A perfect gift idea

Have you ever been serenaded at 8:30pm by a chorus of three with trumpets and it sounded really nice. No? Well, me neither - but my neighbor did. Take a listen so you can hear what it sounded like in stereo! It was not bad, quite the contrary, but it was totally random. Now that we have had one half a trimester of emersion Spanish, I think that my serenade would look something about like this (thanks Kiki!). For the record, this is MUCH funnier if you are actually in your one semester of Spanish, this is exactly what I know (minus the mistakes and the one french word thrown in.


We had Christmas early this year. There is a missionary couple going back to the states in a couple weeks so we are buying pretty much all their stuff. This last weekend we helped move a majority of their things over to La Palabra de Vida where Matt & Lisa have graciously agreed to store it for us. However, we got to take some of the cool stuff with us now (e.g., some little computer speakers, a mini grill, some plastic drawers, a brita filter, etc). Sure, that does not sound cool - but when you don't have much to begin with - these things are pretty sweet.

Another exciting thing happened today, we've entered the next phase in our GE gas dryer saga. I could not find the parts to convert a methane dryer to propane down here - so I had to have my parents order the parts for me in the states. They then mailed them to me. The good news is, they have arrived! Who would have thought the four tiny pieces you see in the picture could cost so much. The bad news is that I have to use these instructions to install it. So, what do I do from here?

Option 1: Install this baby and dry some clothes
Option 2: Install this thing carefully, then have a fire extinguisher on hand
Option 3: Install this thing, hire someone to run the dryer for a while while I take the kids at least 1/4 mile away from the house.
Option 4: Hire someone to install this.

Well, option 4 is impossible because no one here knows what methane is...so I certainly will not trust them to install the part. Number three does not seem like the missionary way, so....I guess we will proceed with option two or some varient there of.

So Roxana asked me if I liked Tico food and I said 'sure, I like all foods...' I think she may have finally crossed the line here. I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am. Not in a pan, not with a spoon, not in a bowl, not after noon.

A rare sighting!

It is not very often that you get a picture of Christy and I together. Even more amazing is that there is not one, or possibly two, monkeys hanging over our shoulders or on our arms. Thanks to Amy & Cohen for the great picture right before chapel hour a few days ago. Although I am not much of a picture guy, I do always enjoy looking at the relatively few pictures that Christy and I have together.

PS - To my mother-in-law. I still don't shave very much, sorry.

PSS - That guy who looks like he is robbing a bank behind is named 'Mark'. He is 6'3'' and probably pushing 300 lbs in muscle. If I were you, I wouldn't make any jokes about how he looks in the picture. I know I won't be.

An unintended side effect

I call it side effect because I am not sure if it is good or bad. We knew that our kids would learn Spanish while here in Costa Rica. The other language we had not counted on was southern twang. Nearly 3/4 of all the people at the school now are southern baptist and are generally from southern states in the US. Several of Elizabeth's classmates at school have accents. The other day she came home and told us she had a 'bew-bew' - instead of a boo-boo or an owie. She also asked me yesterday if she could watch a 'mew-vie' when she got home from school.

This is certainly something we will have to monitor as the future progresses. We can "unlearn her gud" starting in 2009 when we move away from the south.

Dear Josh, your humor is not funny

In my grammer class today one of the questions in our work book was 'Do you read Tom Clancy books?' It was almost fate that I got this question because I just got done reading (lets be honest...rereading) The Hunt for Red October last weekend. However, before I even got a chance to respond, she wanted to move on past the question because she did not know who Tom Clancy was. I listed of of some books to jog her memory and she shrugged. Some other people said 'What about movies...do you like 'Hunt for Red October', 'Patriot Games', 'Sum of all Fears?' All that got was a 'I've never seen them...' from her.

Here is where my real zinger takes shape. In a totally seriously and incriminating voice I said, 'What, you don't like movies?!?' She looked at me funny. That was the end of my joke.

A couple others laughed but it is a good reminder to me that humor can be totally lost across languages. This is true if I am speaking spanish or english. Lets rephrase that last statement. This is ALWAYS true when I speak spanish and can even be true when I speak english. Even worse than humor being lost, I might (and probably already have) offended people. Something to be mindful of.

So our guest speaker for the week in chapel mentioned the tower of babel today in his message. For those of you not familiar, its basically one more time in history where God had about enough of humans trying to make themselves out to be gods when in fact we are certainly not. As I was flipping through some articles today, something caught my eye. Yet another crazy attempt at a building that is spectacular and a monument to human achievement. In order of my top three, here we go....(drum roll...)

