Walking?

Clarissa has chosen her preferred method of mobility: Here's her current version of "walking." (Sorry that the video is sideways.)

According to the Three Year Old

Recently, we have been having very special conversations with our son, Reagan. Last week, he excitedly called me outside to see the stars. We laid in the hammock looking up at the sky and Reagan told me, "I think Jesus is coming down from there." "Yes Reagan," I confirmed, "someday Jesus will come back from the sky to earth again." Puzzled, he asked, "Will there be another Mary and Joseph?" "No, next time Jesus isn't coming back like a baby. He's coming back as our powerful God to get the people who love Him." "Mommy, I love Jesus. I want Him to come down to get me."

When we were at the famous, beautiful catholic basilica here in Tegucigalpa, Reagan asked Mark, "Daddy, why is their Jesus still on the cross? He's not dead. He rose from the grave." Mark explained that, "the people from this church believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but they don't really worship Jesus, they worship his mother." Obviously distressed, Reagan said, "We need to tell them about Jesus."

Upon seeing the huge mormon temple located on the hill behind his preschool, Reagan said, "Mommy, look at that big castle." I said, "Yes, that is a beautiful building, but the people at that church don't believe that Jesus is God." Very concerned and sad, he told me, "We need to tell them more about Jesus."

And today on the way home from school, Reagan said, "Mommy, the guards at our house have guns and they shoot the bad people. They take care of us.....but Jesus takes care of us better.

From the mouths of babes...

Visitors

It has been a pleasure to welcome 4 different sets of visitors to our house in the last 3 months. In October, our boss, Dan Harder, from Grace Pointe Church in Chicago, came by to see how we were settling in our new country. We were very encouraged by his visit.

Over Thanksgiving, Monica's parents came for a few weeks. We were able to show them around Tegucigalpa, and thoroughly enjoyed watching them play with the kids. Reagan reveled in the attention of his grandparents as they played with legos, trains, airplains, swords, ate picnic lunches, did puzzles and read books. Our parents were able to get a good feel of our life here as they attended church activities, met our friends and visited Reagan's pre-school. Randy and LaVon spoiled the kids by taking them to a tiny amusement area inside one of the malls in town. Reagan enjoyed riding the bumper boats, and also rode his first mini-roller coaster. He screamed out of shock the entire first round, then laughed for the next passes. When he got off, he asked to go again. Grandpa obliged. Our other special outings included a trip to the children's museum and an afternoon at a swimming pool. We passed around an illness while they were in town, but still enjoyed being together. For thanksgiving day we traveled outside the city to see friends at their home in the mountains.

On Christmas Eve, our dear friends, Heather and Michael, arrived from Houston, Texas. We cooked a turkey complete with stuffing and all of the fixings and celebrated a very special Christmas together. The Hondurans celebrate Christmas with a big dinner at midnight on Christmas Eve. Then they open gifts and set off fireworks into the wee hours of the morning. We didn't sleep much because of the noise. For New Year's, we made sure that we were invited to a party. If you're awake, you might as well be part of the fun. With Heather and Michael were able to leave the city to visit a touristy town, traveled to a hillside park overlooking the city, and also visited a Catholic Basilica. Heather and Michael also visited us in Costa Rica when we were in language school, so they have given us a great sense of connection with our home church, Bethel Church of Houston. They brought us a very special photo album with pictures of our friends from our church. Each family listed a prayer request so that we could pray for them as they pray for us. It is a delight to pray through a photo album and know God's care for His children all over the world.

Currently, our friends, Matt and Ellen, are staying with us. Their rental house will soon be finished in a tiny town outside of the city. But "soon" is a relative term in Honduras (and maybe all over the world amongst landlords). So we are enjoying the extended stay of our close friends. We met Matt and Ellen at language school in Costa Rica. They took wonderful care of us for a very difficult month when we were all sick, Clarissa was born and Reagan was having seizures. So we are delighted to give them a place to stay until their own home is ready.

And to all of our friends around the world: we have a guest bedroom waiting for anyone who would like to visit us. Come on down! (Or over or up depending on where you live.)

