Tico Tuesday, September 29th

Happy Tuesday!

This week I am featuring a picture of my OFFICE!!

I should have taken a before shot to show you the contrast. Imagine this with no paint on the walls, no lighting and no flooring, just uneven cement. Now take another look. Isn’t it lovely? I have yet to decorate-though decorating is not my forte and I would be perfectly content leaving it just the way it is. But anyway, I just wanted you to see where I spend lots and lots of time working hard every week.

May the rest of your week be productive and glorifying to God!

Love,

Carrie

Yikes, I’m a failing blogger! Sorry! I try to post 2x a week, but Tuesday just comes so fast it almost seems like there’s more than one per week! Jaja, just kidding. I had one of those moments on the bus to San José on Saturday. When I went to Guatemala, Bolivia, and when I have been here in the past I have always had that “ oooooh! I’m in a foreign country and this is so cool and they speak Spanish here, etc, etc, etc.” but my “moment” was realizing that the shimmer of being in another country is definitely gone. I think the honeymoon period of my culture shock is definitely over (I’d say it’s been over for a while). This is where I live. I’m not sure I see myself living here for the rest of my life, but right now, this is where I’m supposed to be. I know if and when the moment comes to leave here, it will be really hard and I will have a lot of sad goodbyes and adjusting to wherever I go from here will be a fine dish of lemons itself. But that's life. Lots of changes and transitions.

Change of topic:

English-how much do I speak it? Lately, I've been speaking a lot more. I feel like my Spanish has never been better, though I continue to make mistakes. My friends and “family” here lovingly correct me though and I am so grateful for that! Anyway, students here learn English in school so most everyone knows at least a little English (though there are many adults who don't know diddley-squat). But a lot of my friends have taken or are taking further English classes and guess who is the ideal practice partner? Oh yeah! But actually it's been really neat because it gives me a chance to know them better. I've realized I'm really bad at explaining English grammar. I don't know all the rules. I don't know how to describe the difference between “other” and “another.” But, I'm great with just conversing and correcting the person's mistakes. And if I can explain something, that's great!

I think I'm going to ask the people who are coming next month to bring me Catchphrase. I think it would be GREAT to have an English only game night and invite people over to play and speak English. (Hmm, maybe we could make it an outreach and do it at church and invite other gringos...) I know a lot of gringos that study another language and then get really embarrassed and don't want to speak if they don't know how to say what they want to perfectly. So, I have been impressed here with the number of people that jump in with both feet trying to express themselves. It's good that I know Spanish because I can see them translating in their heads and saying “I have hungry” instead of “I am hungry” because in Spanish it's “tengo hambre” (and tengo means I have).

So yeah, I speak a fair bit of English. And I should probably keep it up because a lot of words don't come to me as easily as they did before! Last night I was explaining something to Samuel in English and I had to throw in a Spanish word because I couldn't think of it in English! JAJAJA!!!

This is Daniel and me (during the Noche de disfraces we had back in April). He his younger brother Andres are some of my more frequent "tutorees" of English

Tico Tuesday, September 22nd

Happy Tuesday!

I hope each of your weeks is off to a good start. Today I would like to feature Jovensus, (the youth group of CCI) and the children of La Carpio. For those who don't know about La Carpio or can't remember, it is basically a ghetto. It is a small space on the side of a landfill next to the dump where all the trash from San Jose goes. Most of the people who live there are indocumented Nicaraguans. Christ for the City has been working there for the last 13 years and God has proved Himself faithful there, but there is still much work to be done. September 9^th was “El dia del niño” - so the other Saturday we did an evangelistic/recreactional activity with the kids from La Carpio. We had about 90 kids and it was a fun, hot, crazy, get down and dirty wonderful experience! More pictures and stories will be appearing on the blog! Http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/

Hello faithful blog readers. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not yet able to embellish the brief of Tico Tuesday. :-( I plan on making another Picasa slide show (like the one of my house on the left side bar) with comments on the pictures. But I don't have the time to dedicate to that right now. :-( I am going to do my best to get it up as soon as possible. You know I don't (and won't) do this to you often. My life is a little crazy right now and I just can't quite handle it all. Thanks!