#3) In motion building
#2) Dubai tower
#1) Mile high tower

I'm not an end times is here tomorrow type of guy (it'll come - who knows when), but it does at least make you raise your eyebrows when in the very region that the original tower of babel was constructed we see the exact same thing happening again four thousand plus years later. I don't know whether to laugh, cry or be concerned when I see articles like this again and again.

Is this mono? It feels like mono

I've never had mono, but I'm pretty sure if I do in the future it will feel like this. I knew this morning was going to be a bit dicey as I spent all yesterday morning shoveling, lifting, dumping, etc 5 gallon buckets of cement up make-shift stairs and into forms. Matt & Lisa are putting a two story addition onto their house and they had a small army of people to help with moving the cement from the ready mix truck into the forms and the 2nd floor floor pan. I was silly enough to say I'd love to help them. When I combined my Saturday activities with a relative lack of sleep - I figured I'd be pretty sore and wiped today. Well, both of those were true, but actually much worse. I've hardly been able to keep my eyes open most of the day, I have a temperature of about 100, my stomach feels terrible (I've had a bowl of soup and two bites of salad all day), and I've made no less than 15 trips to the bano. Today is a good day indeed. If this stomach bug is like the last one, I might be on my weigh (har-de-har) to fighting in the welter.

On the plus side, as I was loading up the pictures I took on the camera to my computer to post them, I found this one there. Christy must have taken this on Saturday morning when I was over at the befus'. The kids are so cute. Everytime we give them a shower, they always want to be wrapped up like mummies and then rolled out onto the bed. Sammy has taken to saying 'That was a good one!'

I decided to snap a couple shots of our other weekend project. About two weeks ago, we bought a dryer at a warehouse store that sells slightly damaged, but brand new stuff. There was a small ding on the side of the dryer, but it was a great deal and they were willing to deliver - so we got it. When we got home, we plugged it in only to hear the seam on the drum hitting the side of the dryer (bump...bump...bump...).
We were able to take off the side panel and I hamered the main part of the dent out so that it would no longer rub against the drum. You can see where I made a couple ill placed hammer whacks in this picture - but no matter - it got the job done. All we need to do now is figure out how to convert this baby from methane to propane (methane does not exist down here) and get a tank + regulator - and we should be good to go!

To leave everyone with today - the ever present 'water gamble' I think we take. Many missionaries just by big 5 gallon bottles of purified water for all use here. We decided to 'rough it' and just have tap water which is for the most part safe. However, every once in a while the pressure in our water goes down a bit. We ask ourselves 'Is the pressure down....I can't tell....hmm.....should we drink it....' and usually water like you see in this cup starts coming out the tap. I feel the need to enter some kindergarden style joke 'If its brown...put it down.' Maybe THIS is why I feel sick today....

Have a good evening everyone. I'm off to lay in bed - hopefully all night long sleeping.

June 2008 Prayer Letter

Hi folks. I finished up our prayer letter for June 2008 this week and have put it out on the site. Feel free to take a look - the link to it is on the right side of the blog or here. If you are a consistent reader of the blog, there is not much new, but you may want to take a look anyway. Also, we will be sending a soft copy sometime in the next few days and a hard copy in the next few weeks (it takes a while to cordinate those being printed, stuffed and sent back in the states. Thanks mom!)

More time please...

WARNING - there is no coherent thought or 'logic' if you will behind this post. It is mainly just rambling.

I've been a little light on the posts lately, and that probably will continue at least through the remainder of the weekend. I actually made a switch this week at school - I moved up to a faster paced class for Grammar. This is huge blessing because I felt like I was not being pushed quite as much as I am used to in my original class placement (mind you, the placement was right, I knew no spanish initially, but I'm learning quickly and actually practice a reasonable amount of spanish outside of my class so I am ready for more). Also, I am now in Christy's class so we can study together - which is surprisingly pleasant now that the Josh competitive bug has for the most part been squashed. The one down side to the whole move is that I am really busy this week trying to catch up on everyting that others know and I do not.

Anyway....Christy has this website that she keeps all sort of flash cards and other useful information for us and other students. I took the liberty of updating it for her and making it awesome - she did not appreciate my updates. She told me to get my own web page...luckily, I have one - so I'll take her advice. We can have a poll, tell me, yes or no, do these two pictures make this site awesome? I think the answer is undeniably yes, but I am biased.

