Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside

"Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!"
  Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
    "Great is Thy faithfulness," Lord, unto me!"

Feeling especially blessed today.

Planted trees.

With some wonderful children.

And prayed a prayer of thanksgiving,

During the magically un-rainy walk home from the university,

In the Costa Rican afternoon,

Viewing the mountains in the distance,

And seeing the hand of God at work around me.

I love Costa Rica.

Also, I'm behind. Very very behind. Blah.

Things have been pretty busy around here lately...lots going on.

So I haven't had time to write....but I have lots to write about.

But if nothing was going on I would have tons of time to write...but nothing to write about.

Also, my internet has been unreliable and almost as non-existent as sunny afternoons are here during the rainy season.

Hence, no opportunity to work on the bloggy.

Absolutely no clue how to resolve these problems.

I'm afraid these blogs get so long that no one reads all the way through them...but then I want to remember everything that happens so I want to write it all down.

Another un-resolveable problem.

Is unresolveable a word?

Probably not.

But then, I don't speak good english anymore anyway.

(I don't speak english well anymore anyway? Anyway...anyways? .........No hablo ingles.)

Ok, enough rambling...jumping right in starting with Friday of...two weeks ago....eek!

Friday (6/28): Puerto Viejo -

Friday was very sad as I said adios to Beth and Mateo. I hated it that Beth had to leave but feel so blessed to have lived with her for three weeks! She has been such a blessing to myself, Ubelia, and all of the other Sol students. I miss her SO MUCH!

After school that day (final day of Advanced Spanish I...whoop!), I met up with Jane, Katie, Lisa, Nina, and Jaquanna and we were off to San Jose to catch a bus to Puerto Viejo!!!! The bus ride was long and uneventful and so wonderful to be on with sweet Jane! Things were going great on our first weekend doing our own thing (the program only schedules three excursions and after that we're on our own) until we actually arrived in Puerto Viejo.

It wasn't late but since it's almost completely dark by 6:00 in Costa Rica things were looking pretty sketch when we got off the bus. We had planned on taking a taxi to the place we were staying but no taxis were anywhere to be seen. I walked into a shop and asked the owner about taxis...all of the official ones had left and only "private companies" were available.

One of the number one rules in Costa Rica is to ALWAYS ride in a RED taxi with a YELLOW triangle. NEVER EVER get in a "pirata"...a privately owned taxi. Those are pretty much dudes that drive around in their cars and give people rides charging whatever they feel like. And I mean, would you get in a car with a stranger in the states? Nope. Even worse idea in Costa Rica. 

So we waited on the side of the road until an official taxi finally arrived. I have my suspicions though that he was a pirata...didn't have a meter and charged us probably a little too much. He was nice though and ended up being our driver for the weekend. Whoop!

We spent Friday night in a tent....next to the beach. It was awesome! (and only five bucks)

Jane and I outside our home for the night!

All of the tents lined up in the daytime!

We ate a delicious meal at the restaurant underneath the tents (the tents were on an upper level and the restaurant was on the first level) and then crashed for the night.

Saturday (6/25) - Snorkeling/Kayaking!

On Saturday we woke up bright and early, ran to the bus to grab tickets for the trip back, ate a pastry, and hopped in the taxi of our new amigo! We drove to a nearby beach, met our guide who had an awesome Jamaican accent, and went snorkeling in the CARIBBEAN OCEAN!!! It was amazing. So many fish and beautiful coral and just...wow. I still can't believe that I was in the caribbean swimming around with the fish! The only bad part of the experience was that, since it had rained the night before, the current was really strong. It pretty much carried us wherever it wanted to take us...and threw us into the coral a couple of times...very rough. I got scratched by the coral in two places and it's still red and itchy where the coral touched me...two weeks later. Haha not sure if I should be worried about that or not :).

After spending about an hour snorkeling we went kayaking! We kayaked a ways down the shoreline, dragged our kayaks over a little bit of sand, and then kayaked down a river through the rainforest. It felt like we were in the amazon jungle and was one of the neatest experiences I've ever had! It was so fun to kayak (my first time) and I loved seeing the sloths and birds and even insects. It was so beautiful and exciting!

We kayaked for about an hour and then headed back to shore where we grabbed some delicious lunch before heading back to Puerto Viejo in the taxi. Once back in Puerto Viejo, we hung out a little on the beach right outside the place where we spent the night before Jane and I caught a bus back to Heredia (the other girls were staying another night). It was so surreal that we were on the Caribbean coast! Everything was so beautiful and fun!

Overall a super successful adventure! We arrived back in Heredia and crashed, excited for Sunday!

Sunday (6/25): La iglesia en Alajuela!!!!!!!!

