Home?

Huh.

Last post over a year ago.  Really??
I guess I have two choices.  A) I can explain away on why this space has been so neglected, but honestly that's kinda boring to write and to read, and I think you all probably get why I have been absent, what with 4 kids and all or  B) I can forge ahead as if nothing happened.

Let's go with B. 

Moving on.

In one month, we'll be climbing aboard a plane again.  Yep, it's come around again, our six month Home Assignment.  Which by the way, we don't like that name.  Home is Costa Rica now.  We started calling it COMA, Country of Origin Assignment.  When we shared that with our pastor, he said, how about we call it COMMA, Country of Origin Mandatory Ministry Assignment.  More pause like and less death like.  Have I mentioned how much we enjoy this guy?

So, we are in that state of upheaval known in the nerdy missionary circles as transition.  And we all enter it and deal with it differently.  I have already started to deal with it, Noah won't deal with it until two weeks after we get to the States.  The kids are all in some state of it.  It gets a little nutty, with six of us. 

Emotions, good and bad, are running close to the surface.  A couple of years ago when we were in Colorado for some debriefing time, we were introduced to the concept of Yuck Ducks and Yeah Ducks.  Get it, a paradox?  So often we want to negate some part of an experience by saying things like "It was really great, but this bad thing happened"  Or "it was awful but this good thing was part of it"  It can be both.  Not just all bad or all good, but a mescla, a mix.  So there are yuck ducks, things that we don't like and yeah ducks, things that are good. 

We are excited and nervous about our time in the US.  Excited to spend time with family and friends, people we love and miss terribly living so far away from them.  Nervous, because well, we don't really fit there any more.  It's been six years since we left the US, Forrest and Elliot were just 4 and 2.  They have lived longer here than they have in the US.  Now we're this weird mix now, not Tico, but not completely from the US either.  (Proof?  That last sentence.  Six years ago I would have written "Not completely from America."  I know better now.  Costa Ricans consider themselves Americans, because they are part of Central America.  And before you blow that off as nonsense, think about it.  I mean really think about it.)

We're also excited for the change of seasons (FALL!!!) but will miss rainy season here.  Excited to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with family!!  But I will so miss our Thanksgiving here with our friends and the fun of Christmas fireworks. We're struggling with leaving friends and church here for half a year, while at the same time we're excited to see friends and spend time at our supporting churches in the States.

So, we're a mashed up mess of Yuck Ducks and Yeah Ducks.  And will be for a while.  It takes a while to get resettled, and just about the time we find a rhythm, we'll go through the upheaval again to come back. 

If you see us in the first month or two, we might be a little messy, especially our kids.  For some of them, this will be the first time they really remember living in the US.  For one of them, this will be her first time living in another country.  Yep, she's little, but you better believe she will go through her own adjustment time.  This baby has never seen wall to wall carpeting! 

For our bigger guys, there will likely be some working through how Tico and how Gringo they are.  It might depend on the day.  Simple questions like "is it good to be home?" can cause all sorts of emotions and in elementary school it can be hard to express how they are a mix of both places.  At this point, they might not even realize how much of a mix they have become.  This six months could bring that out. 

So.  Know we're excited and ready to spend some time in the US.  Know to that while we are there, we're working through our mixed up mess of "we're home, but not home" all at the same time.  Thanks for your grace with us!  And we can't wait to see you all!!

May Kamper Update

Check out our newest update and consider how you could be a part of what God is doing in Costa Rica!
 

By the Numbers

 

Want to give?  Click on over here!

Noah's Sweet New Ride

So remember a while back when I asked you all to pray with us about a second vehicle?  Well, you guys are rockstar prayers because in July God provided money from a couple of amazing families to buy a second car!! What?!?  Yep! 

We've been researching and looking and praying for the right car and this week Noah was able to buy it!  It's a 1994 Suzuki Sidekick.  A rugged little thing, that is oh so very teal, but it will do a great job at getting him to and from camp and wherever else he needs to go. It has good gas mileage, (espeicaly compared to the 4Runner) a high clearance, and the boys think it awesome!!  It even has a Costa Rican flag on the antenna!  Sweet!

Noah works from home on Wednesdays, so he was able to take Forrest to school today with it.  And as you can see Forrest was way excited about riding in Dad's new car.

This second car means a lot for us.  It means that I can get to camp more, that the car shuffling we've had to do to get Forrest to school won't need to contiue, and it means I can get some of those all day errands done during the week.

Thanks God!! And thank you for all your prayers!!

