Thanksgiving, (dia de accion de gracias)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! We don't have Thanksgiving here in Costa Rica but we're still gonna celebrate it. We have chickens and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pies (turkey would cost me my left arm so we'll just do chicken) Our friends are making other stuff so we should have a lot of fun!! We made a small video of Ella saying what she's thankful for. Check it out on youtube. The video should be posted sometime today... It's uploaded but needs to be processed. Click the family videos link on the right side of the blog and it will take you there. I'll make a link later for those of you who can't find it. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! We love you all!

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MACDNkOvE4c

uuuhhhhhh....

Well it's colder here, not raining as much but cold. Erin and I have both been sick this last week and we're just feeling out of it. It's been just over 3 months and I think we're experiencing a little bit of culture shock. (more Erin than me but the "we" makes her feel better) It's just hard. If I could tell you how we feel it's just a long uuuuuuhhhhhhhhh. Not bad but not good either. 

Don't get me wrong, we still love Costa Rica and are excited about being here, but we are just now understanding the sacrifices that we've made. 

For 1) You don't come to Costa Rica for the food. If you know me and my family you know that we like to eat... and we like to eat meat... That's not really an option here. The food is mediocre at best. The food in restaurants is ok but we can't eat out all of the time. Meat is tough and has no flavor. We miss other types of food too. They have some of the same brands as we do at home but it's all double the cost and it doesn't taste the same. Food we miss: Black olives, Good chocolate, asparagus and BBQ steaks.

2) It's hard being the "rich" in a culture that you want to make an impact. The people here are so poor that we are rich. Everyone expects a handout from North Americans because we can, and people before us have given to them. I was standing on the street talking to Jeff and these kids walked by and said in english "give money please." It's hard to say no to the giving money thing and still let them know we care and want to help. I want to "teach them to fish" though, not just give them one.

3) We miss our family and friends. On top of that, we are constantly making friends and then they leave. MTI was great but we made friends and then left them. We'll probably never see most of them again. It's the same here... We have friends at school but most of them will leave either in December or next May. It gets kinda hard and just piles up after a while.

I guess I really needed to just vent a little. Also, we would really appreciate your prayers as we continue this transition. I don't think that anyone can ever really be fully prepared to make a large transition in life like this. When you pray ask God to give us peace and joy. Also ask that He would draw us in closer to Him. The natural tendency is that when life gets tough you slip in areas of discipline.. true for us right now. Pray also that God would continue to increase our ability to love and be loved. Sometimes we just want to stop loving because it hurts to loose it... But God is in the love... and the loss. We need to experience both.

I can't say enough that we appreciate all of you who support us by reading our blog and those of you who support us financially and in prayer, but WE APPRECIATE YOU!! 

Thanks for reading!

How do you know if your kids miss home?

Well it's really easy for us to know that Ella misses home. She takes a nap every day in our bed since she and Judah share a room. We walked in one day and here's what we found.

Sorry Mom and Dad (Doug and Debbie) we don't have a picture of you guys to frame... Maybe you should fix that.;)

A little friend for Ella (not Judah)

As I was coming out of the bathroom today I saw something moving on the floor. It was a gecko i think. I quickly called the kids to see it and then caught it in an old lid for  trash can. Ella loved it, she's our dare devil. She touched it and held it by its tail. She rubbed it and screamed when it jumped on her. Judah however screamed and ran back inside. He wanted nothing to do with it... Here's some pictures of Ellas little friend... with and without all of his tail. 

New Kids Video...

Here's Ella Elizabeth (as Ella) and Judah Michael (as Judah). Kids are a lot of fun and sometimes they're just crazy.  In the beginning Ella sings on of her songs in spanish, then she just gets silly. Go to the follow the link to see our video...http://www.youtube.com/user/Jerinjanzen.

This is how we roll... Don't be jealous;)

Any 15 year old kid would love to have this car if he didn't have any friends, had very high self-esteem, or was very very poor. Well we aren't 15, can't consider ourselves poor next to a lot of the people here, but we have high enough self-esteem to buy this car. It seems to be a good deal and it will allow us to get around without using taxis and busses. The costs will all wash in the end but it will allow us to save some time which could open new worlds to us. It's a 1986 nissan that runs decent, and it has a manual transmission. The car, all the legal paper work, and insurance for six months will be around $1200. It's a great deal considering that you can't really find cheap cars here. Normally if someone has held onto a car like this it's cause they can't afford to sell it and buy another. We don't want to buy an expensive car and we will most likely be able to sell this one for a decent price after we find one that we will need. We will choose that car depending on what we're doing in ministry. This one just seems to make sense. Now I almost didn't want to post a picture cause I didn't want anyone getting jealous but here you are. Have fun!!