Tico Tuesday, August 25th

Happy Tuesday!

This week features one of my hobbies/means of exercise and transportation. Cycling! Cycling is a pretty popular sport here, even in spite of narrow roads with no shoulders. There are plenty of roads with very little traffic, so don't get too nervous for me. So, yes, I have a bike. Actually I share it with Ana, but I'm not sure she has even used it yet. I can get to work in 6 minutes (uphill) and home in 4 (downhill), instead of the 13 minute one-way walk. Josué (my “brother” and one of my dear friends here) and I have gone out riding a few times for exercise and it has been great. Head to the blog to read of our adventures!

Going on bike rides with Josue is great. He uses his bike quite often to go to various things (it can be faster than the bus, believe it nor not- and of course, it's better exercise), and he has lived here longer than me, so he knows the the area we live in quite well. So, he picks the route and I just follow him. And he brings along a pump, spare tire, and a multi-tools-in-one swiss army kind of thing. And he's a guy I know I can trust with my life, so I know I am in good hands.

On our first ride he threw me for a loop and we had to go up a crazy hill that wasn't paved! Our bikes are mountain bikes (Ana's and mine is the red one), but I don't have ANY experience mountain biking. It was tough, but I made it. Josué said I did a good job -most people he knows would just walk the bike up. I may be a wuss in some ways, but I do not give up so easily. And Josué always has a way of teaching me new things and helping stretch me. Oh, and that little mountain biking experience confirmed to me that all those people that are into mountain biking really are crazy. Such antics are ridiculous. I can handle a little to get from point A to point B if it's not too extreme, but those people on the X-games and stuff are asking for a broken neck. Really.

On our second ride, the plan was to go for about an hour. Well, after a LOT of hills (lots of ups and very few downs), we missed a turn. Oops! So, we were gone an hour and a half. My legs had been kind of tired when we set out because of other exercise I had done the day before, so I was exhausted and at 10 am I was ready for bed instead of work. But I made it. I found myself singing songs from the GT Bikathon tape (the green one) we had when I was little. GT was kind of like Psalty, but all the songs are Bible verses. Now that I think about it, I probably sing a GT song at least once a week. Especially 2 Corinthians 9:8, Philippians 4:13, Romans 8:38-39, 1 John 5:4-5, and Hebrews 12:1.

Also, on our rides I have also been getting the physical church directory. Josué will often point and say “this is where so and so lives.” I like that.

So, yesterday we went on our 3^rd ride. It was Monday, so I had all the time in the world. That was nice. But, unfortunately my bike has some trouble with its gear shifting and I apparently never fully understood how gears work with a “3 on the left, 7 on the right” kind of bike. So, there have been a couple instances in which I've had to stop and fiddle with things until it works or have Josué work some magic. Well, there was one point where my chain actually came off the thingy things yesterday-right at the crest of a hill. I tried yelling Josué's name before he disappeared over the top, but that didn't work. So, I had to wait (for what felt like ages!) for him to figure out I wasn't behind him and for him to come back for me. I learned my lesson-from now on I will always take my phone with me! I never had expected us to get separated like that though. Poor guy, he was scared to death when he realized I wasn't behind him! But, he found me, and I was fine-I just had greasy hands from trying to fix my chain. He had to pull out the Leatherman-ish swiss army tool thing to fix it though. Now I really am scared to go riding without him! But we are going to get my bike fixed and give me proper gear changing lessons before we go for another ride.

Oh, and yesterday we were (finally!) going down hill and Josué took a quick turn. He usually makes a hand motion to give me some warning, but either he didn't do it or I didn't see it, I tried to turn, but started fishtailing instead (I didn't know you could fishtail with a bike!) and down I went! But, “wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!” (there goes my Broadway Tourette's-Fiddler on the Roof)--my body made contact with concrete in 4 places and I have one bruise that is nigh invisible (but definitely tender) and a couple little abrasiony-scratches. I shed no blood!! Praise God! That could have been a lot uglier and messier and made getting home much more difficult and urgent.

So, there's a (long) glimpse at my cycling in Costa Rica! And don't worry, you won't get all the details in the future. I just wanted to give you and idea of what it was like. But my friend Albeiro did mention to me the idea of a triathlon, which is something I have considered before. I'll have to look into it and train some more (and pray for my shin splints and knee to behave so I can run), but I'm thinking BRING IT ON!!!

Have I ever told you how much I love CivArts?