Totally unrelated to optimus prime OR megatron, I have a fun little thing for you to listen to. This sound clip serves two purposes. 1) You can hear the 'gun like' noises that I was talking about in an earlier post that are actually just fire works. Also, you can get a quick listen on how loud it can be here on any given time of the day. The loud bangs are the fireworks, the dog barking non stop in the background is actually odd - usually there are like three of them. You can also hear both elizabeth and some neighbor kid making noise. You kinda learn to tone it all out (much like the alarms on cars). Take a listen here...

Did I tell everyone we have someone else living in our house now? His name is Henery. You can see him in the picture here. Roxana was pretty convinced we should Mata Toto him...but he's so cute. Also, lizards eat bugs...although I'm pretty sure that any cucaracha here could take him one on one. Christy is secretly worried that we have like 1000 lizards in the house. Luckily she has not checked her long-sleeve t-shirt drawer in a while. Shhhh....

I'm so ashamed...

After my 'lesson' with the dorritos you think I would have learned. I just looked at what I ate this weekend at quiznos for dinner on Sabado (saturday)....the grande (large) mequite chicken with bacon. 1300 calories. At least I had a diet pepsi....

Ohhh...this is why you do not drive at night

When Christy and I go to the Multiplaza (this is a big mall up in Zapote) we usually take a back road because the the main road (calle) is massively under construction. I would actually need a video camera to do the the construction chaos justice, but maybe sometime I'll bring a high quality regular camera just to give you an idea. Think:

1. Normal crazy driving conditions and an excess of traffic almost all day, and
2. No road closures when there should be, and
3. No flag men directing 4 lane roads that are closed down to one so that opposite moving lanes feed into each other, and
4. Construction equipment and dump trucks backing up, turning, basically doing whatever they want in traffic, at intersections, etc.

Needless to say it is an adventure. This brings me back to my earlier comment of we take the backroad to get to the mall. Well, yesterday we drove on this road, and all of the sudden there was this hole in the ground. I had to snap this picture with a small camera (thanks Lizzy for letting me use your camera) as I was driving so it does not really do it justice (you can not see the depth or the actual size). However, you can take my word that a mini could easily fit into this hole. I really don't know how deep it is, and this is surprising because I only had about 1 foot of clearance on my left side when I drove by - and I could not see the bottom from the drivers seat of my van. I would say that makes the actual depth in excess of 12-15 feet. I know sink holes happen in the states too, I think the major difference is the response to them (e.g., road shut down, repaired quickly). Here, someone was nice enough to put a trash can in front of it with some yellow ribbon...but that was about it. I can't imagine this will be repaired correctly any time soon - but they probably will throw some concrete blocks and stuff in there before someone gets really hurt.

I took some pictures of the mall and the surrounding area but they did not turn out well. I wanted to show the contrast that exists as the Multiplaza is a very nice mall ( on par with anything in the states), but looking out back from the parking lot is a very rough barrio. Think rusted out pieces of tin and large sheets of plastic to make the roof and walls of most of these houses. Its a reminder that although Costa Rica has so much, there are so many with so little. I'll take a better camera next time and try to get a couple shots.

Happy father's day to my dad, my father-in law, and to all you dads out there.

Is that bag regulation size or what?

So for our anniversary which was on Monday, Christy bought be a 'goodie' bag of things that would be considered treats down here for me. Snacks mainly. Dorritos (Fiery Habanerno), 2 liters of diet coke, gummy candy, etc. In general, things like that are expensive - at least relative to the states - in Costa Rica. That brings me to Tuesday evening...

As I was finishing nearly the last of the dorritos in the full size bag, I finally got around to reading the back label. There are 14 servings in one bag. Can it be possible that I ate 14 servings in one day? I mean, I'm hardly even up for that long. If you factor in the 7 hours I slept, and the 7 hours I was at school - that only leaves 10 hours of real eat time. Nix 1 hour after each dinner and lunch because I am too full to eat - and that leaves 6 hours. Is it possible that I ate roughly two servings per hour of my beloved dorritos? Surely my body does not feel like it just took in 1750 calories.

Then I remembered...I bought a two bags last week(they met a surpringly similar 1 day demise). That makes 1.5 bags per week. Pretty amazing that 18.75% of my recommended 2000 per day caloric intake was spent on chips. Even more amazing that on a 'per day that I had chips in my pantry' I exceeded my caloric intake by 31.25% on chips alone each day. Does this equate to some sort of addiction? I always thought pringles were the single most dangerous snack...but Fiery Habanero just made it to the top of my list.

