Costa Rica, Guatemala, Costa Rica

Hey Everyone-

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while, but things have been a little all over the place. We have officially moved into our new apartment! Meaning that we have obtained a refrigerator, oven, washer and dryer (about half of which are fully functioning at the moment). We've had a few set backs/complications with our appliances, but we're getting them all figured out.

Tomorrow, all 5 of us SI Costa Rica women head to Guatemala to meet up with a women's outreach that will be taking place there over the course of the next week. We're going to get a better idea of how a fully functioning base looks and hopefully to learn from how they've done things and what the role of full time staff really looks like. We'll be meeting up with 20 or so other women, many of whom are coming from the Central Valley of CA and are known to us.....like my mom! So, we are very excited for this and anxious to see what God has to teach us in this time, reaping from others' wisdom.

Hopefully, by the time we get back from Guatemala our phone line and internet will be set up and COMING SOON: a video tour of the new apartment!

Please continue to be praying as we begin to make decisions of where and who we'll be working with. We've been presented with a lot of opportunities and we're seeking God's guidance and leading to place us in the right places. I look forward to sharing what we will have experienced in Guatemala and other ministry opportunities that are coming up soon! As for now, I'll leave you with a picture that Krysta and I took with our amazing language teachers!

The thrill of the hunt

These last 2 weeks or so have been a little crazy, as Krysta and I have been on a house hunt. We also just finished up language school this last week. While we are sad to leave our teachers at the language school, its also been a little bit of a relief to be done with that phase of the process.

Along the way of searching for our more permanent dwelling place, we had some interesting and good learning experiences. For instance, when you are getting directions to a place over the phone, it's a good idea to confirm that the house is actually located where the newspaper said it was....and not 45 minutes away from where you'd thought it was. No worries- we found that out before the taxi driver took us all the way out there. We also learned that the taxi drivers here (at least the ones we came in contact with) are super patient and helpful when we have no idea of how to get where we wanted to go. Addresses here in Costa Rica consist of telling how many meters to whichever direction the place is from the nearest big land mark. For example, the address of our current place is 200 meters east of Plaza Cristal. The houses don't have numbers, but they do usually have vivid or recognizably outstanding colors. So, finding somewhere that you've never been before may prove to be quite the challenge. We had at least 2 incidences in which the directions weren't quite clear enough, so the taxi drivers would pull over multiple times to ask people on the street for directions. This resulted, pretty much every time in either the taxi driver or the person on the street using their cell phone (as we have none) to call the place we were attempting to find in order to get better directions. They were all very sweet and helpful and it probably didn't hurt that by us not knowing exactly how to get there, having to drive around a lot, they were raking in the dough. Anyways, we always ended up finding where we needed to go, some way or another.

So, after making over 50 calls about renting places, facing many-a-rejection and visiting 9 or so places in person, we finally found what seems to be just about the perfect place! We checked out a few other places after seeing this one and doing so just seemed to confirm that the apartment we'd seen before was the place for us. We've felt really blessed in the ways that God has provided for us, especially in the housing department. This apartment we'll be moving into (that we actually just signed the papers for today) is new, has a beautiful view of the mountains and is within what we had budgeted for rent. It's about a 20 minute walk to the Dixons and downtown, 10 minute walk from a bus stop where we can find and catch a bus that will take us directly to where we'll be working and downtown San Jose- without having to switch buses. We are also only a 5 minute walk from a smaller store where all the basic necessities are sold, in case we forgot something or needed to get something in a hurry. For those of you who may be concerned with safety, the apartment is built up, terraced on a hill with wallish type fence things around it, so it's well-protected. AND the man who lives above us runs a security company, or something to that effect, and apparently (according to the landlord) he's pretty safety conscious/protective.

As to the next step in the process, we now have a set of keys, so we can begin moving in whenever we want. However, before doing so, we need, well, to clean, but also to purchase the necessities for living- such as, a refrigerator, a stove, I kinda need a bed, so that we can actually reside there, with food and all. But as soon as we can get our hands on these things for good price, we'll start to transfer everything else over and begin to make it home! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we search for these items- we've already been blessed in that one of our language teachers said that she had an older, yet well-working washing machine that she would give us- for free! God just continues to prove His faithfulness to us- please pray that we'll do our part in searching out, as well. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Below are some links to pictures of the new apartment and a get-together we had with the Dixons and Janzens to decorate cookies for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!


