Spring Break Adventure

Sooo I'm sitting in the airport in Ft Lauderdale right now waiting for my connecting flight to COSTA RICA (which is late).

this has been the most randomly thrown together trip ever and i love it. the plan is to go down and see the school i might work at and the apartment i might be renting while im there.

saturday night im going out with daniel and heidi and christian to celebrate heidi and daniel's birthdays so that should be fun.

sometime im meeting with the guy about the internship (dont know when).

and other than that im just gonna play it all by ear. i'll probably end up staying with heidi another night or so so she can show me around san jose more and then the rest of the time ill be in los guido. hopefully i can spend my time hanging out and loving on the kids like usual. :-)

ill HOPEFULLY be able to update this more than usual since heidi has internet at her apt and daniel will have internet at his too.

love you guyssss!!!! :-)

que buena empieza!

the title... thats just a phrase that they say alllllll the time when songs start. and sometimes i think they´re serious and other times no haha.

we´re finally in liberia. plans change EVERY SECOND around here.

so on this trip is the 5 ponce´s, josa girlfriend paola, me, che, and this boy named pai. we started off where we were staying at this dairy farm. we went to the aguas termales like last time and then headed back to the lecheria to find out nobody was there SO we packed everything up a gain and went to a house of a friend of the family and they were nice enough to let us stay last minute. today we were supposed to go to the beach but instead we stayed and went to the aguas termales again. ANDDD now we´re in liberia and i think going to the beach tomorrow. who knows though. its been an okay trip though. its not very hot in liberia right now but its also 7:25 pm.

i forgot to mention this but daniel has taken my camera on.... 3 different occasions? and walked around a lot of los guido taking pictures. they´re all reallyyy good and interesting and i cant wait to show you guys! now if only i was allowed to walk around myself haha.

i cant believe ill be home in one week from today...

mixed emotions because i miss my family and friends but i dont wanna leave my kiddies...

what ive been up to

sooo i asked reallyyyy nicely and daniel agreed to bring me to the internet again. :-) haha not that he has a problem going.

its been a crazy week and im actually having trouble thinking of what i want to write. i should have read ovet the stuff on my lap top before i came so i could remember haha.

in all honestly most of the week ive been playing hard core with the kids. ive had a chance to hang out with some of the kids in smaller groups which has been fun. i spent a few hours one night with manfred and geissell making bracelets and such and it was a lot of fun.

yesterday i went to some missions meeting with daniel and then we went to this radio station so he could drop off some of his crosses that hes donating.

today i went shopping with tamara and daniel and edgar to buy the last presents for the kids party which is next week.

we leave tomorrow for guanacaste and i think we´re coming back on wendesday. egdar said something to me about going to a volcano this time or something so im hoping it wont be too hott!

joshua is sitting here with me and im showing him pictures from 2 summers ago. haha fun times. i think hes enjoying it.
BUT i guess i should end this now. things are going well and i miss you all!

FINALLY!!

Hey guys!! I´m finally at an internet cafe and able to write on this thing! Edgar gave in and let me and daniel go to the internet cafe in Los Guido. I feel like im doing something wrong though because its night time and we were walking through the streets.

so far things have been pretty amazing. there are of course times when im so tired of everything and all that but for the most part its been amazing. ive seen alllll of my kids and have reallyyyy loved hanging out with them. some days though none of them end up coming and those are the days that i dont so much enjoy. on the weekends, sandy and simon come and stay in los guido in the room with me. simon (samito) is SOOOO cute!!!! he has the chicken pox right now though. pobrecito. the first church service i went to daniel and sandy asked me to be his godmother and there was a little presentation to the church and stuff so yay.

so we are supposed to be in guanacaste right now but there was HUGE drama last night and so now we´re not going anymore. then the plan was that i was going to go to an amusement park with josa and paola today but earlyyyy in the morning the police came to los guido. apparently this happens every once in a while? they come and make the newest people to have moved in leave. sooo one of those families is tony cristofer diego greivin tani etc and it was just about the saddest thing ever. tony and cristofer came last night to get a bunch of boxes so they could pack up their stuff in anticipation of being kicked out and as far as i know they had no idea where they were going to go. so when i woke up this morning the first thing that was said to me was ¨we´re not going to the park anymore. the police are already here and they´re everywhere. there are tons of people and children crying in the streets. its really sad.¨ definitely wasnt expecting to wake up to that. tony and cristofer were in the pastor´s house though so i basically went and tony sat on my lap and cristofer snuggled up close to me and we watch tv and ate galletas. i know they had to be so scared. praise God though, something happened like something about a petition so the police left and said for now they can stay here. pray that these families dont get anymore trouble from the police and that they can just stay here in the place they know.

