Tico Tuesday, July 31st

I did it! I finally remembered to take a picture with my small group!! This isn't all of us--I don't think all of us have ever been in the same place at the same time. If so, we wouldn't be a very small group. But, we have a good core, and we're managing. But soon, we'll have to figure out what to do. I finally feel like we've really started to jell and feel more comfortable with each other. Thanks be to God! It has been HARD work. But, slowly, God has been bringing us together.

So, I am grateful, and I am excited. We've started playing a few rounds of the game The Great Dalmuti after our official meeting is over. I think that has definitely helped. It's a game that helps bring out...authenticity... in people. I think it's also helped to have a "not so secret friend" as I've termed it. You draw a name from a hat and have to text that person at least once over the course of the week to send them a message of blessing or encouragement. It's been great seeing some people in the group taking initiative with each other. Last Wednesday was a holiday and one woman invited us over for homemade tortillas con queso (cheese tortillas). YUM! We often sit together in church and Sunday a few of us went out for lunch after service. I already had one member tell me we're her family. This week I was ended up doing some coaching/counseling via texting with someone that just came for the first time on Friday. It is beautiful to see what God is doing in us! This Friday we're going to plan a little baby shower for a family that adopted a little boy a few months ago. After the prayer vigil at church a couple weeks ago, I feel like God is going to do great things in and through us! It's amazing what God can do with a small group!
If you don't have something like this, I encourage you to do what you can to find or create it. Life is better in circles!
Thanks for keeping me in your prayers--our new series starts this coming weekend and, as I'm wont to be when a series is about to start: I'm swamped with work! Thank God for the new groups that are starting and for what He's going to do in this series of 40 Days of Prayer!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, July 24th

Today I'm going to brag on a couple that is facilitating a small group. These people and their creativity blow me away. Their love language must be gift giving because every week they have something adorable, and special for their small group that ties in with the topic of discussion for the night. Cookies, candles, picture frames, special cards, badges, you name it. Their group members never know what awaits them! Sometimes it's wrapped, sometimes it comes with a verse, sometimes it relates to something mentioned in the sermon over the weekend.

This week, as he was preaching about service, Rudy mentioned that everyone wears the jersey number 10. (Soccer fact: the player that wears the number 10 jersey is the best on the team.) So, Rudy was saying that we are all important and no one's service is better than another's. While you may not be able to see it, each card in the picture has the team "lineup" (names of the small group members) and the number 10 next to each one. The facilitators texted me yesterday morning and told me they'd been wracking their brains since they heard the sermon on Saturday night. Thankfully, it didn't take them long to execute their idea, since their group met last night. I love it when facilitators take extra time to pour into their group members. It brings me such joy and just makes all my hard work feel worth it. I thank and praise God for what he's doing in the small groups at my church!
Please pray especially as we are launching a new series "40 Days of Prayer" and so things are crazy again with promotion and selling materials and opening new groups, etc. It's nice that I have more experience under my belt with this now, but there's still a LOT of work to be done! Pray for the groups, for more new ones to open, and for God to do great things in each one!
Your service to God is valuable too! Thank you!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, July 17th

The most exciting world event in the past week was the World Cup final. Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration for a number of people, but in this part of the world, it certainly was. The World Cup is quite the life interruption here. So much that the final at 9am Costa Rica time led us to cancel our 8am service and move our 10:30 service to 11. Although most of us were rooting for Croatia, France won 4-2 in one of the highest scoring World Cup finals ever. The only good part was that the score was decisive and didn't require overtime. So, the game ended and we were able to have our service without any further ado.

Gotta love 3 big smiles!

I enjoyed watching the game with this couple (pictured). They are fellow UWMers, currently here in Costa Rica, but headed to the Dominican Republic. Danna is studying Spanish at the Language Institute and Gil is mexicano. I met this sweet, fun couple at our regional conference in May and ended up spending a fair bit of free time with them. Now they're heading to the DR in about 6 weeks and I selfishly wish God would call them to stay here. I visited them in San José last Sunday afternoon and this Sunday they came to visit my church (and watch the game) and hang out. The hours go by all too quickly when we're together. My consolation is that I'll see them every couple years at our regional conferences and that I can text Danna when I watch an old movie or musical (a delightful interest she and I have in common!).
May God bless you with sweet, fun people in your life (or lead you to be that sweet, fun person somebody else needs)!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, July 10th

Hello and Happy Tuesday once again!

