Newsletter, December 2006

Hello Loved Ones,

December is almost over and we have been here in Costa Rica for a month! It’s been quite a whirlwind at that! I don’t even know where to begin, but to praise God for all that He is doing and all that He will do!

I’m sitting on the deck of the Harvest Hands house, looking out over Anonos. We have bouganvilla on the railings, but through that beautiful flower, I am able to look down at a home with different colors of sheet metal on the roof and a crooked, three tier stairway going up to the door. Someone was quite sick yesterday there, which we were able to clearly hear! We also hear, from our deck, music, children playing, dogs barking, roosters crowing, traffic and horns blowing. A big city bus is now driving by. There is also a hammer pounding and I can hear Rodney in the back yard sawing wood for our coffee table! At night we add to all of this “bombas”, firecrackers and kareoke. For two country bumkins, this is quite an adjustment! There is such life to all of it, however, and we like it! We are even able to sleep through all of the noise!

We were able to serve at a couple of the FundaVida Christmas parties; the children’s party and the teen party in Concepcion de Alajuelita and the mother’s party and the kids party in Anonos. Between FundaVida and LaVina, there were over 1,000 people served and it was such a blessing to participate in these events! We were blessed to have some of our Maine friends join us during these events. These friends also helped us to do work on the house. Thank you John and Shaun, John and Emily!

On Saturday the 24th we attended the annual Christmas dinner at LaVina, a casual “Noche de Paz”, like we have at our church. The on Christmas Eve we were blessed to go to our friend’s home for dinner. She asked me (Cindy) to cook a turkey, because she had no clue how to cook it. As a matter of fact, she sawed her 22 pound, frozen turkey in half with a bucksaw! We had a great time with her and her family.

On Christmas day, we cooked another turkey and shared it with Eladio, Blanca and family. They are the coordinators of the FundaVida soup kitchens and computer centers here in Costa Rica.

Blanca has been such a help to us since we moved in. She has been helping us with translating at the lawyers and helping us to get a cell phone. We need to go back in January for that. She and one of the soup kitchen ladies, Olga, also did a very long day of gardening around the house! She just loves to do that and it was a load off of us!

Many of you may be wondering how the house is coming along. When we moved in, we had no bed, stove, washer and all of the essentials, etc. The first couple of weeks here were for shopping. Thank God that this has slowed down! Trying to find the best “deals” here is always a project, because of the traffic, especially before Christmas! We still need a kitchen table, chairs, a desk and some end tables. Rodney is in the process of building bunk beds with William, our “Tico” (Costa Rican) helper. He asked for 1,200 colones per hour, which converted into dollars is $2.32! He’s been helping us paint and repair, as well, and will build our kitchen table and chairs. All of the rooms have been painted in great colors, except for one, which will be finished by the end of next week. Plus all of the bunk beds will be finished.

On one of our shopping trips for furniture, we went to a little shop that sells furniture from Guatemala. There was no one there to help us, so we looked around for a few minutes. We thought that the furniture (muebles) would be perfect for our little lobby. Finally a young boy came out. Kids are difficult to communicate with, because they don’t seem to realize that they need to talk slowly to “Gringos.” This child was dressed in a faded tee shirt with many holes. He was very dirty and had brown furniture stain on his hands. When he brought us out back to see more furniture, a man came out of the house. We asked him about the boy. He said that he was eleven years old and an orphan from Guatemala. He said that he actually is not an orphan, but his mother lives in Guatemala with four younger children. This child is here in Costa Rica working to support his mother and siblings! Both Rodney and I left feeling that we were looking at a “slave labor” type of situation. Please pray for this kid. He seemed so sad and the man did not treat him very well at all. There are so many children and adults in Costa Rica, who are here earning money to provide for their families back in Nicaragua. The barrios of the Nicaraguan people are the poorest in the country. There is also a very heavy prejudice against the Nicaraguans here.

I (Cindy) started Spanish school almost immediately after arriving. It was good to have a little break, even though I was only in school a couple of weeks. I start back on the 8th of January and Rodney will start on the 15th. Please pray that we will get this language down. It can be so very frustrating to not be able to communicate!

One more wonderful experience that we have every Saturday is going to the “Feria Agricultura”. It is the open-air vegetable market not far from our home. It is such a great place to purchase our produce. They take a long street and close it off to all traffic. The vendors line both sides of the street with their colorful produce, flowers, meats and fish. There are a few little food stands as well, where you can buy breakfast and “pupusas”, little bean, meat and/or cheese filled tortillas, cooked on a grill. There is a little lady, who must be about 80 cooking them. All of this is bordered by an awesome view of the mountains. It’s a pleasure to get up early and shop here. And when we spend $25 we get almost enough food for the week. There is even two Chinese vendors, who sell prepared egg-rolls and tofu for vegetarians! Yes, you can laugh!

We are excited about the future knowing that God is advancing His Kingdom and we are thankful for the church in Maine and for all of the support, prayerfully and financially.

As for prayer requests:

As I mentioned before, grace to learn the language
Time to finish the furniture before our first team comes in February.
We would like to see at least 10 teams coming for 2007.
Continued health - God has blessed us with good health since we’ve been here.
And that we would not lose vision of God’s purpose for us here. In all of the busyness, we haven’t had much opportunity to visit and get to know people in the neighborhood. That will come in time. I keep telling myself that getting the house ready for teams is all part of the vision.