Sunday morning Jane and I woke up bright and early, caught the 8:15 bus to Alajuela, and were in Alajuela by 9:15 for worship services at 9:30! It was wonderful. The church has about forty members and everyone is incredibly nice and friendly and hospitable. I have learned so much from them and grown so much from worshiping with them. They are so wonderful and sweet and funny and I absolutely love getting to know them! It was SO nice to finally be able to worship with the saints on Sunday. I cried while remembering Christ's sacrifice with them. There is nothing quite as sweet as fellowship with brethren, especially after having missed it dearly for three weeks. 

After services some of the members had us over to their house for lunch. We ate "pollo casado" (one of my favorite costa rican dishes and the best meal I've had in Costa Rica...which is saying something!). After a fun meal with the preacher, his wife, his two children, Ronaldo, his wife, his daughter, Reagan, and Jane, the men went out on the porch to talk and the women made tortillas in the kitchen! The older women taught Reagan, Jane, and I how to make the tortillas and we had a blast making lots of tortillas together! After the tortillas were made, Ronaldo made all of us some chocolate shake type things and we enjoyed the warm tortillas...delicious! We talked and laughed and joked together the way that brethren do, and my spirit was strengthened. I am so very blessed by them and am trying to think of ways to serve them...they do so much for me and I want so badly to do something for them. If you have any ideas, let me know :).

Monday - Thursday (6/27-6/30): Blur of a week!

Monday through Thursday is really a little bit of a blur! It was very busy, spending time with Jane, meeting my new roommate Christina (very sweet girl from California!), preparing to lead the volunteering with fifth and sixth graders on Thursday, starting my new class (civilization and culture), etc. Looking back on that week it really seems to be a blur of activity, coffee, saying goodbye to people, meeting new people, and dearly missing the ones who left. 

Jane left Wednesday morning and I was so sad to see her go, but so happy that she was able to visit me! Spending time with her monday and tuesday, showing her all of the sights of Heredia (fruit, coffee, the church, the park, downtown) was so fun and I loved the adventures that we went on! Reagan also left that week and I was sad that she had to go. After Jane left on Wednesday I felt a little sad. It was absolutely amazing and wonderful to have Matt, Beth, Jane, and Reagan all here at the same time! Like a little College Station reunion! Having them all leave at around the same time though made me a little sad and took a little bit of time to get used to. I definitely missed home more last week than I have since coming here. This week has been a lot better though, think it just took a little bit of time to adjust! But if anyone else from back home wants to visit me, they're more than welcome to! ;)  

Little glimpse of downtown and a taxi over a cup of coffee.

Thursday was my day to lead the volunteering activity. Every Thursday we volunteer teaching english at a local elementary school. I was SO excited about volunteering and planned everything out! We were going to review the english alphabet and learn about adjectives in english! I brought 26 objects for each letter and was so excited about having the children use adjectives to describe them and then play a couple of fun games with them! In my head it was going to be amazing. Then we got there.

The place where we volunteer is kind of outside on a slab of concrete with a tin roof over it. It's the children's playground area. The minute we arrived (in the afternoon of course) it started raining. The problem was that it wasn't a little rain....it was a deluge! Probably the hardest rain I had seen in Costa Rica up to that point (have a fourth of July rain story but I'll get to that one later). The rain was incredibly hard and with the tin roof it was impossible to hear anything over all of the noise. I was yelling and the kids still didn't hear. For the opening activity I had to go to each individual child and pretty much yell in their face. It was interesting. So we ended up throwing my lesson plan out the window and just did activities that didn't require speaking...a fun day but a little sad that it didn't go quite as planned. Hopefully some other time I'll be able to use the lesson! :)

I need to go on and talk about the last weekend and this week but this post is already another monster! And I was trying so hard not to make it long! So I'll try to post again semi-soon so that maybe I'll get caught up...though at this point I'm questioning whether that will ever happen. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a wonderful verse that I ran across the other day. Verses about rain carry so much more meaning to me here. It rains all the time, and so I am reminded of these verses all the time. It's pretty wonderful.

“Drip down, O heavens, from above, 
And let the clouds pour down righteousness; 
Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, 
And righteousness spring up with it. 

I, the LORD, have created it." - Isaiah 45:8

So thankful to be in a place where I am constantly reminded of the outpouring of the Lord's righteousness, of His gift of salvation, and of His amazing creation. Come see for yourself, it'll take your breath away.

Off to Tamarindo (pacific side) for friday and saturday! Super pumped! As always, I miss and pray for all of y'all in the U.S. May God bless you and keep you in His almighty hand! And pura vida! :)

"Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!"