It is said, (not in the Bible), "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken." Sunday at church we got a lot of practice being flexible, since we were without electricity! Our worship band quickly chose 5 different songs so we could sing more easily without electric instruments. I was the service host for the weekend, and I ended up writing down and personally giving all the announcements (instead of having them being given via video). Everyone was sitting up front as close to the stage as possible, and it was a neat time together. There was a sense of that romantic, cozy feeling when the power goes out and it's not obnoxiously inconvenient yet. We had a battery powered microphone with a little amplifier and a megaphone, but thankfully, the power came back in the middle of me giving the announcements during the 8am service, so Rudy was able to give his sermon with his powerpoint and no technical inconveniences, and the 10:30 service was as normal. The 8am service was a good reminder of how important it is to be flexible and prepared for emergencies, and what a blessing it is to have electricity and technology!
After finishing my service host role during the 10:30, I ended up interpreting the sermon (for the fourth week in a row!) for another short term missions team. The team had practice flexibility as well, since the local school they were supposed to do Vacation Bible School for didn't tell the kids about it before they went on vacation. We ended up gathering children from church and inviting any other ones we could that were available. While the results weren't quite as expected, the VBS was still definitely a success.
Can you tell the picture was taken on July 4th? Some of the team had on some pretty great red, white, and blue outfits!
May God bless us all with flexibility that we might not be broken by unsuspected inconveniences in life!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, June 26th

Happy Tuesday to you once again!

"The Best Cluster Ever"

Last week I had the great blessing and privilege of attending my second "Come before Winter" renewal. My first experience was life changing, and my second was as well. In 2015, I was an absolute emotional disaster as I waited, waited, and waited for another ministry placement. This time, I am in a much better place, but was still in need of a renewal. To have 12 women stop their lives and come serve 31 women, be able to disconnect from my phone and work, be with other women that are a lot like me, and be able to sing in English (and have some nice harmony in our a capella singing!) all made the week a real treat. We spent the week studying and reflecting on the book of Exodus. It was rich!
God spoke to me through many passages, but my biggest takeaway was about God's presence. I knew in my head before about God's omnipresence and Emmanuel is one of my favorite names of Jesus, but I now have a fuller, deeper, heart-level understanding of what it means for God to be present: with me. It means He's near, He's here. That He cares, that all I do, think, feel, and am matters to Him, that He wants to know me and be known by me, that he loves me. His presence brings peace, comfort, and joy (hmm... tidings of comfort and joy? Christmas is less than 6 months away now!). Indeed, in his presence is fullness of joy, as it says in Psalm 16. This past week, I felt more joy than I'd felt in a long time, and it was wonderful. Now to abide in it, and not let long to-do lists, ministry responsibilities, and stress rob it from me. I have a breath prayer I'm using, and I'm working on making up breath prayers for lots of different things I do throughout the day. It's a sweet time in my relationship with God and I am so grateful.
More on Come before Winter and other recent events in my Chronicle next week!
May you be aware of God's presence with you this week and may it also fill you with joy!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, June 12th

Happy Tuesday!

Another family fun weekend at church has come and gone. We baptized over 30 people over the course of the three services, and the activities we had Sunday afternoon were such a hit, people stuck around until the sports ministry was ready to pack and clean everything up! We had bingo, foursquare, dominoes, Jenga, Cranium, Uno, ping pong, pool, and more! Since it's rainy season, we couldn't count as much on outdoor activities; though some still happened before the rain came. It was a really fun time, and as always, a great time for people to hang out, get to know each other, and make memories together.
A couple ladies in my small group and I hung out and joined in a couple different games together. I think one of the things that's exciting me so much about my small group right now is that I'm seeing the people in the group build relationships with each other: people making plans to go to a class at church together, sit together, etc. That really encourages me! And I think this was the family weekend in which I've felt the most comfortable. I often end up kind of wandering around trying to figure out what to do and who to hang out with. So, it was nice to have the chicas from my small group there. It was also nice that there were more game options than ever before too.
May we remember to make time to play and invest in relationships!
Blessings on the rest of your week!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, May 22nd

Tuesday greetings to you!

