Going Home

Our time in Costa Rica is slowly coming to an end. We have had such a great time. As I watch Colton and Miranda playing and interacting with one another I am amazed that they can play together all day without fighting, with no toys, just each other. If nothing else came from this trip but to be able to see the friendship between these two kids grow, that is enough for me. But neadless to say we saw and did and learned so much more. When I think how this trip started from a dream to travel, do missions and be together as a family in another country. I think it was sucessful. We became closer and saw new things and discovered a bit more about Gods world. It has been a great adventure. We also have alot more insight to hopefully bring a group of people back to this country next year. There are people here who are waiting for our return with open arms. We have also found a great place to have fun on the beach! We have been blessed by so many people that have helped to make this trip possible. If Dean`s dad wasn`t there working his but off and taking care of work we couldn`t have come. If Justina wasn`t looking after our house (and a dog in heat)I don`t know what we would have done. If the teachers and principle at school didn`t support us in this it would have been so much harder. We also have so many people who are praying every day for our safty and that we will make a difference here. We feel so loved and supported. WOW!

Surfing

Colton learned to surf today!!!

Fishing pictures

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We finally left the rain and are in hot hot hot!!! We love it. We flew from Panama to Costa Rica and ended up in Quepos, Costa Rica 1 1/2 hrs. later. We found a condo to stay in and today we went fishing. Colton caught a 20 lb. rooster fish and a Jack fish. The Rooster fish is a fish that everyone is trying to catch out here. So Colton is really pumped and Dean is a little jealous. Miranda caught a Gar and Dean also caught a nice Jack fish. The Jack fish have dark red meat and when you fry it, which we did for supper it almost looks like your eating beef. While we were fishing we saw a 12 foot croc. swimming in the ocean. That was realy cool to see. We also went snorkling for a while at the end of fishing. Dean pulled out 8-10 oysters and him and Colton ate them raw. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and playing on the beach. I'm trying to get over all my ailments. The other day I was cutting open a coconut and Cut my finger, than the same day I ripped half my fingernail off. If that isn't enough the mosquitos in Panama bit me up to pieces and I have at least 100 bites and I am soooo itchy, mostly at night. So I'm hoping that they will leave me alone in C.R.
We are planning on spending the day in Manuel Antonio park tomorow. It is a haven for monkeys and tonnes of birds and a few crocs. so that should be fun.

Bastimentos, Panama

We have been spending our time on this island dodging the rain and whenever possible having as much fun as possible. We went to see a whole bay of dolphins we snorkelled we have been fishing, Dean and Colton 3 times. We have met a tonne of people and we are so thankfull for the chance to be able to fill our lives meeting people from around the world.We love to be able to see things that most peple wouldn-t want to because its to hot or to dirty or to dangerous or they just want to stay home. So hopefully we can share some of this trip with the people who wouldnt want to do it but still find it interesting. Today we ate in a restraunt that they just opened 2 days ago. We had fried chicken and french fries and coleslaw made by this charming Jamacian looking lady. Colton said it was the best papas fritas (french fries) that he has ever eaten. The place looked like someones back deck but it was really cool. Well I had better get back to the only sun we have had and try to soak it up. Hopefully it doesnt shock my system.

Scuba in Panama

So I think that we have seen at least 12 to 15 inches of rain since we arrived in Costa Rica. Ya, I know itis better than minus 40 right. So every day we would wake up in the morning and it would be pouring outside and I mean pouring. Like nothing I have ever seen before for so long a time span. We really don-t have much of a tan yet because the sun rairly comes out. But oh well. To make the best of it we decided now is the best time to go and finish our scuba cert. If its going to rain we might as well be in the water in a wet suit. Well it was soooo much fun. The visibility was not the greatest at 60 ft. But other than that we saw some awsome coral and fish. It was great. It really made up for all the rain to be able to do this. So now we are completly cert. and we can rent tanks and go whenever we want to.
After the dive this morning the sun finaly came out so Dean and Colton went fishing with the owner of our hotel. He is a really nice guy. He was born here and wants to see the best for this island. But he says that it is changing so fast and he doesn-t like it. The change is happening to fast. But that sounds like everywhere.
We have booked our flights from panama to San Jose Costa Rica for Sunday. The flight is just over half an hour I think. The time we will save is 12 hrs. on a bus. That was a great find. We didnt know that you could fligh so easily between countries. We want to spend the last 10 days in the sun. So hopefully that will work out for us.

