Costa Rica!!

So 6 out of the 9 North Americans were planning on going to El Salvador this past weekend, we had bought our bus tickets and just as we were about to leave school on Wednesday afternoon, (which was our last day of school for the week) we found out that our 90 day visas had expired and we had to leave the country, but not just any country, we had to go outside of all the bordering countries. That means 1 of 2 options, either Mexico or Costa Rica or Panama, we chose Costa Rica and all of us had to go.

So we delayed our bus tickets for El Salvador for 90 days, and started to try to find a place to go in Costa Rica, we had about 4 to 5 hours to plan for the trip. We chose Tamarindo, which is a city right on the Pacific Coast and a very high Tourist population. In fact 80% of the population there is from somewhere other than Costa Rica. The School paid a driver to take us in a 12-15 passenger van and off we went at 5:30 in the morning.

We had to drive through the entire country of Nicaragua which took a long time and everytime we entered a new country we had to get out, get our passports stamped, pay a fee to enter and leave the country. It usually took about 20 to 30 minutes every time we had to do this. It was some of the most beautiful country-side I have ever seen though. In Nicaragua, we past by a huge lake with a volcano right on it, I think there were actually 2 volcano’s near it. The drive there took about 14 total hours, with a few more stops for random police checkpoints.

We finally got there and stayed at the cheapest hotel we could find, which turned out to be a little room for 100 bucks a night, but 4 of us split that. The next 2 nights we moved to a Hostel, which was much less expensive. They had a lot of Italian food there and seafood, the first night we ate Italian pasta, and the second we went to this restaurant called Joes, and the name of the dinner plate I order that night was called, “Nachos as big as your ass,” no joke, I’ve got a great picture of it too. It took me a while but I finished the whole plate, and felt very very uncomfortable afterwards.

Also on Friday, we went on a zipline ropes course about 40-50 feet up in the air across a jungle-like area of forest. That was pretty fun, we saw an iguana there, and I got some good pictures of that too. We spent a little time on the beach and after my nacho dinner we went out to the beach again to swim at night.

All of the souvenier shops there were so incredibly expensive, so I just bought a beach towel, because my other one got soaked on the beach. I have never seen the tide move so far out and so far in this quickly in my life. It was so crazy.

The next day I was at the beach almost the whole morning and in the afternoon I decided to take some surf lessons, because Tamarindo is pretty famous for surfing I guess too. They had surf lesson shops everywhere you walked. It was a 2 hour lesson and I had a huge long board that was much taller than I was, it was so fun though. I think I’m gonna have to move to the coast and go into surfing ministry now. I think I’m definitely hooked.

That night we had typical Costa Rican food, which consisted of rice, beans, eggs, salad, and some kind of meat, pork, steak, fish, and rice pudding for dessert. It was all very good. So after that we went to the grocery store and got some items that we needed, including some Costa Rican coffee, and some A&W Root Beer, (they don’t have root beer in Honduras at all).

And then a 12 hour drive back, we are legal citizens again, and shouldn’t have to do this again. But it was really fun. I listened to a couple of really good missionary biographies along the way too, by John Piper, the lives of George Mueller, and William Wilberforce, very very edifying and good. And I even listened to a sermon by Robert Hahn, I’m officially on the Chesapeake Church podcast list now.

Building time

last week was a pleasant shortened week thanks to a sewage problem on monday, led to the closing of school. But after that we had a normal rest of the week.

Just to let everyone know, everyone seems to keep asking me if teaching is getting any easier and to tell you the truth, it's not, but I feel a bit more confident now, and I continue to develop better relationships with more of my students everyday. Right now when I supervise at recess I have a good enough relationship with 3 10th graders, that I usually talk with them for the whole 20 minutes everyday, and we usually have a pretty good time talking. (Pablo, Erick, and Jose).

On Friday My buddy and made our normal arena soccer routine on Friday night, and then got a few hours of sleep. We woke up the next morning and joined alot of the same soccer players from our church to help build another church over in a pretty big village about 45 minutes away. We all went on a big church bus, and I made some really cool new friends with 2 guys named Luis and (well I forgot the other one's name, but we worked with them all day), carrying cement, shoveling dirt, pretty much the whole day. This might sound like torture to some of you, but it felt really good for me, because the only work I've been doing so far has been lifting markers to write on the dry erase board. We were laying down cinder blocks with cement and smoothing out the floor and tamping it down the whole day. One of our friends was digging one time and he accidentally crack right through a pvc pipe that ran to give everyone their water. It spring like 2 to 3 feet at first right out of the ground, but some of the natives came over really quickly, turned the water off and taught us how to replace that part of the pvc pipe, it was pretty cool.

