miedo o creencia (fear or belief)

In just a few short days, God gave us 3 great opportunities to choose trust over fear. Last week the San Jose news ran a program about a park in our city that has been taken over by a Chinese gang. The police gave public notice that they leave the park between the hours of 10 at night and 5 in the morning because they are afraid of the gangs that deal drugs and sell arms in the park. This park is 3 blocks from our front door and we walk through it every morning on our way to school. Will we choose to fear or believe? A few days later we flew to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to visit the church where we will be serving after language school. When we arrived and were greeted by the pastor of the church, he informed us that a woman from the church had just been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. Unfortunately, this has happened several times this year because the people at the church are fairly affluent. Will I choose to panic or trust as I follow God to the place He wants us to serve? The night that we returned from Honduras, our city was without power because someone STOLE one of the main power lines. (The copper inside the power line is worth a lot of money.) So we lit some candles, grabbed flashlights and sang songs and told stories to Reagan. A few hours later the power returned. At about 9:30 we heard some strange sounds and some loud thumps on our roof. There was an intruder on our roof. Mark grabbed our huge maglight, yelled in Spanish for the thief to leave and called our guard. The guard checked our roof to make sure the intruder had left, and we thanked God for protecting us from the person who was trying to take advantage of the dark to rob a house. Will we choose to believe or fear? When my heart starts thumping quickly or I let my imagination go places which are not helpful, will I ask the Spirit to take control of my mind, heart and emotions? It's a daily battle, but the only thing I fear more is not following God where He wants me to go. When I choose worry over belief, I am telling God that I don't think He is big enough for my problem. Don't worry. We're living wisely. We asked our landlord to put barbed wire on our fence. We hide valuable belongings in the house every time we leave. We hold Reagan's hand on the street; and we walk in the park during safe hours. But I don't trust in the fence or barbed wire. I trust in a good, powerful, loving and wise God who has my best in mind. Not only has He promised to protect me, He has also promised that He is big enough to take me through whatever circumstances He places in my life. God, please help me to have the strength to live this out.

Tegucigalpa

We spent four days in Tegucigalpa visiting the church where we will be serving after finishing language school here in Costa Rica. We have visited one time before, this past December. Almost a year has gone by, but we were able to connect with many of the same people and also were able to see the progress that is happening as God does amazing things among the Honduran people. While in Tegus, we were able to see the beginning construction of the new church site, attend a parenting class, participate in 3 church services, enjoy a 25th anniversary dinner for Norberto and Patty, and engage in many wonderful conversations, most of which were in Spanish. Mark played keys with the worship team for the church services. We were touched when Norberto prayed for us during the service, that God would give us grace to learn Spanish as we prepare to join Impact Church in Honduras in August. Below is a photo of Teto and his wife Dania. Teto is graduating from the church planting school and will be ordained as a pastor this summer. There is also a picture of us with Keith and Dawn Moore who started Iglesia Impacto 9 years ago. Reagan enjoyed pretending to be Bob the Builder at the church nursery.

Mud Slides

We can now add mud slides to the list of natural disasters that we have experienced in the various cities we have lived in. It has been a tragic day in San Jose as 30 homes have been buried in mud slides due to incredibly heavy rain. Sadly, more than 30 Costa Ricans lost their lives and more are still missing. One of the mud slides was only 4 miles from our home. The entire city of San Jose was without water because the mud slides broke some of the water mains. And our house was without power for 3 days. It changes life a lot when you don't have a few of the basics of life. But we were very impressed with the organization in San Jose as workers and rescue personnel restored power and water supply with great efficiency.

