Venezuela, here we come!

(This was written on Monday in the airport in Curaçao and completed once we arrived in Venezuela.)

Today, the big day.

7 people,

7 military duffels @ 70lb. each,

7 hardshell full-size suitcases @ 70lb. each,

7 footlocker boxes @ 70lb. each,

7 carry-on suitcases @ 25lb. each,

7 backpacks @ 20lb. each...all that we now own,

on 3 different planes from Raleigh to Miami to Curaçao to Barquisimeto, Venezuela.

And here we sit in Curaçao...waiting once again...but this time...it is sooooo different. This time it is the culmination of what we have worked towards for so many years...the years of running...the years of preparing (before and after the running)....the years traveling and raising support...the year learning Spanish...and now...here we wait. Venezuela is the next stop. We will be on the ground...in the land of our calling...where God so gently and sweetly spoke to us through Pastor Gerson that we would have, not only the 5 children God has given us by birth, but the hundreds He has given us through  His plan!

What a wonderful day it is! God has shown us such great favor through each and every security checkpoint, ticket counter, baggage claim, customs, baggage weigh-in, etc. 

We have one more to go, the big one...Venezuela. 

The rules and regulations are so strict and the taxes/fines can be so high there, but God is faithful and He has shown Himself big on this day.

From the lady on the plane who sat with us during two separate flights today and became a new friend who wanted to hear our story and offered for us to visit her in her home in Bonaire when we need to come there...

to the AGWM Area Director for the Caribbean and our friend, Dale Coad, being on our 2nd flight with us and getting to fellowship with him...

to the employee at Insel Air who worked for over an hour to help us secure a large discount for all our luggage that, for the last flight of the day, was counted as extra luggage and over-weight in comparison to the first two flights where they were counted as free...

God has met us every step of the way.

Before we left, when people asked us what to pray for, we asked, (selfishly, I might add) for them to pray that our luggage would all arrive with us with no hassle and nothing missing, and they prayed...you prayed...and God heard and answered in big ways!

...And now...the Rest of the Story!

We boarded the plane for Venezuela around 8pm and within minutes were given our immigration forms. With 7 to fill out and one customs form for the entire family and only a 25 minute plane ride, I had my work cut out for me.

I don’t know if I have ever written so fast in my life, I had completed 75% of each form when they informed me that I needed to close my tray table. 

Scott finished the customs form and as we landed, I was able to finish the immigration forms. We got off the plane on the runway and Malachi said he felt like he was the president.

And Micah looked at me and said...”Welcome home!”

My nerves were too shot to acknowledge my emotions in that moment.

And then we walked into the smallest airport that I have ever been in. One tiny room where we lined up in a huge line outside onto the tarmac as we waited to show our papers at immigration.

As we stood there, Scott was still completing the customs form, trying to declare the type of things we brought without giving too much detail, but not trying to look like we were trying to get out of paying the “aduana” or customs fees. 

He asked me how to say ‘pots and pans’ in Spanish and, of course, in that moment, I couldn’t recall. So the lady behind us, who spoke beautiful English, asked if she could help. 

When Scott asked her the same question, she was a little confused as to what kind of ‘pot’ my husband was referring to. He told her that it was the kind you cook in! 

She was very relieved that Scott was not trying to declare drugs!

Once we were through that line, we stood around in a very small room with everyone from our plane waiting for our luggage. 

We were able to explain to one of the airport officials that we had 21 checked bags coming through, not to mention the 14 carry-ons and backpacks. He told us that if there was no one in line when they all came through, then we could send them through the machines then, but otherwise, we would need to wait until last.

After we received 19 of our bags, we waited and waited and waited some more for those final two bags. We were all praying hard that they made it....and...finally they came through.

Then the long wait for all the other people to get through the line. If someone moved a bag 2 feet forward, the person behind shoved their bag into that spot as quickly as they could. The roped off area expanded, as people pushed and shoved themselves and their luggage forward.

We stood back and waited and prayed that our luggage would not be torn apart as they searched through it, or things taken out and not given back, or that we would have to pay huge fees for the items we had brought with us...

And then it was our turn...

The airport officials helped us load the luggage through the scanners, and helped us load them on cards afterward and they only grabbed one bag...Merci’s carry-on...to search. They found nothing but clothes and shoes and they didn’t touch another bag.

As we walked out of the airport, they closed and locked the doors behind us.

AND...WE...NEVER...PAID...ONE...PENNY...OF...TAXES!!!