We went to church that night, and started to prepare for our big American thanksgiving feast we were going to have, since Hondurans don't usually celebrate thanksgiving. We invited about 25 total people and we all ate on top of the roof of one of the North American's apartments. Alot of our closest Honduran teacher-friends were invited to the dinner, and they really enjoyed it. Alejandro, my little 4 year old buddy was there, and we had a really good time, I always love playing with him, we went to the fair together 2 weeks ago. Everyone loved it though, we had a really good time saying in English and in Spanish what we were thankful for. And I definitley said how thankful I was of all the Hondurans who have welcomed us so warmly. As well as for God who has plans that I would have never expected or never imagined, being here would be a great example of that.

After that we went to the English speaking church and I had been talking to the pastor about following him to a meeting where he trains different pastors. However I just found out that it got bumped back a week!!! The same weekend as our retreat with the soccer guys on top of a mountain with a sweet waterfall. I think I'm gonna go on the retreat because I'm alot more committed to those guys, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have alot more opportunies to go along with Pastor John, training other pastors.

And I just bought a bus ticket, 60 bucks round trip to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. 6 of the North Americans are going on this thursday morning, we leave at 6 AM, and we'll leave at 2 PM to go back on Sunday. Were gonna hit up the beach, hopefully some volcanoes and other cool places, hopefully get some cool souveniers in the process too.

So that's it, that's the update so far. It's really cool that God's giving all these opportunites for me, every weekend is full with all kinds of different opportunities.

My Crazy, Insane Adventure

So Saturday was by far the craziest adventure I’ve had yet. I went with a few of the girls from the States to this village that was destroyed by an earthquake about a month ago. Apparently it was only an hour away, so driving was not going to be that big of a deal.

Unfortunately we got a late start because we were getting a cell phone hooked up in order to call if we got lost. And it’s a really good thing that we did. There was 2 cars that went, the first car had our friend Aben and two other people who worked for an embassy, they went first and were about 2 hours in front of us. We left later.

About and hour down the road we were wondering if we were coming up on our turn and so I called Aben, and he told me to look for the sign to “Porvenir” unfortunately there were no signs for this turn-off, so we drove 30 km past it. We turned around and headed back, it was another 45 minutes to get to Porvenir, then after that we were to ask for directions from people on the street to a little town called Morale.

So I did all the talking since my Spanish is a bit better than the others, and we asked like 4 or 5 people who seemed to be giving us conflicting directions. They eventually pointed us down the right road, and for any future forks in the road, there were enough people hanging outside, that we just asked them. So we started the ascent up to Morale, I didn’t know at first that Marale was a small dirt road headed up a mountain but that’s exactly what it was.

We drove for probably about 45 minutes up this mountain until we finally came to Morale. Morale was like our base-point to go even further up the mountain, because the people who had gotten wiped out by the earthquake were an hour further up the mountain from there. The people up the mountain were also in bad shape because the roads were really really muddy, only four wheel drive vehicles could continue up the mountain. And of course it is also very cold in the mountains and they didn’t have very many clothes.

The other team had gone up the mountain 40 minutes before we had even gotten there, so Aben told me to find a man name Said Lainez, and he would direct us from there. So we went into town and I asked a guy if he knew Said, he said he lived over to the right, so we went a few blocks down and I walked into Said’s house, his son and daughter were there. They said Said was in the Caldia, a little further up in the village.

Since I didn’t know where the Caldia was and what it was for that matter, we drove up to the second level of the village where I continued to ask people where the Caldia was, we finally found it and I got out and talked to Said, who was a very nice and friendly guy. Since we didn’t have a four wheel drive car, they arranged for a man to drive us up the mountain.

So we started driving up, (much steeper roads this time) and the driver was picking people up in the back of his truck every 5 or 10 minutes to take them to their village that they lived in. Then the muddy roads began and all of the sudden it turned from a normal truck ride, to more like a carnival ride, sliding and bouncing everywhere. This went on for about 30 minutes, I’ve never been fishtailing more in my life, and these roads were dangerous too, because one wrong move and your rolling down the mountain. We finally caught up with the other truck with Aben in it. They had already been to the camp which was 20 minutes further down the road, so we decided to turn around and follow them to a different village that needed supplies. As soon as we turned around the truck finally got stuck in the mud, probably in a good 2 feet, the tires were spinning and the truck was sinking. So we got out, and the people from the other truck came down to watch, there was even 2 soldiers with M16’s there and everyone was just watching. So I decided to help push and we eventually got the truck out.

We continued up the mountain, and stopped at a few more villages, but by then most of the supplies were already handed out. We stopped at another village, that seemed pretty well off, and handed some supplies out to a dad, who had 5 or 6 kids there it looked like. None of them had any shoes and of course they looked very cute. There was also the most breath-taking views that I had ever seen on top of the mountain, we only had time to stop and take pictures one time, but it was absolutely beautiful.