At a station of the concert of prayer

Thanks be to God, I am feeling much better after being sick last week and the small group facilitator retreat went really well! At this time last week, we had 8 people signed up and there was a chance we might have to cancel the retreat. But, thankfully, we were able to get more people to sign up and ended up with about 35 participants. It was still a smaller crowd than I hoped for, but I believe there was also some spiritual resistance. We planned a really good retreat that touched a lot of things the enemy would much rather us let alone. I am grateful for those who came though, and they are really glad they came too!
The retreat's theme passage was Jeremiah 17:5-8 and was called "Your Roots." We had individual time to meditate on the Word, two times of worship through music, a concert of prayer with one station for each of the five purposes (which we managed to draw out of the passage), a special speaker from our big sister church, and some brief time to share testimonies. I introduced a new tool of resources for our leaders, and told them about some other new resources we have in the pipeline as well. It was a wonderful day and I could sense God's presence and hand in motion.
Please continue to pray for the Small Groups at my church, as well as my team and me. We have several things we need to start doing and many others we need to improve upon. Thankfully, the next couple weeks aren't supposed to be quite as busy as the last couple, so I look forward to having some time for extra praying and strategizing.
Thank you so much for your prayers and for just reading and caring, and of course, for your financial partnership with UWM!
God bless you and grow your roots as you trust in him!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, May 15th

Greetings one and all from rainy Costa Rica!

This past Friday we had another prayer vigil at church. It was really nice to be at a prayer vigil again, as I missed the vigil in March due to my trip to the States. Prayer vigils are some of the fastest 4 hours that go by at church every other month. Friday was no exception. It was a powerful time to intercede and worship. Our theme was "I am your Healer" and we prayed for emotional, spiritual, physical, and holistic health. My faith was challenged and grown, as was that of many others present. We had some of the best attendance ever at a vigil and it is always exciting to see what God does in us. It was particularly encouraging to see a couple small groups sitting together. That's what we're going for! Not just meeting once a week for a study, but to do life together and develop bonds that reach deeply into each other's hearts and lives.
Please continue to pray for the small groups at my church, and particularly for the retreat we're having for facilitators on Saturday. Right now, we don't have many people signed up, but I pray and trust that God will bring the people who should be there. My team and I have been working really hard preparing this event and I'm really excited for it.
Please also pray for me as I've come down with a cold and need the strength (and for my voice to hold out) to teach two hours tonight and again on Thursday night.
Thank you!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, May 8th

Salutations to you all!

This past week was UWM's regional conference for Central America and the Caribbean. Wow, what a wonderful, special time it was! Though I was on the planning committee, I really hadn't had much time to actually get excited about the conference. This week and next week are really intense, so I was working really hard in the time leading up to the conference to make sure I'd be able to really let go, disconnect, and enjoy the conference (and not have to work during free time). When I got on the ferry, I started seeing more and more of my fellow missionaries and seeing people who had come down from the office in Charlotte. It was like a family reunion. There were people I hadn't seen in years it was great to see again, and there were new people whose names I'd seen before, but had never met. What a joy it was to share and grow with these people for a few days! There were about 90 of us, and hundreds and hundreds of years of combined missionary service. It was such a treat to get to be together, listen to one another, pray for each other, enjoy free time together, worship together, learn about what's going on in the mission on a broader level, etc.
And it was also really nice to be right on the beach. My room faced the water, so every morning I'd go on the little back patio of my room and listen to the waves as I had my devotions. I wish I could hear the waves every morning while I do my devotions, but I came home very grateful that I live in the Central Valley and that I don't live sweating profusely every time I go outside here.
May God bless and refresh you as well according to your needs!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 24th

It's Tuesday once more! For those of you who didn't receive last week's Tico Tuesday, I apologize. I had some technological difficulties. You can always head to my blog to catch up!

