Friday, May 25, 2012

A time to rest, and a time to work

Well, it has definitely taken WAY to long for us to get around to this latest blog post!  For all of you that have faithfully been praying for us, thank you!  Hopefully this latest update will let you know more about what we've been up to, and how you can continue to pray for us as we seek to finish our time here in Costa Rica strong.

Playing at the park and blowing, um.... bubbles?

Anything is a toy when you're a missionary kid!

We finished up our first semester of language school here in Costa Rica at the end of April.  It was an incredibly challenging 4 months, partially because of the challenges of learning the language, and largely because of the stress of a new culture, spiritual stresses, and being 3,400 miles away from our family, friends, and loved ones.  There were times we couldn't have been more excited to be here, and times when it was a struggle to just trust the Lord and make it through the day.  Through it all, we have been completely dependent on your love and prayers and support, and we can't thank you enough for it all.  We ended the semester with straight A's (both of us!), and were very excited to have a two week break to recuperate some before the next semester began!

Playing at the park while Nana and Papa were here to visit.

Big Zoe loves the park!



During that break, Sara's parents came to visit us for about 9 days.  What a blessing it was to get to see Sam and Sandy here!  We spent the first few days with them here in San José, showing them around and letting them get a taste of what life is like for us here in Costa Rica.  We showed them our favorite pizza place (they couldn't believe the first real meal they ate in Central America was pizza), let them see where we shop, and gave them the tour of the home, our neighborhood, and the Institute we've been working so hard at.  Zoe, Caitlynn, and Gabriel were SO excited to see Nana and Papa, and spent all their time hanging off of them, having them play with them and asking them to read to them.  And I (Nick) drug Sam all over San José as we visited the airport together to take our friends Tony and Beverly to their flight out of San José, and as we went to all of the stores and other places that we needed to get to.  Sam used every opportunity to try out his Spanish, and he did a great job trying to communicate with the people around us.

Beautiful kids playing at the beach.

Learning to love splashing in the water.

Some of the beautiful shore-line north of Playa Hermosa in Costa Rica
After a few days, we got out of the big city and went to Playa Bejuco for a few days.  Bejuco is a beautiful beach on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, between the city of Jaco and Manuel Antonio National Park.

Kind of a grey day at the beach, but it was a wonderful day to play!

Mud is fun!

This might be the LEAST messy picture we have of Caitlynn from that day at the beach.
 Our time at the beach was great!  Bejuco isn't the most popular beach in Costa Rica, partially because it doesn't have the typical white-sand, but it was gorgeous, with palm trees right up to the sand, and almost NO people!  On Friday, we practically had the beach to ourselves all morning.  Zoe loves playing in the water, and Gabe grew to love splashing and playing in the water.  Only Caitlynn still isn't that sure about the waves and the water, but she makes up for it with her love of playing in the sand!

More shore-line north of Hermosa


While at Bejuco, we also made a trip down the coast to visit Manuel Antonio National Park.  It's a beautiful pristine jungle area along the coast, with great walks through the jungle to discover sloths, monkeys, and TONS of iguanas.  We saw several monkeys (two different types), 3 sloths, iguanas everywhere, and even some red parrots.  It was a tiring day, but we really enjoyed our time at the park.



One of the most exciting things that happened while Nana and Papa were here is that Gabe decided to try to start walking!  At first, he would just take a few steps between chairs, but now, he's tottering all over the house, and is gonna be pretty hard to keep up with pretty soon.  What a blessing it is to see our children growing up and learning (though I'm NOT ready for our baby to be walking!)

We love Nana's story times!
Once Nana and Papa left, it was time to get back into school!  Our second semester is INCREDIBLY challenging!  Sara now is doing one-on-one tutoring here at the Institute instead of large group classes.  She was blessed to get Ana as her tutor, the exact tutor we were praying that she'd get.  Sara is already learning a lot in her tutoring, and we think it's been a great decision to have her switch to the one-on-one learning instead this semester.  I'm doing a special schooling at the Institute called FARO.  I take 2 intense hours of grammar study every morning, then spend the rest of my day in conversation.  I have to talk to 8-10 people PER week, TWICE a week each.  We talk about different topics that I pick (so far we've done family, work, and sports; in the upcoming weeks we'll also hit weddings, the church, my testimony, and how to find a house in Central America).  I then write papers (in Spanish, of course) about every conversation that I have.  It's a lot of self-study, and a LOT of conversation, but by the end of the trimester I should be much much stronger at conversation.  It's a lot of work (for both of us) this semester, so please remember to pray for us as we try to keep up with what feels like drinking from a fire hose sometimes!

Sweet boy resting on the couch.

Visiting Central Mercado for the first time in San José (it was pretty crazy inside...)
Finally, pray for us this next week.  I (Nick) am in the US right now for some weddings that I needed to attend, and Sara and the kids are in Costa Rica.  I'm sure you can image that this causes some stress.  Pray that God will lift us up while we're separated, and that God will help Sara and the kids while they're in Costa Rica without me.  Pray that my time here in Wyoming will be effective, and that God will bless my time here as well.  We love you all, and thank you for your prayers!
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