Pelea con los ojos!

My spanish speaking skills never cease to provide moments of laughter. The other night was my host mom's birthday. Fun tico family time! My host brother and sister, Stephen and Tatiana, helped me bake a piña colada, coconut cake for Heidi inspired by our tropic context. Lesson number one- baking in a foreign language is difficult! There are so many specific words I had no idea how to say. The cake had been in the oven for 30 minutes now and I needed to check it. Umm how do I say oven mitts? I resorted to "Guantes, guantes!" I need gloves, gloves! Good thing my host sister always seemed to understand my sharades or frantic round-about way of speaking in Spanish. Lesson number two- listen carefully! So the whole family sits down to share a Pizza Hut pizza for our grand birthday dinner and it was really sweet. We went around the table and told Heidi the reasons why we were thankful she was in our life and then prayed before we ate. And we go on with normal dinner discussion. I'm them about my plans tomorrow to help out at one of the orphanages in town. So as usual, they commence with a Spanish lesson. They started teaching me phrases and such to say to the kids. For the unruly children they told me to say something similar to, "I'm watching" in spanish, but what I heard was "Pelea con los ojos," which translates into "Fight with your eyes!" Yep, I told them what I thought they were saying and the whole table roars with laughter. Then Heidi turns to me and crosses her eyes and puffs out her cheeks attempting to quote 'fight with her eyes' and we all start laughing again. This begins the contest of face making at the dinner table which then turns into the talent show of our face making abilities which results in me showing my host family that I can wiggle my ears! Yep, true fact. By this point I'm laughing so hard my stomach's sore. After we collect ourselves, its time for birthday cake! "Cumpleaños Feliz!" We sung and ate cake and took this picture here below. Tatiana is on the left, next to Stephen, then there is Heidi, and to the right is Wesley. They are a wonderful host family, whom I will miss so much when I return to the states.

Family Time

What's one of the best things about an internship with eMi in the Costa Rica office? Being a part of host family! For sure! I have been blessed with such a generous and loving host family here in Atenas that treats me as one of their own. Yesterday we went down to San Jose to meet the extended family. The five of us pile into this little green honda hatchback, Wesley (my host dad) says a prayer for our safety, and then we set off on these crazy Costa Rican highways that cut through the mountains up, down, round and round. Heidi (my host mom) wouldn't let me eat much before we left so I didn't get car sick, but that was quite alright because our first stop in San Jose was breakfast at the Ferreria, which is a name for a large outdoor market full of fresh fruits, veggies and more....yumm! We picked up some freshly made Gallo Pinto (Costa Rican rice and beans) with eggs and this kinda strange fried cheese, and had ourselves an authentic Tico breakfast picnic. It was delicious! Then my host brother Stephen took me for a local's tour of San Jose. Churches, pigeons and colonial architecture pretty much sums up San Jose. It was a lot of fun to explore the city and continue to practice my Spanish! Later we returned to the grandparents house for a birthday celebration! I met aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, family friends and their household parrot. Yes they had a parrot, and this parrot talked back! "Hola! Hola" It squeaked it a pitch I can't replicate. Let me tell you it's pretty entertaining to have a conversation with a parrot. Back in the living room we all crowded around and sung Happy Birthday (or Cumpleanos Feliz) to Heidi's dad. Besides the Spanish and other cultural differences, I think its pretty cool that we Americans and Costa Ricans both circle around a cake and sing and celebrate the person whose turning another year older. I also can't say how blessed I feel to have this opportunity to be a part of this family for a time and get gain some insight on a culture different from my own. It was awesome and totally exhausting day. I also feel so blessed to have an awesome family back in Colorado. Lately there have been a lot of wildfires and last week there was one was within a few miles of my house. I have been thinking and praying for you constantly family! I praise God that the fire is almost contained now and did little damage to our community. While I am totally loving every minute here in Costa Rica, I am looking forward to spending some time with you guys this summer and my friends in PA! I have been real busy lately trying to finish up that last details of this church project and I have been bad about keeping in touch and posting on this blog. You all can be praying for the work here in the office, that God would be establishing the work of our hands and helping us finish these projects before the other interns and I leave for the states. I'll post more updates soon! Pura vida! :)

Stories and Rice

No matter the context life seems to center around meals. That was the case on our project trip as well. The team and I would work from sun up until way past sun down, but we would always take breaks for some delicious Costa Rican food. I think the meals were my favorite part of the project trip. This was our time to interact, one on one, with the members of the church we were serving. Again I was blown away by the generosity of everyone. They would always say that their house was our house and continue to thank us for the design work we were doing for their church. You could tell it meant a lot to them. During these meals we would ask them about how they found out about the ministry and what they liked most about the church and what they would like to see the church become. They've got big dreams. Dreams to become the center of change in their community. Dreams to run afterschool programs for youth and a daycare to give single moms a helping hand. Dreams to one day have a congregation of 250 believers and growing in the Barrio del Los Angeles. Dreams that are completely attainable through the grace of God. We also had some members of the church share with us their testimonies. I remember one house in particular, Don Angel was sharing how God had transformed his life by helping him overcome alcoholism and a dire health condition. You could see the intensity of his love for God and how real God's grace was to him and his family as he shared his story. Across from me sat his wife, welling up with tears as he was telling us about God's work in their lives. It was truly a beautiful story of restoration. I am so thankful for this time to serve La Iglesia del Nazareno. It reminded me of the importance of an outward focused church focused on making an impact for the sake of Christ in their community. I'm looking forward to all that they will become in the coming future.

