Off to Costa Rica

Well we are really finally going. After a year of saying "We are going to Costa Rica" now it is happening. It seems surreal when you book the tickets and now have to start packing. What to bring what to leave. This seems trivial but yet if we bring to much, thats what we have to drag around for 5 weeks. If we forget something or leave it behind on purpose then what if we need it? Well I have to trust that it will be fine. Whatever we have will be good enough.
We are leaving on Dec. 31 and will be staying till Feb 1. It is way faster than we antisipated but sometimes you just have to go with the flow and make it work.
We had planned on spending a week at a YWAM base in Heredia which is by San Jose and then spending some time working at a kids camp that a Capenray bible school is sponsering but the YWAM people unexpectedly went to serve in Pannama and won't be around so I am going to need to get in touch with someone else from the base and see if we can still go there. If not we are not sure what we will be doing that first week.I am waiting for an e-mail to let us know more info on contacts at this place. I would love to go there, it sounds like a great place to be. The plan is that we make some great contacts with some organizations that set up groups on missions and bring this info. back to our community so that we can lead a group back there next year, so it feels important to be able to visit as many places as possible to gather as much info as possible so that we can show whoever will be interested next year a bit about what is happening there. I know that there are so many ways that vollunteers are really needed but it would be great to see a few options. So we hope that something will pop up in the next 2 weeks.
After we have spent the first 2 weeks at the different mission bases we will be travelling to the Caribean coast to the south near Panama. Maybe we can find out where these people from the YWAM base went and see them in Panama!!! We hope to finish off our scuba certification here and also spend some time in the jungle rainforests exploring this very different place. We have never seen a real wet rainforest and expect to see sloths and howler monkeys and manetees that live near the ocean and in the jungle. We hope to enrole in a spanish class and broaden our horrizens a bit. Apparently there is a place to do this here. After we're sick of the caribean coast(ya right) or after a couple of weeks, we are planning on heading to the Pacific coast and visiting a place called Jaco beach. From there we will wander the Pacific for the next few weeks till we have to come home. In this time the kids need to make sure to keep up with their school work so it can't all be fun right?
All of these things are in the plans but we are hoping that if things are different when we get there that's o.k. too. We are leaving our last 3 weeks open to change our plans to however it works out best. So we'll keep you posted.
Thanks for your prayers for saftey while we are away. We also hope that God will keep putting ways in our path that we can have the opertunity to show Jesus's love.
Wendy

El Salvodor

In Feb. of 2006 Dean I and the kids went to El Salvador with MCC's Build a village program. We had dreams of going for a lot of years and it seemed to just not happen for a bunch of reason's. Now looking back we weren't ready mentally or spiritually. So then in Sept. of 05 we heard of a few people who had been talking about going and bringing their kids. Wow that was right up our alley. So we jumped at the idea and said "us too!!!". I don't know if they even wanted us but we wanted them and didn't ask permission. Opps! So the plan was being formed and the meetings started and it was so exciting. Then El Salvador suffered another hurricane and an earthquake. Well it was to unsafe for the planned trip so it was cancelled. But Dean and I did not think for a minute that we would not be going. We called up Ray (the organizer and friend) and asked him when the next trip was going. He didn't know. So I told him that we were still wanting to go and that we would be ready whenever they were going. But he had no idea. The days came and went, Dean and I kept fundraising for the "trip". I think people thought we were nuts to be getting ready for a trip that wasn't even planned yet but we knew that we would be going. It felt like it was our destiny. Which sounds weird but that's how it felt. One day in Dec. I walked into Ray's business and asked him if he had any plans yet for El Salvador and he said YES. Well I said great when are we going. He laughed and said that there was a group that was forming but it was just made up of adults and he didn't know if we could go with our kids. He wondered if we would want to go without them. I said no, we wanted to take them with. So he said that he would get back to me but first he needed to ask the others if that would be o.k. with them and also check with MCC because they had never had kids so young on a trip like this. So a few days later I got an E-mail from Ray and it said that it looked like we might be able to go YES!!! I was so pumped. I could not talk of anything else. It was so cool to now know that this was not just a dream but reality. As long as they didn't get another hurricane, But hurricane season was over and this looked like it would happen.
So on Feb. 14th we left for the long journey to central America. We ended up staying for just over 2 weeks. Oh ya, and Dean's mom also decided to get the courage after finding out that the bugs would not be to bad, to come with. We had a great experience and the kids loved it. We started to plan the next trip on our way home I think. That's when we knew we had to do this again and we could see ourselves making this a life style.
That is when we decided Costa Rica(6 months, a year, sell our house a go , 2 months???) Wow what to do? We don't know. We are waiting to find out what to do. We are being patient and listening to where God directs us to go. Being obedient and becoming disciples that's the plan. So who knows where it will lead us. So far the possibilities sound like fun.
The following picture (if I can make it work) is of us in El Salvador. It is a picture of us looking out onto the ocean. It brings back some cool memories but also has some bigger meaning to it I think.

Welcome

Welcome to our blog. Here you will find stories of our travels around the world. Come with us and hear about our experiences.