Tico Tuesday, January 31st

This picture isn't exactly the one I had in mind, but I was too happy and distracted to pull out my camera at the LAM hymn sing we had on Sunday. Imagine a house with a view similar to what you see in the picture, but better, especially because it has the Bible Home in the foreground! Then inside, a few hundred years of missionary service in Costa Rica with willing hearts to sing rich praises to our King. Now that is a beautiful sight! A dear retired missionary who had a hip replacement last year still accompanies us and plays all the hymns from memory. He just wants a hymnal to sing along "all those second verses" and beyond. We all call out our favorite hymns, but make sure everyone has gotten to request at least one before we close down with voices tired but hearts still going strong. How could we not end with the Doxology and then in prayer, feeling a special closeness with one another and our Creator, Savior and Lord whose praises our souls compel us to sing? I wish we could do this more than once a year, but it's always hard to find a time when people are free. So many missionaries, so much going on.

May we all worship while we work, that each action may be a note of praise to the One who has given us work, life and everything else.

Love,

Carrie

PS I dare you to pull out a hymnal this week... or even just look up a hymn online (a real hymnal is better though). I'd love to hear your favorites!

One I heard for the first time on Sunday and loved is below:

O Master, Let me Walk with Thee

1. O Master, let me walk with thee   in lowly paths of service free;   tell me thy secret; help me bear   the strain of toil, the fret of care.   2. Help me the slow of heart to move   by some clear, winning word of love;   teach me the wayward feet to stay,   and guide them in the homeward way.   3. Teach me thy patience; still with thee   in closer, dearer company,   in work that keeps faith sweet and strong,   in trust that triumphs over wrong;   4. In hope that sends a shining ray   far down the future's broadening way,   in peace that only thou canst give,   with thee, O Master, let me live.

Tico Tuesday, January 24th

Friday was a big day for the Roblealto Child Care Association: we inaugurated a new house for 8 adolescent boys! People were dreaming and planning for this to happen over a decade ago, but everything came together for the house to open on Friday. We had a lovely little ceremony and got to tour the very freshly decorated house. One of my favorite parts is the little ledge they have in the dining room with a whole bunch of framed pictures of the boys and the foster family that is taking care of them. My favorite part of the ceremony was when a couple of the guys talked about what it meant to them to live in the house and what some of their goals are. They were pretty overcome by typical adolescent embarrassment, but my buddy Alex was able to pull it out. "I know I have my problems, but I want to work through them, obey Dad, go to college and move on with life." THAT'S MY BOY!! I'm so proud of him! (he's one of my many favorites) The Bible Home staff have some wonderful, special stuff planned for all these boys so they can grow into great, exemplary men who reach their dreams and break out of their family's cycles of dysfunction and poverty. I'm so excited about it! Please pray for these 8 boys and the foster family that is working with them. Thanks!

I challenge us all to be an encouragement to an adolescent this week! Write to me or post on my fb wall what you did!

Love,

Carrie

Tico Tuesday, January 17th

Traveling Mercies

A few wonderful things and answers of prayer have come to me lately, and the ones I'm going to share have to do with travels.

I went to my dear Isla Venado again this past weekend. I went by bus, since it isn't worth it to take my car when I go by myself. But, another family had been visiting Pastor Eladio and doña Epi and they had a car. They gave me a ride all the way from the boat dock to the bus terminal in Puntarenas! When I got there, the terminal was overflowing. After buying my ticket I had to go back outside and join the end of the line that wound around almost half the building. I was wanting to get home as soon as possible because I had to get up early for work, but I figured with the line so long, it would probably be a while. Well, I hadn't even been in line for 2 minutes and someone from the bus company came out another door right by where I was standing and announced 4 open seats on the bus that was about to head out. I couldn't believe it! If that isn't God's goodness to me, I don't know what is. I quickly stepped forward and the bus pulled away less than 5 minutes later. Once getting closer to home I had to switch buses. As the evening wears on, buses tend to pass less frequently, but God answered my prayer and the bus I needed was there waiting as soon as I stepped off the first bus! I made it home in record time!