Resting

After two weeks (boy, it felt a lot longer than that!) We took a short vacation to the coast.  My Spanish tutor laughs at me when I tell him we're going to the beach, but not really to the beach, just to a hotel that over looks the beach.  "Gringos, they like to just look at the water."  he says.  Yep.

See there is this lovely little hotel we heard about through friends.  And it's perfect.  It's about an hour and half from our house.  It's small, has kitchens, has a lovely pool, a wonderful view, and well, it's just perfect.

And boy, did we need some time away.  This two weeks was intense, and part of me feels a bit whinny about it.  After all, we did 12 weeks every summer at Barakel, but well, this was just as hard, if not harder.  There are a lot of benefits to living at camp, and we don't here and it just makes it hard.

But this post is not about how hard camp was.  It's about how we were able to get away and enjoy each other and being together as a family.

And aside from the fact that Quinn refused to sleep the whole time we were away, it was great!  The big boys swam 9 hours a day, we brought good food with us and the weather was perfect for swimming (read HOT!)

And now we are rested (sorta ) and reconnected and ready for the next season of ministry. 

The Spring Arbor Team

The last week of June, a group of teens and leaders came to help with the work God is doing at Campamento Roblealto.  We have a lot of groups come, but this one was special to our family because they came from the church that we attended when we were in college.  The Youth Director was a couple of years behind us at Spring Arbor Univeristy and it was soooo very fun to have this group!! 

They came at such a good time for us personally.  There are these ebbs and flows as a missionary family.  Sometimes, things just clip along fine, life is easier, emotions are more stable, and well, things are good.  And then there are times, when things get harder, emotions are all over the place and it can be hard to keep the big picture in mind (for a myriad of reason).  The week the Spring Arbor team came was one of the ebbs for us. 

But what an encouragement they all were.  Not only did they kick butt around camp with the work project, do a fantastic job working with the Project Hope camp, but they played with my big boys, loved on Quinn, and just took time to talk with Noah and I, to ask questions, to pray for us, and haul a suitcase of goodies for us!

The boys and I were able to go in most days to eat a meal with them and two of the girls really took on Forrest and Elliot.  They played with them, helped them with their food, talked with them and just were fantastic!  They made such an impression on the boys, they are still talking about Abby and Kenzie.

One of the days we got to go with them to the Poás Volcano and we were actually able to see the crater for about 10 minutes.  And what fun it was just to hang out and talk with all of them!

Grateful for the time we had with this awesome group!  The boys are asking when we get to visit them all in Michigan!

Like Coffee? Like Us?

Got a thing for really good fair trade coffee?  How about intresting craft beers? 

Well, have we got the thing for you!  We had some people approach us about doing a fundraiser for us using something so very Costa Rican; Coffee!  The coffee is whole bean, fair trade and the Mocha Rica beer is crafted using the same great coffee.

If you are in the West Michigan area, and you're intrested, shoot us an email and we'll connect you with the people in charge. 

The Everyday

When I was a teenager and even into college I had this rosie idea of what missions would look like. You know, the sorta hybrid Indiana Jones meets Florence Nightingale life where our days would be full of adventure, helping, seeing amazing things happen for the Kingdom of Heaven. Since we’ve been in Costa Rica, I think that has happened, ummm, once?

Most days this life feels a lot more mundane.  Like all the frustrating parts of life are exaggerated.  Nothing is straight forward or simple here.  Take making ice for an example.  In the States, my refrigerator made ice for me.  Now, I have to fill the water filter, wait for it to filter.  After an hour or so, I fill the ice trays and get them in the freezer, if there is enough room.  Or paying for your car insurance.  You can’t write checks here.  Instead, you go to the bank, wait in line for an hour, give the bank teller the account number where you want to deposit money to pay for the car insurance, or any  other fee.  And then you pray that the system is working and the money can be transferred.  Sometimes it is, and sometimes not.

Now, I will freely admit, some of these frustrations come from being a northern living here.  For people from colder climates, we show respect and value for people by respecting their time.  We don’t want to take up more time that is necessary, they have other things to do and the theory goes, that’s because it’s going to get cold and if they don’t get enough food and wood stored, enough warm clothes made and enough animals situated, they will die that winter, all because you talked to them too long at the bank.  Warm culture folks show respect and value by taking time with someone.  No conversation here starts right out with business.  There is the “How is your family?  How is the weather near you?  What happened in such and such situation?”  And then comes the business.  There is plenty of time to plant crops, to harvests them, and since it’s so warm, clothing is minimal….well, you get the point.  