Vishnu and Romeo & Juliet

Saturday night was a much needed break from church and the rest of life. Saturday was a rough day (sorry, but I don't feel like going into it this publicly), but after a cry and a short, much needed nap, I was able to move on. My good friend Ana Luisa (who sings in the same choir as me and helped me join) and I went to see Romeo & Juliet at the Teatro Nacional. The ads at the bus stops said it was the musical version, but the actors only sang during scene changes. Whatever. I was expecting a musical, like West Side Story or Les Miserables, where chunks of the script are actually sung. Overall it was well done. I'm not sure why, but everyone these days feels the need to throw some kind of interpretation to Shakespeare's work. For the most part, I liked the way it was interpreted. The set was absolutely minimal, but that allowed it to be really versatile. It's amazing what 6 wooden crate/boxy things can be used for! And this is the REALLY impressive part-only 6 actors made up the whole cast and chorus!!! For real. They pulled it off. There must have been some ridiculously fast costume changes. I did recognize a few characters to be played by the same actor, but that does make some sense, especially since the first character that actor played was dead. But, I was convinced that there were more than 6 people until the curtain call. I can't imagine how hard that would be to be in and out of character playing so many roles at once. I was a total theater geek in high school and did every show I could. I don't think I was actually that great an actress though. I would get too caught up in watching everything going on around me. I've always loved the limelight though. So anyway, it was fun to see a play.
Oh, one more note. It was a British acting troupe, so the performance was in English. (There were a surprising number of gringos there. I've started to feel kind of weird when I'm around a lot of gringos.) Anyway, being British English, I didn't understand all of it, even though I'm rather familiar with the show. Ana Luisa and I were in the topmost, farthest back row. And though the theater is pretty small, it still takes good effort for voices to be heard throughout the whole place. And, the naughty actors a) didn't project enough and b) dropped their lines (the first part of the sentence is audible but the end of it drains off...). So I understood between 70 and 80% of what was said. Ana Luisa got between 20 and 30%. We decided that between the 2 of us we made 100% and could understand it all. Jaja!!
Oops, I skipped the Vishnu part and went straight to R&J. Vishnu is Mommy's and my FAVORITE restaurant in all of Costa Rica. When Mommy came to visit me when I was a student here were ate many meals there. It is vegetarian, but has a lot of yummy food. Mommy's and my favorites are the pitas with a fruit drink/shake of mora (kind of like a black raspberry) in milk. SOOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!! And the service is fast and the food is cheap. It is a winner all around! On Saturday Ana Luisa and I enjoyed pitas and yummy fruit drinks and some really nice conversation. I really like one on one time with people getting to know them better. Ana Luisa is one of the people I met when I was a student here almost 3 years ago. We clicked and I knew we could be good friends if we were able to spend more time together. We haven't been able to spend as much time together as I might like or would have hoped, but we're working on it and I think God is really blessing it. I'm so grateful for her!!
(This isn't the greatest picture of us, but it's what I could find easily)

Oh, and I also have to throw in a brief tribute to Ana (the Ana I live with). She came to pick up Ana Luisa and me Saturday after the show because it got out after there were no more buses!! I'm so grateful for her too!!!!

Tico Tuesday, September 15th

Happy Independence Day!!!

There were fireworks last night and today there were parades by the plazas of many the town.

But, today I would like to share with you the miracle God did for me last week. I have been working on getting together a list of 17 documents (many of them which needed to be consularized, authenticated by a lawyer, taken to the National Register, translated, and/or taken to Relaciones Exteriores.) Needless to say, it has been a frustrating, hairy process, especially since some documents are no longer valid after x days or months. But, thanks and praise be to God!! I was able to hand everything in yesterday!!

The big miracle was going to Relaciones Exteriores on Friday and getting in 27 minutes something that I was originally told would take 3 days!!! Head to the blog for the story!

