While the cat's away...

the mice will play! The interim missionaries, Bruce & Katie Kneigge have taken our children to see the ocean and should be home this afternoon. Ken and I were invited to go along also, but felt that we had too much to do here at the camp. We have a very busy month coming up in May with nationals renting the campground and also a medical short-term team. We have some cleaning that we would like to do and some organizing! They were nice enough to leave us the keys to their home so that we could use their internet line and also make phone calls home. Yesterday, we held a dinner after church in honor of the Kneigge's and the Lessley's (the Lessley's are retired and have been here for five-months overseeing and working on construction projects at the camp) and we presented them with handmade plaques by a Costa Rican artisian as a memorial to their service here. Pastor Jose knew how to get them and where.

We held another staff meeting over the weekend with David & Kathryn, our better halves, and they are missionary candidates now with Global trying to raise their support to be part of our team here at El Jardin Sagrado. They are bilingual and they handle all of the reservations for the camp. Kathryn helped us get around San Jose and get our driver's licenses last week! David & Kathryn will be moving down from San Jose to Orosi and will be living up the road from us. Kathryn is determined to teach me Spanish and called this morning rambling on and on in Spanish. I shocked her when I responded back en espanol! Right now, they come down on the weekends and I always cook Saturday dinner for them at our house. Kathryn always feels bad that they didn't bring anything, but I tell her, "you are our Tico family" and it blesses me particularly to be able to cook a big meal for them. I tell her it feels more like home when they are here and can eat a meal with us like a big family! They have a four-month-old daughter, Aliyana and Heather enjoys giving Kathryn a break and taking care of her. She's a cutie!

Heather & Kyle are enjoying their Youth Group here in Costa Rica. There are a couple of kids who speak English and so our phone, just like in the States, is now being taken over by Heather. That's a wonderful thing! We are happy that she and Kyle are making new friends!

Saturday night a bilingual group of 8 meets at the church. Lately, with some of the groups that are making reservations there has been a conflict with this group meeting in the church building. We found out from the Lessley's who have been helping this group, at least with the English side of things, that this is a very important class to have. Two of the attendees are Youth Group members because to continue their education they have to pass an English exam. The leader of the group is a Tico who is bilingual. Rather than have them not be able to meet, we offered to allow them to meet in front of our house as we have a large patio that is enclosed. We are sitting in on the class trying to pick up some Spanish, but we also help the leader, should he have questions regarding English meaning. More importantly, we are trying to build relationships and hope that this may allow us to share Jesus with someone from this group as not everyone who comes attends the church. Please continue to pray for this group and this ministry.

Dios te Bendiga!

Patience is a virtue...so is flexibility!

Alrighty then! God is still molding the Dundon Family...that's a good thing! We are slowly, and I do mean slowly, getting things done. Today, we made the heroing track up to San Jose to get our driver's license. I commented to Ken that I felt like I was in a James Bond movie with motorcycles driving in between vehicles and playing "chicken" in oncoming traffic. We now have our driver's licenses, not that I plan on using mine a whole lot, God willing! We have a phone line in our house for in-country calls only. So no one feels bad, we have spoken to Danielle once the last three weeks that we have been here! We have the internet ordered for the house, but that could take three months and we still have no P.O. Box to receive mail. This is really only frustrating us because we feel totally cut off from family and friends. While we are not homesick and do not miss our house in N.C. we miss communication! Well, my time is now up in the Internet Cafe. Ken is here to pick me up after getting gas and weed whacker line for Cokie, the camp's maintenance employee and he also wears the hat of "iguana remover, frog remover and some unidentified lizard remover" from the Dundon laundry room the past two days! We are being stretched and we are having a good time laughing at ourselves!!! :)

Hola

Thank you to all of you who prayed for our family! First, we did arrive in Costa Rica safely and we did get our luggage! For those who had not heard, we arrived with all 10 of our bags missing! They were delivered to the camp by Delta Airlines for us since we are about an hour from the airport on Tuesday late afternoon. We are working on setting up our home. Ken and I had to switch our bedroom around to another bedroom in the house. We just could not get any sleep with the neighborhood dogs and neighbors chickens crowing all night. Seems they are confused. I always thought roosters were quiet at nighttime...not here! We are learning to be more flexible! No cold water to wash dishes is hard for me since the "dishes weren't clean until your hands were red" where I come from! I have devised a routine of drawing hot water from the shower to wash my dishes and this makes me very happy and content in my cleaning! Kyle does not like the peanut butter here and much to our surprise we cannot find Grape jelly or jam! I was shopping yesterday and have yet to figure out if we can buy spaghetti sauce as we know it in the States. I see a lot of tomato products, but none that look like spaghetti sauce. The kids are doing fine, swimming everyday and playing soccer at the camp. I have not seen any "killer" bugs here yet, just simple ants and small spiders. So, seems like it will be okay for you skeptical visitors to come down! Well, since we have no phone line yet, I am typing this from the internet cafe in the town of Orosi. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you, family, church family, supporters, friends. We miss you, but we want you to know that we are blessed to be here. It truly is a beautiful country filled with precious people. That's all for now!