God again showed His incredible grace to me this morning, when He woke me up with time to catch the bus, even though I forgot to set my alarm. (Tuesdays are the only day of the week I have to take the bus to work.) Then on the way home, I was getting out my money to pay my bus fare and I was 5 colones (1 penny) short of having the right change. I asked God to let me find a 5 on the ground and about 10 meters before my stop, there it was! I'm so spoiled!! This is a good reminder to me, to have faith and ask, whether it's just for a penny on the ground or $2 million for a new child care center. God is faithful, loving and oh so good!!

Blessings on you the rest of this week!

Carrie

PS The picture is of my yummy supper on Isla Venado Saturday night. No nutcrackers there! They gave me a rock and a cutting board but everyone else just used their teeth. Wow!

Tico Tuesday, January 10th

Happy happy Tuesday from Costa Rica!

I think this is the first time in my life when I've actually been happy to go back to work after vacation. Don't get me wrong, vacation was WONDERFUL and much needed, but if I hadn't mentioned it before,

I really love Roblealto! :-) Today was the Spiritual Retreat for all the Roblealto personnel. We had a number of special presentations, worshiped together, heard lots of beautiful testimonies of what God has done through Roblealto and kicked off our year-long celebration of Roblealto's 80th anniversary. Yup, the Bible Home, Roblealto's first program, was founded in 1932. It started with 8 children. Now we serve 700 children and adolescents and work closely with their families as well. More about the day, including one of my favorite parts on the blog!

May God fill you with joy in your work this week!

Carrie

Having lunch with some of the instructors from my favorite child care center was really fun, especially when we started confessing our chocolaholism (addiction to chocolate), but that wasn't my other highlight of the day. Jijiji. After lunch, we were split into 3 large groups and went to 3 different stations, one of which was a sort of museum, with lots of pictures of Roblealto past and present (and a bit of Roblealto future too, with the model of the Los Guido Child Care Center we are hoping to build ASAP -please pray for God's $$ provision!!). There, we also watched a little drama of a doctor and his assistant taking care of a girl that came to them in really rough shape.

They gave her an IV of Jesus and gave her the bandages of... oh man I can't remember, but a couple were Limits and Unconditional Love. Then they gave her Prayer cream and some other kind of ointment-it was a beautiful, very creative metaphor of the care that Roblealto provides to the children who come to us.

The children truly do come to us in really rough shape. I have written a handful of entrance reports of suicidal children. Children! I don't even see how suicide could even occur to a child! But I don't understand how neglect could occur to a mother either and abandonment to a father. Sadly, those are both pretty darn rampant. I have started to see just how blessed I have been to grow up in a loving, healthy Christian home, but I know I still have not grasped just how much I have taken for granted. So many things that seem so natural and basic to me are an unknown or only a dream to so many children and families. Having both parents live together, be married and have a good relationship, having parents who care and are involved in their children's lives, having parents who show their love in affirming ways, not having to live in poverty... So, once more I thank God for the wonderful family He has given me and ask for the grace to be able to understand and empathize more with the children and families we serve. Please pray for the children of Roblealto: our child care centers and the Bible Home will officially open again on Monday. We have a lot of new children coming in that need a lot of attention (and we're going to need a lot of new sponsors too!) but we also have hundreds of other children coming back that still need a lot of attention as well. Thanks for your interest in this awesome ministry!

Tico Tuesday, January 3rd

Quality time and conversations, reading to my niece and nephews, holding hands together and praying/singing the blessing together before eating, going to a church that sings the same version of the Gloria as my home church in PA, playing Settlers of Catan and Uncle Wiggily, watching my niece and nephews tirelessly do somersaults and play outside in the SNOW, reading John Stott's "Radical Disciple," going for a run with my brother and another with my oldest nephew, eating my sister-in-law's amazing food, spending some time with my great aunt and her daughter, going on the carousel with my niece and nephews, celebrating my brother and sister-in-law's 7th anniversary and a whole lot more. It was a great week! I'm very happy to be home though. I have a lot to do before I go back to work on Monday!

I'm looking forward to reviewing the year 2011 and making new goals for 2012. Have you set any New Year's resolutions? It's never too late to set a goal and start anew-thankfully God's mercies are new every morning!

Blessings on you in this new year!

With love,

Carrie