Safely Here

Thank the Lord, we made it to Costa Rica safely. After a trip that started out from home at 12:15 A.M., we and our 16 pieces of luggage (not counting our carry-ons) made it to our apartment around 3:30 in the afternoon, Dec. 30. However, when we finally made it to our new home, it was not quite what we expected. It was definitely livable, but we decided to look around a little just to see if we could happen to find anything that we liked better for less rent. That was a tall order for the spur of the moment, but to make a long story short, God worked out a lot of details in a very short time. There was another missionary family coming in on Jan. 1 who needed a place to stay, and they were very grateful to get our first apartment, and we found a smaller one that we liked better and was a little cheaper. The only problem was, we had already started unpacking, so we had to repack and move all of our stuff to our new apartment about five blocks away.

Carmen and Rolando, the young pastoral family at our main church, had invited us to spend new year's eve with them. So the evening after we arrived, we road three busses to get to their house to spend the night. We all stayed up until after midnight, and man do the Ticos (Costa Ricans) ever celebrate. It sounded like a war zone outside, with huge explosions from firecrackers right outside our windows, music blaring, people banging on drums, and kids yelling. The commotion went on for several hours, but after some delicious shish kabobs prepared by Rolando, we actually had a good nights sleep. The following morning we had a nice little celebration for Devin's birthday, which was on Dec. 30th.

We are still trying to get settled in before language school orientation, which begins on Jan. 5th. So far we don't have a very reliable internet connection, but I will try to keep posting as much as possible.

Missy and I would like to say a great big thanks to each of you who were praying for our trip down. All of our boxes made it safely, and the only thing that got dammaged was one picture. That is a small miracle in itself. The move has been hard, but God has been good.