Picture Book

 Here is a little bit of Costa Rica via photographs...

One of the views on my walk to work. The mountains here are massive and green.

Kevin, Allsion and I at language school. Brad was in his own advanced class. We learned a lot and got eaten alive by little black bugs.

Kevin, Brad, Allison and I eating lunch at a local restaurant. Many restaurants are open air so that the breeze can blow through. Unfortunately, this restaurant didn't feed us enough, so for dessert we ate the lemondade limes with sugar. They were surprisingly delicious.

Pop often comes in glass bottles, which makes it more fun to drink. Here we have Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Canada Dry. Also, things here are made with sugar instead of corn syrup, so they taste a little different than in the States.

The coffee here is very good. Atenas, the town I'm living in, exists because it was a coffee trading post. There is a coffee proccessing plant here. This picture is of coffee beans drying in the sun at that plant.

We spent a week's worth of afternoons building this cabinet and a bookcase at Residencia de Vida (Residence of Life). Residencia de Vida will be a home for some orphans who have slim chances of ever being adopted. Sheri, who wants to adopt these children, needed locking cabinets for medicine in order to be approved to offically open Residencia de Vida.

Below is a series of pictures of my host brother, Emanuel, playing in the spray of a hose. I just thought they were cool pictures.

Our church had a baptism and family day at a camp outside of town. This is our pastor Jeremy (At least that is how you say it. It is spelled a lot differently in Spanish.) baptizing one of the jóvenes, Cristian. 

Okay, this picture is actually of Honduras, not Costa Rica. One striking difference was that here in Costa Rica most roads are paved, but in Danli, Honduras, only the main roads are paved.

Sobre Honduras

There is so much to tell about this trip. In overview, an emi project team is made up of design professionals, 12 of them on this trip. We had a landscape architect, architect, water/wastewater engineer, civil engineer, structural engineer, alternative energy engineer (which can be important for isolated sites), electrical engineer, and surveyors. 

Tim (in orange) is the project leader and is on staff here in the C.R. office. Allison and I (standing next to eachother) are the two interns. Kneeling in front is the Muñoz family.

We went to the site early in the week, then to construction sites and hardware stores to familiarize ourselves with the materials and methods used in the area. The rest of the week most of us sat at our laptops architecting and engineering. 

We are designing two houses for the first phase of the project. One house is for the Muñoz family and will include guest rooms that can house mission teams. These rooms will only be used for mission teams until the other building, a house/dorm for mission teams, is built. Electrical, water, wastewater, grading, and drainage will also be designed for the site.

       Testimonies have always been one of my favorite things. Testimonies stick with me more than most sermons. Every morning we would hear the testimonies of 3 team members. I was inspired by these middle class design professionals, who are in the middle of their career and life, and who desperately want to serve God well. However, the highlight of my trip was hearing the testimony of Jeovanny, who works with the Muñoz family. Allison and I had been practicing Spanish with him during the week. He spoke about the same amount of English as we speak Spanish. So we made a deal that he had to speak English to us and we had to speak Spanish to him. This helped my Spanish a lot; I wasn´t afraid to speak to him because he knew what it was like to not really know a language. I also realized that in language it isn’t necessary to say something exactly correct in order to get your point across. Kind of obvious, I know, but as a perfectionist I was struggling to say anything if I didn’t think I was saying it correctly. Anyway, getting back to my story, we asked Jeovanny to share his testimony in English during a long van ride. He grew up going to a catholic church with his grandparents, but remembers thinking that he did not need God. By 15 years old he was staying out late, smoking, and drinking (in this culture Christians shun smoking and drinking more than in the USA). One of his friends invited him to a Christian church, and as he attended with his friend, God started working on his heart through His word. One night he dreamt that he had accepted Christ. When he woke up he thought, “that would be a lot better in reality.” So he accepted Jesus that day. He got married at 20 to one of his teachers who was 7 years his senior. They had a beautiful son, but he had problems with his stomach. He was often sick and was in the hospital often. He died at 8 months old on the way to the hospital. Two years later, Jeovanny’s wife was sick also and died in the hospital. That was two years ago, when he was 27. Jeovanny told us that before these things happened he would go to church and read his bible, but it wasn’t really part of him. Since then his love for God has grown and he has a strong desire to serve Him. That is why he joined the Muñoz’s ministry a little over a year ago. His smile contains so much joy. Then Allison and I shared our testimonies with him in Spanish. Praise God for the unity He gives His children! Culture and language difference didn’t stop us from sharing how the same loving God had worked in each of our lives. 

Me, Allison, and Jeovanny in the front of the 13 passenger van. (Yes, Jeovanny was driving)