Tico Tuesday, April 29th

You never know what's coming. I spend a lovely Easter Sunday afternoon at the Kampers (friends and fellow LAM-now-UWMers who live relatively close by). On Wednesday, I got an e-mail from some fellow missionaries saying Liz was in the hospital for an emergency surgery. What?!?!? Thankfully, she's ok and they were able to remove what needed to go laproscopically. They all got home Friday night. Saturday, I set my studies aside and went over to help with laundry, dishes, and keep an extra eye on their 3 boys (whom I frequently babysit). They were all exhausted from being away from home and normalcy. Sunday I went over for a while in the evening too, and then again yesterday while Noah was at work. Liz can't do stairs and the littlest guy still needs to nap in his crib up there, so she really needed someone there to do that. God worked things out perfectly this week for me to work today instead of yesterday! And thankfully, Liz's mom was able to fly in last night, so she'll be around to help for the next week or so.

The younger 2 Kamper boys and me on Easter Sunday

In the meantime, I have some big projects left to finish my semester (less than a week to go) and am a bit overwhelmed. But, I knew my friends needed help, and they are much more pleasurable and important to me than writing papers.
I tried to put myself in Liz's place yesterday, thinking of all the things that have been going on lately, and I found myself feeling pretty down. How on earth do we "consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds"??? Wow, I'm so glad I'm not in her shoes!, I thought. But, during my devotions this morning God put things back into perspective for me. Regardless of what happens to us, he is still God. He is still good. We are still saved and free from sin, reconciled to the Father. We can still rejoice in our loving God who never changes and always cares for his children. 
Please keep the Kamper family in your prayers over these next couple weeks (and months!). And please pray for me to be able to get all my schoolwork done with excellence by the time it is due (some on Sat. and some on Mon.)!!
Thank you!
God grant you peace, joy, and good health!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 22nd

Happy Tuesday! Christ is risen!!!
Thanks be to God I have now recovered from camp. I slept more in the last week than I had in a very long time and my voice is back to normal again as well. The whole country here basically shuts down for the second half of Holy Week, and I was just fine with that. It was a restful, but productive time for me. While it would have been really nice to join my Arbolitos friends for a trip to the beach, I am glad I stayed home. This allowed me to sleep, study, go to my first Tenebrae service ever on Maundy Thursday (at an English speaking fellowship), and have some time to hang out with my friend Jessica. She stayed with me two nights. It is always so nice to have someone else around my apartment! It makes me more productive, more clean, and Jess helps with meal prep and cleanup too! We both really enjoyed spoiling each other and taking turns working in the kitchen. I finally had the chance to show her the Bible Home in daylight and we had a lovely picnic there with a view of the valley.

Resurrection Day was full: Jess and I went to a "sunrise" service with the same fellowship I went to on Thursday. After breakfast at a well-known "soda," I dropped her off at CCI (where she attends and where I used to serve). I saw a number of people I hadn't seen in ages, so I stayed for a few minutes to say hi to them. I ended up being there for baptisms, which was really cool, but I did feel really odd the whole time. I feel like the people there only know a shadow of who I am today, thanks, glory and praise be to God! I then hurried home to frost and decorate this year's bunny cake and head over to the Kampers' for lunch. I had a lovely time with them and their friends, and especially enjoyed getting to spend some time with Quinn since he is usually asleep by the time I arrive to babysit him and his brothers. I finished the day with my dear Filipino friends who were able to come back to Costa Rica one last time before they return to the Philippines in June.
For more pictures, head to my facebook. There is a supercute one of Elliot, Quinn and me and ones of Lloyd and Dahl and me.
May we continue to rejoice each day in our Risen Savior and the life we have in him!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 16th

Hello everyone! Yes, it's Wednesday, but I was so tired when I got home from camp yesterday I was in bed with the lights out at 8:45pm. Were I not such a social being, it would have been earlier. After sleeping about 10 hours and going for a nice run, I'm feeling much better, but am still looking forward to more time with my head on my pillow again soon.