Speaking of things that are both spicey and unhealthy - Sammy discovered a combination today. He found that when he mixed Iguana XX Cayene Pepper sauce with his own eye, bad things happen. He kept saying, 'I want ketchup...I want ketchup...' I told him it was not....but he wore me down. I put some on his plate. He ate it. He liked it. He dipped his cucumber in it. He ate more. He was happy. And then....he thought it was SO funny to put his cucumber in his eye. He thought this for about 2 seconds. I've never heard such a shrill scream come from my son. Nor have I ever seen his little legs move so fast as Christy was carrying him to the bathroom to wash his eyes with water and milk. I must admit, I laughed (please don't call child services).

Pretty rainy

If you are like me, the whole idea of 'rainy season' does not really mean much. Does it rain all day, for part, or not really much? A drizzle, a downpour, nothing? Well...I just snaped a few pictures to help everyone out. We are still pretty early into the rainy season but this is what we have seen so far (keep in mind the heaviest rain is in October).

1. In the morning, there is usually a bit of sun poking through

2. By 10am, things start getting cloudy.

3. By 1pm, it usuallys starts raining.

4. Sometime in the afternoon, it usually rains like this for at least an hour:

Some days it rains so hard that our back patio drainage begins to flood. You can actually see that happening in this little movie below. When this happens, water starts coming into our kitchen. To prevent flooding we have to jam a towel under the door. I honestly do not even know how this door is still in one piece if it gets this much exposure to water.

Towel preventing *some* water from coming in the door.

5. Somtimes is sprinkles all night, but usually it stops by about 7 or 8.

6. The process repeats.

Giving props where props is due

Christy and I did something on Friday that we had been putting off for a while. Getting our Costa Rican drivers license. I think I may have mentioned earlier I thought we could drive on the US license forever, but that was bad info. That aside, most of the time I write my blogs based on things that I think are odd, silly, stupid or all of the above. Today I'm going to turn a new leaf and just call out how well I thought the Costa Rican process went. The lines moved quickly, people were FRIENDLY (try saying the same thing about the DMV in Illinois) and the whole thing really only took an hour or so. Well done Costa Rica, I salute you.

PS - Yes...Donador does me that I am an organ donor. The guy asked and I was like 'Yeah, I'll be a donor' That's one of those things where you forget you are not in the States where you are pretty sure you'll be taken care of in an accident. Down here, I'm not really sure how that all shakes out. Let's hope the answer to that question does not come back to bite me!

An aspiring artist

Its been a while so I thought I would share another picture with you all from Elizabeth. I'm not sure if you can tell, but there are five people in this picture. Super-Sam is represented in the lower left hand corner. Elizabeth is the little person directly above him.

The people are 'a little' creepy...but hey, she is not even four yet.

Things that sound good

- A Gino's East pizza (meat lovers minus the bacon + some extra tomatoes)
- Macaroni Grill's 'pasta milano'
- A Moe's 'Home Wrecker' or 'Tripple Lindy'
- Chili's peppercorn burger or chicken tacos
- Capital Ale House fries with dipping sauces (for you richmonders)
- The Bank burger with chipotle mayo and blue cheese (for you wheatoners)
- A really good Fuji or Braeburn apple
- Extra sharp (truly sharp) cheddar cheese
- Panera Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich

If anyone wants to pack some of these in with dry ice and try to get it through customs, that would be awesome.

No two people are not on fire...awwww

This weekend while talking with Bryan & Robin Kandall, missionaries currently serving at La Palabra de Vida, we reminded each other of a website we both thought was funny. The name of it is home star runner. If you do not love silly and/or dumb humor, I would not recommend you go there. If you are one of my supporters, I think maybe you should not go at all as I can not vouch for almost anything on the site. That aside, there is cartoon on the website where one of the characters (strongbad) talks about a children's book he once made.

He basically takes a Dick and Jane book and 'modifies' it based on what he thinks it should look like. I can not speak for all the women in the house - but as a boy - this is exactly what I used to (still do) do. There are several pictures in our grammar work books that look just like these pictures. Every time we look at them or get a similar handout, Christy and I always giggle and quote the strongbad cartoon or make up our own captions.

While doing a homework assignment today for grammar, Christy stumbled upon something surprising. A photo that did not need any modifications for it to be funny. I'm not even sure how this one 'made the cut' - but I have scanned it in below so you could see. I've also added a few of my own subtitles below it. I've probably butchered the Spanish - but hey - I tried.