Panama!!!!

Well, we were finally tired of the rain every day since leaving Canada. So we skipped the country and headed off to Panama. We had no real idea of where to go so we picked an isalnd(because we love islands) and we landed the boat on a very small island called Bastimentos Panama. I know nothing about it so maybe try googling it and let me know. What I do know is the town is tiny. There are no street, no cars, I think there are no phones but cell phones. There is 1 computer. Thats why I can bolg. When we got here it didn't work so we couldn't email and mom was a bit worried. But all is well now. Other than the rain not stopping we are having fun. Today we rented a boat for the day and went to dolphin bay and watched tonnes of dolphins that came right up to the boat. Then we went snorkling and saw some of the brightest coral I have ever seen. The colours were stunning. Purples and yellows and blues and filled with little fish. It was great! Then we went for lunch at a restraunt in the middle of nowhere and had fish and rice and porkchops for lunch. Then we snorkled some more and trolled a bit. Colton and Dean finally got to fish. They each caught a small fish and now their hooked. They left again as soon as we got back. Dean took a boat to the next island for more tackle and bait and off they went. They got the owner of our places son to take them. So Miranda and I had some blog time. Miranda says HI!!! Tomorow we have the scuba guy booked and we are going to finish our certification. Then we will hang out here for a few days or maybe check out another island and we will fly back to San Jose and save ourselves a bit of travelling time. We want to check out Costa Rica's Pacific side so the flight will take us back to central Costa Rica. Hope that all our friends in Mb. are doing ok with the cold weather. We miss you all. Email us and tell us something we don't know.We miss hearing about whats going on with you.
If you notice I miss out on letters sometimes its because the keyboard here is missing stuff and everything is often in Spanish.

Zip Lining in the Rain Forest

We went on a zip line tour. The plat forms were about 50 ft. or so at the highest. Miranda was a little scared at first but the tour guide was really nice and he took care of her. Colton was the first one on the line and he had a blast.
Tomorrow we will be heading to Boca del Toro, Panama. The weather has been so cloudy and rainy we have decided to go to where it is nice. The man at the internet cafe set us up with a friend of his and a hotel that he knows. We are very excited that we can go to another country on this trip. Though we know that the weather is still nicer here than in Altona so we have been very happy. We will put on another blog entry when we get to Panama.

WARM WEATHER !

We are at the carabean coast!!! It is finally warm. The temp. has been 28-30 during the day and humid. I love it. The house we're staying at has 2 bedrooms and a kitchen so we can cook our own meals when we want to. It is nice for when Dean catches fish we can cook it up. The weather has been very rainy and windy so it has not been good for fishing. But we have been walking through the rain forest and we saw howler monkeys, a few sloths, a white faced monkey who was very friendly, lizards, green frogs and butterflies. Today we went on a rapelling canapy tour were we were strapped to cables and went flying through the tops of the rainforest. It was really fun. The kids loved it. We have had some great meals and we have had a lot of fun the last couple of days.

friends we made

Today was another day at the kids camp. We all had a lot of fun. Colton and Miranda each made some great friends here. It is amazing to see how kids who don't speak the same language can play all day together. We have learned a lot from the people here. Friends are very important. Even if they are only in your life for a very short time. It is hard to go from place to place and make friends and then have to leave. But we keep saying that there are so many more people out there that we need to meet and it's O.K. to say good-bye or Hasta luego(see you later).