Typical Day

A typical day. Well, we don't really function on an 8 to 5 schedule here, so there really isn't a routine here. Each day is different. So let me give you a quick rundown of what we do each day.
Monday: This is Mark's one day off each week. We like to relax as a family, but also enjoy inviting a family to our home for dinner.
Tuesday: Mark studies all morning and then attends a staff meeting at the church in the afternoon as the staff and pastors at the church review the activities of the week, pray, and organize responsibilities. Three days a week Reagan attends a tiny, Christian, bilingual preschool that is only a 5 minute drive from our house. The classes are taught in English, but all of the children talk in Spanish. Reagan seems to be sorting out the languages well, and is communicating better each day with his new classmates. We are beginning to meet other families there as we drop off and pick up Reagan. Meanwhile, at the house we welcome a dear, sweet woman to our house. She rides a bus almost 2 hours each way so that she can have a job that will provide for her needs. Her neighborhood only receives water one day a month, so we are thrilled to hire her to work in our home two days a week. When Corina is in our house, we all speak Spanish. It's a great way to practice in Spanish as a family. Corina is teaching Monica to make some of the traditional Honduran foods. Also on Tuesdays, in the evening, Monica attends a women's bible study at the church. They are currently studying the book of Exodus to see how God cared for His people. Late in the evening Mark attends a class at church: Panorama of the New Testament.
Wednesday: Mark goes to EARLY morning prayer and a men's bible study breakfast. (It starts at 5:30.) He has been challenged by some fantastic teaching from some of the older men at the church. After the men's breakfast, Mark and the other four men who are receiving church planting training attend a book study with the evangelism pastor. Monica is at home with the kids during the day. We like to walk down the street to the park or play in the street with the neighbor kids.
Thursday: Mark studies all day. Monica studies with a tutor two days a week. Doña Georgina is a retired professor who taught Spanish to Peace Corp students for many years. Some of the grammar forms and vocabulary used here are different than what we learned at language school in Costa Rica, so Doña Geo is helping Monica adapt to Spanish that is more specific to Honduras. On Thursday evenings, Mark meets with Norberto, the evangelism pastor. Norberto is preparing Mark to do one-on-one discipleship with Hondurans in Spanish. Later in the evening, Monica meets with a woman from the church named Juanita who has led many people to Christ. They are doing the same discipleship training as Mark and Norberto.
Friday: Mark studies all morning and then participates in a prayer meeting with the staff, students and pastors of the church. He also has a meeting with the pastor of the church. Since all of the classes that Mark is taking are taught in Spanish, he spends a good amount of time reading books and studying his Bible in Spanish. We are both memorizing verses in Spanish.
Saturday: Saturday mornings vary for Mark. Sometimes, he does construction at the church or is part of ministry outside the confines of the church campus like evangelistic medical brigades or food giveaways to the needy. As for the ongoing church construction, after renting a grocery store for several years, some land was found to build a church building. We now occupy a new building, but it is far from finished; we are already growing out of it. So Mark usually works a few hours on Saturday mornings to haul dirt, excavate rocks or dig holes. In a recent medical brigade the Honduran Army provided medical care for several thousand needy Hondurans, and one of the church planting students from the church shared a formal gospel message to hundreds while Mark shared the gospel one-on-one in the shadows. Last weekend, Mark attended a Saturday morning missions conference aimed at informing our Honduran church of the effectiveness of Latins going to Muslim nations to share the gospel. On Saturday afternoons Mark takes two classes. And in the evening we attend the first of three weekend church services where Mark has many servant responsibilities.
Sunday: Mark goes to church early to help set up and make preparations for the two morning services. Usually Monica attends the service on Saturday nights and helps in the children's classes on Sunday mornings. Impacto has a wonderful children's program with music, Bible lessons, crafts, and fantastic teachers. During the first service, Monica helps with the infants (including Clarissa.) The next service, she helps in whatever class has the most kids. Mark also helps out with a variety of tasks on Sunday morning. It ranges from directing cars in the parking lot to serving communion. Our ministry work usually ends by 2:00 PM and we have a late lunch as a family or with new Honduran friends.
So that's a "typical" week for us.

Our new home: Honduras

So here's the scoop on our move from Costa Rica to Honduras. After saying goodbye to our friends at Language school, we packed our suitcases and boarded a plane to Tegucigalpa. Our international paperwork went smoothly when we landed, so we waited for our bags at the carrousel. Unfortunately, we were waiting in the wrong place and by the time we found our suitcases, one had already been stolen. I think God wanted to teach us from the very start to hold very lightly to "our" belongings. We were greeted by about a dozen people from our new church, Iglesia Impacto. We were warmly received by Hiroshi and Ana, members at the church. They opened their beautiful home and told us we could stay until we found a house. For the first week in Tegucigalpa, we ate lunch and dinner with a different family each day and attended nearly every meeting at the church. And all of our conversations were in Spanish. We were exhausted, but very quickly got to know new Honduran friends. The people at the church were driving us everywhere and dedicated a lot of time to get us settled. Meanwhile, we were looking for a house and a car. We visited many houses and condos, but our new Honduran friends kept asking us to look for safer neighborhoods. And then God provided above and beyond our wildest dreams. We were prepared to live in a tiny houses with surrounding concrete walls, barbed wire and electric fencing. I had been praying that God would allow the kids to have some access outdoors, maybe a little patio or open garage. What God made available to us was the last rental house in a neighborhood less than a half mile from Iglesia Impacto. Because of the tight security, kids can play in the street, and in a park 4 houses from our home. There are no bars on the windows because there are guards with guns at each block, and visitors can only enter if the homeowner provides verbal permission. Since city water only is provided two days a week, each house has a huge cistern under the house which pumps water to the house every day. And our reasonable rent includes the water bill, garbage collection, street cleaning, yard maintenance and the parks. Additionally, several families from the church live only a few blocks away. God provided as only He knows how. Once in our barren house, we began to borrow and buy furniture. A man who works for a furniture and appliance store, personally accompanied us to make purchases so that we could use his generous employee discount. And then the car. We looked for a vehicle with good gas mileage. Gas is nearly $5 a gallon here, so this was essential. Also, the bumpy streets of the city make high clearance a wise choice. After looking at many vehicles, a mechanic at the church offered to review some cars for us. And he picked out a 2004 Honda CRV for us. We are very thankful for the incredible help that we received in the first two weeks in Honduras. We are now ready to turn our attention to learning and serving in our new country.

