When I was a kid growing up in the United States, one of the things we could count on all the time was the chance to watch The Wizard of Oz when it came on TV. It happened every year. I don´t remember when or what channel, but I remember sitting with my family and watching Dorothy and Toto making friend with the scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion as they all made their way to Oz. Of all the lines in the movie, I think I had a favorite one. It was when Dorothy held Toto in her arms and said with big eyes, “I don´t think we´re in Kansas anymore!”

Those are words we´ve used off and on here in Costa Rica. Although there are a lot of similarities between the United States and Costa Rice, there are some major differences. Let me give you an example: cutting grass. The city has the responsibility to cut the grass in the parks. They do it occasionally and it doesn´t stay well groomed for very long, but looking at how things are done, it is understandable. The city hires a group of men armed with weed whips (and maybe a push mower) to descend on the park in order to make it look nice. What would take a few hours in the states by one person on a big riding mower, takes a day or two here. They do a decent job, and we enjoy running through the trimmed lawns for a few weeks.

Some people have small patches of grass in front (jardin) or in back (patio) of their houses. We are one of the fortunate ones with this type of green space, and so every once in a while we get a knock at the gate as a man and boy (we´ve never seen a woman doing this) with a rake and weed whip tied to his bicycle. He tries to negotiate a good price (good for him, would be the best scenario, he thinks). If we agree on a price, we open the gate, he enters and cuts the grass.

Some people though, cannot afford to buy a weed whip, a rake or a bicycle. They come around simply carrying a machete (you know, one of those long knifes Indiana Jones used to cut a path through the jungles). That is what they use to cut the grass, the trees, and trip the bushes (it´s an all purpose tool).

It´s pretty common to see machetes in the hands of scruffy workmen and boys as young as five or six years old. Not everybody carries one, but we do see them. I still shake my head and laugh when we walk our kids to school and right outside the gate of the school is a man cutting the grass or trimming the trees by whacking away with his machete. No one hardly gives him a second glance. It´s a part of life, and the job needs to be done. (I told you we aren´t in Kansas anymore.)

We don´t always see them hard at work, though. Sometimes we see a man sitting on the sidewalk or in the park with his machete in one hand and a whetstone in the other. He is sharpening the blade. He has to do this every once in a while if he is going to be effective in his work. If it were dull, the grass wouldn´t cut very easily and be left ragged and ugly and uneven. People wouldn´t really want him to come back. While he´s sitting there, he´s getting ready to work…

…but wait, he is working. This preparation and sharpening is a part of his job. It´s important. We were reminded of this the other day.

There are a lot of times for us here at language school to look forward to what will happen when we get to the mission field…when we get to Perú. We can´t wait to be able to finally get to work. But the truth is, we don´t have to wait. What we are doing right now is work. It is ministry. While we are sitting in class and doing homework and conjugating verbs and learning new bits and pieces of grammar and making mistakes and trying again, we are sharpening the blade. If we get to Perú and can´t effectively speak the language, we will be about as useful as a gardener´s rusty machete.

Today in chapel at the school we had a service of prayer.  This is the second time this trimester that I´ve had the opportunity to lead a service like this, and it is always such a blessing.  It didn´t start out that way, though.  I didn´t have all the things I needed to start with, so the time for planning was rough and up to the last minute.  In addition, I´d remembered, but clear in the back of my mind, that the teachers would be there in the service as well, and that a number of them don´t speak much English, entonces tuve que traducir todos que dije en español (I had to translate everything I said into Spanish…on the spot).  Afterwards the director of the school came up and told me I got a 250.  “Not 100%,” she said, “a 250 for doing that in front of the chapel.”  I have to say, that felt good! 

Before the service, I asked for prayers for my estress (stress) this morning.  I felt those prayers and feel humbled by them.  One person came to me after the service and said if there is anything he and his wife could do to help out like watching kids, cooking meals, etc., they´d be happy to help out.  What a blessing!

Speaking of blessings, Aylis´ took this video of Soraya (or Sori — pronounced soo´ree — as the people in the church call her.  She is really growing up and trying new things. 

 Be blessed in all you do.

This past weekend we had a chance to get out of the city when we went camping on the beach (okay, near the beach) with our church here.  It was a great chance for us to get to know one another better, to practice our Spanish, and to learn more about the culture here.  It worked out well for us becuase we had no school on Friday so we could be gone for three days and two nights.  Meeting the bus at 2 am (that´s early wherever you live), we were excited at the week ahead of us.  What we didn´t expect was the montón de las maletas (the huge stack of bags) that we had to load on top of the bus along with tents, pots, pans, cooking stoves, sleeping bags and so on.  By the time it was loaded, two hours had passed.  The ferry we had hoped to catch would leave without us, but, no problem, there would be others. 

We reached the beach by about 10 that morning, pounded stakes into the rock hard ground (breaking a number of them in the process) and erected the tent.  The wind off the beach (just across a small dirt road) was strong and kept threatening to blow the end of the tent down (where´s the big, bad wolf when you need him?) until we uprooted the stakes and rotated the tent. 

As the week went on, the wind died down until when we left Sunday afternoon there were hardly any waves on the water.  We ate a lot of beans and rice and rice and tuna and rice and… (I think you get the picture), but it was worth it.  My tutor even told me on Monday that my pronunciation was so much better than it normally is on Mondays!  I´m even feeling more confident in my Spanish today as well.

In all we took more than five hundred pictures (digital cameras are great, aren´t they).  I asked the kids to narrow them down to about 50 that would show our weekend.  To see what they chose, click on the picture. 

Be blessed in who you are and where you go.

Being in language school offers its own challenges.  One of the biggest concerning the blog right now is what do I write.  My goal is to add something every few days, but obviously this hasn´t happened lately.  The problem is what do I write:  We conjugated verbs today again (I am, you are, he is, she is, we are, y´all are, they are…)?  We had a grammar test?  We talked a lot today?  All these things are true, but to be honest a bit boring to write about.  Another challenge is simple exhaustion.  It is hard work learning a langauge! 

Yet another challenge of langauge school is not overloading our plates.  We are here to learn Spanish, but there are so many different opportunities to practice our Spanish in the name of doing ministry.  Audra and I are both on the Student Council (Audra as the elementary and high school representative and me as chaplain for the student body).  We have chapel services twice a week (not mandatory, but good to be there).  There are tons of people in the community who don´t know Christ as their Lord and Savior.   Trying to keep a balance is important.

We are limiting what we do and are involved in two ministries currently.  One is a carryover from last year.  We meet with a group of kids every other Saturday (here they say “every 15 days”) to share a lesson about God´s love, to play games with them (all in Español, of course), and to break bread together.  It´s a lot of fun and doors are being opened.

The other ministry started last night: Audra and I will be teaching English to Spanish speakers.  This will only last about nine weeks, but it´ll be good for us to get to know more people from the community and to share God´s love through learning a langauge.  This will also give us some skills to use in Peru as well (our history of teaching German doesn´t hurt at all, either!)

Anyway, we are still here and we still love you.  If you´ve tried to call or e-mail and we haven´t been available, we are sorry.  We´ll try to do better.

Be blessed in who you are and in all you do.