kids camp

Today was the first day of kids camp. There were 20 kids ages 3 to 6. It is run like DVBS. They will be coming all week. The girl Pow, who runs the camp said to me today that she has been praying that God would send people to help with the camp and we showed up. She said that we are really needed here this week and she is so grateful that we came. I told her that we are thankful that she prayed, because her prayers brought us here. Here are some pics. of the first day.

pictures from capenray

Here are some pictures from the school. We enjoyed some fresh fruit this afternoon while Colton and Miranda played with the kids who live on base.
Colton went fishing today in the little pond with his new friend and caught 2 fish. Miranda had fun riding bike and skipping with all the girls.
This morning we worked at setting up the base for the kids camp tomorrow. We thought this was definatly a lot easier than digging trenches. But we will see how tomorrow is when the camp is filled with 20 to 30 three to six year olds.

Capenray school

We arrived at the Capenray school after a very long cab ride through the mountains and valleys. Miranda and Colton were feeling a little car sick half way through. I know that Don and Ang can attest to the very hilly country side that can very easily make you car sick.
As we pulled up to the school we were very surprised at the beautiful grounds. It has a very different feel to it than the YWAM base. This is very manicured and pretty. They have coy pond and flower beds that are amazing with every kind of flower that you could imagine. They have a huge kitchen and dining hall. It differs a little to the kitchen at YWAM. Where we scared out a huge rat from in the kitchen when we cooked the chili for them.YUCK! It is amazing how you can just go with the flow sometimes. I thought I was doing well with mice but I even surprised myself at how I could step foot into the building after that , but I did.
So when we pulled into this place it felt like a 5 star resort. All day today we walked around the grounds feeling like a rich family that owns a property in a different country. Because there was no one around all day but the people who work here and a small travelling singing group. But with a little imagination it felt like it was all ours and we were alone with our own private band.
Today we had off from work so we went for a walk to the marcado(fruit market).It was a 2 mile walk through the mountains but we took our time and stopped at a , well o.k. 2 bakeries on the way. We bought mango's,2 pineapples, bananas, grapefruit, blackberries, and the ingr. for fresh salsa. We took the bus back and started on the salsa. They said to make ourselves at home, so we have free access to the kitchen and we took advantage of that. After lunch we went for a walk in the other direction and found a grocery store and bought some nacho chips for the salsa. Wow was that worth the walk. We had the best afternoon snack today. I love fresh fruit and salsa!
Before supper Colton was dreaming of a hamburger for supper. It was so funny. Dean told him that we probably wouldn't be having hamburgers here because it is a lot of work and money to make hamburgers for a big group. But wouldn't you know it. They made us burgers. Colton was in heaven. Then to top it all off Miranda actually ate a hamburger. This was the first time she had ever agreed to eat a burger or a sandwich for that matter. What a day. We are all growing in leaps and bounds.
There is a little fish pond on the property and they said Dean and Colton could try fishing. They tried but they need to get some bait. The hooks they had didn't work. But it was fun for a bit to try.
There are two families from the U.S. that live on the base. They each have 3 young girls. So Miranda had fun all afternoon riding bike, picking flowers and playing with the bunnies (Yes, they have bunnies and baby ducks!).

working at YWAM

Dean and Colton rebuilt the little bridge that goes to the back property. The fence was in very poor condition

Wendy is spreading some compost around the flowers. The base tries to use all the composted vegies to fertilize the flower beds and garden.

Miranda had a lot of fun helping to milk the goat and collect the eggs in the mornings. She played with the chickens and the goats all day long. It was fun to be in the country. We had a great time at the YWAM base and didn't want to leave but we knew there were more great people to meet and places to see. But we will be back next year.

Volcanoes and waterfalls

Here we are at the Poas volcano. It was very cool up in the cloud forest. We were glad that we had jackets with.
The second picture is at the Chorros Waterfall. We had the place to ourselves. While we were hiking down to the falls we spotted a snake. Colton was sure it was poisonous. But we kept our distance. It was about the size of a garter snake from home.