Apartment pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ugyekCeSYH61ZP-FQSYlHQ?authkey=10uoQ7qtTOo&feat=directlink


Cookie pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/krystaleanne9/Cookies?authkey=REbsE3qhpDQ&feat=directlink

Shake 'n Break

Sooooo...wow. This last week or so has taken me for quite the ride- literally and figuratively. Since I've been back in Costa Rica, going on 2 weeks now, God has been working on me and teaching me things, not always in the easiest fashion. So, I tend to be afraid, kind of a lot and I've been struggling and dealing with some fears that I have, of which I've been really convicted of the need to give them over to God. So, in this time, I've really been working on that, but you know like when you pray for patience, God gives you opportunities to practice that? Well, I feel like in these past 2 weeks, God's given me many opportunities, no matter how small they may be, to practice giving/surrendering all, especially my fears over to Him.

The first opportunity that presented itself was the idea and now the fact that I've been living on my own (granted the Dixons and Janzens are here) in my and Krysta's apartment- minus Krysta- for about 2 weeks now. And while I'm not the most outgoing person, I do like to have others around, especially in a place and time where I don't feel super comfortable. So, God's been working on me in this time to really just rely on Him and to draw my strength from Him, not my feeble self- to give all my fears and reservations up to Him, to obey and live for Him. That may sound cliche, but it makes sense in my head and the concept feels fresh to me.

Another such opportunity came about when a pretty big earthquake hit not too far from here last Thursday, of about 6.2 magnitude. I was by myself in our apartment, and I'll admit I was doing Zumba (latin dancing workout dvds) at the time when it hit. I went and stood in the doorway as I felt the building kind of shake-sway (we're on the second floor). When it stopped, I wasn't sure what to do, so I went and finished the Zumba workout. Ha! Yes, I did. When the workout was done, I turned on the news and got the details about the earthquake. They were saying a bunch of stuff about red alerts in our area and something about evacuating. Upon hearing this, I went into a slight panic mode, so I called the Dixons and they invited me to stay at their house that night. And so I did and I was thankful to not be by myself in case anything more did happen, which it did not. The next day, I returned to the apartment, still a little nervous- but working on giving that over to God.

And the opportunities have yet to cease! Yesterday I got to go with some people from Food for the Hungry to bring food and donated supplies to victims from the earthquake, who had lost family and homes. We met up at 6 o'clock in the a.m. I rode in a truck with 2 women and 2 men- one of which is the director for Food for the Hungry (FHICR- Fundacion para el Habriento) in Costa Rica. Another man, with his son drove another big truck. We met up with a number of other volunteers at a radio station headquarters (?) where there were plenty more trucks to load up with the abundance of donations. After we loaded them all up we headed out in giant caravan of at least 10 cars. We stopped a few times on the drive out, which ended up being about 1 1/2 hours, to meet up with some others to add to our caravan and do some radio interviews. We ended up parading up to Sarapiqui (a location near where the center of the earthquake hit, which was as close as we could get because any farther was considered a dangerous area) with somewhere around 20 cars and trucks full of donations, 3 or so Christian radio stations in tow, all broadcasting on location, I think maybe one television station and a few newspaper guys. It turned out to be quite the event. Upon arriving to the church where all of the donations would be stored and distributed, we had a short service of prayer and praise. About 35 earthquake victims were staying at the church, so they had them come forward for prayer. Some of them had lost family members that they saw taken right before their eyes, and many had lost homes. It was good to be able to pray for them and see their joy in receiving what we had to offer. After the service, we did all the heavy lifting and unloading of the MANY donations (I don't have pictures right now, but I'm going to try to get some from the people I was with). When that was all over, we headed out for what would be a long trip back to San Jose.