We fully expected to pay whatever we were asked to pay. 

Chris was waiting on the other side with funds waiting to pay the fees and...nothing!

God so faithfully went before us, beside us and behind us as we traveled to Venezuela!

Like He always has, and always will!

I Thess. 5:24 once again comes to mind and reveals who He is!

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”

Laughter...Life's Best Medicine

Another 2 months have passed and my grandiose ideas for frequent updates have proven flawed once again.

So, let's move on and talk about something else and avoid this subject altogether! ;D

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 17:22,

A cheerful heart is good medicine, 

But a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (NIV)

Our family laughs a lot and we try to enjoy life as much as possible, especially when things become difficult.

I mean, who wants the alternative. I don't prefer a crushed spirit or dried up bones, do you?

In light of this clear instruction, I would like to share a couple funny stories that we have experienced recently.

The first is short and sweet, because of course, it involves Merci and her adorable 6-year-old antics. Oh, the things that they think and say, especially when they have older siblings. They hear everything...and I mean...everything.

One evening after we returned from our last trip to Panama, Merci was working on her make-up work for school and she was given a math page to complete. On said page, she had to draw pictures of items and then mark out some of them as she practiced her subtraction.

On this one particular problem, she had to draw 9 rocks. I told her it was like drawing a circle, but with squiggly lines. She looked at me and with hands on her hips and head cocked to the side, preceded to tell me, "I can DO squiggly lines!"

And here is the result...(the first one is my example).

After we assured her that she did a wonderful job, we laughed really hard at her very unique rocks. :D

Next story, and this is one for the history books, hence, my telling of it on this blog.

One evening, as we were cooking supper, Malachi asked, "Mom, Dad, what's a pick-up line?"

After exchanging looks, I told Malachi that it was a corny statement that you would make to a girl to let her know you like her. We used this one as our example: "Are you tired? Because you've been running through my mind all day!"

Immediately, he began to pace and say things like, "I'm dead!" "What have I done?" "OMG!" "I'm an idiot!" 

In our confusion, we asked him what was wrong. He told us how, at school, he had been given a questionnaire to fill out and one of the questions was, "What is your favorite pick-up line?"

And since he didn't know what a pick-up line was, he thought maybe putting his favorite movie quote would suffice. 

Well.......you might ask, "What is his favorite movie quote?" 

It is from the movie Silverado and the character, Malachi, played by Danny Glover.

Are you ready? Drumroll please.....And the quote is.....

"I don't want to kill you and you don't wanna be dead!"

We laughed til we hurt!

But that isn't the end of the story.

Several weeks later, he was called into the school office, along with several other students, and they were told that their pick-up lines were not very positive....positive....really....ya think?

(By the way, he asked his friend to explain in Spanish his confusion and that he wasn't trying to be negative.)

We laughed again til we hurt!

So...the end result was...

Laughter and a cheerful heart keep us sane in the midst of the stresses of life.

And we wanted you to have a good laugh too!

School's Out!! - Part 2

Apparently, I never imagined how busy this trimester would be!

Yet, here we are...4 months later...another trimester of Spanish completed...with not one blog written or posted!

So much for my grandiose plans for more frequent blog posts. (insert shrug here)

So...

What can I share with you about this last trimester?

Other than the obvious...that we learned more Spanish! ;D

I know...let me share a little of what goes on in my brain when it comes to speaking Spanish.

Now, I know you are probably thinking this is a very dangerous idea and maybe it is, but it is just to give you an idea.

Let's pick a simple sentence like..."I went to buy fruits and vegetables at the market this past weekend."

1. I know I am talking about myself, so I use "Yo"

2. I have to remember my verb for "went" is "ir", but I have to conjugate it from its infinitive form, so in present it would be "voy" when using it with "yo", but I am referring to the past, so it is "fui", but if I were referring to an event I do multiple times not just this specific time, then I would have to change the conjugation to "iba" but I'm only speaking about this specific time that has ended and not weekly for me, so I am using "fui" this time.

3. I am also having to use another verb "to buy" but because it comes after my initial verb, then I don't have to conjugate it, so it stays in its infinite form as "comprar."

4. Now I need to remember my vocabulary words for "fruits and vegetables", which is "frutas y vegetales."

5. "At the market" would need to be translated as "en la feria."

6. Lastly, "this past weekend" would be "este fin de semana pasado."

After going over all that in my head, I have to put it all together to say..."Yo fui a comprar frutas y vegetales en la feria este fin de semana pasado."