YWAM

We arrived at the YWAM base and were very impressed with the whole facility. The people here are very friendly and are very surprised that we want to help. The girl that I had been talking to by e-mail before we came said to me (this morning as I was wheel barraling a load of compost to the back passture) I didn't know that you acually wanted to work. I said that that is what I had e-mailed that we did want to help. But she thought we didn't really mean phisical labour I guess. So anyway we spent the day working hard. I think they are not used to working at our speed because by 10:30 they were all tired. But after lunch we all started back at it. I decided I would treat them all to supper. So I went to town and bought the groceries for chili. Dean and I whipped up a batch for the whole base and I bought some ice cream because Dean needed some dessert. So we will eat a regular meal tonight, and I get to have a little fun in a different kitchen.
Miranda spent the afternoon with the kids who live near the camp. Colton found a few cool bugs (one was a preying mantis) and went exploring down a very cool dried up ravine that runs through the base.
The base is around 5 or 6 acres and is up in the mountains in the country. The perfect place to bring a group of people with kids. We feel very safe here as it is so quiet and peacefull. We don't have to have the kids right beside us the whole time and we can relax a bit. The camp can hold 30 people or so and they often have church retreats here. We found they really need a lot of help building a new kitchen facility and some more cabins to house people when they have retreats. Right now they set up temporary tents. So we are thinking this might be a perfect place to help out next year and maybe we can convince other families how great it would be to come and work for a week or so. I think a bunch of menonites could do some serious damage here in a week. It is also a great way to get better at Spanish. Everyone here speaks both Spanish and English.
We are sorry that we are not spending more time here. But we hope to come back next year.

Wendy

bad luck

So we got my mom and Justina to drive us to Grand Forks to the airport. It hasn't snowed in maybe a month. But of course, it starts to snow. Oh well thats all right it is just a few flakes. But as soon as we get there the snow starts to fall faster and faster and mom and Justina decide to high tail it home. They made it without to much trouble but it was to bad that we couldn't have supper with them. But thank you. Then we thought we would go for supper to red lobster for supper ourselves. Well the taxi was supposed to take 1 1/2 hrs. What to do? We have no jackets and it's snowing out. So luckily there was a Boston Pizza right behind the hotel so we ran over in our runners and summer jackets. Well that was kind of fun. We got back afterwards and jumped into bed. Then the next morning we got up at 3 am and quickly got dressed because the taxi was to arrive at 3:15. When we got into the entrance the guy at the front desk said that the 5 am flight was cancelled because of the snow. Well we spent the next hr. on the phone with the airport(who changed our flights to the next day) and with insurance to find out what we needed to do. Well I guess we'll start over the next day. Back to bed.
Then in the morning we decided to make this the start of our vacation and we went shopping (we couldn't buy anything because we didn't have room) then we went to a movie. We then went for lunch again at Boston Pizza and then for supper at Red Lobster. Insurance paid for our food all day so we all had crab and lobster and Steak!!
The next day we again woke at 3 am and had a ride from hell to the airport. Then when we had the luck of getting to be the ones on the flight that were chosen to have our bags totally searched and also we were all patted down before we could go through security. Then when we arrived in Minn. we ran through the airport because we only had 1 hr. to catch our connection to the next destination(which I can't even remember right now). When we ran for 15 min. straight we finally got to the gate and we found out that the flight was delayed 1 hr. which meant we would miss our next flight after that.Now what???
Well they put us on a different airline and we sat around Minn. for 5 hrs. waiting for the flight to Atlanta Georgia. Well now instead of arriving in Costa Rica at 2:30 pm we arrived at 9:45pm. Then our luck changed and we met a couple from Denmark and we sat around with them in the evening and this morning we went to see a volcano with them in their rented car. Then we came back and are about to have supper.Tomorrow we will go to the YWAM base and spend a few days there before we go and work with the Capenray Bible school at their kids camp.
Well the weather is great and the people we are meeting are wonderfull. After a bad start I think thing are looking up!
Wendy