This week, I'm happy to share with you about the experience I had on Sunday. We have a church plant at our drug rehab center, and I was invited to give the message. It was a great honor and a great responsibility. I received some nice positive feedback and wow, what a blessing and privilege it is to be used by God! I had been a little nervous going into it, but I know a lot of people were praying for me, and a couple friends were able to come along and give me some moral support. One of my friends drove, which was nice, since it is a curvy mountain highway with frequent fog/rain. And thankfully, the heat was not as oppressive as it could have been.
Afterwards, the director of the center invited us to stay for lunch, and it was such a treat to share with her, a couple of the guys that are currently in the program there, as well as a couple alumni who were visiting. Praise the Lord for what he's doing through this ministry! He is transforming lives, and the center is now expanding to include a program for women. There are a lot of needs, but God is continuing to sustain his work there. It was a joy and encouragement to see this.
Please continue to keep me in your prayers. I am trying to do a lot this week as next week I'll be at the UWM regional conference and the two weeks afterward will be full of teaching at our Bible Institute and final preparations for our first Small Group Facilitator Retreat of the year (May 19th). Thank you!
May God fill you with joy and provide you with the encouragement you need this week!
Love,
Carrie

TIco Tuesday, April 17th

Happy Tuesday to you once more!
Last week was Juan Santamaría day (a national holiday, April 11th), so I went on a hike with a couple girlfriends to this beautiful waterfall! Unfortunately, it was raining while we were there, so it could have been a bit more pleasant, but still, the waterfall is a mesmerizing one! And, it's quite close! The hike is 9 miles round trip, but we set out just a few kilometers up the mountain from church. It's started raining some already (it's been a very short dry season this year), so the trail was quite muddy and that made for slower going, but it was lovely to be in fresh mountain air and enjoy being surrounded by God's beautiful creation. There were lots of people out: I ran into my landlord on the trail! I would have preferred there not be so many people around, especially right at the waterfall, but, having so many people around made us feel safe, so that was good.
It was nice to have a fun outdoors part of the day as later I had to go to San José for the wake of the dad of a lady on my team (who has also become a good friend). It was an exhausting day physically, mentally, and emotionally. Thankfully, I feel like I've been able to recover from it. And I definitely look forward to going back to this waterfall in the future!
A few brief prayer requests: for my friend and her family as they grieve this loss, for the UWM Central America and Caribbean conference May 2-6, and for the small group facilitators retreat May 19th. And this Sunday I preach at the church plant at our drug rehab center!
Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I am so grateful for you all!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 10th

It's Tuesday again!

And, I am excited! I live in a two bedroom apartment, and ever since I was given a desk in the office at work, my second bedroom has been a largely useless space. My drying rack is there, and I store stuff in there, but I've been wanting to give this room a more noble use. I just haven't known what to do with it though. Recently, I started thinking about making it a guest bedroom. We receive special guests at church fairly often, and I could help people/church save on paying the hotel. And, I like hosting people.
Well, it so happens I went to a friend's house a week ago Saturday, and noticed a mattress she had leaning against the wall. I mentioned I was thinking of turning my extra bedroom into a guest room and she offered to give me the mattress: a queen with a thick, soft pillowtop in excellent shape! Talk about divine confirmation! I'm talking with someone who can clean it, last night I bought bedding for it, and the other day I found someone who recycles wooden pallets to make beds. So, I'm going to have a Spare Oom, though not in the land of War Drobe. (If you don't get it, please read The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe as soon as possible. It will make your life better, I promise!) I already know who my first guests will be (unless somebody else beats them), and there might be another couple coming soon too! Maybe you can be next!
Thank you so much for your faithful support and for keeping me in your prayers. Two brief, but important requests right now are 1. For a friend and her family, as her dad is dying of cancer and will soon be gone. 2. For my small group team meeting this coming Saturday and just for me and small groups in general. There is so much to do!
Thanks so much!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, February 20th

These are intense times.

Small group facilitator training, the start of a new series (The Miracle of Mercy--it's going to be great!), a family fun weekend (which I'm supposed to mobilize small groups to attend), a one day Small Groups with Purpose seminar with people from churches all over the Central Valley (and potentially beyond and the speaker is the Pastor of Small Groups at Saddleback), and then leaving a few days later for a whirlwind 18 day journey to California (with a side trip to Arizona) and Chicagoland (with a side trip to Grove City) for a conference and some church/supporter visitations. I return Wednesday of Holy Week and fully intend to lay low and rest until Resurrectiontide. Needless to say, I need all the prayers you can muster for me and the area of Small Groups these days. Oh, and there's this translation project we've been working on and need to finish stat. Please be praying for that too.
So, with all the madness and stress again rising to the not-being-able-to-sleep-at-night level, it was time for a beach day! I only took this one picture and put my phone on airplane mode for the day. I stared at the sky and sea and listened to the waves. I scrubbed my hands and feet with sand to make them soft. I saw several scarlet macaws, an iguana, a little crab, minnows, small shrimpish creatures, a sand dollar that was still alive, and a ton of gorgeous rocks and shells. I swam with beautiful silver fish with black stripes and red tails with yellow lining. I love how at the beach the more I slow down and am still, the more I start to see and notice things. (Hmm, I think there's a life lesson there!) The beach is brimming with beauty and life and phenomenal signs of God and his amazing creativity. My fun friend Kayla came with me and she drove, which was great because she loves driving and I don't. So, it ended up being a wonderfully relaxing day: just what I needed!
Thank you for your prayers. I can often feel them--they really do make a difference! Thank you for all your other means of support as well. We are in this together! May we all slow down more so we can see more!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, February 13th