Last week I came very close to having a cow. There was no being tranquila. I thought my criminal record was going to expire on Sunday the 13^th, which meant I had to get everything handed in last Tuesday because the lady at the Alianza Evangelica needs time to look stuff over before she has her weekly appointment in Migracion on Thursdays. Well, that didn't happen on Tuesday. We were still waiting for documents to come back from the lawyer. Her gopher in San Jose wasn't able to accomplish what needed to be done. So, Wednesday we tried to get everything together, but we were waiting on a letter or something. And the lady in Relaciones Exteriores wasn't in and she was the only person who could do what we needed. For you see, not only were we chasing down my 17 documents, we also had to get several documents together in order to get CCI accredited as a legal entity in the eyes of Relaciones Exteriores. But, then I found out that my criminal record wasn't going to expire the 13^th. We had until the 23^rd because that is when it was stamped by the FBI (I thought I only had until the 13^th because that was when they took my fingerprints). So, praise the Lord for his grace! I had more time to get everything in. (But the next pressing issue became my tourist visa expiring this coming Saturday the 19^th.)

Anyway, Friday Minor (the handyman from church) was my companion and we went into San Jose to Relaciones Exteriores. We were greeted by a lady we named “The Filter.” She looked over everything and told us several documents weren't acceptable and why and where we had to go to fix it and gave us a sheet of paper that told us what we needed and that it would take 3 days to get the accreditation that we needed. My hopes fell to the floor once more. But, Minor suggested we wait for Dona Nazaret (the lady that wasn't there on Weds) and see what she had to say. So, we did (and got my other documents authenticated there in the meantime). And she wasn't near as picky as The Filter! All we had to do was go to the National Register and get dates stamped on a couple documents. Somehow they hadn't gotten stamped when the lawyer's gopher was there... :-( And, before we left Dona Nazaret's office, she told us that once we got everything to her, she would see if she couldn't do it for us in one day. What a relief! So, off to the National Register we went! We were nervous because Minor hadn't been in years, and the way he remembered it, the place was huge, sprawled out, and really difficult to navigate and figure out what you had to do where. Well, thanks be to God the place has been redone so everything is centralized and there are people out front that tell you what to do. Once we got inside we only had to wait in line 15-20 minutes! (that's impressive) And the lady who attended to us was a Christian and saved us from having to buy more stamps and authenticating paraphernalia. Instead of possibly taking a long time, she just stamped what we needed and let us go! Praise the Lord! Apparently things at the National Register can often take days to be processed!

Since we were close to that neck of the woods, we swung by the Alianza Evangelica. We wanted to show what we had and make sure that we had everything except the accreditation we were waiting on from Relaciones Exteriores. The girl hardly even looked at my papers as I went down this list saying yup, yup, I have this right here. (And the list she was using wasn't near as complete as the list I got off the internet that told me what needed to be authenticated, consularized, etc.) So, that was a bit discouraging, but oh well. We hurried up and got back to Relaciones Exteriores, hoping and praying that Dona Nazaret was still there.

It had started to rain, so Minor dropped me off and went to park. They let me in to see Dona Nazaret right away. She looked over everything and said it was good. Then she told me I could come and get the certification on Monday. I pressed her for specific times and she gave them to me, but then she paused and said, “Well, actually I can do it right now if you don't mind waiting.” My heart figuratively leapt from my chest onto her desk. She said she'd be out in a half hour. I thanked her profusely and entered the lobby with a huge grin on my face as Minor entered from parking the car. We waited gladly, but somewhat impatiently. It was 2:30pm. I had eaten breakfast before 8am and was ravenous! We had been too busy running around trying to get everything done before places closed for the weekend. She emerged in less than half an hour with the accreditation certificate in her hand. Glory and praise be to God!!

I treated Minor to lunch (at 4pm) and we were thrilled to have Emilia (who has been another HUGE blessing to me in this process) rejoice with us once we got back to church. Ana (my Honduran sister) blessed me hugely on Saturday by getting 2 photocopies of every single piece of paper I had to hand in. That way, when Migracion or the Alianza lose things, we'll have backups. Yesterday (Monday) I went back to the Alianza Evangelica and turned in all 17 items and this time the girl carefully looked over each document and apparently everything was ok. So, Thursday, Dona Patricia has her appointment in Migracion and Lord willing will hand in my papers, I'll be “In process” and at peace and able to focus on my real work once more! Praise the Lord for His goodness, faithfulness, provision, and for caring for us!