- Martin está muerto (he really is, look under the bus)

- Fernando está a punto de morir

- Ramon tiene una dislocación del cuello

- Pablo objetivos para las personas en su autobús

- Xilene tiene una dudosa profesión

- Jorge vive en 1972

A weekend of refocus

This weekend we had the opportunity (mandate to be fair) to go to an all Costa Rican Latin America Mission missionary retreat. Try saying that five times fast! There were so many reasons this was a great retreat for me to be at, I'll at least try to hit a few of the high points.

First of all, I have to be honest by saying I've never been much of a 'retreat' guy. Given that I much prefer to have one or two close friends that I spend a significant amount of time with - going and spending 3.5 days of very precious 'I could be studying Spanish' time with many people I do not know was not appealing. However, God combated these thoughts with another tool that the devil often uses in missionary's minds - missing home. Mind you, I'm not down here in Costa Rica crying myself to sleep - however this last week was the first since I have been here that I really thought it would be fun to be back in the states. I genuinely miss my job, my friends, my family and just the normalcy of life back home. After some reflecting, this is just another way that God can take something that was intended to be for evil, hurt or in this case distraction from what I am doing here - and use it for His glory (Gen 50:20). By the time the retreat rolled around I was eagerly anticipating seeing the folks I know at La Palabra de Vida, folks from our Miami Service Office and also meeting many new missionaries who serve in Costa Rica - and not even worried about the fact that it was a retreat.

The main theme for the weekend was defining what success looks like. As a Christian, and I guess especially as a missionary, I am ashamed that some of my more natural responses to this question are something like the following:

- Making money
- Having career advancement
- Being well liked
- Having power
- Acceptance
- Interesting and exciting jobs
- Easy and smooth life

Let me first say that any of those things in and of themselves is not bad. God does not despise any of those things, and I do not believe that we should either. However, what is bad is when we begin to use any of those as the measure of success for our lives - and it is SO easy to do this. As easy as it is, we must not as God does not. (Actually, God rejects them as important measures Luke 4:1-14) I can think back to a conversation I had two weeks ago where I was asking someone what his 5-10 year plan was. Implicit in the question was 'Whats next for you? You can not teach forever can you? You have to BE someone, DO something, MOVE onto something bigger.' You can instantly see how I was marginalizing this person's service in the Kingdom because it did not cync up with three important Josh measurement factors. Who am I to declare what is successful or what is important - in this persons life or mine? God often does just the opposite of what the world values just to show that same world that he is, as a speaker said this weekend, an unconventional God who uses unconventional methods. The entire story of Jesus' was just that....all including the disciples expected a great king who would really advance the Jewish nation and finally 'take care of' the bad guys. Instead all they got was a Savior who atoned for sin and provided a means of reconciliation for everyone through his own humiliation and suffering. What a bummer, huh? Maybe if God thought more like us things would turn out better.

This is such an important lesson because this is a real struggle for me. There is not a week that goes by when I do not think about some variation of this issue. How can I get my career back on track after this whole 'missionary' thing? THAT persons job sounds interesting, how do I get over there so I can do something cool like them? What do I need so do so I can get in a position of authority and make some real change? Etc ... I sure spend alot of effort thinking (worrying?) about these things. What a wonderful feeling of rest I finally had this weekend being reminded that I am here because God wants me here. I'm doing what I am because it is precisely what is needed by him. If I simply ask, listen and obey to His will - I can fully rest that future directions in my life are precisely what they need to be as well. It matters not if I lead a 'team of me' cooking meals for the needy or being the captain of a fortune 100 company. To all my non-Christian or non-believing fiends out there - how do you find rest? Does measuring and advancing yourself against the measures of the world get you there? What happens in 50 years when you die, or tomorrow if a tragedy happens? I feel like I age 10 years for each 1 worrying about this stuff and I have the answer.

Another great thing about the retreat were the people! What an amazing thing to listen to people ranging from 2 months of service on the field (Christy and I) to 50+ years on the field. Beyond just the amazing stories - you can see and hear so much more. Their very real struggles, amazing fellowship with each other, compassion, kindness, realness, etc. What a blessing to not only spend a weekend with people like that, but to have open access to them whenever we need advice, questions answered or just a friend.

Lastly, it didn't rain! The tropical storm in the pacific made the week before the retreat miserable! However, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were AMAZING. It did not rain until we packed to leave the retreat.

I could go on and on, but...I won't. At the end of the day, you can see it was exactly what I needed. God provides what we need, when we need it, always - we just have to ask, listen, obey and understand that our way is not always his way.

I'm off to study some verbs and get some sleep. Hope everyone had a great weekend.