We need you all to pray for the big things, the times when Noah is leading Bible Studies, when we have camps going on, you know, the exciting things in missions.  But we very much need you to pray for our everyday, for things like

• Patience as we wait in lines for groceries, paying bills, getting visas renewed, going to the doctor
•    Endurance to deal with the very long drawn out process of doing things here, like getting the official paperwork saying we can live here.
• For flexibility, as daily plans change, roads are closed, and things like electricity and water may or may not be working.
•   For the daily stress of adapting to a new culture where we don’t know the nuances of a particular phrase and are always asking ourselves “are we being to American?”
•  For the loneliness that comes from being in a foreign land.

Want to Help Train Leaders?

Last week Noah had a message from a voluteer asking how to go about studying the Bible.  She had only ever read Romans and Psalms.  This hit right at the heart of our calling here, to help equip and train the next generation of Christian leaders here in Costa Rica.

One of the things that Noah will be doing with some of the volunteers next year is a Bible study on leadership.  We found a great resource, a 40 minute inductive bible study guide from Precepts Ministries, and it's even in Spanish! No need for translation work on this one folks!  I can't tell you what a help that is to Noah!

So here's where you get to share in this.  We are in need of 10 of the books for our volunteers who are in leadership.  We have looked and we can't get these books here in Costa Rica.  But, if you want to help us out, you can order a book or two by shopping off our Amazon Wish List.  When you order, they will be sent to a stateside address and then we have someone shipping them to us here in Costa Rica. 

So, if your interested, click on over to the Wish List.  Thanks!! 

Visas, Tickets and 8%

Today I realized that we are just about three months away from returning to Costa Rica!  I knew that this summer would fly by, but oh dear!  Didn't we just get here?

I also realized that we needed to get started on the paperwork process.  This last year in Costa Rica, we didn't worry about getting a student visa, we just left the country every 90 days to renew our tourists' visas.  Remember this trip?

But now that we will be living in Costa Rica permanently, leaving ever 90 days would be a drain on our time, not to mention financial resources.  So, that means we need visas.  So, I started working on the process of trying to figure out what paper work we need from what government offices, and how many stickers and ribbons each one needs and where it needs to be sent.  Apparently, in Michigan, there is one office in Lansing that has the authority to issue the Great Seal.  And that Great Seal needs to be on just about everything.

And unlike here in the States, where you could use the same birth certificate your whole life, we need new ones for each member of the family, as well as a new marriage license.  And apparently we need a police statement saying we are good, upstanding citizens and some other letters of recommendation from our sending agency and Roblealto.  But really, a lot of this is just me guessing at this point.  You know, dealing with government agencies is never easy or straight forward, even if you speak the same language.

And then there are the plane tickets...what a racket!   I did discover this last year that one of the best ways to get cheap tickets is to break the flights up.  Instead of searching for a trip from Grand Rapids to San Jose, I look for tickets from Grand Rapids to Orlando or Miami, and then tickets from one of those cities to San Jose.  We were able to shave $100 per ticket off the price when we came back in April this way.  And right now ticket prices are looking good for the end of September!  I am praying they stay that way until we get the green light to buy them from LAM.

We are still in the support raising process, although if you've noticed on the sidebar, we are now up to 92%!  We are praying that God would bring in the rest of the support by the end of July, so that we can buy the tickets and move forward with the move.  Really, 8% more isn't much.  And it breaks down to be three partners at $50 a month and four at $100.  Would you pray with us about the need?  And if you have been thinking about partnering with us and Campamento Roblealto, now would be a great time to let us know!  Follow the link here, and jump on board.

Exactly!

If you have ever wondered how to pray for missionaries, check out this article.  It was sent to us by a dear friend tonight and I cried as I read it because it hits the nail on the head. 

We have been feeling the lonliness and just the everyday struggles of language learning and navigating a country that isn't your own.  And the way the article is worded, well, we need every single one of these things!

The House

Alright, so back to the story of our trip.  

One of the big things we have been praying about is our housing situation at Manatial de Vida.  Right now, there isn't a place for us to live.  And for a whole lot of reasons, it's best that we live on camp.  When Noah visited in 2009, he and Wes talked about building a house for us, that if someday we weren't at Manantial de Vida, it could function as a main office. 

Well, on Friday morning, before we left to come back to Costa Rica, we were able to met with some of the pastors of PIER who also happen to be engineers and architects!  And they literally said to us, "What do you want in your house?"  What in the world!!  We never in a million years thought we would be able to help design a house for us to live in!  And what a beautiful thing it is!  At least on paper right now!

After our meeting we went to lunch with everyone and Pastor Daniel started sketching what we had created back at church.  Here it is, on the back of a paper place mat.

Isn't it lovely?  It was crazy to watch these guys take what we said and make it work!  And the details they thought of!  Things like which way does the wind come from, how to make it cooler, how "wow, that's a big space, boy, let's see what we can do to make that more usable."  