Moving Forward

Generally speaking, I am not a fan of forwards. Especially when they come from people who only send me forwards and never send me personal e-mails. (Yes, I realize this is coming from the girl that sends out at least 5 mass e-mails a month. but if you respond to me, I can almost guarantee you a personal response.) Some of them are cute, sweet or funny. But I would much rather hear a personal anecdote.
And, really, the whole "If you're really a Christian don't be ashamed to pass this on" thing is just ridiculous. I actually find it embarrassing. People should be free to forward e-mails without any sort of pressure or guilt hanging over their heads. And God's love or pleasure is surely not dependent on us (not) clicking that forward button. God doesn't ever want us to do anything out of guilt or obligation. He wants us to do things because He tells and leads us to do them and because we love Him and will bring Him glory through them. Anything else is works based and not true Christianity.
E-mail aside, I feel like I am having a similar experience here in real life. It makes me really sad to see, work with, and ask help from nonChristians and have them be so nice and helpful and then to go to Christians and ask them for help and have them respond with reluctance minimal cooperation. That's embarrassing too. Christians are supposed to be known for our love. Yes, I am admitting that some Christians are hypocrites. I confess, I'm sure I have done it myself and that's not something I'm proud of, but may God give me grace to not do it again. I'll tell you up front in case you couldn't tell-I have not yet arrived. I'm not perfect. But I know God is still hard at work in me and He will keep moving me forward! More details on my temporary residency stuff on Tuesday!

Tico Tuesday, September 8th

Today's picture is a blast from the past. My brother Zach sent me this picture the other day.

I think the percentage of you who might recognize this house is quite small. It is the house I lived in for 7 years in Auburn, Maine. I never lived anywhere longer than I did in that house. It is the last place that I would consider home. Grove City kind of felt like home, I called it home. But to me, in earthly terms, real homey-home has to have real immediate family there. The house in Auburn was the last place my brothers and I all lived in the same place together with my parents. Now we are all grown up and are in 3 different time zones and 4 different states (and me outside the country). I'd say we're pretty spread out. But, I guess that's life. It makes any time we get together really special!

Head to my blog for some fun memories of the house! Http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/

The house in Auburn was fantastic. Close to all the important places, yet not in the middle of anything too big or special. It had a great yard, out of which I probably dug hundreds of dandelions. We had a pretty perennial garden, raspberries (YUM!!) and plenty of space for catch and whiffle ball. I LOVED my room. It was the master suite!!! It was upstairs, so Mommy and Daddy made their own master bedroom downstairs and I got the original one, walk in closet included (Mommy got half of it though).

Well, really I loved the whole house. Each room and hallway had at least one quilt made by Mommy and nice, big windows. It was all just happy and homey. And clean.

I remember when we put down the new linoleum flooring in the kitchen. I was on my hands and knees with the rolling pin smoothing out all the bubbles. I took a lot of ownership of that floor. I was often on my hands and knees cleaning up anything that made it dirty again. Oh and we had cool stainless steel counters which reads – no need for a cutting board! And they had a great lip on them, so there was never any worry about eggs rolling onto the floor. :-)

I'd say the house was a bit of a fixer upper when we bought it. The first summer we moved there we sided the house and put the pretty black shutters on it and repainted all the doors. I consider myself an expert paint scraper because of this. We also had to do the remodeling downstairs a bit for Mommy & Daddy's room. I remember the family bonding as we all spackled the narrow back hallway together.

