A New Family Photo and "Hello" to Hickory Grove

Here we are at the "Mirador" overlooking the Orosi Valley. We like to bring a picnic lunch here, and sometimes we come here just to pray on behalf of the camp and its ministries. The camp is on the left hand side of the river.

We had these red shirts, but for Christmas, our home church, "Hickory Grove", in Four Oaks, N.C. sent us some new ones which Ken & Heather are wearing with a picture of our church on the back! Thank you, Hickory Grove, for your love, your financial support and your prayers on our behalf. We love you, we miss you, and we are more than excited about seeing some of you for the very first time in the Orosi Valley in February!

Merry CHRISTmas...just a couple of days late!!

It's not because I have a "Bah-hum-bug" spirit that I have not posted lately. We've just been so busy with family the last week. Our daughter, Danielle, and our son-in-law, Brad, arrived from N.C. last Saturday and we've been enjoying having everyone together for the holiday here in Costa Rica! Today, since there was a Christmas Eve service on Thursday night, the Pastor decided not to have church today (a little different for us) and we took a leisurely drive through the countryside of Costa Rica. For Brad it seemed like a little bit of a "hair-raising" experience since it is very mountainous here and there are virtually no guard rails! I'm wondering if Ken pulling as close to the edge of the road with the "end of the earth" drop offs might have something to do with Brad's anxiety! There is never a dull moment when we are together as a family...that's for sure. Like my "Webble People" impersonation yesterday as I rolled down a flight of stairs at a pizzeria. Brad says I should explain the whole story, however, some details are better left to the imagination and suffice it to say, even the security guard outside the pizzeria had a good laugh, and to be honest, we all had to sit outside a few minutes after my triumphant recovery because we were all laughing so hard we had tears coming down our faces! I am, however, very thankful that I was not seriously injured in the fall! (I can only imagine my family back home roaring over this entry). Other highlights of our first week of vacation have been just plain relaxing and catching up as a family, renting videos (I finally got to see "Julie and Julia" though I was missing seeing this with my older brother, Peter, since we share a common link of being Julia Childs fans and watching her show together), before Christmas shopping together, after Christmas shopping together only to find the biggest "bargain" of the day to be Oreo cookies at 60 cents a package (we "invested" in 12 packages), taking naps, baking and of course, eating Christmas cookies, a big Christmas breakfast, a big turkey dinner on Christmas Day and homemade lasagna today! We took down our artifical Christmas tree! Seems our cat is quite talented at removing and breaking the branches and our tree was growing shorter each day from the bottom, up. No big deal if our tree remained inside our house, but since it was out on the front porch we decided against public humiliation and took it down a tad bit early this year as Heather noted, "Christmas Day...that's a first"!

Well, just wanted to take a moment and "update" the blog and wish all of you, a very Merry, Belated Christmas!

Stay tuned for more disastrous updates and some photo's, yes, we had Danielle and Brad buy us a camera and bring it with them from the States! An Oreo, anyone?

Final Preparations

We are almost there...I can just about see the finish line! The past two weeks I have been working on lining up interpreters for the January team, 36 members strong, which will require at least six interpreters to carry out effective ministry. Yet to be done is the menu and the actual final schedule for the team of "where" to be "when". We also have a group rental in January who are Costa Ricans that will be using our cooking staff at the camp, so a final menu needs to be prepared for them in order to do grocery shopping as the date gets closer to their arrival. Phone calls continue to come in from headquarters about interested potential teams for the Spring-Summer seasons (in the U.S., i.e. May-July) as well as interns, those persons wishing to stay for a three-month period and serve here with us, so we are working on coordinating the "confirmed" with the "potential" schedule of the camp. Seems like things never slow down here which is good...to God be the Glory! So, back to the email list of things awaiting a reply :)

Catching up...on sleep!

The team left on Saturday to return to the States and we slept in on Sunday morning; the first time in a very, very long time! Good thing our worship service here in Costa Rica isn't until 2:30 p.m. We finished up our Bible Study we were attending in Orosi on Sunday at noon. Tomorrow night is our last Orientation for the January team in Paraiso which is about a half hour from the camp. On Wednesday and Thursday I plan on making some Christmas cookies specifically for Friday night at our house when the Youth Group has their small group meeting here. Traditionally, the Costa Ricans exchange tamales at Christmas time. Most have never had Christmas cookies the way we make them in the States. So, this should be a fun cultural experience for them. Well, in the morning it's early to rise to do some much needed grocery shopping since we have been eating at the camp with the team most of all of last week! We are on the count-down for Danielle and Brad's arrival on Saturday night and funny as it is, even some of the Costa Ricans are counting the days down too to be able to see them again!

A week of VBS

The first day of VBS with the Threshold Team from Charlotte, N.C. brought in 120 kids, 40 team and Tico volunteers and a lot of energy to the campground! Tomorrow, it all wraps up with a graduation celebration for the parents, and the team returns to the U.S. on Saturday. This week we've been busy helping the team out, running out and picking up last minute needed items for them, working in the camp kitchen to keep up with their busy schedule, but not without at least one evening hockey game in the Celebration Center! I think by the weekend we will be thoroughly exhausted. This week, we've also been working on tying up the loose ends of logistics for a two-week January team coming down from Canada.

Next week, a clean up of the campground from this group being here, a rental group comes in on next Friday for two nights and on Saturday night, Danielle (our daughter) and her husband, Brad, arrive for a two-week Christmas visit!