Our lives in Costa Rica

We've had a bunch of informational blogs lately and so we wanted to do something a little more fun and show a little bit about our lives here in Costa Rica.

First one on our list is our banana plant. Our story begins in 2005 during our Discipleship Training School with YWAM....

Our bedroom, which Gabriel, Karen and I all shared, is the little window that you can see behind the banana plants on the right side. We loved to listen to the sound of the wind making the leaves rattle. So when we finally moved in to our own house in 2008 we really wanted to get a banana plant of our very own.

We were able get one from a nice fellow who made our dinning table and we planted it right out in front of the house. 2 years later.... December 2010, our beloved banana plant finally puts out bananas. Who Hoo!

Five months later we are finally enjoying bananas from our own tree. Our very first harvest! And now our kitchen is overflowing with more bananas that we can eat. Several bunches have gone to the neighbors already and today we have to take more. 

The banana to the right is easily the largest banana we have ever seen and was over two inches in diameter. Cool. We have a couple more banana plants growing but it will be a good year before we have more bananas.

In other strange happenings! The month of May is the start of the wet season here in Costa Rica and with the rain come the bugs. Lots of bugs. Big bugs. Here are a couple that we have found in the house.

The one on the right was the boys pet for a day or two until it died but the one on the left looked like it had a mean bite so i had to put it outside.

The last story that we wanted to share with you is about the torrential rains that we have been having. Everyone in the neighborhood has been up on their roofs repairing the leaks and we have had several of our own as well to patch. This picture was take a week or two ago during the worst downpour we have had so far. The rain gutter in the backyard needs to be replaced and it couldn't handle the volume of rain and well... you can see the result.That's me trying to keep it from flooding the septic tank. Fun stuff.

Well thats it for now. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Many blessings from the Johnstons!

Hosting our first short term team!

 Well as usual it has been way to long since our last post and a ton has happened in the last two and a half months.

Back on the 1st of April we celebrated the graduation of our 5 BCC students.( I say our because even though Douglas is the one directly involved with the school the whole family is involved in making the school happen and the students become part of our extended family during the three months of the school.) We had a great celebration dinner at our house where the students presented Douglas with a new wedding band. He lost his first one a few years ago in the ocean. He had been wearing a piece of wire bent around his finger which he had made when he was in Argentina so everyone would know he was married. The students thought it was a little cheap looking and decided he should have a new one. It was a great surprise!


We realized at the end of this BCC that over the last 13 months Douglas has participated in 3 BCC's which is an amazing amount of time committed to this school. We are thankful that at this point we have a six month break before the next school starts.


To start out this six month time the week after the school ended we welcomed our first team from Countryside Community Church.  

We had an amazing time with them, we took them to Bambu, a small community in the Talamancan Jungle down on the Caribbean coast close to the Panamanian border. God has given us a heart for this area and it was great to take the team and be a part of something very different from our every day lives here in San Jose.

 One of the greatest parts of the trip was taking The New Testament in Bri Bri the native tongue of the people of Bambu and visiting houses to give them to the people. We also were given some very cool MP3 versions and were able to give those to some of the many people who can not read.


 We also had a day when we focused on the children of the community. We put on a program for them with crafts, games and a teaching time. The team even learned a few songs in Spanish and put on a skit that was hilarious. 

  
 We stayed at a church in Bambu that has been used as a YWAM base and worked along side the local pastor Jorgeli  and his wife.

 On our last day in Bambu the team wanted to bless them and we spent the morning painting there house and putting up a fence to keep in there chickens.                                                                                                 

  Some of us took a dip in the river to cool off before an evening church sevice.                       

 While others stayed back to prepare a meal for those who attended the service.

We had an opportunity to get to know many people from the community and ministered to them.

 









                                           

Just a cute picture of my hubby and the little girl that captured his heart.

On our way back to the city we took a couple hours for the team to experience the beautiful Caribbean sea and eat a little ice cream.

The last few days of the trip the team ministered to us by working around our house and helping us out with some long overdue projects. Including working on our roof so it will keep the rain out this rainy season which is upon us. Also helping with painting the back of our house, we painted the front about a year ago but never got around to the back. As well as many other little projects.

I think for me the best part of the trip was the new friends we made, it was an amazing time of encouragement for our whole family. 

 

Thanks to all of you who gave so this trip could happen. The things the team brought with them were also very much appreciated, It was like Christmas as we went through every thing.  

 We are already looking forward to the next trip!

The whole Johnston Family

Mid-way through the Bible School

Wow! How the weeks have flown. The major "event" since our last post has been the Bible Core Course (BCC). For those of you who dont know much about it yet the BCC is a 12 week intensive Bible course built around inductive Bible study. In addition to reading the entire Bible, each week we study one book in depth, looking at its structure, its historical context, key words and idea, etc, etc, etc. We spend a lot of time  wrestling with what it all meant for the original readers and also how it impacts our own lives. We finish out each week figuring out how to communicate the truth that we have learned to other people.

