Nicaragua

We spent the past 5 days in Nicaragua and it was absolutely fabulous. We packed a lot in, but I learned so much. I love traveling to new places to see God's creativity both in people and in nature. It was so fun to see new cities, new beaches, new people and new food. I've definitely concluded that going to the beach is so good for your soul somewhere deep down. Kate and I went to Nicaragua with two missionary families for fairly cheap (prices are considerably lower than in CR)...plus since we were staying with a family, we rented houses for cheap. It was about an 8 hour bus trip, but wasn't bad except for passing the border. In Granada, we stayed in an absolutely beautiful house. Granada is an old European city, so the architecture and color are beautiful. There are many churches and the people are so friendly. I absolutely loved it. I could definitely see myself living there. We toured the city, visited some church plants, met some great people and ate the best calzone ever.

Kids from the church plant

We were able to drive and see the biggest lake in Central America and look at a local volcano.

Kate, Ellie, Karis and I at Lake Nicaragua

We also went to a town called Masaya, a town considerably poorer, but full of passionate Christians. We went to the market and visited a church there. Kate and I went into this service and absolutely everyone was singing at the top of their lungs. It was so bad! lol I'm not a good singer, so I can say that, but I mean tone deaf. I loved it. I belted it out. Anyway, they start talking about us in there. They said in Spanish that they were thankful for the poor gringos that came even though we didn't understand anything they were saying. lol I raised my hand and let her know, that we actually did understand. slightly embarassing. They apologized. Then they asked for everyone take out their Bibles (which of course we didn't have with us at the moment). EVERY single person turned around to look at us and see if we had brought ours. Now it was my turn to apologize. ugh. Really funny though. On Sunday morning we went to a baptism in Lake Nicaragua. Everyone got in with their clothes on. I really wanted to...but I unknowingly wore a white skirt and thought that would be a bad idea...bummer! We then walked around Granada and took pictures. There are a bunch of churches there, so we took lots of pictures. After that we visited a mission home for girls rescued from sex trafficking. It was awesome. It gave me some great ideas and freshly renewed my desire for working with sexually abused girls.

One of the children in the home :)

I'm really excited about that. On Monday we drove to the beach and had a lot of fun there. There was like no one there and we stayed in a cheap but really nice home. I loved it. Overall, I really just had a blast. There are more pics on facebook, but I put some of my favorites up on here. Well...I need to go to bed, thanks for reading!

Puerto Viejo...otra vez!

Greg begged me to take this picture with sand all over us :)

Our group minus Drew (who we couldn't get out of the hammock)

This past weekend we went to Puerto Viejo on the Carribbean for a couple of days. There were 9 of us and we rented a house there for super cheap. It was a little ghetto, but we love that aspect of life :). The weather was great and the waves were pretty good. It was so awesome to have guys with us on this trip for so many reasons. 1. Eddie can cook (therefore, we ate well) 2. Drew was a bouncer (therefore no drug offers or getting hit on too much) 3. Greg has about equal energy as me (therefore I was entertained the whole time without bothering Kate). lol so it was really good. We must have played football in the waves for hours. On Monday morning I didn't hear my alarm clock for the first 30 minutes that it went off and when I finally tried to get up I felt like I was hit by a bus. So great :) This week is going well...super-busy but good. We're leaving for Nicaragua this Friday, so please be praying for our safety. There is a lot on my heart and mind this well this week, so prayers would be much appreciated this week. I can't really go into specifics, but there are a wide variety of things and I would just love your uplifting. God knew exactly what I needed today though. I was working with one of my Autistic students today whom I just adore and he told me he loved me for the first time ever. I tell him all the time and he's never really responded...plus sometimes I can just be the crazy lady that makes him do his work all the time. :) He also cracked me up because yesterday he loved the lotion I had on. He kept sniffing my arm and telling me I smelled like cake. lol Sharon did give me this cake smelling stuff over the summer. Anyway, today when I came to school he kept smelling my arms at different parts of the day and finally just came out and disappointedly asked why I didn't smell good and cakey today ;) I love my job...

Me posing for Kate...awesome

Nerd Day

Student Council!