Graduation!

We have finished language school! Now, that doesn't mean that we are fluent Spanish speakers, just that we have a good foundation to use as we spend the rest of our lives refining our Spanish. Graduation day was a mix of emotions. It was a beautiful ceremony which started with a flag ceremony. Each graduate entered behind the flag of their country, not the country where they are from, but where they are going. So we walked proudly behind the Honduran flag. Because all the students are scattering to different Spanish-speaking countries, it was an emotional day of good-byes to friends who we will probably not see again. In addition to this, we are leaving behind teachers who have meant so much to us. This trimester, Mark had one on one tutoring with a professor who tailored the curriculum specifically for Mark. She asked him to prepare and teach lessons on a wide variety of biblical subjects and in different formats. Mark benefited greatly from her teaching style. This has been an intense and wonderful year. We are excited about what we have learned and how we can communicate, and at the same time are very aware of the vastness of this new language.

El Instituto de Lengua Espanola

Over the past year in Costa Rica, I have posted some of the interesting things that we have done, difficult or joyful situations, answers to prayer and other significant occasions. But I also want to give an account of daily life. For the past year the hours between 7AM and 1PM have looked like this: We load up our double stroller (suburban)with the kids and four backpacks. After a one mile walk to school, we drop the kids off at their kinder classes. Reagan's classes are taught completely in Spanish, so he already functions very well in Spanish. The kinder program includes crafts, kicking balls and running in the gym, singing, bible stories, outdoor playground, indoor toys and more. Clarissa is the only baby in the nursery so she has one on one interaction with a sweet Spanish-speaking Costa Rican.

Mark and I attend four hours of class every morning, including classes in grammar, conversation and phonetics. There are about 100 adult students on the campus and also a high-school, primary school and kinder program adjacent to the adult education buildings. Two days a week we have chapel services with worship and teaching time in English. This has been very beneficial for us. When we worship at our Spanish-speaking church on Sunday, we are often concentrating on deciphering the language, so the chapel service rejuvenates us. We lead music once a month for the school chapel, and Mark has taught messages both in English and Spanish. We have many wonderful friends among the other missionaries at the school. We are all preparing to go to different Spanish-speaking countries to share the great message of Jesus Christ. It is wonderful to spend time with incredibly dedicated Christians. This year has been a blessing as we have not only begun our journey of learning a new language, but also have seen the example of many wise and experienced believers.

When we are done with classes at noon, we hurry to load up our stroller and try to beat the afternoon rain. If the rain has already begun, we don rain jackets, pull the plastic rain guard over the double stroller and grab our umbrella. It's another one mile walk back to the house. Reagan eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the way home so that he and Clarissa can take a nap when we get to the house. We try to do our homework while the kids take naps, then play together as a family, eat dinner, do more homework and pack up the backpacks for the next day. And then we repeat the process over again the next day.

In a few days I'll be writing about graduation and our move to Honduras and this routine will all turn into a memory. But it has been a great year and God has used our daily life just as much as the highlights to accomplish His work in our family.

US Citizen

How many trips do you have to make in taxis to receive a US passport for a baby born in Costa Rica? SEVEN! Officially, Clarissa Elena was a US citizen from the moment of birth, but it was still necessary to complete a matrix of paperwork to receive her birth certificate, passport and social security number. So after 2 trips to the hospital records department, 2 visits to the Costa Rican Embassy, 2 excursions to civic registration and 3 appointments at the US Embassy, we hold Clarissa's paperwork in our hands. This is good timing because we are moving to Tegucigalpa in THREE weeks. We will say goodbye to our friends in Costa Rica, board a plane with one-way tickets, and arrive in Honduras. (That is if we can survive as we take graduation exams at language school and pack our 16 suitcases which hold our earthly possessions.)