My parents heard that question about once a day the summer of 2006. I took CivArts at Grove City College with none other than the amazing Dr. Munson the spring semester of my sophomore year, so the following summer I continued to gush daily about how fantastic the class was. From Five Iron Frenzy on the first day of class to the Discus Thrower, to a Mass by Josquin, to the St. Chapelle in France's phenomenal Gothic architecture, to The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio and a host of other wicked famous (and rightly so) pieces of art right up until Gauge and his wacky postmodern "music" I adored the class the whole semester. Dr. Munson explained things in a fascinating way and it was obvious that he was passionate about the subject. He turned Vivaldi's Spring Concerto into something easy to follow that told a story. I loved how he flashed the lights in the room off and on during the storm part and shared with us how he and his kids would hide behind the LazyBoy and peek out from behind it after the storm cleared. I loved how he stood on top of the table and crushed a piece of chalk during Beethoven's 5th. I love how we learned about the various time periods and how the art from that time was in line with its worldview. And I'm so glad that the things I learned can be applied to other pieces of art and music that I see and listen to.
Last night Samuel (one of my "brothers" here) and I were chilling out and listening to music. The first piece we listened to sounded kind of like another piece I know, but was obviously a different piece. As we listened I was trying to guess who the composer might be and in which time period it might have been written. I didn't do very well at that part. But turns out it was Chopin's Scherzo no1. No wonder it sounded kind of like the one I'm already familiar with (no2)!! I really enjoy studying music. I have been learning a little bit more here, living with musical geniuses like Josue and Samuel, but I know I still have a long ways to go.
So, thank God for CivArts and the ability to express through art! And if you are a Grover, make sure to take it immediately with Munson!

Tico Tuesday, August 18th

This lovely picture is of Miguel Angel (the VP of Ministries of the LAM, left), Luis Diego (his tico assistant, right), and yours truly. Miguel Angel was in Costa Rica and stopped in to check on how things were going here. We had a great talk and a good meeting with Rolando as well. I was very encouraged by Miguel Angel's visit. My job here is a huge challenge, so encouragement and advice are always welcome. But, thanks be to God I know it is His work and not mine. Please keep praying for my church here and for me! Your prayers do make a difference!
I encourage you to go to my blog for more stories and information about my life and service here- http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/

A little bit more info about this Miguel Angel guy and what he has to do with me. Miguel Angel is in charge of matching missionaries with associate ministries of the Latin America Mission. Rewind. I am a missionary of the Latin America Mission (if you didn't know that by now). Instead of shipping you off to work with gringos in another country, the LAM places you as a missionary with an associate ministry that has been approved and accredited by them. So, you get to work with and under nationals that speak the language, are part of the culture, have lived in that country most (if not all) of their lives, and are familiar with an already-established ministry. I think it's amazing and wonderful. The LAM provides support for missionaries on the field-so if there is any kind of issue they are there to help work things out (but the missionary is responsible for raising his/her financial support). It's a pretty sweet deal. If you are considering going into missions (in Latin America) you need to look into them! http://lam.org/ They are wonderful!! So, yeah, Miguel Angel works in the Miami Services Office (our headquarters in the States), but he spends a lot of time out of the country visiting missionaries and ministries. Cool job, huh?

Zancudos in the Night

Last night there was a battle between exhaustion and anger, darkness and light, women and mosquitos. It was 3am, and the horrible buzzing in my ear aroused my from the slumber that had finally overtaken me. (Ceci and I napped yesterday afternoon, so it took us a while to fall asleep). I tried burying myself under my sheet, but it was hot, and I already had at least 3 bites. The nasty zancudos kept buzzing, and from time to time I would flail an arm half tangled in a sheet trying to kill the nasty blood sucking critter. Over an hour later, I heard Ceci get up. I sat up and asked her if the zancudos were bothering her too and she said they'd bitten her all over and she couldn´t take it anymore. So, we decided to put up a fight and kill them.
She turned on the light. After recovering from momentary blindness we set out to destroy the odious creatures. I saw one on the wall next to my bed so I smushed it. I drew my hand away and there was a mosquito corpse and an inch long streak of blood on the cream colored wall, as well as on my hand. ¡Qué asco! It was so gross!! While I cleaned the blood off my hand and the wall Ceci killed another blood gushing zancudo on the floor. The battle was won, though I kept imagining that I was hearing that dreaded buzzing....
Slumber slowly overtook us once more, and rewarded us with sleep until 9 o'clock. My original plan for the day was to go for a bike ride in the morning with Josué, but between my traumatic night and some gymnastics antics yesterday that left my legs sore, that didn't happen.
I fear the war between us and the zancudos will never end, but thankfully nights like that aren't too common. They make for good stories though, don't you think?

