Visitors

Visitors are very important to a missionary family. It is a way for us to stay connected and keep up with friends and family back in the states. We can share the joys and struggles of living in a remote part of Costa Rica.

So far this summer, we have enjoyed two visits by Ron Sweet our good friend from Village Parkway Baptist Church. He had the pleasure of staying at our house while still in construction. His second visit he was able to enjoy our almost completed house. You can read about his work via his Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1709592279730&set=a.1709591599713.68877.1835808484&type=1&theate (Well worth reading)

Ron visiting one of our neighbors

Our niece Faith Friedly has made her second trip to Costa Rica. She brought her good friend Garine to share the experience with her. We took Garine to the airport last week to pick up four more people. One of these people just happen to be our daughter Cristen. How blessed we are to have our girl back with us. She has been to Paso Marcos many times but this is the first since we moved into our new house.

Faith, Garine, and Lori working in the garden

We have kept a busy schedule so far with this new group. The first morning we got up and made the drive to the far end of Paso Marcos. We have teamed up with the local elementary school to make repairs and build relationships within the community. The school has been neglected for many years and much work was needed to be done. We had a lot of help because the Gill Family from Minnesota were in Paso Marcos visiting with Alekcey and Judith. You can read about Alekcey and Judith at www.judithandalekcey.blogspot.com (A good read as well)

Work Party and Students

Work included repairing the roof, painting the inside, outside and the roof. Another missionary couple (Mark and Marge Long) kept the children busy with a rapelling expedition down the steep side of the hill by the school. By the end of the three days, the kids were not scared or intimidated, they enjoyed some face painting and we endured a rugged soccer game just in case we were not tired enough.

Bethany and Bellieka

Our daughter, Cristen

Mark and Eden assisting a brave young girl

God works in mysterious ways. We pray all these students and adults involved with the school will come to know the peace and joy of serving our Savior.

Group photo during dinner at Manuel Antonio

Before heading back to the airport we splurged and enjoyed a couple days on the pacifac coast.

What we learned when we ate Chicharones

This is a story about chicharones, a man and seven step children, and the lady he is living with. First thing, what is a chicharone? A chicharone is a Costa Rica delicacy of fried pork, usually made the day a pig has been slaughtered. The man is Tatto, our builder who took over construction of our house when Giovanni started work on a new house. Tatto is a very quiet man with an intense work ethic. (good guy to have build your house). He is very shy and hardly spoke a word to us all the times we came up to look at the house. I was a little concerned how all this was going to work out trying to communicate with Tatto, my fledgling Spanish and this quiet moody man. Praise God he learned to speak slowly and we communicate fairly well. Through this process he found out that we like chicharones and he invited Lori and I to his home for dinner.

Fried Pork "Chicharones"

On our second trip to his house one Saturday afternoon while enjoying this yummy fried pork meal we noticed how many people stop by the house and store to eat. There were people eating when we got there. I believe he feed four more while we ate and another three to four people as we talked that afternoon. Lori and I went home that night and started talking about what we experienced and not just the yummy fired pork. We discussed how much our relationship with this couple has grown and compared what we experienced verses our initial perceptions and common rumor of who these people are. We have seen the good and bad sides to this family, their struggles with the good and bad decisions they have made over the years and have been blown away by their generosity and love for others. Here we thought we came to Costa Rica to help others and we were blessed to see how this family has poured so much into their community. We pray that God will reveal himself to this family and that they learn what true peace and love is all about.