In English, my mind processes the words as they come, but in Spanish, I have to stand in silence while I allow the entire process to be completed and then state my sentence...

So what you hear is...

Question (Spanish-speaking person)
Long silence (from me)
Answer (me)
Followed by another question (Spanish-speaking person)
Followed by another long silence (from me)
Answer (me)
And then Spanish speaking person rattles off a bunch of Spanish while I stand there nodding and hoping that I am getting all they are saying and I am not agreeing to join the gym or something even worse.

I'm hoping that you are getting the picture.

Learning the verbs didn't seem difficult, learning to conjugate them in present didn't seem much worse, but after adding the past perfect and imperfect I now have one verb with 15 different options of use and I gotta remember them all as I am speaking.

My brain hurts (Mi cerebro me duele!) just thinking about having to do this with every sentence.

And don't even get me started on questions, the placement of all the words in the sentence (like nouns go before adjectives) and all the hand-gestures I use to help myself while I am talking. If you thought I used my hands alot when I spoke English, you haven't seen anything yet!

I'm sure all the Costa Rican ticos enjoy watching the gringos process, formulate and speak their native tongue all while making wild hand-gestures in the air.

In closing, this is just a sample of language learning for me.

During this break between trimesters, I will be practicing my Spanish, but I will also need a little break... simply because there is steam coming out of my ears and I believe that it is coming from my over-heated brain!

School's Out!!!

Woo Hoo!

School's Out!

We don't have any more school until after New Years!

I don't know about you, but I remember saying and thinking those very words when I was a kid and we got out of school for the two-week Christmas break!

It felt so good to be free...even if it was for just a short time.

Who would have thought that I would feel that way again as an adult, but I do.

The last two months have been full and busy with Spanish. (hence my lack of blog posts ;D) My brain is on overload causing even my English not to work most of the time. I open my mouth and the mixture of Spanish and English that tries to come out just ends up sounding like a bunch of gibberish.

Last Thursday was the last day of school for the entire family until after New Years when a whole new group of people come in to join us.

Friday was graduation for many of our new friends who have been here learning Spanish, anywhere from 4 months to 1 year.

Saying goodbye is always hard, but we know that they are moving to the next phase of the journey...the one to which we are all called...our country of service.

We made forever friends who are serving God in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, El Salvador & Venezuela!

Now, for the next few weeks, we will rest from our studies, and celebrate our first Christmas in a foreign land. 

We are very thankful to those missionaries who have lived in our house before us and left their Christmas decorations. Adding to them a few of our own and some new things we purchased here and our house is now decorated for the celebration of Christmas & New Years!

We even had the opportunity to celebrate with a parade, Costa-Rican style, with the "Festival De La Luz" or "Festival of the Lights." 

The parade started at 6pm, but we didn't see anything until around 9:30pm. 

We live in Latin America, where there is nothing but "time" here. Each band must have stopped every few feet to give a performance. We thought the parade would never reach us, but eventually it did and the floats and costumes were worth the wait. 

WOW! What an experience! We finally went home around 10:30pm but the parade was far from over. We have no idea what time it ended, but we had some very tired children and parents who all needed some sleep, even if San Jose stayed up all night.

We are hard at work preparing for our first Christmas meal in our new home and what we will be able to find that resembles home-cooked traditions, but we are sure that whatever we end up eating, it will be delicious...even if it includes new foods that are not normally on the traditional "Christmas meal" menu.

Just like our Thanksgiving meal for this year, we may not be able to eat what we always have in the past, but what we put together will be a feast in and of itself. 

New place...New country...New experiences...New lives...New traditions...New journey that will always be changing...always transforming...but the one thing that will always stay the same...the reason for our very existence...the reason we celebrate this season...

JESUS

With all the newness and change that our life continues to bring us, the foundation is firm and our reason for celebrating is clearer than ever. 

May you rejoice with us in this amazing season of His birth!

Merry Christmas from Costa Rica!

A Re-post Worth Reading!

Today I am re-posting my new friend April Amiot's blog post from today. April and her husband, Josh, are missionaries to Costa Rica working with college students. She usually keeps me laughing, but today she hit me right between the eyes.

What a great description of what God is calling us to in this life. It is not an easy journey, but IT IS SO WORTH IT!!