Tico Tuesday, August 11th

Happy Tuesday! This is a picture of a bulletin board I designed and coordinated putting together. I have no artistic talent whatsoever and I am short, so I called on tall and artistic people to do what I could not. The board basically reads "The Missions of CCI Heredia reach... Our Jerusalem, Our Judea and Samaria, and the Ends of the Earth." Under Our Jerusalem is info about our weekly services at church as well as a reminder to people about the ministry we have to the poor. We collect nonperishable foods, medicine, etc on communion Sundays and distribute them to needy people. Under our Judea and Samaria I put information about La Carpio (that I posted about once a long time ago-feel free to find it on my blog http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/), and the Ends of the Earth section has 2 trimestral bulletins put out by CCI's Global Missions Network and a map that shows where all the CCI churches are in the world. I plan on changing the board about once a month and continually recruiting others to make sure it looks nice!

The Community Circle

My first IV the fall of my freshman year was an amazing, life-changing night. And I'm still learning and applying lessons from that night. Yes, I would like to explain you every detail of the night and explain more about IV to you, but I'm going to save that for another post. For those of you who may not know, IV stands for InterVarsity. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA is part of a global university student movement. At Grove City College (my alma mater), we were IV Missions Fellowship, since we were already on a "Christian" campus.
So, it was the first IV of the semester, and chapter president Brian Barry (now IV legend, husband of Jackie, father of Caedmon and Anglican priest) shared the vision for the chapter for that year. I don't remember everything he said, but I remember what he had us do; it is something I'd like to do with so many groups of people. He had us all get up and hold hands in a circle. "Isn't this nice?" he asked. There we were, smiling, looking at each other and enjoying being with one another. He continued in classic Brian Barry, New Hampshire guy style. (This is obviuosly my rough paraphrase but you'll get the idea). "We have community here. Holding hands shows the unity that we have. It's great. But we can't just stay this way. We have a greater purpose. We want to stay united, but we don't want to stay facing inward. Jesus is the center of our community and we have to share Him with others that they can also be united with Him. So, how can we face outward, yet still stay united and not let go?" He let us think for a minute or so about how we could turn our circle inside out. Then he showed us how. He had two people next to each other lift their connected arms and then had the people across the circle from them walk through. Soon our circle was inverted. We were still all holding hands, but no longer facing inside. We were facing out, ready to take on the world for Christ together.
Like any other metaphor or analogy, this can only be taken so far. But what a powerful lesson it is! How often do groups of believers stay facing inward, becming stale, complacent and ingrown? How often do we fear to take on the world for Christ? It's done better when in community! Yes, it is extremely important to have fellowship with one another, but it is also vital to face outward and invite others to join the beautiful community that is the family of God. And, check this out- teaching the community to face out and reach others will actually strengthen the community (when done right). This might not seem so powerful to you right now, but mull it over for a few years and watch the communities you are in and around. I think you'll want to join me when I say "Let's face out!"
Oh yeah, and one more motivational factor-I believe that facing out is obedience to Christ. :-)

Tico Tuesday, August 4th

It’s Tuesday!
There is a lot I would like to share with you today, so I really encourage you to read my blog for the more detailed version. This picture is of Danielle and me at the beach this past weekend. Danielle is a fellow gringa I met 2 and a half weeks ago. The way we met was truly a divine appointment and God has really used us to bless one another in her brief time here. She really wanted to go to Manuel Antonio National Park (and beach) and see a sloth, so I offered to go with her. I tell you, life is so rough!! So we went this weekend and had a brief, but amazing adventure full of surprises, adventure and important lessons. Check out the blog for more! http://smithcj1.blogspot.com