Andrew (my bball team captain) and I

Eden and I rocking the nerd look

Well this is going to be really short because I have a lot to do before tomorrow! I have to give a staff enrichment presentation on special ed for our inservice day and then right after we're going to the beach...so I need to plan and pack! I'm so excited! There are nine of us going and we're all staying in a house. Should be interesting. I'm hoping it's not super ghetto because I picked it :). This past week has been a good one. Sunday was great...Bengals won and we were able to watch the Colts win while eating chicken wings at the Mullinax's house. Amazing. Basketball is going well...I love my team and I feel like I have a way better idea of what I'm doing this year. I also got TWO packages in the mail this week and two letters! YES! I think it's because this is my golden birthday month... lol I'll be 24 on the 24th. We are planning a massive fiesta :). Anyway, the best part of this week was nerd day. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I am one of the student council teacher reps this year and we're trying to do it big this year. I've posted some pics for your enjoyment!

Some teaching staff :)

Volcan Irazu

The crater lake at the top of Irazu Volcano (they say the sulfur makes it that color)

Hola! I haven't blogged in a week and a half, so I'm coming with some fun stories and good pictures. Things have been good and busy. Since I blogged last there have definitely been some developments. Here is the basic rundown. I went to Volcan Irazu this past weekend. It was really neat. It's right outside San Jose and is active but rarely gets any action. Last time it "blew" ashes and things was when Kennedy was visiting in Costa Rica.

This is at the highest point at the volcano. It's a little hard to tell,

but we are looking down on the clouds.

Anyway, what else...My basketball team is looking good and I've been trying to work them a little harder than last year. Lol I love hearing a bunch of high school boys whine about defensive drills and how "hard" two practices a week are. Pathetic :). We had an outbreak of "piojos" (lice) this week at school. That was fun, especially since I was deamed as one of the "lice checkers" for the school. Que guacala (disgusting). I also loved waking up like 19 times last night after nightmares about having lice. ugh. Next, Kate and I bought tickets to go to Nicaragua with some missionaries here. We're going to tour around and also see a ministry that deals with sexually abused women. I'm so excited to see that...God continues to pursue my heart and remind me that someday I will be working with this. We were also able to meet our friend, Jared, that we met this summer this week. He is living and doing ministry on the beach and was telling us about how God has worked on his heart dealing with human trafficking. Can't wait to see how we can partner together in that someday! We also started our teacher Bible study this week. I'm excited to help lead and hopefully help our staff overcome cultural differences through studying the word. Please pray for me as I try to lead and teach in Spanish. Speaking of that, I do have a major praise. God allowed me to have the opportunity to translate from English to Spanish for an hour on Friday night. Not saying that to brag, but to let you know that God is answering prayers and blessing me with a desire of my heart, to speak Spanish. That being said, I'm continually humbled and reminded that I have a long way to go. For example, the other day I called my Tico uncle a chicken rather than a picky eater. Pollo=chicken, polo=picky...whatever. :) and...hmm. Oh one of my best friends had a baby in the U.S. I was sad that I can't meet her yet...but so happy for Britt and Sam. And there's the summary. I know it's really random and all over the place, but to avoid writing a book and to let you know what's going on, there it is. To end a random post, here is another random recent picture we took of a bug we found.

Saving changes to life

Kate, Andrew, and me on Costa Rican Independence Day. I made Skyline for us since Andrew is from Cincinnati too :).

My friend Greg and my Tica sister Maria Jose

Well school is well underway and things are going well. I love having a little bit more time on my hands doing just special education this year. I love working with a lot of different teachers and a lot of different grades. I feel like I am so much more confident and comfortable this year. I love it. It's been great getting to know other teachers better this year.

These are some of my friends at our coordinator dinner.

In fact, I feel like Kate and I have made so many more friends this year already. We've made some great gringo and tico friends. I love it because we've been going out a lot more already and we're not feeling so caged in or lonely. I'm really thankful for that answer to prayer. Tonight we went over to Courtney and Erin's and had a cookout for CR independence day. We ate cheeseburgers though (in honor of all the American holidays that we have missed recently). This blog isn't going to be long, but I am just writing to say thank you for your prayers. God has been blessing me a lot and I just can't even describe the peace that I have in my heart about how this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now.

Greg modeling the mullet wig...which of course somehow made it down to CR. :)

I'll leave you with a funny picture that seemed ironic to me. So I typed up this list of life goals and prayers and different things on a word document and titled it "life". When I finished, this little box popped up and it just struck me how funny it seemed. Yah there have been a lot of changes in my life... a lot of unexpected twists and turns...a lot of things I never would have planned. Yet, I wouldn't change them for the world. So in light of that and in light of all of I've learned...I clicked yes on that changes to life question. How could you say no to the best adventure ever with the love of your life who planned it out before time began???