The Project Trip

What a beautiful week! This past week I was in San Jose with a team of two other architects helping design a church facility for the Nazarene church in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Currently they meet in this small sea-foam green home on Sundays. The church now packs 60 Costa Ricans into a retrofitted living room as they sing songs and preach the word of God to the community. They are located in a suburb of the city called "Los Angeles" and I was blown away by their heart to reach out the their community and transform their neighborhood for the glory of God. They already have a bunch of youth ministries and service projects but are struggling to accommodate all the people they would like to serve. So that's why they called eMi. An architect from the eMi office, an architecture professor from the states and I worked intensely this past week to create a masterplan of a new larger church facility for this ministry, as well as classrooms and support spaces to host the events they seek to have. Here is a picture of us with the ministry at our presentation at the end of the week. Believe it or not I actually presented my part of the project in Spanish....poor Spanish...but Spanish none the less! I will have more posts coming about this week. Too much happened to sum up in a single post. I learned so much about the bigness of our God and feel blessed to have a glimpse of his work in San Jose, Costa Rica!

Learning to be a Tica

Hello friends and family! I miss you all. It seems like it was a long time ago that I left the states, even though I have only been down here a week and half. I've been learning to be a "Tica" as my host family says. Tica is the Costa Rican word here for a local. My host family has been teaching me all sorts of Spanish and specifically Costa Rican words. We have so much fun...usually laughing at the round-a-bout ways I try to say what I am thinking in Spanish. Communicating has been getting a little easier though, praise God! And I have another family type unit here with the intern group. They're so fun! Its cool to see how we were all uniquely drawn to serving with eMi this year and I've loved hearing their testimonies about how they came to know Christ and God's love. Last weekend one of the interns supporters paid for us to go on a ziplining adventure in the jungle. It was so awesome to be blessed with that gift to experience some of the beautiful nature I am surrounded by here. Also, I really love serving here in the eMi office. This past week I have been working on a medical clinic project based in Honduras, and I've been communicating with another architect from the states, Gloria. Gloria, happen to be one of the people who told me about eMi when she was at Penn State for school. It's funny how things have come full circle now! Its been so cool to see God's provision in this whole process and I am so happy to be a part of this missions organization for the summer. This coming week I will be leaving Atenas for my project trip. A team of architects and I are going to meet up with a ministry in San Jose and design a church for them. Next week will be jam packed with lots of travel and work and Spanish! Please pray that the work we need done will get accomplished by God's grace and that the church we are designing will be a place where God is glorified and people are drawn into a relationship with him. Also pray for our safety and health while we are away. Thank you so much for you support. I am so grateful for this time to serve and learn. I'll be back in touch in a week! Adios!

Things are different in the jungle

Yep, I'm not in central PA anymore. Costa Rica is such a different environment all around. My first day of work at eMi I saw an iguana sun bathing! And there thousands of different kinds of birds that fill the trees with sounds. It's beautiful to see just the overwhelming quantity and diversity of life here. God's creation is awesome! I also feel so out of context as far as my communication skills go. So so many Spanish mistakes! Prayers for that would be much appreciated. My host family is so sweet and understanding with my difficulties communicating with them, but I really do want to get better at speaking the language here and long term. The past few days I've been settling into the office, getting to know the staff and other interns and the projects we are working on here. It's been great and I already feel like my two month commitment will be too short. I feel so blessed to be here is what I told my host mom this morning, although it sounded something like this, "Me siento muy bendecida para estar aqui!" Thank you supporters for making this possible. Soon I will be meeting up with the ministry we are designing a church for on our project trip. Looking forward to connecting with the people we are working for. I will write again with some details. As they say here in Costa Rica, "Pura Vida!"

going, going, gone!

Today is the day! I'm currently on my way to Costa Rica to serve with Engineering Ministries International and I couldn't be more excited! I am looking forward to meeting up with the team I've been emailing for weeks. I'm looking forward to beginning our design work on a church in San Jose. And most of all I am looking forward to serving others with my skills as an architecture student. Although as I think about all that I am excited for, what I have been learning through this whole process of preparation is that this trip is not about me. My time with EMI is about being obedient to God's call and glorifying him in all sorts of capacities. I am learning more and more about what it means to be dependent on God. Its been a humbling and encouraging time. I am able to serve with EMI by nothing of my own merit or earning, but by the grace of God and the generosity of my loving community. Thank you so much to all those who are praying for me, supporting me financially, driving me places and housing me! I am so grateful for all your help in this process. 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 says, "'For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." And that is my prayer for these next two months, that the architectural work we do will reflects the awesomeness of God, for I know I am insufficient for the task at hand. And I hope you'll join me in praying for safe travels today and for God to be glorified in our serve. Love you friends and family and I'll be in touch next time the internet is available!