Esté Preparado

As I write this post, Karen and I are packed to take a short trip to Jarabacoa Republica Dominicana for 5 days to get housing finalized and sign Janae and Marcy up for school. We will also be doing a few other things to get ready for our move there the end of April. There is no school all next week as it is Holy Week (Semana Santa) , so it seemed like a good time to get some of this done. There are a couple of students in the school here that will be staying with the girls while we are gone. Marcy could not understand why they can’t just stay by themselves, “Janae knows how make food for us!!!”  We will be coming back on Thursday evening and then there are only two weeks of classes left for us. It hardly seems possible that our time here is nearing the end, yet so much has happened since arriving.

The title of this post “Be prepared” was the theme of my devotional on March 29^th from Luke 12:40. In short, the verse talks of always being prepared for Christ’s returns. But it goes deeper than that. I mentioned before that during our orientation here at language school, they impressed on all of us that most likely God has much more for us to learn here than just another language. We need to be constantly looking for him at work in our lives and “always be ready” for him to show up in the most unlikely places. Over the last number of months here, that has been so true. He has shown up when we least expected it and yet when we thought he should show up, it seemed He was so distant. Some of the ways he has shown up in our lives here are: the way all 5 of us so easily adapted to the life and culture here in Costa Rica, the way that we have not felt cramped in our seemingly small apartment here. The patience that all of our teachers have shown us during class time (giving me 7 months without falling asleep one time in class J), providing us with the two tutors for that little more teaching and practicing that we needed during this last couple of months, and surprising us with such a strong support base that allows us to be here and then on to the Dominican. God is good, All the time. All the time, God is good.

Karen and I both feel good at where we are in our Spanish now and we are ready to move on and keep learning once we have moved. We will need to check out what kind of options are there to continue learning once we get there, but for now we feel like we are where we need to be.  Thanks again for all the prayers, notes, emails, packages, calls, ……….. THANKS.