An Old Fashion New Year's

Last night, while the fluffy snow fell softly, the Bakers, Alchins, Kampers, a Bradley and an almost Bradley hit the tubing hill for a little late night fun.   What a old fashion,country New Year's Eve thing to do. We all found babysitters and spent a good two hours on the tubing hill. 

Just in case you, like I, have never been down the tubing hill at night, here's a little taste...

Did you have fun?  Ok, now wipe the frosty snow off your face, because now you get to go up the tow line.

You are not suppose to head back down the hill at the top, but aren't you glad you had a trained staff member to come rescue you?

After we were worn out from all the laughing, we headed to our house for some shrimp and cheese.  What a great night!  Happy New Year!

Water

I am ready to be back in the normal routine of life.  Christmas was a great break and all, but by Saturday you could tell that our whole family need normal.  We were all cranky, even Noah, which is saying something.  With a great sigh of relief he went off to work this morning.  He was glad to be back in his office and out making ice and all other manner of prep for this coming weekend.  Oh, and if you think about it, praying for snow here would be good.  There is nothing on the ground and retreats start Friday.  And really, when kids come to winter camp, they really do want winter camp.  Not some weird mix of summer and fall activities in weather that is too cold to enjoy it.  Tubing is much more fun than a ice cold hayride.

So, we are back to life as normal, except we have no running water!  Yeah, fun times.  Yesterday we woke up to nothing coming out of the pipes and after a full day of trying, the maintenance department concluded it was time to call in the professionals.  So, I assume sometime today the well guys are coming to diagnose the problem.

And as to what the problem is...well, I am praying it doesn't include drilling a new well.  Yikes!  But I am assuming that we are without running what for a while now, as in at least days.  And that 4 gallons of water I have tucked away for a power outage, yeah, those were used up pretty quickly.  It's amazing how much water a family can use. 

I am so thankful we have options.  Noah hauled water from the dinning hall in a convenient water cooler and 5 gallon jugs we use for the over nights.  The spigot on the cooler works well in the kitchen and the blue jugs are prefect for the bathroom.

And I was able to take a load of laundry over the East Side dinning hall basement.  While it was washing, we all took showers and baths.  We really could live like this for a long while.  It wouldn't be convenient, but we could do it.

This all has brought to mind the world at large.  We still have access to clean water.  Water that won't kill you.  Noah was trying to explain to a niece the other week that there is water that looks clean but it will make you very, very sick.  And most of the world deals with that every day.  Water that they bath in they cook with.  Water that cows poop in they are giving to their babies to drink because there is nothing else.

Sigh.  Sometimes the wrong in this world is so very overwhelming.  Why do I get to have clean water to cook and bath in, to give my babies, and there are people dying because the water they need to use to live is contaminated?  In Honduras, everyone has to buy bottled water, assuming you can afford it.  And 20% of the rural areas don't have any clean water access.    And that's assuming you have money to buy it.  I've seen figures that 1.2 billion people in the world don't have access to clean water.  And something like 80%  of diseases are linked to contaminated water.  It's the the second leading cause of death in kids under 5 in Central America.  Yikes! Oh and get this, the normal person in the developing world uses about  2.5 gallons of water every day for drinking, washing and cooking.  In developed countries, the average person uses 13 gallons per day only for toilet flushing! What?

And why oh why oh why do people BUY bottled water here in the US?  Really?  The place that has the cleanest, safest water in the world, piped right into our homes, and we are out buying bottled water by the cases so we can fill the landfills with the bottles.  The money we spend needlessly on these cases and cases of water could be used to help others have clean water.  How backwards the world is.  Sigh again.

I know there are many good organizations doing something about this.  One in particular is Compassion International.  We have partnered with them in the past to help a child in India.  What we like about Compassion is they take care of the physical and spiritual needs of people.  Because if a person has clean water in this life, but not the Living Water, what does it matter?  Here's a link to there water filter donation page.   Whatever God leads you to do about this is just right.

I long for the day when God will put everything right.  Where there will be no more injustice and where all the bad will become untrue! And until His return, He uses us to change things.  And you better believe I won't be complaining about the inconvenience of not having running water at my house.

Welcome to Camp Barakel! Enjoy your weekend!

So, in the interest of full discloser...I stink at this writing thing!

I have tried to come up with something clever, witty and all together unique for this post...something that would give you a taste of what a weekend here in the winter is like. A post full of wonderful photos, showing the fun you would have tubing or ice skating. It would tell you all about the broom ball tournaments, the trading post, the "coco stations in remote locations". It would talk about how great chapels are, and you would almost be able to smell the wood fireplaces as you read. It would be a post that would make you say, "Wow, let me call Connie Harris right now and see if there are spots available for next weekend!"

But, alas, nothing came out but cheesy, dorky sounding words. Was it because I was trying to write and make lunch? I was trying to buy airline tickets at the same time. I guess it could have been the screaming, teething, 10 month old demanding my attention every time he realized I wasn't playing Legos with him? I don't know. I just know it didn't work. And I know you can't smell any lovely, warm, cheery,fireplace right now.

