Tico Tuesday, November 29th

Happy Tuesday once more!

This past week had a lot of highlights, but of course I have to tell you about my Thanksgiving Birthday. :-) It occurred to me to make Thanksgiving dinner for one of the houses at the Bible Home in early/mid-October and it became my dream.

I was so excited I couldn't fall asleep Wednesday night. There were some crazy things that happened, I'll elaborate on the blog, but I made it to the Nido (Nest) house and we only ate dinner an hour and a half late. The kids were so eager to help me. Alex, one of my many favorites did a great job helping with the sweet potatoes and the green beans. Ismael helped crumble bread for the stuffing and saved me some time with that too. Having helpers is wonderful and makes a huge difference! Everything turned out really well and utterly delicious. Thanksgiving has always been one of the most special days of the year for me, and that it was combined with my birthday made it superspecial! So, I made sure to spend it with some superspecial people. The substitute/foster parents in the Nido house are really sweet, loving people, the kids are some of the ones I'm closest to and my friend Fausía and her husband Andrés (who both also work at the Bible Home) have become very special people to me as well.

Of course, one of the best parts of the day was getting to talk to Mommy and Daddy. I'm getting really excited to see them for Christmas!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I am very thankful to God for each and every one of you!

Love,

Carrie

PS More pictures should be hitting facebook eventually. Don't forget to head for the blog for more Thanksgiving Birthday details!

I meant to make the pumpkin pie ahead of time. If I had, we would have probably eaten on time, or close to it. (The kids typically go to bed around 8:30, so eating at 7:30 kind of threw things off. but, it all worked out.) I went out for a birthday dinner with my friends the Jespersens on Wednesday. We had a really nice time. I got home a little later than I wanted, but was still planning to make my pie. Well, I started geting the ingredients out and -AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! There was no powdered ginger!! I tried calling and texting Ana since she was out and near Walmart (the only place that was still open at 9pm), but to no avail. So, I planned to go on a ginger hunt as part of my bike ride on Birthday morning. However, as I was walking to the back door to get my bike, the very gray skies opened and canceled my bike ride (which I had been very much looking forward to, even before the ginger thing). So I did tae bo inside.

I couldn't go to the store right at 8 because that's when the Macy's Parade was starting, and since it had worked out for me to get the whole day off work, I REALLY wanted to carry on tradition and watch the parade. So I did. I got really nostalgic and Mommy-sick during the first part and was practically in tears the first 20 minutes, but then I recovered (and the Broadway performances weren't so moving).

I headed to the bank in Heredia for the residency renewal appointment. I needed to get some $ out of the ATM first though. Well, I didn't have enough $ left in my account here, so I needed to get money out of my account in the States. And horror of horrors, between my excitement for my afternoon/evening at the Bible home, the nostalgia of Thanksgiving, my desperate need for ginger, eagerness for my residency to be renewed, and a couple silly digits, I totally forgot my PIN!!!

I was really freaking out. And yeah, I punched in the wrong PIN enough to have them deactivate my card. But, thanks be to God, I was able to pay what I needed to with the cash I had and what was left on my Costa Rican bank card. Oh man was I scared though! Things started looking up after that. I got my ginger, came home and got my card reactivated, threw half the kitchen into the car and headed up the mountain to my beloved Bible Home.

I spent all afternoon cooking up a storm. It was wonderful. Mami Marielos (of the Jardín House) lent me her oven so I could bake other things... not much fit in with the turkey in Mami Mayela's kitchen. As I cooked, the kids made me birthday cards. Mariana made me an awesome cardboard purse with a beaded strap and lots of chocolate inside. A number of the kids even had me spell my name for them so they could write it correctly. That was nice. Carrie is not an easy name for Spanish speakers to figure out.

Mami Mayela and her son Jhon decorated everything beautifully-not in a very autumnal fashion, but lovely nonetheless. The kids were very patient about the meal, I think Papi Gerardo was the most impatient one, and that was semi-joking. The kids loved the food (and then ate off all the marshmallows from on top of the sweet potatoes, jajajaja!!). Well, everybody loved the food. I explained briefly the origins of Thanksgiving. Then, we did the Smith traditional Thanksgiving alphabet-going through the alphabet and saying what we're thankful for for each letter. I had hoped to do more traditions, but time was of the essence.

My birthday cake (which should be decorated like a turkey when my birthday falls on Turkey Day) wasn't really decorated like a turkey, but I know that was a tall order and Mami and the house helper really didn't have time for it anyway. It was 1/2 chocolate and yummy.

The pumpkin pie was too. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream! Fanny helped with that. :-) Oh and they gave me a whole bunch of sweet little presents, along with more cards and letters from the kids. So sweet!