This last one's a lil bit of a doozy! For me, at least, it was. Alright, on our way back to San Jose, after handing out donations in Sarapiqui, we stopped for lunch and then went on our way. Along the way, maybe 45 min. into what would or should have been a 1 1/2-2 hour drive back, we realized one of the tires was a little flat, so we stopped at a gas station to check it and to fill up. Well, while opening the gas cap thing on the car with the key that unlocked it, the key broke in half and the bottom part was stuck jammed into the gas cap. The worst part was that it was the same key that was used to start the car....and we had no spare key with us. Some guys tried helping us to find a key or something that would work in its place, but to no avail. So, we found a mechanic, who was thankfully still at his shop and willing to help us out, as his work day was probably coming to a close. He ended up hot-wiring the car so that we could start and even stop it if we wanted: ghetto-rigging #1. He didn't even charge us anything! So, we thanked him and happily got back into the car, singing songs of victory. We started to pull away, when the guy who was driving suddenly stopped. As it turns out, the car had some kind of security mechanism and when there was no key in the ignition, the steering wheel locked up. So, we ran and called the mechanic guy before he got to far away and told him the situation. He worked on it some more and some how got a key into the ignition to unlock the steering wheel: ghetto-rigging #2. So we had the car hot-wired to be able to start and keep going and we had some key in the ignition to keep the steering wheel from locking up. It was getting dark now, as we started to head up the semi-winding road up the mountain. We were going along fine, when we hit some bumps and the key that was in the ignition fell out, so the steering wheel locked up. We were able to move off to the side of the road, but there wasn't much of a shoulder and it had started raining. So, the two guys, who had watched the mechanic do everything, started working to get the key back into the ignition and unlock the steering wheel. It was a little scary when it happened and even sitting on the side of the road, not only because of it being dark and rainy, but also because Costa Rican drivers tend to not be very mild or timid. So, after a while, they got the key back in the ignition and the steering wheel was good to go once again. So, we headed out once more. We went along fine for a while again when we hit some more bumps and the key in the ignition fell out again. So, we made it to the side of the road safely again. It didn't take very long this time for Juan Carlos (the director of FHI) to get the key back in, but when he did, he asked if anyone had any chewing gum. I had some, so I gave it to him and he chewed it up and used it to hold the key in the ignition: triple ghetto-rigged, MacGyver style. So, we took off one more time, praying the whole way (giving it to God). On our way up the mountain, after encountering some more rain, we ran into some fog, which also was a little nerve-racking, but we just kept on praying. After we made it through that craziness, we didn't have any more problems- the gum held and the key stayed in. After many stops and a semi-stressful 3 1/2 hour car ride back, we finally arrived in San Jose! It was a loooooooong day and I was exhausted, but it was pretty amazing and I'm thankful for the experiences, all of them! I feel like God has used them in a big way to continue showing me His faithfulness when I surrender to Him.

Wow- that was probably the longest, and hopefully not the most boring, blog I've written yet. I'm sorry for that. I usually like to keep them shorter, sweeter and with pictures, but wanted to share what God's been doing in my life and I figured it would be worth reading for those who really wanted to. Which is probably you, if you got all the way to the end and are reading this now ; ) So, thank you for reading and God bless!

Con cariño,

Cailah =)

Homes for the Holidays

Hey All!
So, it's been a while since I wrote last and a lot has happened. We have basically finished up language school, with the exception of one week in January, for trouble-shooting and any questions we might have. Back in December, all the SI Costa Rica staff got together to check out the Festival de la Luz parade for Christmas. It was a little different experience than I had expected. We got there early to get a good spot and waited about 3 hours for the parade to reach us (one hour or so of which was in the rain), but it was surprising to me how few people left because of the rain. When the parade reached us, it was not quite what we were used to in a traditional Christmas parade. There was maybe one or two of what we would have called Christmas themed-looking floats or characters, quite a few bands and cheerleaders and the rest were a vast array of everything from mime groups, dressed in unitards doing some type of interpretive dancing to huge floats with giant swans and unicorns. Leaving proved pretty difficult when we were ready to go because of the incredible amount of people, a lot of whom were trying to catch a bus, like us. But we got out okay and it turned out to be a pretty fun/crazy outing.

For Christmas and the New Year, my parents decided to bless me in an incredible way. They offered to fly me home for the holidays. In doing so, I was able to surprise a number of my friends. I was also able to attend one of my best friend's college graduations, hang out with my entire family (all of my brothers were home, as well), which doesn't happen super often anymore, we were all able to go visit my Granny (my mom's mom), hang out with friends, including one from Chile that I haven't seen in probably about 6 years and because of this trip home- my tourist visa will be renewed and I won't have to leave the country for another 3 months, along with so many other benefits to being home. So, I pretty much killed like 8 or 9 birds with that one stone. Not too shabby.

And now, I have returned to Costa Rica and I'm getting set for all that's to come. I just got back Friday night, so I'm still trying to get some things in order after having been gone for about 2 weeks. And Krysta has not yet returned, so I'm currently holding down the fort on my own. As soon as things begin to progress a little more, I'll shoot out another blog, so you can keep updated ; ) Thanks for reading!


The swan/unicorn float, up close and personal.





Almost the whole SI crew at the parade! (l-r: Sawyer got cut off, Tracey, me, Olivia, Jeff, Erin, Judah (in the kid carrier), Ella and Jeremy and Krysta was the one taking the picture




me and Krysta- we were super excited, despite the rain.





