Only three weeks left in this trimester

It, has been a few weeks since our last post so I wanted to let you know what is happening in Costa Rica.
 We have 3 weeks left in school for the first Trimester and that seems impossible. As we look forward to some time off from classes in December and the first part of Jan.; it will be good to have a chance to review and look back at what we have studied so far. It seems unanimous between Karen and me that our biggest struggle is memorizing the vocabulary words. The way that it looks from our side of the fence is that all these "young pups" in our classes are picking up the vocab words much easier but we need to keep reminding ourselves that it is not a competition and we just keep trying to do the best that we can. After all, that is all that our teachers expect and all that God expects out of us. As we have felt blessed, especially over the last number of months, I noticed that at our church congregation Shore Mennonite in Indiana, has been asking during the morning service, "How have you been blessed this past week?", That has really made me think of SPECIFIC ways that I have been blessed. As I started to put my blessings down on paper it was really a way for me to search myself in many different areas of my life. I would like to encourage all of you reading this blog update to do the same thing. It is just one more way that we can thank God for all the ways that he has blessed us possibly through others.
      Looking back over some of the activities that have happened with our family over the last few months I will just mention a few. The girls have made many new friends since being here and have had some sleep overs and attended birthday parties in the park for some of them. They had  a special recycling program at their school which was a huge hit. Karen and I have begun tutoring with one of our teachers each day. It is for an hour each day from 12:30-1:30. That has really been a big help for us and gives a chance to ask questions that we didn't have time to ask in class and then it also gives both of us a chance try out our Spanish and have her correct us. Here is a picture of Marcy preparing some of the fruit from the Ferria.

     We attended the Saturday evening Church Service this past weekend so I took a bike ride on Sunday morning. Leaving at 5:30, soon after daylight, I wanted to see how far I could get up the mountain of Irazu Volcano. One of things I wanted to get done while here was to make it to the top of the Volcano. It has a high peak of 11,000' and is about 20 miles up the mountain from the town of Cartago. I thought if I can make it a little further each week then by Christmas break I could reach the top in a single trip. A couple of weeks ago I made it to the 6800' mark before I ran out of energy. Sunday I tried it again and after reaching the first town on the way at 6800' I kept going up towards the second town at 8400'. I reached it by 11:00 and was ready to turn around when I thought that as hard as it was to get to the 8400' point, I would most likely not try this again so if it was ever going to happen then it would have to be now, so I kept going. As the temperature dropped, the rain began and I was then even more determined to keep going. I reached the top soaking wet, 11,000' and 47 deg. One would think that I should have brought warmer dry clothes with me but no, just my t-shirt and shorts. At 1:15, I took a few pictures and then had the pleasant experience of coasting all the way back down. My "pleasant experience" didn't seem to last as long as the ride up :) Anyway I here are two pictures of what I saw once reaching the top. It has been silent since 1965. Hard to imagine what is was like when it erupted, when you're standing there looking in. It looks so peaceful and calm. I am guessing that maybe my parents thought the same thing about me when I was sleeping. "Hard to imagine how he is during the day. He looks so calm and peaceful now."

     As we continue learning more about the Spanish language all the different "tenses", we are always reminded that the job or purpose of the school is not necessarily to have us leave as perfect Spanish Speakers but rather to give us the background so that once we are immersed in a Spanish Speaking Culture, that we have the framework to pick up the local dialect much faster. We look forward going to the field and putting all this to use. But in the meantime we will continue to do Gods work here and keep hitting the books.