I left the Bible Home shortly after 10 (they held the gate open for me), came home, cleaned thawed turkey nastiness out of the fridge, put the cooked turkey in the fridge and called my parents. Then I finished unpacking the car and started packing for the weekend mini-vacation at the beach with my co-workers from the office. Whew! It was a full, fun, wild and crazy day, but aside from the ginger stress and the money situation, I would re-live it in a heartbeat. One of my favorite parts was when the kids came home from school. They kind of trickled in and it was such a joy to see them come in the door and have them come and hug me. I LOVED IT!

Tico Tuesday, November 22

Wow, it's hard to believe only 1 week has gone by since I last wrote. There was a lot to choose from, but I decided to share with you today about "Saturday's Suicidal Squirrel."

Saturday was the LAM picnic, one of the few opportunities we have each year to gather as a family of LAM missionaries. People were still arriving when all of a sudden there was a big "Boom! Boom!" It sounded like 2 fireworks had just been set off. I wondered why anyone would be stupid enough to do it in the daylight. I thought I saw a spark though and maybe something fall out of the corner of my eye. One missionary's soon soon pointed out the dead squirrel on the ground and we figured that the little guy got zapped. Unfortunately, he made the power go out too. So, the hanging out and lunch parts of the picnic were unaffected, however, we had to get innovative in order to be able to carry out the time of worship, sharing and honoring missionaries whose complete number of years of service is a multiple of 5. Not only was there no power, but it was pouring rain, so that made it nigh impossible to hear each other. So, what did we do? Hook up the keyboard to a car, write the words to the songs out on big pieces of paper, and when we all introduced ourselves, we passed around the megaphone. It was hilarious!! It was fun though. And thankfully, the rain died down in time for the presentations and we were able to spend some nice time sharing with and praying for each other and other LAMers who weren't with us. More on the blog on why I want to be the next Margaret Weir.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Love,

Carrie

Who is Margaret Weir? An amazing woman of God who is celebrating 40 years of service with Roblealto and the Latin America Mission. Margarita, as she is known around here, came to Roblealto when we were first opening our child care centers.

She was the Coordinator of Christian Education for a number of years and is now the Roblealto chaplain. That means she gets to meet with people and pray for them and encourage them: staff, various members of families we serve, a ton of Roblealto "alumni" (people who were in one of our programs when they were younger) and lots of other people. As Suzanne, Roblealto's current Nursing Coordinator shared about Margarita on Saturday, Margarita is always sending people notes of encouragement. They occasionally come with chocolate. :-) She often sends out prayer requests too. Talk about a woman of prayer. Suzanne also talked about going out for lunch with Margarita and how she would pray as she ordered her subway style sandwich. But what an amazing example! I want to be like Margarita because she shows others what Jesus is like. She knows and remembers so many people, she is gentle, a good listener, so kind to others and she is just great! She made me feel special on Saturday when she told me that she mentioned me in her monthly update-about the time I led the inductive study on John 15 in the devotional at work. I'd honestly almost forgotten about that, but she spoke of it very highly. I feel no obligation to return the favor and brag on her, I'm all to happy to do so! I don't know if I'll be around Roblealto for 40 years, but whether I do or not, she will always be a good role model for me to follow.

TIco Tuesday, November 15th

Friday night we FINALLY got to do it!! For months, the leaders of Chispas (Sparkies) 1 had been trying to plan a special activity for the kids in our AWANA group. And finally, we got to do it on Friday night. 2 microbuses full of leaders and children headed down the mountain to go to Wendy's. It was a real treat for the kids. And we brought a special surprise for them: one of our awesome leaders' brother is a clown! It was fantastic. He was very entertaining, but also spoke very straightforwardly about God being our perfect Father. Just what these kids need to hear! The kids also went nuts over the balloon animals, watches and swords he made them. It was a lot of fun and the kids all behaved really well; even A, a new boy who is not very good at practicing the virtues of obedience and respect. He makes a superb helper! He did a great job passing out straws and clearing the tables when we were done eating. After dinner (and before heading to the playplace), we taught the kids a song to sing in AWANA on Sunday for Friendship Day. Wow, did some cool stuff happen on Sunday! More stories about that on the blog!

May God bless you in a special way this week!

Love,

Carrie

Sunday was so much fun. As I mentioned, it was Friendship Day in AWANA, so we had a few special things take place because of that. During our opening exercises/time of worship, we took a moment to have a couple children come up and say something nice to the leaders. One little girl who just came to the Bible Home a couple months ago seized the moment to say something not really to the leaders, but to announce that she wasn't going to fight with another girl in her house anymore. Awww! A hand went up, and a boy (one of my favorites) apologized for not forgiving another boy who had asked him forgiveness (and forgave him). Another hand went up. Another boy apologized for misbehaving and having a bad attitude at a baseball game/event on Saturday. It was amazing and beautiful. I'd seen this happen once before at the Bible Home, when a boy publicly apologized for having a bad attitude. So powerful! Praise the Lord for the good work He is doing in the children! They are learning how to behave, how to ask and give forgiveness, how to have healthy relationships and more. Hallelujah!

