Three Essentials for Every Home

Okay, these essentials are probably not what you are thinking.  I'm not talking about anything life-changing or momentous.  No, I am thinking of . . . saltine crackers, ginger ale, and gatorade!  After this last week, I have decided that we should always have those three items in our house.  Isaac and I have never been sick at the same time before.  Well, now we have!  We went down within about an hour of each other early Monday morning.  And it was not fun!!  (On a side note, I will say that we are thankful that we have two banyos (bathrooms) in our house.)  The next 24 hours were rough.  For the first 6 or so hours, I didn't want to even think about food or drink.  But you have to eventually start to drink or you begin to dehydrate.  Well, the only drinks we had in our house were water, coffee, and crystal light.  None of those are very appetizing when you're sick!  (I did end up going 4 days without drinking coffee.  For those of you who know how much I enjoy coffee, you now that was quite a feat!)  When our friend, neighbor, and team-member David got home from school, he walked to the store for us and brought us back the "three essentials".  Not to worry though - we are much better now!  And as soon as we were able to get out and walk, we headed to the store and stocked up on saltine crackers, ginger ale, and gatorade.  Those three items now have a permanent place in our kitchen pantry!


". . . but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  --- 1 John 4:12b

The church that we attended is about a 15-20 minute walk
from our house.  At least the rain held off until we were
walking home!

Sunday With The Team

  

Peter, Hank, Kristen, Nathan, and Ike waiting for the
service to begin.  After the singing was over, all of
the children in the service left the sanctuary and
went to "children's church".

On Sunday Ike and I were well enough to go to church.  Our team went together to a church that Nathan and Kristen have been going to for the last few weeks.  The entire service was in Spanish (except for one part where the Pastor welcomed us and encouraged us in our language studies - he had his daughter translate for him).  The words for the music were displayed on an overhead so I was able to follow along.  It was really exciting to me to not only recognize some of the words that I saw, but to actually know what they meant.  I understood a few points from the sermon, but I know that I missed a lot.  However, I understood more this time than I did at the first church service I attended
after we arrived!    Poca a poca!!!

Life in San Jose

Abe and Ike in the Kinder parade
 at school celebrating Independence Day

It's hard to believe that we have been living in San Jose for one month.  So much has happened in that short amount of time.  We have already met many new friends - both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking.  We are experiencing the culture:  the food,  the festive celebrations, the correct way to greet people, the waiting in lines.  We are finding our way around our area of San Jose.  We live in San Francisco del Dos Rios, which is a "suburb" on the southeast side of San Jose.  We walk almost everywhere we go, though we do take a bus or taxi occasionally.  We know how to give directions to our casa

Typical Costa Rican food that

we had at school for a Fiesta -

eggs, casados (black beans and rice),

 corn tortilla with sausage and salsa,

and prestinos 

(house).  It is very important to be able to do that because they do not have addresses here!   Whenever we leave our casa, we have learned to carry our umbrella or raincoat with us - even if the sun is shining! - because most likely, it will rain at some point before we get back home again.  And . . . we are on our way to learning a  new language - poca a poca!

          Things We Are Getting Used To

     ☺locking and unlocking doors and gates multiple times daily

☺bars on our windows and doors

 ☺paying utility bills at the grocery store 

☺no street names or house numbers

☺not flushing paper down the toilet

☺no water pressure

☺termites in our ceilings

☺finding milk and eggs on the shelves in the store - not in the refrigerated section  

     ☺the constant "noise" - whether it's day or night (traffic, car alarms, horns, people talking, loud speakers on trucks that ride through the neighborhoods making announcements, roosters crowing, dogs barking)

     ☺the smell of diesel fuel - all the cars here use diesel 

     ☺the frequent smell of burning - it smells like someone burned popcorn in a microwave            

☺rain, rain, and more rain

Some new friends brought us a houseplant    

Things That Help Make The Previous List

       A Little Easier To Get Used To

☺friendly and helpful people

☺pleasant temperatures

☺beautiful mountains

☺great coffee

☺an abundance of fresh vegetables

☺hot water

☺tap water that we can drink without boiling or treating first

Celebrating!!

Lydia Jane, Kristen, and Hannah - getting ready for
The Parade of Lanterns

Desfile de Faroles

The Parade of Lanterns -

the night before Independence Day 

Entomology 101

Bedbugs and termites and ants - oh my!  Science is really not my thing, but I am learning lots about insects!  Let me update you on our bug situation.  Either the plastic that we wrapped around our mattress  has contained the bedbugs or . . . it's not bedbugs that we have!  We're leaning toward the latter because we have identified that we definitely have termites!!!  The ceilings in our rooms upstairs are wood and the termites have found a home in the ceiling above our bed.  Dick, the director of student life at the language school, and his wife Sheila, who also helps with caring for students, came over to our house on Monday and identified the termites.  Actually, here in Costa Rica, termites are called comejen and they are a very common and widespread problem.  As a temporary fix, we have ducktaped plastic to the ceiling in the bedroom (that plastic and duct tape sure is coming in handy!!) and our landlord is planning to spray for the comejen sometime next week.  I must say that I have slept much better since we discovered the comejen!  Don't ask me why, but termites don't seem to freak me out the way bedbugs do.  And yes, we do have ants also.  They seem to be staying downstairs.  We've only had to spray for them one time.  (The spray was pretty powerful smelling so I think it did the job!)
Well, with the insects under control (relatively speaking, anyway), Ike and I were able to focus on our language studies this week.  And that was a good thing, because we both had tests in all 3 of our classes!  We have really had to study this week.  But we have great teachers who are patient and encouraging.  I'm still amazed at how much material we have covered in just 2 weeks time.  My prayer is that I'll be able to retain what I'm learning.


  Ike enjoys sitting and reading on our little balcony early in the morning before we head off to school.

Aarrrgh-gh-gh BEDBUGS!!!!!

Yes, that's right - BEDBUGS!!! Yuck, yuck, yuck! We discovered them last night as we went to bed. This morning we googled "bed bugs" to confirm our suspicion and to find out a course of action. The short term/long term? solution is to totally encase the mattress or buy a new mattress. You can imagine how restful our sleep was last night! However, this morning we went ahead to church as planned, trusting in the Lord's sovereignty over all the circumstances in our lives. Needless to say, today has been busy. First thing, all of the bed linens went straight into a hot water wash. (I am so thankful that we have hot water!) Next, we scrubbed the bed frame and night stands with disinfectant. After church this morning, some friends of Ike's brother (Mike and Sue - they've been living here as missionaries since January) were planning to pick us up and take us out to lunch. Well, they did that and a whole lot more. They scoured the city with us for a plastic mattress cover that encloses and zips shut. In case you're wondering, they don't appear to have that type of mattress cover in San Jose. So, we had to pull a Macgyver -

duct tape and heavy-duty plastic. David came over this afternoon and helped Ike wrap the mattress up like a package. Then we put the clean cloth mattress cover and bedsheets on top of the plastic. I guess we'll know in the morning if this works. I really, really, really hope it works! The adventure continues . . . .

". . . . . let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." --Hebrews 12:1b