Saying Goodbye Stinks

I always dread leaving. Sometimes I'm leaving to head out of town...sometimes it's Derek...sometimes it's my kids going to Florida Nanny and Papa's. It's just hard to say good-bye. Why is it that when you travel, the good-byes are harder? Honestly, maybe I should live every day as if it's my last. What if I hugged and kissed every day like it might be my last?

I'm always amazed at how quickly and deeply I love children in other countries. It's not me. It's not in me. My life is full. I don't feel like I have that much more love to give. It's all God. Somehow He expands my heart just a little every trip and one child or two takes a corner of my heart. I come home and think about them, dream about them and pray that God works miracles on their behalf. It can't be explained, but if you've ever gone on a mission trip, I think you can understand.

And so...the good-byes in Costa Rica did not come easy. We had to say good-bye on two separate days to two different groups of kids. It was crushing. And then I spent all my time with this group of 10 people for a week and they became like family. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together. We laughed and cried together and we did God's work together. That's what united our hearts...God and His work.





And so saying goodbye stinks. First I said goodbye to a sweet baby Jennifer and Alexis. I cried. Then I said good-bye to Carolina and baby Fernando and sweet Keoshina. I cried. Then I said good-bye to our Costa Rican friends and then to our teammates. And finally to the three Thompson Station girls. I woke up the next day lonely...wishing to see Tiff and Carrie and Maria. And Wednesday morning I will say good-bye again...to my parents, to my dear husband and to my sweet kiddos. And the cycle will only repeat itself when I leave Ethiopia. And so, I'll say it again, saying good-bye stinks...but may the Lord's will be done even though it hurts to say good-bye.

A Captured Heart

It happens every trip. One child or several grab my heart and it just crumbles. It was definitely Joel in Africa. I still think about Joel and pray that God does a mighty work in his life.

In Costa Rica, there were two...sweet Keoshina and Alexis. It looks like Keoshina will probably be reunited with her mother soon. I hope that her mother pulls it together and offers Keoshina a stable home. It must be so hard on these children to be bounced from place to place.

Alexis is a 16 year old boy who is blind. I think he's been blind since birth, but I'm not sure. He's smart as can be and he is happy and laughs so much.

The day we went to the beach he was sitting on the beach all alone playing with some sand toys. I went and sat with him and he started rattling some stuff off in Spanish (rattling is an understatement). I said, "no hablo espanol". He giggled. Five minutes later we had the same exchange. He was trying to figure out all the sand toys. I was able to show him with our hands what the sifter did, but of course I didn't know the Spanish word for ship since I don't speak ANY Spanish. He kept feeling it and trying to figure it out. I finally said, "un momento" and ran and asked our translator for the Spanish word for ship. I came back and told him, he giggled. Then he rattled something off in Spanish and I said, "no hablo espanol". And he laughed again. When I told this story when I got home, Stephen said, It's kind of funny that you were telling him in Spanish that you didn't speak Spanish. Good point!



Alexis could manuever around that house in amazing ways and he could sense when people were beside him. At one point when we were saying goodbye, he walked up to Jennifer in the high chair (I still don't know how he knew she was there) and started talking to her and playing with her. We had given them all beanie babies right before we left. I gave Alexis a lion. I just kept thinking "be strong and courageous" and to me a lion represents that. Alexis is kind and loving and funny and has an incredible personality. And yet he probably has very little future in Costa Rica. This is an opportunity for another "but God" story. May God take what Satan meant for evil and turn it into something good that brings God glory. I pray this for Alexis' life. I can't wait to hug his neck again someday and this time I hope to actually know a little Spanish. :-)

What Was I Thinking?

We talked Mary into going white water rafting. I was excited to go until I heard the "safety talk", then I was scared. Seriously...there was a pit in my stomach with all the possibilities of what might happen and where to grab the safety rope and how and what it means to "get down" or "lean in" or "right forward, left back" or "left forward, right back". My head was about to explode with all the details, but it was too late. We were there. Get a life jacket and a helmet...no one's staying behind.

And so, off we went and to our great surprise, no one fell out of our boat. The rapids were class 1 to 4 if that means anything to you.

Tiffany was our captain, but she could rarely hear or understand the commands. This wasn't Tiffany's fault. The river was loud and our guide didn't believe in yelling and even when he did, I wasn't sure half the time if he said "lean in" or "get down". This was comic relief for all of us. Mary was always involved in a conversation with our guide about the wildlife or the indigenous people and would not hear the commands either...even though she was sitting right by the guide. He would say, "Maria, forward". This was also comic relief.

I had my foot jammed under the seat so that I wouldn't fly out of the boat. The water felt cold and the sun wasn't shining. How my legs got sun burnt, I'll never know. Carrie was probably the most confident and the best of all of us...she has some great arm strength gained by wrangling some animals on her vet calls.

Enjoy the pics! It was a great way to end our trip! The whole team was a blast. We laughed so hard each and every day!

This was either "get down" or "lean in"...not sure which one. :-)

Where's Mary?

