Fiesta de Los Maestros

      On the first Thursday night of each outreach team we have what we call “dinner in the community”. That is the evening that we go to a current or previous student’s home for dinner with our interns and outreach team. It is a great time for the interns and team members to interact with the families of the children at Genesis (the school where Karen and I are working). This last Thursday was a bit different as we didn’t have any outreach members so we took this time to invite all the teachers and families to our own home for dinner to get to know them a little better in a setting different than the school. What a great time we all had. The trampoline was the hit of the evening. 

Not so much with the children but rather with the parents and adults. The laughing and fun continued as I took the pictures I had taken and put them on the computer later for them to see.

After dark and most everyone had left, Maribel was even caught on it but it was too dark for a photo. We had rice and beans with salad and iced tea to drink. I am sure that everyone slept well that evening.

We had an extra surprise that evening when our daughter Rachel SKYPED in just to visit a little and here were all the teachers that she had worked with when she was at Genesis 1-1/2 years ago when she was here with the Bethel  College Semester program for 4 months.

     Another way that we are trying to get more involved in the families is we are going to visit the children after school gets out for just 20-30 minutes or so. We also are trying to visit the ones that have quit coming for some reason and see if they are interested in coming back or if there is some other way we can continue to help them out. On one of those visits, we went to see Omar because he has not been attending since the end of April. His mother said that his dad left and she is now working hard to just keep food on the table and can’t afford the tuition. The RDU 500 Pesos (about $13.00 US) per month that we charge is mainly to cover the food cost to feed them lunch each day. The other costs - payroll, electricity, rent and so on are covered by donations from people like you to Students International.  We also have a “scholarship program” where the mothers can come in and clean for 2 hours a week and then they can send their children for free. One mother is going to start coming in for a couple of hours 2 days a week and help teach Spanish to the children. That is obviously their primary language, but just as we teach English to our student in the states, they need to be taught Spanish here. We are trying to make every effort to allow any child to come to school here regardless of if they can afford the total cost or not.

     I was asked to make a short video for our sending church in Indiana so below is the result of that. It just gives a quick glimpse of what our days look like here. This was a way for us to show you what you have to look forward to when you come visit us.

    There have been challenges since arriving here but many many more blessings. Almost every day, Karen or I will say to the other “It feels so good to be here doesn’t it.” We had been going to an English speaking church on Sunday morning then a Spanish speaking on Sunday afternoon. It ended up being a pretty full day and so we have decided to drop the English Speaking church for now and keep going to the Spanish church in the afternoon. We had gone to two services in Costa Rica but one was on Saturday night and that didn’t seem to make such a full day then on Sunday. Several of the local staff go to this church so it is nice to worship with them.