We descended back down the mountain, we also had to cross probably about a 3 to 4 foot creek as well in the truck, that was really fun. We came back to the village and the girls started to play with all the kids in Marale, there was like 25 or 35 kids just hanging out in the town just waiting to be played with.

I was talking with Said and he was telling me that barely any gringos every come up to their village. He thanked us for coming and wouldn’t let me pay for the gas that our escort used to drive us around. I asked if we could come back some time and play with the kids, and he said whenever you want! We headed back down the mountain and all the way back home, but we definitely want to go back again, definitely the coolest adventure I’ve had yet.

I think I’m going on December 1st to go with a pastor who trains other pastors, it’s gonna be about a 5 to 6 hour journey.

The Week

So this week was very short. Wednesday morning there was a taxi strike, I'm not sure all the details or even how it worked. All I know is that they got their issues resolved and we did not have school because of it. I guess this is our version of snow days, since I think its only ever snowed here one time in the last 100 years or something.

I was having severe respect issues with one specific student this week, he was arguing with me alot and didn't seem to understand why I punish him more than everyone else. Simply because he disrespects me more than everyone else. So I'm gonna have to suspend him on Monday. Other than that the week went pretty well.

Today was report card day, that means that the students have a day off of school and the parents come in to get their children's grades. First of all they have to make sure that their payments are up to date for the private school, then their children's grades are given, and finally they talk to any teacher that they need to talk to about their children. So I was sitting in a room with other parents whose children were doing poorly or failing for the most part, from 8 AM until 2 PM in the same seat. Most of the parents were understanding, I had one parent who told me that her son said that my class needs to be more fun and dynamic, putting the blame on me for his bad grade, but that was really the only parent out of about 40 or 50 that didn't seem to cooperate as much.

Tonight, I'm back to soccer, but I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to play because I'm having some tendonitis in my knee flare up again because its starting to get pretty cold. Last night I went to play volleyball up at Acedmia los Pinares on top of a mountain, it's always much colder up there, and my knee hurt so much I could barely walk, but today has been much better.

Please continue to pray that I would be relying on God more and more everyday for His strength, power, and grace, to work through me and be clearly communicated to my students.

There was an earthquake here about a month and a half ago, and I felt it just a little bit, but apparently it wrecked a whole town, so tommorrow I'm going to a village to help give them clothes and supplies, so that should be really cool. And only 2 more weeks until thanksgiving, time is really flying.

Thanks so much for your prayers

New Exciting Opportunities

So last weekend I went to the picnic at CCI, a second church that I've been going to that has the english speaking service. We were there for about 2 and a half to 3 hours, and had to go back early because one of our buddies had to go back early for tutoring english. But during that time I got to talk to a couple of cool guys, one guy I was talking to was telling me about how he grew up in Panama and played semi-pro soccer there. They won the national title while he was playing on the team one year. I also got to talk to one of the Pastor's there named Pastor John who is actually from Pittsburgh, PA!!. I told him about Summer's Best Two Weeks, but unfortunately he had never heard of it.

So I was talking to Pastor John and I found out that he actually trains pastors in the mountains every weekend, in remote parts of Honduras. He goes almost every single weekend, so I told him that that was definitely a big interest of mine and that I would love to tag along with him one weekend. He said that would be great, and he actually looks for people to go with him every weekend for accoutability and protection. So I'm think within like 2 to 3 more weeks I'll have an opportunity to go.

This week was pretty crazy in school. The final grades were due this week and the kids in my 7th and 8th grade classes simply do not study at all. So as a result I have some classes in which amost half of them are failing. I think this quarter what I may end up doing is just teaching them how to study. And to take notes.

Let's see, it was about an average week for detentions I handed out about 4 to 5 this week. Disicipline still continues to be an issue, but I'm getting used to dealing with my students though, which I guess is a good thing.

Wednesday I went to another game at the national stadium, Olympia played Victoria, I went with 2 other Honduran teachers, Victoria is the 1st place team, Olimpia is 2nd. They tied 0-0. Mal partido, porque no estuvo gols.

Friday, my American buddy Tristan and I went to play soccer at our normal place where I scored my first goal!!!!! And then afterwards we went to this big gas station type place with alot of the guys from soccer where we hung out for about 2 hours with them. I had a couple really good talks with guys there, so my Spanish is definitely improving slowly but surely.

Tonight was the beginning of our church's missions conference in which they have once every 6 months. I also went to teen challenge and a new orphanage which has just been built. Teen challenge is a place for recovering drug addicts and ex-gang members, in which they enroll themselves for a year. After that they graduate and move on usually, although some come back to the facility and work there. In fact, there are over 100 participants in the program now and about 20 staff. All the staff except for the director are former participants in the program. I'll try to post some pics of it later.