Last night we celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with some of our new friends from Costa Rica. Emily cooked an 18 lb turkey to perfection. With it we enjoyed cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, jello salad, and pumpkin pie. The two additions to the normal menu were picadillo (Costa Rican meat chili with plantains) and tres leche cake for dessert. We were thankful to welcome to our house the members of the International Department in Roblealto: Pame Scianna and her husband Jonathan, Nelly Curling, Lizzy Rojas and her boyfriend Gilbert.
After dinner we played a game we learned from Joe Olson that is a little like "telephone" using written sentences and drawings. The catch was that each of us had to use our second language when writing. We laughed all night as many of the stories ended up being about Jonathan (for some reason). So each of us took our turns drawing Jonathan to the best of our ability!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Casa Nido
Have you ever had a group of children lay hands on you and pray for you? I can say that I never had until this week. And it was an incredibly powerful experience. On Monday night, Mark and I went for dinner to one of the homes at the Bible Home, Roblealto's temporary shelter. The Bible Home houses 83 children who come from such extreme home situations that they cannot live with their own families at this time. Roblealto has 8 houses with incredible house parents that raise these children until they are able to be reunited with their families. Mark and I had been wanting to connect more with the homes and get to know the house mothers and children better. We find we are working in our office a lot on our projects, which we love, but we've been missing kid contact - not to mention the kids are the heart of Roblealto!
We enjoyed having dinner with the kids and chatting with them in Spanish (good practice!) After dinner, we played some games with the children and then they did a little presentation for us. The older kids had an evangelical skit they did and then all 13 of them (plus the house mother's two own children) circled up and sang songs for us. It was a lot of fun to join in when we could! They sang "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty" in Spanish while we sang in English.
The children have a strict routine and at 8:00 start getting ready for bed. Just before 8, the house mom, Francinie, said we would pray together. She asked Mark and I to sit on the floor in the middle of the kids. They surrounded us and laid hands on us, held our hands, stroked my hair. Francinie explained our role at Roblealto and how we would be helping to host the volunteer groups that come. She then asked 5 of the children to pray for us. It was the most humbling experience to have these children - some as young as 6 years old! - pray with such boldness and faith. They prayed God would bless us, watch over us, provide for us. One little guy, Randall, kept praying and praying, thanking God that we had a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in. I couldn't keep my tears back. These children, who have suffered so much and seen so much, were a great blessing to us. We have been praying for them, and they, in return, now prayed for us.
Every day we learn a little more about what God is doing here at Roblealto. This is a place where families are healed, come to know God, and truly are transformed. Thank you for your support of us in this year. This Thanksgiving we are thankful for each one of you and for how God has allowed us to be at Roblealto this year. Glory be to God!
We enjoyed having dinner with the kids and chatting with them in Spanish (good practice!) After dinner, we played some games with the children and then they did a little presentation for us. The older kids had an evangelical skit they did and then all 13 of them (plus the house mother's two own children) circled up and sang songs for us. It was a lot of fun to join in when we could! They sang "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty" in Spanish while we sang in English.
The children have a strict routine and at 8:00 start getting ready for bed. Just before 8, the house mom, Francinie, said we would pray together. She asked Mark and I to sit on the floor in the middle of the kids. They surrounded us and laid hands on us, held our hands, stroked my hair. Francinie explained our role at Roblealto and how we would be helping to host the volunteer groups that come. She then asked 5 of the children to pray for us. It was the most humbling experience to have these children - some as young as 6 years old! - pray with such boldness and faith. They prayed God would bless us, watch over us, provide for us. One little guy, Randall, kept praying and praying, thanking God that we had a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in. I couldn't keep my tears back. These children, who have suffered so much and seen so much, were a great blessing to us. We have been praying for them, and they, in return, now prayed for us.
Every day we learn a little more about what God is doing here at Roblealto. This is a place where families are healed, come to know God, and truly are transformed. Thank you for your support of us in this year. This Thanksgiving we are thankful for each one of you and for how God has allowed us to be at Roblealto this year. Glory be to God!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Mid-November
Mid-November in Costa Rica is a little rainy and cool, but we know the summer weather is right around the corner here and that's a little strange. I feel like I should be putting away my summer clothes and taking out my winter sweaters, but I'll have to wait until I'm home at Christmas to wear those!
