Archive | November, 2008

Pura Vida

9 Nov

Nestled safely in Costa Rica sipping a cup of coffee to chase the chill in the air away! The fall decorations have warmed up our dining room and kitchen and it seems a little holiday like! In fact, after church we shopped for groceries as our cupboards were bare and found(a first) COOL WHIP! I used great restraint and only bought one container for Thanksgiving Day. One never knows when an item will ever appear on the shelf or in the freezer again!

 

All of our personal belongings made it safely and I will thank whoever paid for our luggage transport here—you know who you are! I even had a few dollars left to buy the kids a snack box on the plane! We had to run from one plane to another and hadn’t had breakfast or lunch!

 

The curtains haven’t been hung yet, but as soon as they are I’ll post a picture! It really does feel like this is our home now—Spanish, gates, guards, and all.

 

 

I spent an hour with Sheriff Andy Taylor

6 Nov

Getting a visa to live in Costa Rica is not easy…their government structure doesn’t really match our own, so when you have to have a state certified copy of a marriage license or birth certificate, our own government says something along the lines of, “Huh?”.  One of the items we need is a state certified police record that shows we have no criminal record.  That isn’t something that US law enforcement is set up to identify and provide.  First of all, it’s more difficult to prove a negative in our own country, whereas in a country the size of Costa Rica, there is really just one law enforcement body.  Doesn’t matter….we still have to get it.

So Cathi and I visited our local sheriff’s office in Montgomery County, NC.  Now just imagine trying to knock on the door of your local sheriff’s office and actually get an audience.  Not exactly the way we do things here.  But this sheriff is a fellow Christian and has a son headed to Japan as a missionary.  He went out of his way to help us and has promised to do whatever it takes to get us the papers we need.  As we sat in his office I noticed several very nice pieces of art that depict the characters from the Andy Griffith show.  You know the one, where the sheriff doesn’t carry a gun unless there is some real reason to do so.  As we talked with Sheriff Jeff Jordan we realized he uses many of the same techniques that Andy Taylor did on his show.  He carries authority easily on his shoulders and doesn’t let either the love of or the fear of power get to him.  He purposely has that artwork in his office because, as he says, “When people are in this office they are usually very stressed and I just tell them, Folks, this is Mayberry, and we can work this all out, so let’s relax and talk this through.”  Sure enough, he has that sense about him that makes you think it’ll all work out in the end. 

We had a wonderful time speaking with him and knew that God had led us there instead of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg route.  Thanks Sheriff Jordan!

Feeling loved…

4 Nov

Being around friends and family and local bodies of believers has been so encouraging. The outpouring of love has been so incredible! Yesterday I had the privilege of volunteering at the Crisis Pregnancy Center and enjoyed a lunch of salad and soup and wonderful conversation in the homey atmosphere of the dining room of CPC with the staff of the center and my dear mother in law!

 

Today we plan to relax in an idyllic setting—fireside at a cabin on a lake—the forecast is for rain, but being totally unplugged on Election Day seems very appealing. Our dear friends from language school in Costa Rica are surprising Anna tomorrow, we’ll post pics later this week!

 

The lines are long, and we were able to vote absentee….but we hope you have voted or will enjoy getting to know someone in the lines at the polls today!

 

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