I love the wrap around porches, the fact that I have a laundry room right next to my kitchen with a door to the outside just steps away.  Something tells me that is going to come in really, really handy with two boys!  And oh!  There are plans for a bath tub!

And now we pray.  Pray for the $75,000 it will cost to build this, pray for God to bring the right people and teams to help with the construction, pray that He will be gloried through this house.

And hey, if you are interested in helping with this important project in anyway, shoot us an email or give us a call (yes, we can get phone calls here, and it won't cost you anything!  We have a stateside number).  We'd love to talk with you about how you can help fiance this or come be a part of the building.

And so that pretty much wraps up our trip to Honduras.  We are so thankful we got to spend so much time with the Williamsons and to be part of the day to day.  We can't wait to get there for real.  But for right now, it's back to the studying and working out how to communicate with this people that we have come to love.

The Free Sale

So, I have struggled with what to call what we did yesterday.  It was sorta of a garage sale without prices.  At all.  Really, I suppose, everyone who came yesterday could have taken everything and not given us a dime.  And it really would have been a huge help!  But we were overwhelmed with people's generosity!  We were given over $600 $843 for our Travel and Equipment account, and people took stuff that we needed to get rid of!  What a blessing!

One of our friends even showed up with an old U Haul as a joke.  And really the whole day felt more like a party than anything else. Forrest cried when it was nap time because he didn't want to miss any of the people coming!

Thank you all so much!  What a blessing to have such supportive friends and neighbors!

A New Sorta Shower

I had my bridal showers 8 years ago, and then baby showers before we had Forrest.  And then that's pretty much all ya get, right?  Unless I end up with a girl along the way, I thought I was pretty much done.

But yesterday, the women here at camp gave me another shower.  It was a surprise during our ladies' meeting.  I was so overwhelmed!  They all brought things that had to do with our relationships.  One lady made me an apron (aprons are kinda a big deal around here.)  Another found a set of Canasta cards because we have played Canasta with them since we were both raising support to come to Barakel.  Another got us Barakel rain ponchos for the rainy season.  She also gave us some Zuko which is kind of like Honduran Kool Aid and Maggi Consome de pollo ( sorta like chicken bouillon) to help us get used new things.

All this and more was put in a Barakel bag because they knew we can't bring a lot of extras.  And tucked into all the sweet memories was a card with money in it for decorating our new home in Honduras!  So wonderful to be so well known and cared for!

In a very real way, Barakel is supporting the work that is going on in Honduras through Manantial de Vida.  They have known since before we became resident missionary staff that we were here for a time to learn and grow and then we would move on to Latin America.  And they were very excited about that!  In fact, they have encouraged us not to forget that vision and to press on towards that!  They have been flexible with us having to travel more, and they are willing to keep us here until it's time for us to leave.  So amazing to see how the Body of Christ works!

Wrap Up

Wow, so I am a bit behind aren't I?  Last week was a little nuts and this week is different yet again, and while I have all sorts of interesting things to talk about (Forrest's first fish, our new to us trailer, thoughts on tubs and bins and storage, the change of weather, Family Camp)  I realized I never finished up with our trip to Virgina.

So here you go...

We managed to drive 1,243 miles, even though we flew to and from the Washington DC area.  I think that is quite impressive!  And quite long, and hard with 2 preschoolers...but we made it!

We all managed to get sick, I started the trend on Sunday night, right after we got in, and subsequent family members followed through the week.  Forrest topped us all with a double ear infect with 103.8 fever.  Which meant we missed the Zoo, which I was the most disappointed by.  But we got to the doctor, got some antibiotics and he was happy as a clam by the time we got on the plane.

We decided that we really got to see the whole state of Virgina.  We stayed with friends in the Manassas/DC area, drove down the east coast Chesapeake Bay area, then across the state to the West Virgina board into what everone calls Hillbilly country where the Blue Ridge Mountains are, and then back up to Manassas.

 Our kids did amazingly well.  Normally they don't sleep in the car at all, but they got to be pros at that.  I don't know if it had to do with them not feeling well to begin with, but whatever, we took it and thanked God for it!

We spent time with dear friends and family.  Some we haven't seen in 4 years.  We were able to meet about 6 new couples and share with them about what God is doing in Honduras through Manantial de Vida.  While we haven't seen the financial benefit of the trip yet, it was just great to share with people who were excited to hear about God's work outside the States.

We were overwhelmed by the generosity and hospitality of people.  They played with our kids, feed us fantastic food, went out of their way to make us feel at home, comfortable, gave us medicine, let us borrow cars, drove us places.  Amazing!