:-) Thanks for coming to read about God’s amazing faithfulness and provision! Before Danielle and I left for Manuel Antonio, we had Samuel (one of my Honduran “brothers”) get us tickets. It is always better to buy tickets ahead of time. Samuel got the tickets for our Saturday departure on Friday, and it was a good thing he went. He got the only 2 tickets they had and those tickets were only available because they had been returned. So, it was obvious from the start that God’s hand was over this whole trip, and that He would provide for us every step of the way.
The bus dropped us off by our hotel. It was dark outside. There was almost no lighting and no signage saying “Office this way.” So, we continued to follow this steep, wet, windy little “road” that was taking us downhill towards the beach. There were a couple signs mentioning the restaurant for our hotel, so we just kept following them. Finally we got the restaurant for our hotel, which was all dark and clearly not open. I saw a staircase leading up to where it looked like the owner might live. We started up and a dog started barking. A lady came out in her pj’s and told us that she’d figured we weren’t going to come. We arrived almost an hour later than we’d expected, so I can’t blame her. Anyway, she gave us a room with air conditioning, even though we only paid the price for a room with a fan. May God bless her! It was a little nerve wracking when she took us to the room and made sure the sheets were clean. I always assume the sheets are clean and that they get washed after every check-out. But, I think we were the only people there that night, and it isn’t peak season, so who knows.
She told us that the portón (gate) leading out to the beach would we open at 7:30 in the morning and that all we had to do was walk down the beach to come to the entrance to the national park. Well, at 7:50 the portón was locked shut. The barbed wire than ran all along the property kept us from trying to break out. While we tried to figure out what to do we enjoyed seeing some amazing blue, red and yellowy-orangey crabs, an iguana, and a beautiful spider web. Finally, I ventured into the restaurant to head towards her living space again and WEEOOO WEEOOO WEEOO-I set the alarm off!! That was one way to get her attention.
She came and opened for us and we continued our adventure. One of the first things on the list was to find bus tickets to return back to San José that afternoon (Sunday). We stopped and asked a guy (named Jorge) in front of a mostly empty mini-grocery store. He directed us to someone who might be able to get us tickets, and also mentioned that he had to go to the next town over (where we had to buy the tickets) so he could get us tickets if we wanted. We had limited time, so we didn’t really want to have to take a 14km round trip and possibly have to wait in line. We ended up trusting this guy with our money to get tickets and moved on to the national park (after turning down an obnoxious tour guide and buying a tiny, snacky breakfast at a little grocery store).
We were just walking past the poorly marked entrance to the national park when a lady on a motorcycle pointed out the mistake we were making. She was a tour guide and we made sure to find her and use her as our guide once we paid our entrance fees to the park. Neither Danielle nor I had many colones on us, and we hadn’t known how much we were going to have to pay. So after paying to get in, we didn’t have the $40 we needed for both of us to go with the guide. We offered her the 21,000 colones we had left (she was charging 23,000) and she took them without blinking. That made me happy. Oh, and even before we bought our tickets to enter the park she was there and had set up her spotting scope right on a sloth!! I teased Danielle that she saw what she came for and that we didn’t really need the tickets or the tour guide, but we still went ahead with it anyway. On our tour we saw 3 more sloths, bats, a poisonous snake, some grasshoppers, a cute crawly thing that looked “slimy, yet satisfying” right out of the Lion King, a dead frog, spiders (our guide was into bugs), a “Jesus Christ” lizard (because it can walk on water it runs so fast), a crocodile in the ocean, and leaf cutter ants. Our guide stomped on the ground above the ants nest to make the soldiers, which were 2-3 times the size of the normal ants, come out. Then she picked one up, stuck it on a stick that was 12-18 inches long and then held out the ant. The ant sustained the stick in the air!!! That is a strong critter! Oh and I learned that there are 1200 species of palm trees in Costa Rica and that they all have some kind of fruit (not just coconuts). Pejibaye is a fibrous, dry potatoey palm tree fruit with a big seed that indigenous people here used to subsist off of. It is still common and a lot of people eat it with mayo. Oh, and I learned that bamboo is a grass and that it can grow 3 inches a day!
We abandoned our tour group a little early because we had to get back to our hotel to check out. We stopped by to check on don Jorge, our bus ticket man, and he was nowhere to be found!! The little store he had been in front of was totally closed up and there was not a trace of him anywhere!! We were distraught, poor and running late. (Thankfully our tour guide had given us 5000 colones back because we ended up with a big tour group and she cut everyone a deal -and my smugness from getting a deal from her earlier was washed away by the kindness and grace she extended to us). But we were scared and didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t completely given up hope on the man. I knew it was risky to trust him, but we didn’t feel like we really had other options. Danielle and I beat it back to our hotel, sweating profusely, empty with hunger and energyless with dehydration. We made our way back down the beach once more, this time with all our stuff, searching for food and trying to figure out how to get back home. We picked a restaurant and were about to sit down when out of nowhere appeared our angelito, don Jorge with bus tickets for us!!! Praise the Lord!! He really was watching out for us!!
We had a delicious, relaxed meal (with lots of iced water with lime), and then enjoyed a couple hours of relaxation and reading on the beach before we had to catch the bus. I enjoyed jumping the waves for a little while. There was a bit on an undertow that kept me on my toes and the waves were powerful, but I was careful to stay between a palm tree and an empty lifeguarding chair and there were 2 guys near me, so I felt safe.
Before heading out Danielle and I shared the last few minutes on the beach with a delicious pint of wicked expensive Haagen Daaz Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream. It was a good way to end our little adventure. We got the bus back home without a problem (though it wasn’t a direct bus so it took longer to get home than it could have). I really enjoyed our conversations on the bus, both to and from Manuel Antonio. Danielle has been a great blessing to me and I’m sad that she has to leave next week!
Thanks for reading my novel! I wanted to share such a detailed report because God’s faithfulness, provision and care for us were blatantly shown to us over and over again. The bus didn’t break down, we didn’t get robbed, and so many things that almost went wrong went better than right. Earthly moral: always buy round trip bus tickets ahead of time!! Spiritual moral: Trust God!