It's hard to believe that the summer has past and we are half way through the fall. I am actually already seeing pictures of snow showing up on Facebook. Here in Costa Rica it means we are finally heading towards the end of rainy season but October is also when we get the worst of the rain. SO far we have had a rather mild rainy season especially compared with last year. Some of you may have seen the video that I put on Facebook with our front yard flooded but for those of you who did not, here are a few photos. Thank goodness the water receded as fast as it rose and we only had a little mud in the garage area to clean up.
Since our last post both our boys have had birthdays, Riah in July, and Gabriel in September. We now have a 12 and 14 year old in our house and it is amazing to see how fast they are changing and becoming there own people. They both are still playing soccer and are loving it. Gabriel is starting now and that is cool considering he didn't start playing soccer until 2 years ago and most of the guys on his team have been playing since before they could walk. Riah is one of three goalies on his team so he and the other 2 split the game but he loves it and is getting really good.
Back in June I was in the states for my oldest niece's graduation and it was so great to be there to celebrate with her. She also returned to CR with me and spent almost a month with us. It was such a fun time and we loved having her.
September,October, and November have been and will be filled with teaching and traveling, especially for Douglas. Back in September the whole family got to travel to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica so that Douglas could teach in the very first Discipleship Training School (DTS) at the new YWAM facility in Puerto Viejo. We returned to San Jose where Douglas had board meetings over the weekend and then flew off to teach mission in Guatemala City DTS. He returned on Saturday and went straight from the airport to more meetings for the National YWAM board and on Wednesday last week he flew off to El Salvador for a regional conference. He has almost two weeks at home and then he heads to Panama, hopefully with Gabriel, to teach another week on missions in their DTS and when he returns we will as a family head to the northern part of CR where we will both be teaching. Its tiring just to think about it all! It has been a lot of craziness and we appreciate your prayers.
In September Douglas and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! As many of you may have seen from Facebook we had a little bit of an adventure getting to and from our hotel where we went for 2 nights to celebrate. Here in Costa Rica the new President has done some things to upset a huge part of the population and those people took to the streets. So for about a month we had different days where they would shut down the streets at crucial points to stop anyone from getting around and that is what happened to us. We got stopped just 30 min. from our hotel by a road block. After six hours we were finally able to get our car turned around and
found a back route that got us to our hotel about 8pm when we had planned to be there by 2pm. But we made it and had a very relaxing two days soaking in the hot springs. On our way home we got stuck once again and that time we took a 3hour detour on dirt roads through pineapple fields and jungle. It was a bumpy but beautiful drive. We are so blessed that we live in such a peaceful country. During all the strikes and road blocks there was not a single death and very little violence at all.
Like I said before, so much has happened since our last post that I almost forgot about the two amazing teams that visited us this summer. First we had an amazing group from Cedar Creek Church in Sherwood Oregon come and serve with a church about 45min from our house. It was such a privilege to partner with them and make such a great connection with a new church here in CR. We have already visited and shared in this church once since the team was here and have plans to go back again in a couple weeks. A few days after they left we had a group of youth with their two amazing leaders from Radiant Church in Gresham come and serve at our YWAM base. They came and served our YWAM missionary community with words of encouragement and by just doing practicable things like dishes and food prep. They were a real blessing!They also did a work day at our house helping us to start construction on a much needed retaining wall.
We also want to let you know about a couple of financial hurtles that we will be facing in the next two months. At the end of this year we have to renew our Costa Rican residency and pay our annual tax on our car and home, (not to mention have something left for Christmas.) The residency renewal will cost us $1000 this time around. We are moving from temporary to permanent residents so it about $200 dollar more expensive than normal. The car and house tax will run $850 together.
We would ask you to pray about giving a special end of the year donation to help us cover these extra costs. For more information on how to give just follow the link below. May God bless you all richly! Douglas, Karen, Gabriel, and Zachariah.
It's hard to believe that the summer has past and we are half way through the fall. I am actually already seeing pictures of snow showing up on Facebook. Here in Costa Rica it means we are finally heading towards the end of rainy season but October is also when we get the worst of the rain. SO far we have had a rather mild rainy season especially compared with last year. Some of you may have seen the video that I put on Facebook with our front yard flooded but for those of you who did not, here are a few photos. Thank goodness the water receded as fast as it rose and we only had a little mud in the garage area to clean up.
found a back route that got us to our hotel about 8pm when we had planned to be there by 2pm. But we made it and had a very relaxing two days soaking in the hot springs. On our way home we got stuck once again and that time we took a 3hour detour on dirt roads through pineapple fields and jungle. It was a bumpy but beautiful drive. We are so blessed that we live in such a peaceful country. During all the strikes and road blocks there was not a single death and very little violence at all.
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