What is it?

So...I'm loving this picture because from on top, you can't tell what it is...it looks like a plant. But if you look at it from the side, you can tell it's a catepillar. It's really spikey and I'm pretty sure it's the poisonous kind or at least just hurt bad if the spikes get stuck in you (obviously). Kinda interesting huh?

Well everything is good here. We're in to our second week of school and so far, so good. I'm loving a little bit of breathing room without teaching kindergarten. Sometimes I feel like a slacker b/c I'm not always running around like crazy...but part of me is thinking that God is answering my prayers in being a little bit more calmed down after that first year of teaching. Let's see what else has happened. I'm about to start coaching basketball again. My team is looking a little small, but that doens't mean anything. I watched the costa rica vs. mexico soccer game on Saturday with Ticos...it was not good. After much cursing, they finally decided to turn it off and play guitar hero...which I totally rocked. lol never played before and I loved it...especially when I was singing on the rock band one. For those of you that know my singing talents, you would agree ;). I mean there is nothing like singing Michael Jackson's "Beat It" song in a latino accent. And that's about it. I guess I'll leave you with one cool thing in regards to my last post (which by the way, thanks for all the cool comments and messages about it). God led me to this great verse in Psalm 45: "Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: forget your perople and your father's house. The King is enthralled by your beauty; honor Him for He is your Lord." I seriously can't think of any bigger of a self-esteem boost than knowing that the God of the universe is enthralled with me...this whole subject is just rocking my life :).

The perfect wedding :)

The last couple of weeks have been great :). We had orientation last week, which went really well...minus one little girl puking her guts out within the first twenty minutes the first day. lol such is life. We made it though and we proceeded to our first couple of days of school. I can't believe it's my first week of year 2! Crazy how fast it goes! It's sad seeing my kinders in 1st grade...but also a really good thing!!! We had a good weekend too. There are a new group of language students here too which is really cool. We've made some cool friends. One guy is actually from Cincinnati and knows my dad...which is great, but even better, he shares my appreciation for Skyline. Obviously we're going to have a party. Yumm. Let's see, I went to church for an awesome service, worked at the jail and had a mother's day party for the women there, and went to a jazz club to listen to the best band in CR play. It's been good so far! So my most recent deep thinking comes in this form (it's been a while since I've preached). The perfect wedding. So coming back I was slightly worried about being lonely here due to all the changes. Plus, having all my friends be married or getting married has been a big change for me. I prayed about this and God has just totally blown me away with His love. The best news I've heard is that He created us and therefore knows exactly how to meet our deepest needs. Needs that no one else can meet. He knows us better than anyone else and it's great. He is our perfect life partner. As others may come and go, friends may move away, spouses may not live up to the dream or pass away, etc....but God, He just remains, just as faithful as ever. This is what I picture: a perfect guy. Anything you could possibly want in you spouse. Someone faithful, kind, sensitive, strong, provides for you, knows you deeply, cares for you, protects you, has grace on you, patient, has a good sense of humor, makes great plans, loves you deeply, surprises you with little things, helps you through hard things, there to talk whenever you need Him, good with kids (lol), never fails, the list could go on and on. I just see Him standing before me, all I could ever want and the best news is, is that He wants me. He is WAY out of my league, yet He is pursuing me. He wants me with all of His heart. I'm totally not good enough, but He thinks I'm beautiful. I can just see me walking down this aisle in dirty rags and as I get halfway down I transform into a beautiful bride, all decked out and beautiful. But that's not why He's smiling, He's smiling and crying because He knows who I have become on the inside...He loves me for who He's made me become. For this beautiful and new creation in Him. And it's not like He just asking me to love Him. He died in my place to show me how much He meant it...because there is no better way to show love than to lay down your life for a friend. I mean, just think about it, this perfect life partner who can meet every need is just presenting himself before me...someone who can fill me and love me without fault, and here I am searching for other things to love me. Don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate friends and marriage, but man, what are we missing by looking for Christ's love in imperfect people. As I finally get to the altar, I can see the scars in His brow and feel the scars on His hands. That was for me, for this. And how easy for me...I can be His, if I just say yes to His love. Oh I might have to sacrifice some things, He might carry me to another country or whatever it may be, but there He is holding my hand. It doesn't get better than that. How blessed we are to have this available and to truly understand what this means. Very cool. Psalm 90:14 "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."