What is life?

Some of you are probably wondering what our life is like these days. Well I wish I could say that I am evangelizing the streets of San Jose and impacting students lives through the practical application of the gospel but I can't. Our life will be pretty simple until we finish language school. It is amazing how hard it is to communicate. I thought I was decent at speaking spanish but I am realizing that I can only understand what I initiate. 

So here's a taste of life. 5:30am we wake up. 7:05am we walk to school. (see map) It takes about 15 minutes to walk there so there's your scale for the map. We get out of school at 1:00pm and usually walk home in the rain. 1:30pm we put the kids down for a nap and do homework or rest. 3:30-4:00pm we walk to the store/stores. We have a small fridge and the ants eat everything we leave out so we literally go to at least one store every day. Today @ 4:00pm I walked to the supermarket. (one that's not on the map but it's between the panadaria and the carneceria on the main street) From the market I walked to the Carneceria, and the back past the market to the Panadaria, and on to home. I got back at about 5:15pm. That's an hour of walking just cause we don't have storage space. 

(note: in Costa Rica it is cheaper to go to the bakery or meat market to get food than to get food at the grocery store. It's the opposite of the states) So we will eat at about 6:15 and then put the kids down between 7:00pm & 8:00pm. Erin and I will finish homework and try to be in bed by 8:30 or 9:00pm. And that's a day in the life of the Janzens. 

The moral of the story... Appreciate the luxury of convenience. It is something that we don't have very much of here. I can definitely see why the poor have a really hard time getting ahead. You must pay for convenience & inconvenience takes time. It takes time to make money. It's a catch 22. 

God is really increasing my compassion for the poor here. Because of normal life and circumstances they are trapped in their situations with no way to get out. I pray that as you hear this you realize that we don't have the answers like most of us think we do. The problem is not as definable as us "Americans" (Costa Ricans are americans too) like to think it is. Our job is not to fix their lives or even their situation but to care for them as Christ would and lead them to Him. Because, as I say quite often these days, I don't want my circumstances or situation to define who God is. God is God no matter what. He gives joy to the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the educated and uneducated. We as christians don't need to fix the situations because the situations may be ordained by God Himself. We need to show them who God is and that no matter what their circumstances are God loves and cares for them.

Thanks for reading. Dios le bendiga.