Change of Scenery

We don't have a car here in Costa Rica, and I can only walk about 3 miles a day with my 6 month pregnant tummy, so we end up living our lives almost exclusively in a range of about 4 square miles. After two months of walking the barbed wired and graffiti lined streets of San Jose, we were ready to see this beautiful country where we now live. So we and some other students from El Instituto de Lengua Espanol, packed our bags for a 3 day weekend at the beach. We took a bus ride to Tortugero on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. On the way we stopped to see a banana plantatione, and we walked through a butterfly garden. If you watch the video below, you will see how a 2 year old boy reacts to a butterfly landing on his hand. We also saw huge fields of pineapples. (I guess that ends my belief that pineapples grow on trees.) After the 3 hour bus ride, we rode a boat for another hour to get to our hotel. And throughout the weekend, we were able to see many animals, including a sloth, a crocodile and a spider monkey who jumped across the river above our boat with a baby monkey on her back. It was amazing to see her swing from tree to tree. Reagan loved running in and out of the waves on the beach. It was also the time of year when the huge sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand. We didn't stay up all night waiting to see the mammoth turtles dig their nests, but we saw their tracks on the beach in the morning. They were so big that it looked like a four wheeler had driven on the beach. And we did get to see some of the baby turtles crawl down to the ocean. It was a refreshing break from our studies, and we enjoyed seeing this incredibly beautiful country.

Past Provision

After being in Costa Rica for 2 months, we are reminded of many acts of provision by God, through many people in order to make a way for us to come study Spanish for full-time missionary work. I'll recall a few of the financial instances to help us continue to trust in God's mighty hand which is ready to give perfect gifts to His children. As we wait on God to sell our house in Houston and provide for Monica and the baby even without health insurance, we need to recall the incredible ways he has provided in the past.

-My Subaru Forester sold on Craig's List in 2 hours.

-A judge at our church drew up our will probono.

-An oral surgeon who we had never met before gave us a 50% discount when he removed Mark's wisdom teeth. He then sent Mark home with a $100 gift certificate with instructions to "eat some good American food before we leave the country."

-During Mark's three months of unemployment, we paid every bill on time. God took us down to $100 in checking and $100 in savings, but the finances were always there when the checks needed to be written. The accounting never added up to what we needed, but then again, God invented math. I guess he can go above it's natural laws.

-Three days before we left the United States, a couple was visiting our church, "accidentally" found their way into our sunday school room, heard that we needed to sell our vehical, and bought our car for $3,000 above what we were asking.

-While traveling through the US and sharing our vision for God's work in Honduras, we passed through Albuquerque. The aunt of one of our friends offered to let us stay with her at her house. When she realized she would be out of town when we planned to pass through, she insisted on reserving a hotel for us since she wouldn't be there to welcome us personally to her house. We have never met her, but were blessed by her love and generosity.

The week before we moved to San Jose, our pastor said something that stuck in my head. "If everything in your life is explainable with human logic, you may not be living by faith." It's our rich pleasure to watch God use creative ways to keep us trusting and depending on Him. There's no place we would rather be.

Disasters?

In Nebraska we hid in the basement for countless hours of tornado warnings. In Arizona we fled from dust storms. In Houston we lived for 2 weeks without power after Hurricane Ike. And now we can add an earthquake to the list of natural phenomenon that we have had the pleasure of experiencing. The quake that we felt at our house in San Jose was a 5.9, strong enough to shake the windows and walls, but nothing dangerous. I think God has decided to make sure that we get to live in enough different places to get a small taste of every different kind of natural disaster. Let's see, what's left? tsunami?

Costa Rican Independence Day

Today we celebrated the Independence of Costa Rica. Our school held a special assembly to sing national hymns, hear stories of the national history and see a flag presentation. To celebrate, Reagan marched in a parade around our small campus with the other kids at the preschool and his teacher, Hulda. I felt especially patriotic because inside me is a baby who will be a Costa Rican citizen. This is his or her country of origin. Praise God for this special country.

New People

We are meeting wonderful new people here in San Jose. Of course we are making friends with the other north americans who are at the language school to study, but we are particularly excited about our new tico friends.

Aida and Elsie, our next door neighbors are two very sweet ladies. They are a mother and daughter age 60 and 92. They invited us to their house for cafesito, which included coffee, tea, pasteries and little sandwiches. They were very patient as they spoke slowly in Spanish to get to know us. Apparently, we are the fourth family of language school students who have rented this house, so they have befriended the other families and helped them to progress in Spanish. They told us that the difference between Catholics and Christians is that the Catholics believe in Mary and God, and Christians believe in Jesus Christ. We hope to further than conversation in the future.