There are many changes in front of us. We will be changing from a completely outdoor lifestyle to an indoor lifestyle. Without a car here in Costa Rica, we walk everywhere, miles every day. We walk to school, the grocery store, restaurants and stores. But Tegucigalpa is too dangerous to walk, so we will always travel by car. In Costa Rica we have beautiful parks, including a playground directly in front of our house. Tegus does not have parks, so we will probably make endless outings to McDonalds to let the kids play in the playland. This will be an adjustment for us, but we are willing to make this sacrifice to learn from and serve with the Honduran people.

We do not yet have a house or a car in Tegucigalpa, so our first weeks will be spent in search of these two things. A family from the church will be hosting us for 2 weeks while we look at rental houses and shop for a used car. Ten days after arriving, Mark will begin his work and studies at Iglesia Impacto. But we are comforted by the fact that we arrived here in San Jose, Costa Rica without very many details worked out, and God orchestrated things very specifically. If fact, it may be that it is easier to trust God and be flexible when not everything is planned. That way we don't have a specific expectation as to how life will look. And it's pretty exciting to have nearly everything a mystery.

Selling the house

After 10 months on the market, we finally have a contract on our house in Houston. We are so thankful. Our dear neighbors and friends have been incredibly generous while the house has been for sale. They have mowed the lawn and cleaned the house to keep it looking great for showings. We are blessed to have such fantastic people in Houston. The man who is buying our house seems to be in a hurry and wants to sign final papers on April 20th. So the next 11 days are going to be crazy. The people who are buying the house live in Australia. We are in Costa Rica. And the house is in Houston. This is going to be a nightmare international transaction. I think we will have to go to the US embassy to sign papers in front of a US notary. We anticipate that being an all-day errand. Meanwhile, our house still has our furniture in it. So we have to sell all our furniture in the next 10 days. Each piece is listed on Facebook, Craig's List and another web site. We can't wait to stop paying the mortgage, water, trash, gas, house insurance, sewer and electricity bills, but this really brings things to an end in Houston. We realize that when the house and furniture are gone, everything we own will fit in suitcases. And this very well may be the last asset that we have. It makes things feel very final. We are thrilled to follow the exciting plan that God has put in front of us in Latin America, but we still love North America as well.

Clarissa's Tico Party

There is an old tradition in Costa Rica that celebrates the entrance of a child at 40 days old. Many women do not venture out of the house for the first 40 days except for doctor appointments. Although we were not able to keep that part of the tradition, we held a Tico party to celebrate Clarissa's 40 days. Ten of our Tico (Costa-Rican) friends came to our house to see her. We had a wonderful time speaking Spanish for the entire night. We served a Costa Rican style meal of arroz con pollo and other appetizers. Monica played her violin and Mark took a few minutes to talk about our thankfulness to God and our desire to see Clarissa learn to understand who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for her.

Birthday Boy

Reagan turned THREE! We celebrated by meeting some of his friends from school at the local Burger King. It was a wonderful treat to have Grammy and Papo (Mark's parents) in San Jose for his birthday. The kids enjoyed eating burgers and playing in the indoor playground. Our sweet little boy has had some health problems recently. The day after Christmas we awoke as he had a seizure. Over the next five weeks he had five more, four of which happened while grandparents were in town. After several trips to the ER, a CT scan and an EEG, Reagan was diagnosed with epilepsy and began treatment with medication. The meds have changed his personality a bit, making him a bit aggressive with a shorter attention span. But we are thankful that he has been seizure-free for the past five weeks. We are so thankful for the wonderful health-care that is in San Jose. We have wonderful doctors including a pediatric neurologist at a nearby hospital. God has protected Reagan and is a good and wonderful God.

Welcoming Clarissa

Clarissa Elena joined our family on January 29. She is a beautiful, healthy girl. The joy of her arrival was surrounded by lots of drama. For the weeks preceding Clarissa's birth, we were horribly sick. At one point we didn't know if Monica would be strong enough for delivery or if Mark would be allowed into the delivery ward due to his sickness. Mark ended up missing 13 days of school. Our friends here at the Spanish Language Institute took wonderful care of us. They brought us meals every night, took Reagan to the park to get him out of the house and brought us groceries. One brave couple even came into our germ-filled house to wash the dishes that were piling up. God's timing was perfect. Monica felt better for one day and went into labor that very night. Mark felt well enough to be in the birthing room wearing a surgical mask. Deliver was swift and intense. We arrived at the hospital at 3 AM and the doctor told us that we had a baby girl at 9 AM. Clarissa was just over 7 pounds at birth with a head of light brown hair. Reagan welcomed his baby sister by tickling her feet and holding her hand. Our parents arrived a few days later and Reagan enjoyed time with grandparents from both sides of the family for three weeks. We love being a family of four.