Dominique and I at her graduation.




The typical chaos equated with a Pritchard gathering (l-r:) Diego (friend from Chile), David, Mom, Dad, Oscar in Dad's lap, Jonathan, Grace (David's dog) and Isaac




Whale-watching in my Granny's back "yard"




Hanging out in my Granny's house. (l-r:) Mom, Granny, Isaac, Dad, Albie (a friend of my Granny's)




Jonathan, Isaac and me!

Day of action of giving thanks

'El dia de accion de gracias' is how they translate into Spanish, Thanksgiving Day, although it's not celebrated here. In order to prepare all the food in time and for it to feel more like Thanksgiving, we took the day off of school. All of our team collaborated and made all the traditional Thanksgiving foods. However, chicken was made in place of turkey because turkey is REALLY expensive here. It was similar, though, they are like cousins, right? ; ) So, we got together that evening with the Dixons and Janzens and had an amazing Thanksgiving fiesta and hang out time! It was also rough, though, not being at home with my own family and missing hanging out with them. I'm definitely looking forward to when they get to come and visit me here!!!

We had to go back to school on Friday, which wasn't very Thanksgivingy feeling and we were kind of exhausted, but the teachers were very understanding. Language school is going pretty well, for the most part. There are definitely those rules and exceptions to the rules that exist in every language which cause plenty of frustrations, but overall I think we're moving along pretty well. There are 3 levels of books in our language school- beginner, intermediate and advanced (imagine that!) and each level has a number of books. Last week, we actually got moved on to the Advanced 1 book! Exciting! But also tiring and confusing trying to keep all that we've learned straight. Please continue to pray for us in this area of understanding and being able to speak what we know.

Saturday we got to go and pick out our very own Christmas tree to make our apartment feel more homey during the holiday season. We weren't exactly sure how we were going to get the tree back to our apartment, not having a car and all. So, we just went hoping that we'd figure it out there. After we picked out the tree we wanted, we asked one of the taxi drivers if it would be possible for one of them to help us get our tree home. So, the guy started asking around and found another guy with a mini van taxi that was willing to take us and the tree. So, he helped us strap it to the top of the mini van taxi and helped to unload it and everything and it wasn't even really expensive! We had found some lights and ornaments at the Costa Rican equivalent of a Dollar Store and decorated it all up. Its very cute and makes us super happy every time we see it!

Soooooo, Monday was really exciting, as we got to go to the office of Food For The Hungry, meet the staff and talk with the director. It was good to here more from him about their vision and to be able to see their facility. They seem to have a lot in common with the vision that SI has, so we may be able to partner with them in some form in the future. They even offered to help us with anything that we may need, which was encouraging to know that we have someone to call if a need arises.

Well, I feel like things have been picking up a little bit, but I know that it'll be nothing compared to when we begin working in intentional ministry in January. Please pray that God would continue to prepare our hearts and even emotions for that time, as I still feel that I'm in a semi-fragile state. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for diving into full on ministry, but I want my heart to be right and full, so that I can really pour into others when the time comes. And, oh, it will come! So, please continue to keep me in your prayers for that and for my finances, as well. Thank you to many of you, my support has come in leaps and bounds, but I've still got a little to go before I am fully funded. Thanks again for being faithful and God bless!

Con cariño,

Cailah




Our whole team at Thanksgiving: Erin Janzen, Jeff Dixon, Jeremy Janzen, Tracey Dixon, Krysta Williams, Judah Janzen, Sawyer Dixon, Ella Janzen and Olivia Dixon




Our Thanksgiving spread




The kiddie table: Judah, Sawyer, Ella and Olivia









Krysta putting the finishing touches on our beautiful tree!

non-fair weather friends...

Hey All (6 of you that read this =)!
I hope you are doing superb-ly (?, superb?) I can no longer speak any language "well." This is what occurs when your brain turns into a kind of mush that confuses rules and words in languages that you know and/or are learning. Sometimes, Krysta and I find ourselves speaking a more gring-a-fied spanglish, inserting words in spanish (with English pronunciation) into our otherwise English sentences. For example, I would say, "Alright, I'm gonna get ready to acostarme (go to bed)." While it sounds, and may actually be a little crazy, we actually understand each other fine this way and I feel that we are on the verge of doing it sin darnos cuenta (without realizing it ; ).