 “For some people their apprehension about stepping out in faith is really a fear of failure.  They do not do what God has called them to because they are afraid they may not succeed.  Listen carefully.  When God calls you to something, He is not always calling you to succeed, He’s calling you to obey!  The success of the calling is up to Him; the obedience is up to you.” ~David Wilkerson

The Kingdom of God has been rightfully called “The Upside-Down Kingdom”.  It’s like stepping through Alice’s Looking Glass into a place where the first are las,t and the meek inherit the land, and to be the greatest you must be the servant.  Everything we know in the world is turned on its head… including the standard of Success.

Would it shock you to learn that God is not at all interested in your personal success?  Joel Osteen has it all wrong.  In this Upside-Down place, God is more interested in the Process of making you who he wants you to be than in making you a successful person.  He’s more interested in crushing and squeezing you to make you into sweet wine.  He may call you to do something which will look like failure in the eyes of the world.  He sent Joseph to Egypt as a slave.  He sent Paul to Rome in chains.  He banished John to a remote island.  Why?  Because He had a purpose which required this kind of process.

Joseph was to be the source of rescue for his family years later when a drought ravaged the land.  Paul was chained to a Roman guard so he would settle down and write the letters of the New Testament.  And John was sitting quietly in a cave when the Revelation was given to him.  All of these men had to accept what looked like failure in order to achieve the calling.

“[The call of God] has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine.  Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us.  We say, ‘If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!’  But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object.  Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom.  If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.”  ~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

If you would like to read more from April, click here for the link to her blog.

Strange adjustments & beautiful pictures

WOW! We have had a crazy two weeks here. After a week of missiology training in cultural issues from conflict management to culture shock, etc. taught by missionary teachers from AGTS (Assemblies Of God Theological Seminary), to moving back into our Spanish language studies after a week of only English. 

We were way out of practice and our teachers made sure we worked double-time this week for the week we lost, along with a Spanish chapel service dedicated to teaching us cultural nuances that nobody tells you.

We live in a crazy mixed-up world where everything is backwards and upside down, like my daughters are here.

But it doesn't mean that the people here are crazy or mixed-up or backwards and upside down, but I definitely feel that I am all of the above. 

For example, if you meet someone on the street and are going to greet them and keep going, then you don't say, "Hola." You say "Adios." If you say "Hola" to them, they think that you are going to stop because it is an introductory greeting that implies you are going to have a conversation with them. But "Adios" means you are greeting them and going on your way.

Who knew? I surely didn't and I have made numerous greeting faux pas since our arrival. Oops!

We are also considered "loud Americans." I didn't realize how loud I was until people around me kept looking at me while I was having a conversation with my English-speaking friends and even they were shushing me. Oops! Apparently, I am louder than your average "loud" American. ;D (I know there are many out there agreeing with me about my being overly loud!)

There is also a thing called "taxi etiquette." If you are a male and alone, then you sit in the front with the driver. If you are female and alone, then you sit in the back. If you are with your spouse, you can both sit in the back together, but don't slam the door, because that would be rude.

Oh, and you wear shoes in the house here, and you definitely don't answer your door barefooted! That would be very disrespectful.

These are just a few of the odd and different things we are learning.

But what makes me feel so different is that I don't "yet" understand the language and it makes me feel a little ill at ease when I can't communicate with anyone around me. 

Trust me, I am using all of my non-verbals, but they don't work for everything.

It is coming and I have a little victory party in my head and heart when I understand or "get it" in class. I know my classmates probably think I am crazy, but I really don't care, because these minor victories are the the very things that will lead to the major ones as we learn "poco a poco" or "little by little" as our Maestra Mecbel says.

So I will close with some of the beautiful things we see each day in our little area of the world.

These are the decorative bananas that you don't eat that are beside the stairs to our house.

A big brown bird seems to be the only thing eating them.

Coffee beans that haven't quite ripened

and these below which are just beginning to ripen.

These flowered blooms are on trees and bushes right outside of CINCEL.

This bird was in the community park where the kids play outside of CINCEL.

Finally, I have to leave you with pictures of some of our favorite made from scratch foods, like pico de gallo, guacamole, and fried plantains (with sugar & vanilla).

Let me just tell you, cooking everything from scratch is not always fun, especially when you are used to boxed cake mixes and other such easy recipes. But it definitely gets complicated when your oven doesn't list 350* or 400*, but instead lists 266* or 482*.

Finally, these days of waking at 5am will take their toll on you, as you can see Merci gave in and made her own little bed right at the table during our Spanish study group.