Camp was wonderful! I am so grateful for the experience I've been gaining and the new things I learn every year. This year I had the best behaved cabin I've had yet. We were all really tired by Monday though, and unfortunately it was very noticeable in actions, attitudes and words. We survived though, and a couple of my campers fell into quite a deep sleep on the way home yesterday.
We had a World Cup theme this year, so each cabin was a country. We were Germany, so we had lots of black, red, and yellow things (and a German flag I was able to get for $4 while I was in the States). One day during cabin time we all sat around and enjoyed pretzels (since they are common in Germany) and green mangos with salt (since the camp we were at has lots of mango trees and it is almost mango season and ticos have an obsession for eating unripe fruits with salt). This was one of my favorite moments from camp. We were sitting around together, happily eating and sharing. I seized the moment to have us review what we'd been learning so far and help the girls make some connections between a couple different stories they heard. We had a great time and greatly enjoyed the theme songs, the pool, the mud pit, games of human foosball, the talent show, and more.
Now it's time to get back into study mode! Just a couple more weeks until my semester ends! Thank you for your continued prayers for the kids at the Bible Home and the other kids who joined us for camp and for me and my studies, etc. God is faithful and good and I want him to be glorified more in me.
Blessings on you as we enter this Holy Season and soon celebrate the resurrection of our Lord!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 8th

I have no idea who the people are in this picture. Except one. That's what I get for wanting to drive through the Appalachian Mountains back to Knoxville in daylight.

My classmate Beth (the one at the mic) is on student council and helped put together a special community day to help students like me get to know some of the other students that live closer to the seminary and have weekend classes. It sounded like a lot of fun, but, after driving through the mountains in daylight, I knew I didn't want to have to do so in the dark. And I wanted to get a reasonable amount of sleep that night since I flew out at 6am to come home. The sleep ended up not happening much, but was well worth missing in order to hang out more with my brother Zach and his wife Greta and get to eat the most amazing meal I'd had since Christmas dinner.
So, I missed out on "Community Day" at school, but I didn't miss out on a great experience with my classmates and professor in our residency for conflict management. We had some excellent discussions and a few things my professor said resonated with me deeply. And we watched "Twelve Angry Men." I'd never seen it before, nor been interested in watching it. But after having this class, I thought it was hilarious and very well done! I would actually even recommend it to you. It's powerful. Now I just have to read 500 more pages and do a couple other assignments for the class and I'll be done with it! Spiritual Formation still has quite a load left. It's really good too though!
I appreciate your prayers as we leave for camp with the kinds from the Bible Home on Friday at 1pm (3pm Eastern). We'll be there till Tuesday afternoon learning about self-acceptance, peace, tolerance, and effort. The primary goal is to help all the children have an encounter with Jesus!
Thank you!
Carrie

PS While in Charlotte, I got to have breakfast one morning with several people from the UWM office! That was delightful!

Tico Tuesday, April 1st

Happy First day of April! (A Chronicle will come out sometime soon, hopefully before the weekend ends)
Today I find myself in Knoxville, TN, enjoying one more evening with my brother Zach before I head over to Charlotte for class for the remainder of the week. I had originally planned on running the Knoxville Marathon on Sunday with him (though he was faster than me), but my legs were too overworked from my marathon enthusiasm last year. So, I hung out with his super-cool wife and greyhound at the mile 16 water station, which is right by their house. Though I was really sad not to run the race, it was neat to be able to empathize wholeheartedly with the runners! I really enjoyed cheering them on. I know how much it means to them!

Lots of runners loved Reggie's sign at the marathon!

I saw three marathoners with the shirt from last year's Boston Marathon and one Boston Strong shirt, so I made sure to cheer extra hard for them. But, of course, my biggest cheers were for Zach.
Over the last several years, Zach is definitely the family member I haven't been able to see as easily/often, so I am really grateful for these few days to connect with him and be reminded once more of what a great guy he is.
Family is such a gift! May God bless you and yours this week!
Carrie