteria. You drink coffee, regular and black.

Coffee did not become a daily part of my life until college. By this time, Seattle had shared its little coffee house trend with this rest of the country. Coffee houses were popping up all over, especially around university campuses. For this reason, and because of the late and odd hours that ever college kid lives, coffee and caffeine became a major study and survival aid.

However, it was not until my first trip to Costa Rica that truly discovered coffee. In the "Grano de Oro" (Grain of Gold, as they call the coffee fruit), my eyes opened to true hot beverage perfection. When Ali and I returned to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, we were both hooked.

Now, this, of course, is not the reason we are moving to Costa Rica. The "Grano de Oro" did not influence our interpretation of God's will for our lives. However, this is an added bonus! We could have been called to countless other, non-coffee drinking countries (and one day soon we may be). But for now, for this season, we are very thankful to moving the land that produces the finest coffee in the world. Gracias a Dios!

Top Ten Things I'll Miss About America / Marietta

In no particular order...

10. Family and friends
9. Smooth roads without potholes
8. Convenience of Kroger (1 mile from our house)
7. Convenience of a car (to drive 1 mile to Kroger)
6. Family Dinner Night
5. The Worship and Teaching at RiverStone Church
4. Our neighbors on Hope Street
3. Autumn (the season)
2. Our House (the only house our kids have ever known!)
1. The World Series!

Once again, this is not in order of importance...