Oh well...maybe next time I will craft something worth reading...

maybe.

February

So.  February was busy.  That might be obvious from the lack of anything new here.  We traveled, a lot, spend time with dear people, spent time as a family, learned more about how to live well this life God has given us, where our heart longs for both homes.  And because it was so full, I am going to resort to bullet points.

• We had lots of snow days.  As in 3 plus 2 already scheduled days off of school plus one kid was sick for 2 days.  Yeah, no real school rythm in February.

• It got cold!!  As in actual temperatures being in the -15 F neighborhood.  But Elliot did find some sun!

• The boys got to experience a classroom party in the US.  Parties here are so different.  They are parties.  In Costa Rica, it's often just a meal ordered from a local fast food place.

• Noah and I were able to spend a weekend at Barakel helping out!  It was so fun to be back with those dear folks.  Noah helped drill ice fishing holes, run the tubing hill, teach ski lessons and do announcements.  I helped in the kitchen (which was a much warmer assignment by the way).  It was strange, it felt in some ways like we had never left, although it has been four years!

• I got to share about what God is doing with a group of amazing women.

• We were given a gift of a week at Missionary Training International's Debriefing and Renewal program.  What an amazing time!  We have been able to express and share how hard and wonderful the last 4 years have been, had someone to cry with and pray with, people to breath hope and life into us, all the while our kids were given the same kind of care! So very thankful!

• While in Colorado, we got to spend time with a former student of ours (those teaching years seem like a lifetime ago!) and meet her sweet kids, husband and friends.  We were overwhelmed by the hospitality of strangers as they opened their home to us for 3 days!  

• We also got to visit the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  So amazing!

• And now we are back to Zeeland, still working on finding a normal routine, although I have my doubts about if we'll be successful
  
  
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The Kamper Update

1.10

Your breath hangs in the air as you sit inside the piece of rubber inflated with air, your tube.  It will carry you down a tremendously long hill. 

"You want to spin?"  He asks. 

"Ummm, sure?"

"Ok, hang on!"

With that you are spinning round and round as gravity takes you down the run.  The snow is in your face, you hear yourself laugh.  You finally come to a stop at the bottom, a bit dizzy, your heart racing, and laughter pouring out of your mouth. 

"That was FUN!" you shout to your friend on the second run. 

You both trudge through the snow to the tow rope and manage to lay your body on top of the line and the tube, gliding up the hill effortlessly, while you hear the screams and squeals of delight from others on their way down. And so begins your weekend at Camp Barakel.

Every weekend, from now through the beginning of March we will have groups of teens, fathers and sons, married couples, mothers and daughters, and college kids.  They have a weekend to  ice skate, cross country ski, snowshoe, tub, play broom ball and hockey.  And while all that fun is great, our real goal and prayer is that the weekend will be a time for them to get away from the everyday and be able to listen to what God might be saying to them.  They will have time in chapel, in discussion groups and in their cabins to think, talk, listen and pray.

Will you join us in praying for the campers that are coming over the next 9 weeks?  Pray that they would be able to hear what the Creator of all this fun has to say to them.  Pray that they will be obedient to what He might ask of them.

We can't do this work without you!

Because of Him,

Noah, Liz, Forrest and Elliot

P.S.  If you are wanting to see more tubing hill fun, check out this post from our blog.  There are a couple of videos that will give you a better idea of the excitement!

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is always interesting when you have littles.  It's hard to go anywhere or do anything with anyone who has littles too.  I think my favorite, favorite, favorite New Year's Eve ever was the one where we went tubing at Barakel.  And that could only work because we all lived on the same property and so did all our babyistters.

But here in Costa Rica we have something we didn't at Barakel, our own fireworks display!

Because we have this amazing view from our deck of the central valley, and because everyone and their brother buys fireworks, we just get to sit out and enjoy.  If you look closely, you can see some of the fireworks in the city. 

Sometime, I want to get right down in the midst of it all.  But that probably is going to have to wait until the boys are are bit bigger.

Training

The last few days have been full of big things. Yesterday the inspector came to check out the zipline. We past! Hurray! What a load off of Jeremy's mind! This has been his baby. He designed it, hunted down the parts, dealt with all the stress of it. And it past! Way to go man!



Today was the training for the facilitators. They started stinking early this morning with class time, and praise the Lord, the rain quit by the time they were out at the tower. 8 full hours of class time, instruction, and practice. Noah called me after his first run down the line, told me how it was and then said, "so I need to go down a few more times, for practice ya know...heheheh."



Noah is studying as I write for the testing tomorrow morning. And he thought he was done with exams for the summer. Ha.

I wasn't able to get out to the fun today to get photos. And even if I could have, I wouldn't have been able to drag both boys up the tower with me during the training, so thanks to Paul Gardener and Jeremy Linsley for the photos of the fun.



Here's a fun fact. The inspector/ trainer said that our zipline is higher and longer than most. There was even something mentioned about having to leave the country to find one comparable. I can't wait to try it! However, not sure when that is going to be. Another interesting fact, I have lived here through two winters now and have only been down the tubing hill about three times. So, like I said, we'll see when I get to try the zipline.