Oh, we also had family bonding during the (in)famous “Ice Storm of '98.” Yup, that January was our first winter in Maine and a HUGE, TERRIBLE ice storm swept through almost the whole state. It was traumatic. No power for days -well, luckily we lived near the police station so we got ours back after 3 or 4 days, but some people were without power for 2 weeks!!! We had no working generator and no wood stove. So, we had no heat and only cold water. We all basically moved into my parents room, the warmest room in the house. We wore tons of clothes and were wrapped up in lots of blankets and warm fuzzy bathrobes. And how did we spend our time after it got dark at about 4pm? Snapping white Necco's. It was great! Necco is the New England Candy Company. You might know them as the original makers of SweetHearts (the Valentine's Day candy hearts that say things on them). But they also just make little wafers of the same colors and flavors. The white ones (like Wint-O-Green LifeSavers) spark/glow when you break them in the dark. Daddy was really good at making one white wafer last a long time. And of course we enjoyed eating the little pieces once they couldn't be snapped any smaller. Did we really live 4 days without power? No. The power flashed on once long enough for Mommy to make some soup. But then we went to New Hampshire (which was only a couple hours away) to a hotel for a night or 2. The drive was a bit treacherous since so many trees were down, and of course, the roads were icy too. But we made it, and really enjoyed the hot tub at our hotel!

Well, I guess that's enough reminiscing for now... Stay tuned for more news, thoughts and stories!

Re: my last post.Costa Rica lost the soccer game on Saturday. But, we aren't totally out of the running for the World Cup.

Game Day!

As I left choir rehearsal just after 4 this afternoon, I saw the streets filled with people dressed like the people in the picture. There were vendors all over the place with jerseys and other kinds of gameday paraphernelia. Jerseys were hung up on makeshift clotheslines hung between signs and lightposts. Choir rehearsal is in Tibas, about a kilometer away from the National Stadium where the "Sele" (La Seleccion-the national soccer team) plays its home games. Tonight there is obviously a game. If I hadn't known before today, it was already obvious before I even left Heredia. The game is a World Cup Qualifying Match against Mexico. I've been told that if we lose, we're out. So, needless to say, the 6pm church service at CCI tonight will be ending at 7:30 on the dot to make sure people can get home in time for the 8 o'clock start. The game has priority.
Like I think I have mentioned before-soccer doesn't run in the blood of all latino's as you might easily be led to think. but just like not everyone in the US is a football or baseball fan, not everyone here is really into soccer. I'm not sure if the game will come on at my house or not. Sometimes we turn on games just so we can be socially adept the next day and able to say "Yeah, what a goal!" I guess we'll see.
Even though I have a lot of Mexican friends I hold very dear, I must say
VAMOS COSTA RICA!!!!

Tico Tuesday, September 1st

Buenas tardes!

So, I try not to send out Chronicles and Tico Tuesdays one right after another, but that's the way the cookie crumbled this time. (I was going to send out the Chronicle Sunday but went out with Ana and Ceci for delicious BAGELS that I hadn't had in forever instead). Anyway, I mentioned in my Chronicle that I am picking up on more cultural differences. What might they be? Here are a few facts of life that can give you a better idea of what life is like here.

-people are accustomed to having all species of insects inside the house. Ej-ants, flies, Japanese beetley kind of things, moths, 2-3 inch cockroaches, butterflyish monsters called palomillas, mosquitos, ronrones aka abejones de mayo, and a wide variety of other bugs (and the people I live with only kill flies and mosquitos. Everything else is left alone or gently escorted outside. They were shocked once when I killed something with a shoe as I had been well-trained to do in the US.)

-the roads are very narrow and have no shoulder. Most roads also have a ditch or some kind of drainage way immediately next to them. If the road is has painted lines, they are very old and hard to see.

-there is a lot of litter everywhere

-you don't get sick by spreading germs. You get sick because your “defenses are down” or you undergo some kind of climate change (you go to the beach where it is really hot, you come home to where it is cooler and bam! you have a cold)

-there are all sorts of yummy fruits here, some that exist in/are imported to the US (like plantains and mangos) and some you may have never heard of, like jocotes and the fruit featured in the picture, mamones chinos. Their flesh is a little tougher than a grape, but they still have some juice and are really yummy!

-the houses here are quite small compared to houses in the US. Most only have one floor and have very little free space. Dressers are not common. Most people keep all their clothes in their closet. There might be a little chest of drawers or something inside the closet, but most clothes are folded on a shelf or hanging up.