We have enjoyed having Lois, from Ridgewood, staying with us this week! She is here to begin planning Ridgewood's trip in February and for a Mom's In Touch event happening today. Women are meeting to pray for their children and their schools in over 1,600 sites today around the world. Lois is helping Pamela (our boss) lead one of the main Costa Rican sites at our church, Ciudad de Dios. We pray that it is a blessing to many! We've enjoyed talking to Lois about Roblealto and picking her brain for ideas of how to promote the projects. Our favorite day was bringing her to the Bible Home, the temporary shelter, where she is loved by MANY. Kids ran up to her with lots of hugs. One little boy insisted that I confirm to his whole house that HE saw Lois first! Mark and I haven't gotten into the houses much and so we enjoyed that a lot. I (Emily) enjoyed getting to do some translating for her too! It truly is amazing the relationships she's built over the years at Roblealto.
We have a lot of big projects in the works in the International Department. The main project for the mission trip groups this year is to rebuild the Arco Iris house at the Bible Home. This house is 40 years old and is rotting, has poor ventilation and lighting, and has a poor floor plan for the 16 people that live there! The projected cost is $160,000 and we've written the proposal plan that will go out to churches with groups coming to explain the necessity of this project. Also, we are really excited about the Los Guido campaign that is just beginning. Los Guido is the community we visited 2 weeks ago that has 25,000 people squatting in extremely poor conditions. After seeing Los Guido, we couldn't help but get passionate about the plan for a new child care center that Roblealto has committed to build. The first stage is projected at $300,000 and will allow some children to begin to receive services.
We've also been preparing packets and a powerpoint for mission trip groups that are coming and a big mailing went out this week to our sponsors informing them of the progress in 2009. So it's been a busy couple of weeks! Thank you for prayers for these projects. We know that God will provide for Roblealto and the hundreds of children that are served by its programs. We continue to be thankful that God brought us here as we fall in love with Roblealto!
Afterthought... Yesterday we experienced our first earthquake in Costa Rica. We were at the central offices when we heard a faint boom followed by the building shaking. It turned out to be a 5.1 earthquake centered about 45 miles away at Jaco Beach. New experiences!
We have enjoyed having Lois, from Ridgewood, staying with us this week! She is here to begin planning Ridgewood's trip in February and for a Mom's In Touch event happening today. Women are meeting to pray for their children and their schools in over 1,600 sites today around the world. Lois is helping Pamela (our boss) lead one of the main Costa Rican sites at our church, Ciudad de Dios. We pray that it is a blessing to many! We've enjoyed talking to Lois about Roblealto and picking her brain for ideas of how to promote the projects. Our favorite day was bringing her to the Bible Home, the temporary shelter, where she is loved by MANY. Kids ran up to her with lots of hugs. One little boy insisted that I confirm to his whole house that HE saw Lois first! Mark and I haven't gotten into the houses much and so we enjoyed that a lot. I (Emily) enjoyed getting to do some translating for her too! It truly is amazing the relationships she's built over the years at Roblealto.
We have a lot of big projects in the works in the International Department. The main project for the mission trip groups this year is to rebuild the Arco Iris house at the Bible Home. This house is 40 years old and is rotting, has poor ventilation and lighting, and has a poor floor plan for the 16 people that live there! The projected cost is $160,000 and we've written the proposal plan that will go out to churches with groups coming to explain the necessity of this project. Also, we are really excited about the Los Guido campaign that is just beginning. Los Guido is the community we visited 2 weeks ago that has 25,000 people squatting in extremely poor conditions. After seeing Los Guido, we couldn't help but get passionate about the plan for a new child care center that Roblealto has committed to build. The first stage is projected at $300,000 and will allow some children to begin to receive services.