And all too quickly we were home.  And back to life as not so normal.  We had cleaning week, fevers, prepping for Family Camp class, more fevers, sub plans for Family Camp, teaching Kids' class, and then we crashed into a pile on Monday afternoon. 

So now you have the wrap up of our trip.  Now I can move on to all those other things...

DVDs and Water

It's so fun to see what people grab on to when it comes to helping us move to Honduras.  Just this week, someone gave us four seasons of one of our favorite shows!  I have stuck those away to sit for a while until we need some good old American humor.

We also got a package today that so exciting.  It's such a "this is for real, we are really moving to a third world country!"thing.  A gravity fed water purifier.  If you are thinking a Brita pitcher, just toss that idea right out of your pretty little head.  No, my friends, this is a Royal Berkey.  This thing is amazing!  It can take any type of water, pound scum, you name it, and make it drinkable.  It can even filter food coloring out of water.  It's been around for about 150 years and is used by the Red Cross, UNICEF, the Peace Corp, basically all the groups that work in disaster and relief situations where drinking water is questionable at best.  It takes out all the nasty little bichos (bugs) that live in water, you know, like salmonella, cholera and typhoid.

Anyway, one of our supporters gave us the money for this system, because they figured drinkable water was right up there on the list of important things to have.  It's so cool! It's gravity fed so there won't be a single problem when the power goes out.  And the filters are good for something like 6,000 gallons before we need new ones.  It nests inside itself, great for travel across oceans.  And when I ordered it, it came with three water bottles that have the same filter in them.  We had one already for the same supporters, so now, everyone in the family will have one and I never have to worry about the water they are drinking!

Can you tell I am excited about this?  Such a big deal, drinkable water.  Something we take for granted here in the US.  It just dumbfounds me that people here by bottled water when we have some of the cleanest tap water in the world!

It's really amazing to see how God uses His Body in such clever ways!

So now that I have played with the Bereky a bit, I will drain it, dry it out, and pack it up.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we get to use it for real!

Ways You Can Help A Missionary #4

I had a friend call yesterday and ask, "How can our church encourage and support our missionaries?  Any good ideas?"  I had already written about one way here.  But something that I have been struggling through immediately jumped to mind, tech support!

So there you have it.  #4 on the list of Ways You Can Help a Missionary.
Tech Support.

Remember when I mentioned there is a limit to my blogging knowledge?  Well, I am again frustrated by my lack of ability.  See, Blogger came out with some new templates, and I would really like to utilize them.  But I don't want to over do it, ya know?  I was doing some blog reading the other day and ran across this,

"Frankly, many of us have incredible blogs … for the late 1990s.  But technology, and people’s expectations, are moving fast.  We could do so much better." 

It cracked me up and made me a bit concerned too.  Does our blog fall into that category?  Boy, I sure don't want it to.

I would love to tweak the blog, make it more user friendly, keep it very clean and readable, yet have things like a blog roll, special links, etc.  I would love to have a button people could stick on their blogs to show their support, to have a great graphic to keep track of where we are in the support raising process.  Alas, I don't know what I am doing. 

So,  if you see something here that bothers you so much you have stopped reading from the actual site in favor of your reader, because of my goodness, that is so 1995, please, help a sista out and tell me!  I will do what I can to fix it!

And if you are one of the chosen that grasps the mysteries of HTML and web design, HELP!  I know just enough to make myself look like an idiot!

Ways You Can Help a Missionary #12

I had a meltdown on Tuesday.  I had my cheese disaster, and I was working all morning on support raising stuff and had major technical issues and I had mounds of laundry and babies needing diapers changed and snacks and naps and snuggles and I couldn't do it all!  Imagine that.

I told Noah I needed to find a 12 year old girl to come and play with the boys while I got some work done.  To that he said, without batting an eye, "that can be arranged you know."

Duh.  So I called one of the moms here that has a home schooled 12 year old girl.  And today Melanie came to play with Forrest all morning.

Can I just tell you how much work I got done?!  I cleaned my whole house, got all of the laundry washed and dried, made several phone calls, all without being interrupted!  And Forrest had a great time playing with Mel.  Praise God!  We will be doing this again!

I once heard a missionary mom say with sparkling eyes that someone had offered to take her kids for the day so she could get phone calls and emails and other paper work done that is so important to the support raising process.  I thought, "oh, that's nice."  That was before I had kids!  Man!  The woman must have been able to get three weeks worth of work done that day!

And here is Ways You Can Help a Missionary #12. Offer to take their kids for a day, so they can make those phone calls, write those letters and emails, and have a few moments to clean their house!