Today marks our one month arrival in Costa Rica! We are adjusting well and loving this new adventure even though we are tired and worn out at the end of each week. 

Boy do we look forward to the weekends and exploring more of this beautiful place.

Happy Friday to you all! 

Random Thoughts

Today I thought I would share some random thoughts and pictures of things that we have found quite humorous, unique or never put much thought into before.

Thought 1 - Like today as I was braking ice out of ice trays, I thought back to the good ol' days when there were no ice makers and ice trays were all we had.

How many of you remember getting out a few pieces of ice and since there were more than half left, you put the tray back in the freezer, only to have your parents yell out later, "Who put the ice tray back without refilling it?"

Okay, so you don't, but I do. And oh, how I loved ice makers when they made their appearance!!

Needless to say, we have always had one since we were married.

I really didn't think about it too much until we arrived here in Costa Rica and Matthew saw this on the counter...

... and he said to me, "Oh, look at the cool egg thingy!" Hahahaha!

Thought 2 - Another thing we have found interesting is the wording of things, like this packet of Yipy!

They are vanilla creme wafers covered in chocolate...

...or as the package states...

"Chocolate enrobed wafer filled with vanilla creme." Ooh, Laa, Laa!! That just sounds more delicious!

Thought 3 - Speaking of food, it can get expensive here, especially if you buy North American products.

And if you love Maple Syrup, you better bring a small fortune with you because...

...the exchange here is 500 colones to $1 here, so that means this costs you $32 for 16oz!!!

Thought 4 - And the fruit here is amazing to say the least. The mangos, baby bananas and pineapple...to state it like we southerners do..."make you want to slap your momma!"

We have found a most interesting of fruits here called the...

Mamones Chinos (mem-MO-nays), or Chinese Suckers, are pit fruits whose skins are covered with soft red spines. You may have heard them called by the name lychee. Lychees or Mamones Chinos are slightly sweet, not very acidic, and have a chewy texture similar to that of a peeled grape. Their subtle flavor is addictive. The spiny skins are fun to peel into and resemble the seed pod of a Gum tree. Sold in big bags by street vendors, Mamones have unique taste that is not soon forgotten.


Personally, I will stick with the name our friends here have given them...Alien fruit!! It works and everyone know what you are referring to when you say it.

Aren't they cool looking? And we love them. Now you kinda have to chew them around the pit and spit that part out, but we sure do look funny when we are eating them. Kinda like those chewing tobacco in the south. ;D

Thought 5 - And speaking of more food, not all food here is expensive. In fact, some things are less expensive and definitely more fun to buy.

I have already shared about visiting La Feria, the open market, but let me show you what we buy there.

And this is just a sample. But Saturday morning at 7am, taking a walk to La Feria, to visit the vendors and buy these goodies is alot of fun. In fact, even Malachi woke up early this morning just to go back again this week.

We purchased a 5lb. bag of potatoes, 7 limes, 2 heads of lettuce, 3 huge pineapples, 5 avocados, another huge bag of apples, a bunch of cilantro, and a whole mess of green beans, all for around $20.

Thought 6 - Sometimes accidents happen and last week was one of those funny accidents. We were in our phonetics class and it was raining.

Imagine that! Raining in CR during rainy season! Shocker!

Anyway, our teacher was trying to tell us something and we couldn't hear her, so without turning to look, I reached back with my hand to tap Scott and shush him.

What I didn't know was that he had just grabbed his coffee to take a sip and I inadvertently...well, just see for yourself.

Yes, the picture was re-enacted for your benefit. But everyone in class got a good laugh out of it, especially about the spoon that was in the cup that stuck to Scott's shirt. :D

Last thought - We are experiencing life as we never have before from the crazy moments, to the hard days of Spanish-only classes, to the evenings of 6 people with homework, to the early rising sun @ 5 am and setting at 5 pm every day.

Moments like when my children wake up, literally at the crack of dawn, waking me up laughing and playing at 5:30 prompting my whispered yelling that I "never, ever want to hear laughter at 5:30 in the morning again!"

Those are the moments to remember and laugh about...later, in fact...much later.

Just like the times we are wiped out and feel like it is midnight only to look at the clock and discover is is just 7:30pm.

Most weekdays we collapse exhausted in the bed like we have found Matthew several times.

But each weekend, we are able to sleep in...a little, and refresh ourselves in preparation for a new week with new lessons and experiences to learn.

And these are the random thoughts from this past week.