My travel companions were wonderful. They made me laugh and we cried together. Mary is fluent in Spanish...the rest of us...not so much. So, we said at least 50 times during the trip, "Where's Mary?" (even in this picture, one of the three of us asked the question as someone was taking the picture). 99% of the time we were asking, she was off ministering to someone...getting their story and sharing her heart. It was wonderful. That's what we went to do. The call was to "visit orphans", but Mary found all kinds of ministry opportunities. The owner of the hotel, the night guard at the hotel, the man in the city who knew her name because she forgot to take off her nametag, the woman at the skate park who was experiencing incredibly difficult relationship problems, the store owner as we were trying to quickly shop for souveneirs...Mary was always there. She was in the midst of the people...in the midst of the hurt, sharing God's love. As a friend, oh I am so proud of her. I know that the Lord is smiling at her obedience. She gave everything she had to give when she went to Costa Rica. She poured out all that she had to offer. That's why we found her this house. We offered to pack up Mike and the kids and send them down, because Mary is at home in this country.


The trip would not have been the same without Mary. She made us laugh all the time just because she was so comfortable there. Every time we said, "Where's Mary?", we would just giggle like little school girls. By the end of the trip, the whole team was saying, "Where's Mary?" and laughing because we knew exactly where she was....she was listening to someone's story. She was being the hands and feet of Christ and doing it well!

If I Could I Would

This is the one I would bring home. Her story is sad. She has had a hard life...not as hard as some, but too hard for a seven year old. Her mother is a drug addict. I don't know anything about a father so I assume he is not involved. I would imagine she has some trauma in her life because she spent part of each day crying on the couch...but no one, no matter what...could get her to talk or share her story. It would pass and she would be a happy little girl with an incredible laugh and smile.

It's amazing how quickly a child can capture your heart. There's Joel and John in Africa and Keoshina and Jennifer in Costa Rica. This is Keoshina. Isn't she absolutely gorgeous?

Bumps

That sums up today.

We have bumps from bug bites (lots of them).

Bumps in the road. There are major potholes (Tiff says they are autobus caves) in Costa Rica. And just for the record when you're in the back of the bus and the driver is going 50 miles an hour and hitting a bump every minute....the ride is beyond rough. We are flying around in the seats. I have all kinds of bruises on my legs and knees to prove it. It's great memories though...so we're thankful for the memories.

And the biggest bump of today was having to say goodbye to a very sweet group of children that have stolen our hearts. We cried as we hugged their necks and got on the bus. It's amazing how quickly you can become attached.



Then you leave and the bump on our soul is forever there. We came to change lives for God's glory, but we quickly realized that we would be the ones whose lives would be forever changed. Costa Rica and two orphanages in the port city of Limon will forever be part of our God story.

And here's the reason they don't have mirrors in Costa Rica....we're looking kind of rough.

There may be a reason they don't have mirrors

Well...Ashley wins the prize for reading this before we even wrote anything (thanks for the comment :-). We are experiencing techincal difficulties in Costa Rica, so now we're adding the full story.

There are very few mirrors in hotel rooms in other countries. I remembered this once we arrived in our hotel room in Costa Rica and there was one mirror in the bathroom and four girls in the room. Not a good set-up. I said to my travel friends, "I should've reminded you to bring a hand held mirror". But we survived with one mirror and one handheld mirror.

So we returned from a hot and rainy day at the orphanage yesterday. We all looked horrible to say the least. Mary came out of the room as we headed to dinner and said, "There may be a reason they don't have mirrors". Classic comment....I knew it was a blog post.

I don't have a picture of us all looking horrible...terribly affected by humidity, heat and active play with children. So here's a fun little picture from a crazy game we played. (Doesn't Tiff look great with springy curls?)

A Day of Adventure in CR

Our hotel in San Jose had a beautiful view. It was hot and sunny in San Jose. We drove through the rain forest to get to Limon. It rained all day, so that was kind of sad because we didn't get to play outside with the children. The orphanage was small and the space was tight, but we still had a great day.

Our guide Brian is wonderful and we are learning so much about Costa Rican history and their beautiful landscape.

We are waiting for our dinner right now and we are eating chewy potato chips because the humidity is so high here. Everything is getting soggy including all our snacks. It's just part of the adventure.



We've had an adventure filled day. Our driver left the lights on and we had to push the bus. Then because of all the rain, part of the road was washed out so we had to wait for them to fill the road with broken tree trunk and tree branches. Fun times!

Pura Vida (pure life)! It's the phrase Costa Ricans use all the time.

I Should've Learned Some Spanish

We arrived in Costa Rica on time. Our guide is wonderful and knows so much about Costa Rica. He has lived here for 13 years. We will be doing ministry, but also getting educated about Costa Rica. (smiles) He already shared too much information about bats, scorpions, 200 species of snakes and large spiders.

Tiffany and Carrie had a very large spider welcome in their shower...just one spider, but he was quite large. I quickly exited their room.

We will leave the capital city tomorrow and drive to the orphanage (about 4 hours). Pray that we find favor with the community and the orphanage workers.

We quickly stopped at a Target to buy bananagrams because I forgot mine (Hanks...I'm practicing for the Africa trip :-) and we saw three teenagers being handcuffed and put into a police car. That was the craziest thing about the day...unless you know JC from the Africa trip. He always adds some excitement and craziness to each day.

Love to all!