Rosa is a Costa Rican friend who is helping me learn to cook some new foods. She's made gayo-pinto (a delicious meal of rice and black beans with cilantro), pollo con tomate (chicken with a spicy, tomatoe, chile sauce), guacamole and fried plantains. She is showing me the tico way of life and helps us practice Spanish even though she gets excited and talks way too fast.

Fernando is a driver who works with people from the language institute to transport their massive amounts of luggage from the airport. We mentioned to him that we had heard that only Costa Rican citizens are allowed to have cell phones since the government has a monopoly on the phone services. He confirmed this, but told us that he used to work for the telephone company. We told him that we were wanting a cell phone for emergencies and especially to get a hold of each other when the baby comes. Two days later he came over to our house with a brand new cell phone. He had waited in a long line and put a cell phone in his name so that we could use it while we live here. What a blessing.

Just today, Mark was making an emergency run to the convenience store for diapers and met the Russian store owner, Alexander. He was showing Mark the scars and bullet holes on his arm, and told him that he has killed three thieves who were trying to rob his store. He said that our neighborhood is safe now because other hoodlums have heard what happens to vandals in our neighborhood. We're not sold on that story, but anyway, conversation ensued. In Spanish Mark told him that the problem is the same in north America, Costa Rica, Russia and all over the world. We all have wicked hearts that need forgiveness from God. Mark was informed that the god of Russia is vodka, but he would like to eat a meal with Mark and talk more. Wait, what country did we move to? We didn't expect to live as US citizens in Costa Rica and share the gospel with a Russian in Spanish. What a multi-cultural experience. Praise God for all these colorful people.

New experiences

We're relearning the basic functions of life. We don't want to transfer our north american ways to a new place. Instead we want to learn to do things the Costa Rican way. We're trying to learn from our neighbors and other locals we bump into so that we learn to live like Ticos.

Some new experiences have come our way as a result. We don't have a car, so learning to get around on public transportation is paramount. We're learning how to walk safely on the streets, constantly dodging the cars which DO NOT yield to baby strollers or pregnant women.

For instance, I crossed a major hurdle earlier this week when I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time. The process starts with a half mile walk in the rain on streets that have no shoulder and then slope off into a deep trench. Once in the store, I use my fledgling Spanish to try to read labels and ask attendants for help. The prices are very high, so I usually about die as I hand over my debit card. To get home, I load my arms with all my bags and scurry across a busy street so that I can hail a cab going in the right direction. Once inside I try to give directions to my home in Spanish and fumble in my purse to find the right coins of colones to pay the driver. It's an adventure.

Yesterday I took the bus with a friend to do some shopping at Office Depot across town. The bus was incredibly crowded. Before any new people could get on the bus, some had to exit the back of the bus. Then we all inched back in the aisle to add the new people in front. Each stop was a new shuffle with my pregnant belly bumping people. The whole time we were trying to stay aware of who we were touching to make sure we weren't being pick pocketed.

La Paz

We took a day-trip about 2 hours out of San Jose to the La Paz Waterfall. Mark's brother, Tom, was in town, and we wanted to explore part of this beautiful country with him. The state park surrounding the waterfall has a humming-bird area, a butterfly garden and aviary. We tried our first cup of hot sugar-cane milk. Wow, I could drink that every night before bed and sleep with sweet dreams.

It poured rain all three hours that we were at the park, but our ponchos worked great, and Reagan loved splashing in the puddles. On the trail, he loved being in his "tent." Really, it's a hiking pack with a rain canopy.