We've also been preparing packets and a powerpoint for mission trip groups that are coming and a big mailing went out this week to our sponsors informing them of the progress in 2009. So it's been a busy couple of weeks! Thank you for prayers for these projects. We know that God will provide for Roblealto and the hundreds of children that are served by its programs. We continue to be thankful that God brought us here as we fall in love with Roblealto!
Afterthought... Yesterday we experienced our first earthquake in Costa Rica. We were at the central offices when we heard a faint boom followed by the building shaking. It turned out to be a 5.1 earthquake centered about 45 miles away at Jaco Beach. New experiences!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Our first visitors
Hi everyone!
We just had our first visitors and enjoyed hosting in our house in Costa Rica. Emily's friend from her school last year, Janna, came with a friend for 3 days. They are both teaching in Panama and so they took the bus up to visit (a 10 hour bus ride plus 4 hours at the border - oof!) We had fun taking them to a great restaurant that overlooked San Jose, going to a soccer game, visiting the Poas volcano, and going to one of our favorite places -La Paz - where we played again with the toucans. We really enjoyed showing off our new country and comparing living in Costa Rica to living in Panama!
Things in the office continue to go well. We have 11 volunteer groups coming next year so far. This is a huge answer to prayer! We started with 5 groups with a goal of 15 so we are almost there! Mark made many phone calls to churches who are long-time supporters of Roblealto and this strategy seemed to have really worked!
We also enjoyed going to the dedication service for the newest house at the temporary shelter. The Ridgewood team helped build this house so it was exciting to be part of the dedication. There was a lot of prayers and gratitude for the ways God has provided for Roblealto and rejoicing at 10 more kids will be able to receive services at the Bible Home!
Today we went with a few of our co-workers to the Los Guido neighborhood in San Jose. This is an extremely poor neighborhood south of San Jose where many of our children live. It was very difficult to see how over 200,000 people are living as squaters. Many are immigrants from Nicaragua or Columbia. Problems include poor sanitation and nutrition, drugs, prostitution, lack of education, and extreme poverty. Roblealto is definitely a bright light to this community and was given land 7 years ago right in the middle of the neighborhood to build another day care center. This center is SO necessary for the community, but as you can imagine, Roblealto needs to raise a lot of money for this project. We have joined them in praying for this new center to be built soon because of the hope and possibility it would bring to the community. Please join us in praying for the Los Guido Day Care Center! Thank you!
We just had our first visitors and enjoyed hosting in our house in Costa Rica. Emily's friend from her school last year, Janna, came with a friend for 3 days. They are both teaching in Panama and so they took the bus up to visit (a 10 hour bus ride plus 4 hours at the border - oof!) We had fun taking them to a great restaurant that overlooked San Jose, going to a soccer game, visiting the Poas volcano, and going to one of our favorite places -La Paz - where we played again with the toucans. We really enjoyed showing off our new country and comparing living in Costa Rica to living in Panama!
Things in the office continue to go well. We have 11 volunteer groups coming next year so far. This is a huge answer to prayer! We started with 5 groups with a goal of 15 so we are almost there! Mark made many phone calls to churches who are long-time supporters of Roblealto and this strategy seemed to have really worked!
We also enjoyed going to the dedication service for the newest house at the temporary shelter. The Ridgewood team helped build this house so it was exciting to be part of the dedication. There was a lot of prayers and gratitude for the ways God has provided for Roblealto and rejoicing at 10 more kids will be able to receive services at the Bible Home!
Today we went with a few of our co-workers to the Los Guido neighborhood in San Jose. This is an extremely poor neighborhood south of San Jose where many of our children live. It was very difficult to see how over 200,000 people are living as squaters. Many are immigrants from Nicaragua or Columbia. Problems include poor sanitation and nutrition, drugs, prostitution, lack of education, and extreme poverty. Roblealto is definitely a bright light to this community and was given land 7 years ago right in the middle of the neighborhood to build another day care center. This center is SO necessary for the community, but as you can imagine, Roblealto needs to raise a lot of money for this project. We have joined them in praying for this new center to be built soon because of the hope and possibility it would bring to the community. Please join us in praying for the Los Guido Day Care Center! Thank you!
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