Happy Tuesday!

The participants of the Huddle on Saturday

These are busy times with small groups: we are starting our first big series of the year in a couple weeks, we have a training for facilitators before the series starts, and we have the Small Groups with Purpose seminar the Monday after the weekend the series starts (which is also a family fun weekend). Whew! Thank God for the volunteers and coworkers I have helping me, though even still, there is a lot of work to be done. I am grateful though. And I am trusting God for things to all come together and be grrrrreat! (That was in honor of Tony the Tiger.) I always appreciate your prayers. It's tempting/all too easy to get stressed and overwhelmed, and as we've learned at my church, the buildup to a series often brings about a lot of challenges and spiritual attack. So, please continue to keep me/my church covered!
This past Saturday, we had our 2nd ever Huddle of Small Group point people in Costa Rica. This time, we had 6 Vida Abundante churches represented! Our host church took advantage and brought several of its facilitators and I ended up doing a training for everybody when I'd meant for us to sit around a table and discuss, but, next time! It went really well though, and I think we all still left having learned something. I still made the training as interactive as possible and really enjoyed turning questions back on people and offering different people opportunities to answer questions. People are such treasure troves!
Lest you worry I not be having fun or resting, I am watching as much of the Olympics as I can. Time to go catch some now!
Thank you for your prayers and support!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, January 30th

Have I ever told you how much I love my church?

If I haven't, let me tell you, I do. Very much. This past weekend we had our first annual summit for the leaders of all the Vida Abundante churches. Those who couldn't come personally from some sister churches (Uruguay, Chile, and a Certain island) sent greetings via video. It was amazing to have 1400 of us gathered together under one roof. It was a rich time of worship and teaching, and we all tried to make the most of the brief moments we had to share together.
Three of the expositors were from Vida Abundante churches, and we were also graced with the presence of Dr. Serafín Contreras. For me, he's one of those dear saints (like Dr. Bob Frederichs and Jack Voelkel) that just emanates the love of Jesus. (I pray I'll be like that when I get older!) Serafín commented that preachers are like table servers and God is the Chef. Well, I'll tell you, our servers did a fantastic job in delivering what the Chef had for us! We ingested rich teachings on biblical sexuality, focused ministry, understanding the Church, determinative leadership, and stages of life and ministry as compared with the various tunics Joseph wore throughout his life. It hit the spot over and over again!
Friday night we also had an ordination service, since many of the pastors of our sister churches has never been ordained. That was a brief, but moving time.
It is so encouraging  to know that we're all in this together and that God is at work in and through each of us as individuals, as members of a local church, as members of the Federation of Vida Abundantes, and, most importantly, as members of the Church universal. No wonder Jesus prayed for unity...
I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you. Thank you for walking with me.
May the love of Jesus fill us and become more a part of us each day,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, January 23rd

Greetings from windy Costa Rica!