Vosses move to Costa Rica

We first heard the word, "Honduras" 9 months ago. Since then God put into action a whirlwind of circumstances which led to our decision to follow God to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to work as church-planters. Mark will be a pastoral intern at Impact Church. He will also be simultaneously completing and teaching their church planting seminary. In other words, he will take a courses one semester, then teach those courses the following semester while taking new courses. The church was started 8 years ago by 3 missionary families, and is now a church of 1000, 500 of which are new believers. Four other daughter churches have also been planted in the past 8 years. Impact Church would like us to be part of a team planting a 5th church within our first 2 years in Tegucigalpa.

All of this background is to explain that 3 weeks ago we moved to Costa Rica for language school. We spent the 3 months prior to our move selling our belongings, filling out endless international paperwork, traveling to say goodbye to friends and family, sharing the vision that God has for Latin America, preparing our house for the market, and selling our automobiles.

The day of our move to Central America was amazing. Mark’s brother, Tom, flew with us and was immensely helpful with our luggage and with setting up technical equipment at our rental house in San Jose. We anticipated huge luggage fees for the 16 bags that we checked, but somehow American Airlines only charged us $400. At immigration in Costa Rica, we arrived to find more than 200 people waiting in line to be processed, but as we walked up to join the queue, an attendant noticed our two year old and waived us into a line with only two people waiting. We didn’t know if we had all our international paperwork correct, but immigration barely glanced at our passports and granted us entrance. We also expected intense scrutiny from the customs official because of some electronic equipment we were bringing to Costa Rica, but the gentleman didn’t open a single bag and charged us no customs fees. We know that these conveniences are insignificant on the scale of God’s great acts of love toward mankind, but we want to acknowledge them as blessings from Him. We know that many of you were praying for us on that day, and want you to know that God used your words on our behalf.

We are attending school four hours a day at el Instituto de Lengua Espanola. It is a school specifically for evangelical missionaries who are preparing to serve in Spanish speaking countries. They have been successfully equipping missionaries with language and culture skills for more than 65 years. The campus is about a mile from our rental house, so we walk a lot each day. There are more than 100 students studying here. Mark is starting as an intermediate student since he began studying Spanish at age five. He is thankful that his Spanish instruction has flooded back into his mind after 20 years of storage. Monica is starting as a novice and is enjoying classes in phonetics, grammar and conversation. Reagan loves his pre-school. His teacher, Hulda, speaks only Spanish, so he is hearing a new language and responding well.

Chicago

While in Chicago, we were able to spend a few short hours with my sister, Jodi, and her family. We were planning on spending a few days together, but our dear grandmother, Irene went home to see Jesus. She was 86 and had been faithfully spreading the gospel to all she met even through her last days in assisted living. She had been a widow for 15 years and was in poor health, so we rejoiced with her as she received her independence from this world on Independence Day. Mark and I were sad not to be able to change our travel plans to go to the funeral. In fact we had been planning on seeing Grandma only 2 short weeks later. As a result, Jodi and her family left Chicago to go to the funeral, shortening our time together in the windy city. But we made the best of our 3 hours together and spent it soaking each other at a splash pad with the kids. It is now week six of our tour around America. We have been in 5 states and have driven more than 5000 miles with a two year old in tow. We have stayed at 11 different houses and 3 different hotels. Reagan has been doing great sleeping in different beds each night. How hard can it be when you have new toys and friends every three days? Mark and I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones. Our trip has been a mixture of saying goodbye to friends and family before we leave the country, while also keeping people up to date on our plans to serve God in foreign missions in Honduras. Many people have responded with enthusiasm and encouragement. We have built two fantastic prayers teams and God is also beginning to bring in gifts to meet our financial need since we are not allowed to earn money over-seas. I believe we are now at about 50% of our monthly needed commitments. Many people have already made plans to come to visit us, and plans are falling in place to move to Costa Rica for language school in 6 weeks. We are so thankful that this trip has been so influential to move us toward service in Honduras.

An afternoon with Grandma

One of my favorite spots in my home town is called "The Sunken Gardens." When the city dug up an old trash dump, it left a pit of fertile soil where they planted a city flower garden. My mom and I took Reagan there to see the flowers. He loved running up and down the paths and spent most of his time trying to touch the fish in the coy pond. The climax of the afternoon was the ride on the steam engine at the zoo.

