the happenings

Since coming back from our trip to the jungle, Krysta and I have had the opportunity to begin working in a guarderia (day care). We've been volunteering there to see if it has potential to be a solid SI site. This guarderia has been open for about a month. It can have up to 30 kids at one time, of which there is one lady in charge of keeping track of them all. So, we've been going to help with some crowd control, feeding the kids, and playing with them in non-destructive ways. It's been a fun time of getting to know the kids and getting a feel for working in this type of setting. We've also had opportunities to meet with a number of other people that we're looking to maybe partner with, such as a pastor who would like help with the youth program in his church, or another organization that wants to open up a tutoring center and library for kids in their area. It's pretty relieving and amazing to see how God is putting into place each of these sites and I'm excited to see how He's going to work it all out!

Some other exciting news....my parents came to visit! About a week after we got back from the jungle (I guess that would be about 2 weeks ago now) my parents arrived in Costa Rica. My dad headed out to the jungle with the men's team, while my mom headed to the urban jungle setting of our apartment. It was fun to have my mom staying with us for the week. She even made a few trips with us to the guarderia and seemed to like the kind of controlled chaos of it all. When the men's trip was over, instead of returning back to the states with the other men, my dad and Dave Hansen (SI president) stayed here a few more days to check out our sites and get an idea of where we are heading as SI Costa Rica. It was a good time of being able to show my parents what my life down here looks like, as well as, giving them a more solid idea of what I'll be doing....and just hanging out with them was fun too =) I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to have them come and visit and I feel refreshed from it.

In these last few days, we've gotten a little bit of rain, but overall it's been pretty blazing hot. Depending on who you talk to here, this is normal weather for now and apparently Semana Santa (Holy Week- the week before Easter) is supposed to be one of the hottest. There also tend to be a lot of activities that go on during this time, due to the large part of Catholics in the population here. So, I will be writing again soon to let you know about all of the goings on in this time. Until then, have a good one and God bless! =)