Needless to say it is an intense experience. The school started the 2nd week of January and we just completed week 7 of 12. The students are in class almost every morning (Mon - Fri) and their afternoon, evening and sometimes far into the night are spent doing their homework. The idea is that at the end of the school the students will be able to read, understand, personally apply and communicate the truth of God with confidence and skill. No small goals here!

Our class this semester is small, 5 students, one from Honduras, one from El Salvador, one from Guatemala, one from England and one more from Switzerland. A truly international group. One of my students from the last BCC, Patricia Arias, is helping me to staff the school which has been a great help and blessing.

I was able to teach the first three weeks of the school which was blessing and a true challenge. As well we were very blessed to be able to have my own Dad come to teach the book of Hebrews.

I have learned so much from my Dad over the years and it was a true joy to be able have him here sharing from his wealth of wisdom and years of Bible study. He had the entire book memorized in addition to all his other preparations.

This last week we studied the book of Romans with the help of a good friend of mine Jose Acosta. He and i have taught together for the last couple years in the missions department at Unela, the university were i was teaching before. It was a great week but very challenging. Romans is WAY to thick a book to go through in just one week.

This week we have had the blessing of receiving back from the students. As part of the training of the school the students learn how to prepare a teaching, a preaching and how to lead a small group and then of course they get to practice on us the staff. So tonight we get to listen to 5 sermons developed from either Galatians, Ephesian, Philippians or Colossians. Below is a picture from the teaching that they did two nights ago. it is so exciting to see how much the students have learned and grown during the last 6 weeks.

For Karen this has been an intense time as well. Since i have been so busy with the school the majority of the weigth of running the family has fallen to her. The boys started school again earlier this month which has helped but it has been a logistial challenge to be sure. Our YWAM base here in San Jose has been growing as well. New staff seem to arrive every other week and her office seems to be continually full of peoples luggage. In the midst of it Karen finds plenty of time to sit with people and talk about what is going on in their lives and how to grow and move forward in ministry. It has been such a joy as a husband to see my wife take off in ministry!

Well that it for now. We just arrived home from a Bible Reading Weekend were we read Genesis through Deuteronomy and had a great time. This week we start into the Old Testament.

 Blessings to all for your prayers and support.

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

Christmas in Costa Rica

Christmas here in Costa Rica is always interesting and we are still trying to get used to it. Although it has never snowed here snow is all the rage. It is always a bit of a shock to see giant inflatable snowmen for sale next to a grove of palm trees. This year the thing that stands out the most is the tamales. Where as in the States you might give a  plate of holiday cookies, here they give tamales and this year we received our very first gift of Holiday tamales. Late one evening last week we heard a knock at the gate and it was the neighbor boy with a bag of hot tamales that his mom had sent. It was a bit difficult to think "Christmas" while biting into a fresh tamal wrapped in banana leaves served with hot coffee but for the first time it really felt like we were a part of our community, sharing in Costa Rica's traditions. We havn't attempted to make our own tamales yet, maybe next year. : )

 Another very special Christmas event that we wanted to share was Gabriel's graduation. He and Zachariah have been attending a small kindergarten near our home but next year Gabriel will be changing schools and entering Preparatorio, with would be the first grade in the US system. He was very excited to walk the stage and receive his first "diploma." He is growing up so fast!

Blessings to you all!

Merry Christmas from the Johnstons

YWAM Costa Rica fellowship weekend

This blog is a bit late but we didnt want you all to miss out on our YWAM Guanacaste adventure. Two Saturdays ago we headed out to Guanacaste, the northwestern province of Costa Rica, to spend a weekend with all the staff members of YWAM Costa Rica and to celebrate the inauguration of the new YWAM base in Quebrada Honda, a small farming community on the Nicoyan peninsula. There were over 100 of us who attended and it was a special time of fellowship and building relationships. It seems that God is doing something special here in Costa Rica and drawing together an incredible team of people from many different nations. 

We started out the weekend with a bang celebrating the marriage of one of our Costa Rican staff members to another Ywamer from the States. Here they are getting a ride to the wedding reception via ox cart. 

From there we all headed out towards Guanacaste, one of the most beautiful parts of Costa Rica. Here's a photo of the main house. 

Part of the event was the pig that they butchered the day before the event, and then placed in a pit to slowly cook for the next 16 hours. As it was a bit of an experiment the poor pig got a bit overcooked but it was still excellent!

The boys had a blast as they were 2 of about 25 kids. They spent the weekend  running around the property and looking at the cows.

The other major event of the weekend was a jungle hike that start out by fording several creeks with in 15 passenger vans and ended with us hiking through chest high water at dusk trying to escape a bees nest. Karen and Gabriel both were stung but not too badly and every one eventually made it back to the van. One more Costa Rican adventure under out belts!








Karen and i had a great time as well hanging out with old friends and making new ones. Over all the weekend was a lot of fun. We finished it out with a time in prayer together to dedicate the new base and its directors to the Lord.

We will will post again soon with some more ministry orientated updates and a rundown of what this next year will look like. Thanks for reading, many blessings,
Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah