Opening Day

If you are a sports fan, you probably know that today is opening day for Major League Baseball (even though the Phillies don't start until tomorrow). Its a new beginning where all the teams feel like they have a chance to win this year. Well, maybe not the Pirates, Royals, and some other teams, but every team starts with the same record of no wins and no losses.

I had a similar feeling this week in studying Spanish. Not the same, but somewhat of a new beginning. After studying and going to class for almost 3 months, my class finally started to study past tense! In the first 2/3 of this trimester, we have studied a lot of different topics in Spanish, but all have been in the present tense.

So, we have expanded our ability to communicate a ton by now being able to use the past tense in a conversation. If you think about many of your regular conversations, you do not say too many things in the present tense. We had to start there to get a solid foundation for our language, but now we are moving forward as we prepare to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in Spanish to the people of La Ceiba, Honduras!

Border Crossing

This past weekend we headed north to Granada, Nicaragua. Since we live in Costa Rica on a tourist visa, we have to leave the country every 90 days, in order to get a new visa. This is part of our life here in Costa Rica, and will be as well when we get to Honduras.

Looking down a main street in Granada.

Our drive to Granada took us about 10 hours. This included an hour long stop for dinner as well as a 2.5 hour stop in order to leave Costa Rica / enter Nicaragua. The trip back on Sunday was about a half hour shorter since the border crossing process only took about 2 hours. I tell you this not to complain, but to share about some realities of Central America. It was somewhat of a joke that it took this long and the border officials barely looked at each person with their passport.

Ashley on the 'beach' of Lake Nicaragua.

Granada is a beautiful and interesting city. It was the first city set up in the new world way back in the 1500s. Much of the architecture is still the same as it was when the Spanish settled there so long ago. We really enjoyed to atmosphere of the city and also had a chance to relax!

Really old church across the street from our hotel.

The only somewhat annoying part of the trip was having 3 types of currency (US Dollars, Costa Rica Colones, and Nicaragua Cordobas) in my wallet and remembering what the conversion factor should be in order to know how much I was really spending for something.

A volcano with Lake Nicaragua in front.

Nicaragua

Tomorrow afternoon, Ashley and I will be heading to Granada, Nicaragua for the weekend. We are required to leave Costa Rica every 90 days in order to renew our visas. Our language school sets up trips for students every trimester since so many of us have this issue. There are about 50 of us going and we will return Sunday evening.

We are excited for this opportunity to see a new place and to get a short break from our classes. We also will have the chance to spend time with other missionaries who are going through the same things we are. Even though we are going to many different places, the Lord has put Ashley and I here with so many other families who also love the Lord and are serving Him in many ways.

Hopefully the roads will be open and we will have safe travels and be able to rest!

We will share some pictures of our time in one of the oldest cities in the 'new world' after we get back.

Basketball

Every Monday and Thursday evening I play basketball with other missionary guys at our language school. Usually there are somewhere between 8 and 14 guys who show up to play. We play for two hours each night.

I go to play for two reasons. First, I love the exercise. I do not enjoy just running, but for some reason running while playing basketball is much more fun for me. In addition to being a great workout, it is a time to build friendships with other guys who are going through much of the same things as I am.

Learning Spanish (or any language) is tiring. It is not easy to go to classes and live amongst another language all the time. Don't get me wrong, I am loving it, but it is hard work. So, playing basketball with other 'gringos' is time where we can turn on minds 'off' of Spanish and put our bodies to work. All of us are studying Spanish, living in a new place, missing family and friends, and some are married and have kids as well. Playing basketball is a way to rest (from all those other things) and burn some calories as well.

In between games we take a few minutes rest and can catch up on how others are doing, talk with someone we don't know well, find out someone else's plan for after language school, and of course get a little water in preparation for the next game. Also, every week we start by asking for prayer requests and praying for each other. I am so thankful for the group of guys the Lord has put here together in this time.

It's Thursday so I get to go play some ball tonight!

Spiritual Emphasis Week

We are studying Spanish at The Spanish Institute in San Jose, Costa Rica. The Institute is a language school especially for missionaries. There are a few students who have come just to learn Spanish, but almost all the students will be missionaries somewhere in Latin America.

It is a really cool thing to be able to study language at a place where pretty much everyone is a Christian. We begin most of our classes with prayer or use Scripture as text for practicing our pronunciation. As we progress, we will prepare Bible studies for our homework and learn to share our testimony in Spanish. Praise the Lord!

As a result, our language school feels it is important for us to not put learning Spanish ahead of our relationship with Jesus. They feel so strongly that every trimester they have what they call Spiritual Emphasis Week. During the week (this week) each class is a few minutes shorter and we have chapel everyday in the morning and in the afternoon. Other regular activities (sports, tutoring...) are cancelled so that we can spend time in fellowship with friends and 'working' on our relationship with the Lord. 

So far it has been great! We have a guest speaker for the chapel times who is a PCA pastor from Philadelphia (go Phillies) who is sharing about change and how, with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is possible for us to change and grow closer to the Lord. So far he has talked about how the 12 apostles, Jonah, and David have gone through major changes in their lives and in their walks with the Lord. 

It is great to have a small break in the intensity of language learning halfway through the trimester. We ask for prayers that the Lord would guard our hearts and cause us to focus on Him for everything, even learning Spanish. 

Here is something our speaker shared with us this morning:

The Gospel tells us that:

we can do nothing to cause God to love us any more than He loves us!

we can do nothing to cause God to love us any less than He loves us!