Most of my growing team

I write to you tonight with a grateful heart. The first week of January, God gave me a fresh perspective on my role as Small Group Coordinator and told me he was going to do great things in Small Groups this year, and he is! I'm currently working on coordinating a one day Small Groups with Purpose seminar in early March to be led by Steve Gladen, Saddleback's small groups pastor I got to meet at the strategic planning conference I went to last July. And, John Maxwell has decided to invest in Costa Rica, so several of my small group facilitators and other church leaders are going to receive some training through his ministry too. Exciting things are happening!
And, thanks be to God, things with my team are improving dramatically. Last year, my team was often a source of frustration for me. Through a lot of prayer, reflection, preparation, and support from my parents and coworkers, my first team meeting on Saturday was a rousing success! Instead of not being able to sleep from the stress, I had trouble falling asleep from my excitement! I have officially added another member, and I am talking with another woman as well about her joining. She came as an observer on Saturday (pictured above with her baby), and it was good to have her there. Pray for her (and me) as we continue to talk and come to a decision. And please pray for God to send some men too. I would love to have a male or two on board to help bring more balance and enrichment to the team. You can also pray as we prepare for our first series of the year: promotion for it starts in just a few weeks! There is so much to do, but thankfully I am starting to delegate more and not carry such an enormous work load. Thank God!
Thank you for your prayers and support, and please continue to pray for me as I adjust to life without the friends I mentioned last week. Thankfully, things are going pretty smoothly so far for them as they start settling into their new life. But, there is a void in my life now without them here and I miss them a lot. So, please do keep praying for me and for God to continue to provide me with good, close friends here.
With love and gratitude for you all,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, January 16th

Tuesday greetings to you once more!

We were feeling a lot of bittersweetness at church this weekend: we commissioned our first long term missionaries! It is exciting to send them out on assignment, and it is also very sad to see them go. It's especially sad for me, because I've grown very close to this family in the past year. I sat with them in church every Wednesday and Saturday and they welcomed me into their home over and over again, for meals, watching soccer games, movies, and just hanging out. They already have about 10 years of missionary experience, so the fact that we're all missionaries helped us bond quite easily. In the other countries they've served, they got very used to inviting the single women on their team into their home. They are one of those couples that is just really good at making a young single woman feel comfortable and part of the family. I tell you, especially in a foreign country, that is a huge gift! They have been both friends and mentors for me, and I will miss them dreadfully. S (the wife/mom) and I especially bonded and have been able to have a lot of good heart conversations. I am so grateful for her! And I am grateful for technology that will allow us to keep in touch. And I am grateful that their next assignment is in....Chicago! In the past they served in countries whose names I can't mention here, and now they will be working with people from those countries and their neighbors. They will also be working with a local church and help mobilize it to get more involved in reaching out to these people and in reaching out to latinos as well. I'm really excited for them, and I'm so glad that they will be in a place where I can visit them quite easily! In fact, our good bye last night wasn't quite so teary because it was a "see you soon" instead of "see you whenever you come back to visit." That's right! I plan to be in the Chicago area and Grove City, PA for about a week in mid-late March. If you'd like to get together, please reach out to me: I'd love to see you! I'll have more new prayer cards in hand too!
With love and gratitude for you, my wonderful holistic support team,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, January 9th

Happy First Tico Tuesday of 2018 and boy do I have GREAT news today!!!

 I have my new residency card! And, please note, it's not just any residency card: But it is for PERMANENT residency! (This is basically the equivalent of a green card in the States). I can't vote or have a tico passport, but, renewing my residency in the future should be worlds easier. I should be able to just do it at a bank or post office and not have to even go to Migration! AND... (forgive all my shouting, this is really exciting stuff!) this residency card won't expire for THREE YEARS! Every other residency card I've had has only been good for 1 year or 2. And, when they gave me the approval in December (I didn't want to tell you it was approved until I actually had my card in hand; with this stuff you can't believe it till it happens), the papers said that they were only going to give me permanent residency for 2 years at a time. I was a little bummed at that. Permanent residency cards are usually good for 3-5 years. So, to see the 2021 expiration date made getting my card today even sweeter! Praise the Lord! After 9 years of migratory runaround: countless trips to migration, hours (if I added them all up they would equal multiple days) spent in lines, money spent on parking (and on other occasions, hours spent on buses to avoid paying for said parking), frustrating airport experiences trying to return to Costa Rica while in the midst of another residency card renewal saga, getting treated like cattle at migration, not to mention the actual money spent on documentation (yikes!), the chasing down people from different organizations, the photocopies, the letters, the official translations, all the stuff I had to do in the States before I ever left, etc., etc., etc. Whew, thank and praise the Lord it's over! I am celebrating today!!
Praise God for his goodness and faithfulness, and may he bless don Freddy in migration, the one person who actually went to bat for me and kindly helped keep the process from taking even longer. Thank you to you for all your prayers and encouragement along the way! Here's to a great start to 2018!
Love,
Carrie