Mi Vida en Costa Rica

Well, the last time I tried blogging, the internet decided to stop working, so hopefully that doesn't happen this time! A lot has happened since Holy Week! I am now out of language school and back at the colegio full time, and it's great! And to top it off, I'll be starting in with some music stuff in the next couple of weeks at the high school, so I'm super-excited about that! My main goal right now is to get the kids to at least appreciate, hopefully like, music class, and music in general. I'll also be teaching some--or all, not really sure yet how it's going to work out--how to read music. They teach the solfege system here, not the actual notes. Weird, huh?My parents came and visited a few weeks ago. It was sooo good to see them! We had fun:) I took them to the symphony, shopping dowtown, Volcan Irazu, Cartago, and the wood factory near the airport, Sr. y Sra. Ese (Mr. and Mrs. That). And church of course:).

at the orphanage site

the Tatum's house: it's coming along!

Dad, me and Mom at Volcan Irazu

Me and mom at the second highest point in Costa Rica. We were higher than the clouds!

Main Crater, Volan Irazu

While we were in Cartago, we went to see the Basilica de la Virgen de las Angeles. It's a beautiful church, absolutely stunning as you can see in the pictures. However, the emphasis of worship is given to Mary, not God, Jesus, or even petitioning the saints, but solely to Mary.

Part of this is because, in all actuality, the culture is matriarchal. I really felt I was in a pagan temple. Everything felt so very wrong. They even have Holy Water where the rock is where the appearance of Mary is said to have been in 1675 and people bath in it and take it home for healing, etc! It was very bizarre.

It also made me realize something: people always ask me what my mission is in particular down here with the children and I've always been a little stumped since the majority of the population (and I mean the very large majority) is religious--Christian or Catholic. Well, when Will came over to visit with my parents, he said something about this and I realized that part of what my mission is here is to be an example of what it means to be a practicing Christian. Since many of our students are Catholic, they do not know about God's love or Jesus' sacrifice so we don't have to crawl on our knees to the Basilica each August. They don't know we are free. And the ones who are Christians (they differentiate between Catholics and Christians) struggle in this Catholic culture. They have to turn completely away from anything that slightly resembles Catholicism to practice Christianity. So here I am: a Christian, gringa missionary loving children through Christ and sharing his Grace.

After my parents left, I went to Guanacaste for a week with two families (and Meredith!) to help babysit in exchange for staying for free. And it was totally awesome!!! We had these houses that were surrounded by vegetation, so you felt like you were in the jungle (monkeys included!) and then we were practically right on the beach, so you could just see the ocean through the trees and hear the pounding of the waves. It was like you were on a deserted island all by yourself. I was in paradise--literally and figuratively! And while I got a bad sunburn, it never really peeled, so I ended up with a decent tan!

monkey!

this is the natural color of the crab, and yes, he's alive!

bright blue fishies in the tide pool!

I was invited over to Andrea's house the other week. She's the teacher I assist at the colegio. So I ended up spending the afternoon and evening with her and her husband. It was really fun! Since Ticos are so relationship-oriented, it's an honor when you're invited over for coffee and what-not. And she says her parents want to invite me over for a Tico dinner! I'm sooo excited!

My spanish tutoring is going very well. Graziella is a fabulous teacher! And a wonderful friend on top of it, too. It's just fun:)

I also got to see Billy Abraham! He and a collegue of his came down to give some lectures for a week at the Methodist Seminary. I was able to go one day and got to visit with him. I hadn't seen him in almost 10 years! He hasn't changed a bit:) but given his reaction, I must have;). It was really fun to listen to what they were saying and especially watch him and Paul debate:).

typo??? (traigo)
on the way to hear Billy

I met our new interns last night! We have 3 boys and a girl that have arrived to work this summer with Ray and the work teams who come down. They seem like a great bunch of helpful people and I can't wait to see what they do! It also made me excited for this summer and to see and experience all the fun things that are going to happen. Keep them in your prayers!

Paz