This last Saturday we had the opportunity of meeting and talking with a young couple- the husband is Costa Rican, the wife is North American, but has lived in Costa Rica for about 8 years. The husband actually used to work with YWAM and the wife works with Food for the Hungry in and area called Los Guidos, which is in Desamparados. This is an area that we have strongly been considering going to work in. Talking with this couple was AMAZINGLY encouraging as the vision that they have, as well as for Food for the Hungry, seems to match the vision we have for Students International Costa Rica. We are hoping to meet with the director and staff from Food for the Hungry some time next week. We look forward to being able to share and potentially partner with this ministry in the future. It was really exciting to hear that other people have the same heart for these people as we do and to be able to learn more through their knowledge and experience. We'll see what happens!

In other matters.....it has been COLD lately!!!!! Okay, we realize that in comparison to some places, what we are feeling is not really that cold, however, it is colder than we expected and a lot colder than we have ever experienced in Costa Rica. Please witness for yourselves:



A Costa Rican snowman!!!!




Okay....so, this snowman was actually made from an overabundance of ice in our freezer. But he held up pretty well!


The other day in the grocery store, Krysta and I, no joke, saw a lady wearing a furry wintery hat and a long wintery coat--inside--in Costa Rica. Yeah- we think its cold, but not that cold! It was kinda crazy. But there has been a lot of rain and wind and sideways rain and clouds and misty rain. I think its probably been almost 2 weeks in which we haven't really seen the sun much. Not my and Krysta's favorite, but, hey, we're figuring it out.

On a few side notes, after two weeks of being the only two students in our language school, two older women from the states have come to study for a little bit. Their names are Francie and Susanna and they are really sweet and fun! Then, last Saturday or sometime around then, Krysta and I got to watch a little demonstration of Costa Rican cheerleaders in the parking lot of a McDonalds near our apartment. They were actually pretty good- a little scary at times (near power lines and all), but overall very entertaining. They made me miss gymnastics and Krysta miss dance. But they still made my heart happy, as did meeting the new students at our school. So, things are going relatively well- not without their dips and low points of frustrations with language and missing family, friends and home, but we press on! =)

and so are the days of our lives....

So, as the weeks go on, I feel like we've begun to fall into our own groove of things. It's nice to not feel completely clueless ALL of the time. There are still plenty of opportunities to do so, though! This has been a really good time of sorting through all these new experiences and feelings, so that when January comes around and we intentionally begin ministry, hopefully we'll have gotten a pretty firm grasp on things. As for now, we are taking advantage of this time to really focus on language and cultural learning.

This last week, Krysta and I were the only two students in our language school- the other six or so students that had been there before left. Kind of crazy! But it was a good week. On Friday, during our conversation class, we got to go with our teacher to the National Museum. It wasn't super big, but it was really neat to see. They have a beautiful butterfly garden there. We got to walk around, dodging all of the amazingly colored and huge butterflies. We also got to see some really cool exhibits of Costa Rica's history, as well as an amazing wood sculpture exhibit. It was funny because as our little language school class was walking around with our teacher, there were a bunch of elementary school students that came around at the same time- we fit right in! ; )

On Saturday, Krysta and I were able to hang out with Tracey, Olivia and Sawyer Dixon for a while (Jeff was out of town). We went to the Feria (local farmer's market) with them, had fresh fruit smoothies and then hung out for a while. It was a good time talking with Tracey and the kids are always entertaining. That night, Krysta and I had the amazing and unexpected opportunity of going to the Russian Ballet at the Costa Rican National Theater. This was exciting for both of us! Well, maybe a little more so for Krysta, as she has a background in ballet, while I just pretend to. The tickets were a lot cheaper than anything we would have ever found in the states and we had great seats! But I did feel bad because there was a little girl sitting behind me and she had to sit on 2+ pillows to be able to see past my big, ballet-blocking head. I felt less bad afterwards when we were walking out and I saw that probably about 1/5 of those in the audience had to sit on pillows. Afterwards, Krysta and I went to the Gran Hotel, a place we have been a number of times with teams, and enjoyed a nice cup of cafe con leche there, which was a perfect ending to a great day/week!





Krysta is in awe of the butterflies


the infamous Morph butterfly




Sawyer strapping himself into his booster seat


Then he just crawled and walked around with it on for a good while.


And then decided to climb the toy box, still strapped in. No worries, he didn't fall.


Krysta and I, pre-ballet, very excited!


You couldn't use a flash inside the theater, but you get "the picture"....heh.


Krysta enjoying her coffee at the Gran Hotel, after the ballet.