Highschool Reunion

Mark returned to his 20 year highschool reunion for Lincoln Christian School. The class of 1990 had 25 graduates and 15 of them found their way back to Nebraska for the celebration. It was a great evening of old memories and laughter. Many of the students are still living with Jesus Christ as the focus of their lives and it was a pleasure to catch up with them. It was so nice to see Mark's dad healthy again. While in Lincoln, we connected with many old friends to tell them about the ministry that God is leading us to in Honduras. One night at Mark's parent's house, about a dozen people came over including three of our former teachers. It was special to see Mark's 4th grade teacher, our music teacher and our principle. They represented a long legacy of faithful Christian training that laid part of the ground work in our lives.

Strategic Air Command Museum

My parents took us to SAC Museum near Omaha. They have a fabulous selection of airplanes and displays. Since Reagan shares Mark's love for airplanes, they were both in heaven checking out each bird. Afterwards we climbed the tower at Mahoney State Park, and Reagan climbed all 20 flights of stairs to the platform on top.

Family Fun

While in Lincoln we spent a lot of time with the Voss family. We celebrated Toby's 40th birthday, went to Grammy's swim club, caught lightning bugs and ate lots of Valentinos Pizza.

Colorado Springs

We enjoyed a very special day in Colorado Springs. We were able to spend the night with Mark's Aunt and Uncle who have a long, rich history in International Missions. They were a great source of wisdom and had lots of good advice for us as we enter cross-cultural ministry in Honduras. We were so thankful to be able to listen to them share from their experience. We also went to Manitou Springs where Mark asked me to be his wife almost 12 years ago. We found the little stream that flows through a park and remembered where we were engaged. It was a thrill to be there with Reagan thinking of how our little family began.

Denver

We spent 3 lovely days in Denver with Mark's sister's family. The cousins had a blast playing together and even camped out in the basement together overnight. We rode the train into downtown Denver to go to the Children's Museum. I don't know which was more fun for the kids, the museum or the train ride through the city.

Rocky Mountain National Park

We ended our week in Colorado by visiting dear friends, the Petersons, in Fort Collins. We spent a great evening relaxing in their pool and then eating Christina's fantastic Mexican food. On our way to Fort Collins, Mark rode his bike on an epic road from Lyons to Estes Park. It was a grueling 16 miles uphill, followed by a 4 mile descent into Estes. Reagan and I dropped him off at the bottom of the hill and then spent a leisurely lunch on the veranda of a cafe with a full view of the Rockies. We also took a short hike at Rocky Mountain National Park. Reagan rode on Mark's back on the way down the mountain, then decided he wanted to walk on the way back. He did great, walking nearly a mile up hill at 9,000 feet altitude.

Sunny Arizona

We spent two wonderful weeks in Arizona. Even after living 3 years in Texas, the Valley of the Sun still holds our hearts. As we drove through the cactus, we felt like we were coming home. We spent time with so many treasured friends, catching up on their lives and filling them in on our plans to move to Central America. Our friends are catching the vision for God's work in Honduras, and many are joining us as partners in prayer. Others feel God leading them to join the team with financial gifts, and others plan to encourage us by visiting us. In Phoenix, we stayed 4 days with our friends Mike and Cristina and then we spent a week at Mark's parent's vacation home. My sister, Tonya, and her 7 month daughter, flew in from Montana to be with us for a few memorable days. We were also able to go to Grace Bible Church in Tempe, the church that we helped plant 10 years ago. Not only did we get to hang with those who are near and dear to our heart, we also ate food that is near and dear to our stomachs. We ate at all our old favorites. (And in 9 years of Phoenix living, you collect a lot of favorites.) To name a few, we managed to feast at Nello's Pizza, T.C. Eggingtons, Honey Bears BBQ and Arriba Mexican Grill. Mmmm. Mark chose to combat all of these calories by riding his bike on many of his favorite routes through the desert.