During opening exercises on Sunday, we also had a few minutes to go around and greet and bless one another. Oh my goodness. If you're familiar with the 5 love languages, talk about filling up the love tank! Going from one person to another, hugging, speaking words of blessing, kindness and friendship, kids coming up to me and throwing their arms around me, another one of my favorite boys coming up behind me and putting his cold little hands over my eyes. AHHH! It was so wonderful! Seriously, people, you all need to come to Roblealto!

The Bible lesson was a lot of fun. It didn't have anything to do with Friendship Day, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway because I want to. Before digging into the lesson, we had a round of Chubby Bunny. Note: it's better to do it with big marshmallows and not the mini ones. We completely lost count. It was totally hilarious though and I think the activity was new to all the kids as well as my fellow leaders. Anyway, I got to teach on the feeding of the 5000. So, I pretended I was the big sister of the boy who had the loaves and fish. I compared the mountain to the volcano the Bible Home is near and told them there were as many people there as could fit in the new National Stadium. I had a couple kids come up and be my little brother, Jesus and the disciples and then had them pass out the chocolate chip pancakes I made. I'd also brought 2 cans of tuna, but we didn't open them. I knew I had to get really creative, because I either had to do something kind of crazy or end up with something kind of lame. The lesson went really well though and at the end I explained how the one boy's act led to the feeding of a multitude is similar to how Jesus' one act of dying on the cross paid for the sins of not just a multitude, but everyone. God totally answered my prayer on how to include the Gospel in the lesson!

Before we got into game time, we sang our friendship song to the Chispas 2 group. They sang a song for us too. Oh and in manual time, both my kids were well behaved. My boy maintained a good attitude and my little girl (who usually cries at some point each week) didn't cry!

Sadly, we only have 1 AWANA left this year. I'm going to miss it like crazy, but I'm thinking I may still go up to the Bible Home every other week to worship with the kids. We'll see!

Tico Tuesday, November 8th

Happy Tuesday!

Life has been so insanely full but wonderful I don't know how it is all happening. Anyway, this past Saturday was the national AWANA conference here in Costa Rica. Sadly, only a small percentage of churches and leaders were able to be present, but those of us that were there really enjoyed it. I know I did.

We received workshops of disciplining with love and using the model of virtues to build character and modify behavior (presented by Roblealto's own Child Psychologist from the Bible Home!), learning styles and memorization techniques for helping out kiddos learn their Bible verses. It was neat to have lunch with people from other churches and hear about other AWANA clubs in the country. At my table, we actually had leaders from 4 countries represented. Along with this gringa and the ticas there, we had a girl from Colombia and a lady from Greece. So cool! Anyway, some people traveled quite a ways to be there. It seemed to me like everyone who lives outside the Central Valley made a much greater effort to be there than those who were from places closer by. I was the only leader from the Bible Home that ended up coming, but I plan on sharing what I learned. It was fun to see my fellow LAM missionaries (Costa Rica's national AWANA directors) in action too.

The church sanctuary we met in had some sweet decorations, like this cute balloon girl!

Have a joy-filled rest of the week!

Carrie

Tico Tuesday, November 1st

Happy All Saints Day! And, Happy Birthday Month! (I celebrate all month. It's kind of a joke, but only kind of ;-) )

Anyway, today I'd just like to share a snapshot of the beauty of nature. Isn't that beautiful?

It's not sparkling with dew drops (which would have been even more gorgeous) and it doesn't say anything about a pig (think Charlotte's Web). But even if you don't like spiders it is just a simple, natural, beautiful thing. Don't you think? I thought it was a lovely greeting to me when I got to the office up at the Bible Home last week. Today I was working at the Bible Home again, and it rained, again. But, for some reason the beauty and the wonder of rain just kind of hit me again like refreshing drops on thirsty skin. Water falling from the sky? How can SO much water be up there and defy gravity for so long? I remember learning about the water cycle in 3rd or 4th grade and more in depth in 9th grade. But, as in medicine and many other scientific fields, just because we know how it works doesn't mean we can't be in awe of it anymore. Perhaps we should be even more in awe! Who but God would think of this? Makes me think of a Psalm I read this morning. It talks about the rain, God's worthiness and praising Him.

Beautiful! Glory to God!

This week, may we all stop to ponder and wonder at God's marvelous creation for it truly proclaims His majesty!

With love and joy,

Carrie

I was really grateful for the spider web and the reminder of how fascinating rain and the water cycle is. I think it is important for me to remain in awe of God and His creation without going to my beloved Grand Teton National Park. It's amazing to be in places that just seem to be blaring God's glory fortissimo, but it's neat to tune in to the things that are more subtle and piano. God is the composer of the great symphony of creation and sometimes the very contrasts just make it that much more amazing. I LOVE IT!! Praise the Lord!