-I think I've mentioned this before. In most houses, used tp gets thrown in a wastebasket, not flushed away.

-also in most places, carpeting is nonexistent. With the amount of rain that we get, mold is enough of a problem as is. Carpets are not a great idea. And, wearing shoes inside is practically a must. Mothers yell at their kids to put something on their feet. In my house growing up it was always “take your shoes off before you come in!”

-the typical greeting is a kiss on the cheek. But it can often just be cheek touching cheek and kissing the air. Guys don't kiss each other-they usually have a friendly handshake and a couple good pats on the arm or the handshake/pat on the back/hug combo. The other day I was at chorale rehearsal and we had a soloist come in to sing with us. After the first run through of the song our director stepped forward and kissed the girl on the cheek. It looked so natural and normal to me. And then I thought about life in the States and what an ordeal that would create if it were to happen there instead of here. Sexual harassment, taking advantage of the girl, possible adultery... I personally like the way people greet here and am nervous about going back to the States and accidentally kissing people and having them take it the wrong way. -Also, it is normal to greet and say goodbye to everyone in the room. I FIT IN HERE!! I always had to “make my rounds” in the States before leaving somewhere.

-people here tend to wear a lot of cologne/perfume. I grew up in a family that did nothing of the sort and remember hearing my parents and grandparents complain about people at church, in theaters, and at concerts that wore too much perfume. In some ways I can understand- with there being a warmer climate people need to mask some BO because they can't get a shower every few hours. But, a little bit of that kind of liquid goes a loooooooooong way. You can imagine what I often end up smelling like after greeting multiple, well cologned/perfumed people.

-A lot of people I know carry around their toothbrush with them. This culture is obsessed with toothbrushing! I like it!

-and this is the greatest challenge for me right now: the view of the cross and the Gospel is different. I'm used to the focus being on the cross and it being the symbol of Jesus defeating sin and death. I think it's safe to say that regardless of denomination most churches in the States have a cross in some rather obvious place. Here, most evangelical churches do NOT have crosses in them. The cross is seen as a very Roman Catholic thing. And from what I can tell, most protestant/evangelical Christians here don't really want anything to do with Catholics. Sadly many of the ex-Catholics I have met are fervent anti-Catholics. I personally have great respect for Catholics and believe that many many Catholics have a relationship with Christ. I don't believe everything Catholics do -if I did I'd be one. But anti-Catholicism is not my thing. And now I'm kind of going “oops!” because when people ask me about being Anglican, I usually start off by telling them it is really similar to Catholicism. Maybe that isn't the best idea. Anyway, here, the emphasis of salvation is not on the cross. I head a Gospel presentation where the cross wasn't even mentioned! People realize their need for God, they repent of their sins and they accept the gift of eternal life God has given them. Jesus is the answer and there is no need to dwell on His suffering. I'm still learning about this though. Right now this is what I understand from multiple conversations with people and some web-surfing. But, I'm not closing the survey just yet. I think that having a good grasp on this is vital to my role here in church. I can't be forcing people my way against the culture.

I think this is an excellent place to bring in CivArts once more. In the beginning of the semester Dr. Munson showed up 2 different paintings of the cross. This one, by Matthias Grünewald is very horizontal and dark, the lines are blurred, and Jesus' body is beat up and nasty looking. The other example, by Rafael, shows a totally different perspective. The sky is bright and clear, there are cute, pink angels, the painting is vertically oriented and Jesus just has a little squirt of blood coming out of his side as if here were a garden fountain. I feel like the perspective I have of the cross is more like Rafael's and that of people here is more like Grünewald's. And that's ok. What happened on the cross was horrific. It was the most embarrassing, painful way to die and Jesus Christ, God Incarnate was crucified. But, the death of Jesus, the perfect sacrifice led to victory over sin and the grave because Jesus was resurrected! He took the punishment for our sins and then rose from the dead that we might have eternal life in Him! The cross is the symbol of that victory that we have. It is a beautiful thing! But, I can see how people maintain the Grünewald look on things. It's different. But different doesn't make it wrong. I just need to learn how to adjust to this way of understanding things. May God grant me wisdom!