a few more updates really quick since i need to leave (i cant go into explanation really because i dont have time): Xinia no longer works for the family, Brian is not doing so well. He comes to the church occasionally but doesnt want to change his friends that are doing bad things, Mora (Michael) (the one making the beat in the video i have from CR in May) is going to be in jail for about 3 years for a murder that he did a long time ago before he started coming to the church and changed his life. There are 2 new boys living with the family right now: Taylor and Spanky. I dont know Taylor too well but the family has LOTS of problems with him. Spanky, though, i really like. He´s a goood kid.

I miss you all soooo much and I cant wait to see you guys! Thanks for your prayers and all!

As of now im hoping to spend the rest of this week with the kids. i dont think we have anything planned until my last weekend when we´re going on a retreat with the youth (apparently 60 of them??)

hopefully i can write again soon. and no worries, im writing more on my lap top that ill put up when i get back for those who are interested in more specifics.
love you!

im on my way again!!!

sooo I'm off to costa rica again in just about 2 days!!!!!! ive had this countdown going ever since i still had about 135 days so it feels like MAGIC to be able to say that it is only 2 days away now!

i have to say, it is soo strange to be planning this trip by myself. i have never ever gone anywhere by myself and its kind of scary. im going to miss having my dad there of course and also having a friend there with me. its going to be AMAZING for my spanish skills haha, but im sure im going to be going crazy not having anybody to speak english to. BUT it will be good for me. i can rely on daniel to be able to speak just a little bit of english i guess. enough to keep me sane haha. and in reality this is going to be good for me and a really big decider for once i graduate. it will be good to see what its like to be there by myself for an extended period of time so i can make sure its really where i want to and am supposed to be next year.

im SO excited to see my kiddies!! i cant even express how amazing its going to feel to see all of their beautiful smiling faces and give all of them hugs and just see how they're doing. all i think about while im here in the US is how they are doing and what they are up to so it will be amazingly good to see them and spend a ton of time playing with them.

the plan that i know of so far: wake up every day and play with the kids. all day and every day! :-) i know edgar mentioned going to guanacaste again (which i cant decide if im excited about because of the heat haha) and then i know that the last weekend im there we're all going on a retreat-like thing with the youth of the church. basically ill just be doing what im asked to do though.

so at this point the thing i am most worried about is fitting all of my stuff into my 2 suitcases and one carry on bag. so far ive fit allll of the supplies that have been donated (thank you sooooo much to all of you!) into one of the bags and it weighs 45 pounds which is amazinggg. the only problem now is that i have to fit all my clothes and such that i need for the trip plus ALL of the presents for the family and api/ christopher/ emily etc and etc etc in my other suitcase and my carry-on. ohhhh the stress of being able to fit everything into the bags! haha. BUT i have to say, if thats my biggest problem then im doing pretty well.

SO thats pretty much it. i apologize that this is so scattered. im typing this and watching andrew AND watching the finale of jon and kate plus 8 all at the same time haha. HOPEFULLY ill be able to write in this thing while i am in costa rica but, if not, ill definitely update everybody when i get back! SEE YOU ALL AFTER DECEMBER 21ST!!!! :-)

~Emma

I'm back--My last post!

i havent written in awhile because we didn't have internet access for almost two weeks and when I came back two nights ago I didn't know what to write. There have been too many thoughts to be able to put into words how I'm feeling. But I'll try my best. Los Guido was amazing. Me and Emma want to go back as soon as possible. It's funny how I always try to plan my own course, and end up being surprised by going down a totally different path. I was bummed out before I went to costa rica because I had my heart set on Africa. I was upset that I wasn't going and had a negative attitute about everything. But now, after I went to Costa Rica, I am SO glad and thankful that I went. One of the things I learned about myself is that I'm always busy here in the US; I always have a meeting to go to, school to do, going places with friends, etc. I'm constantly busy here, having to set aside time for everything I do. In Los Guido, I learned to chill and relax. Maybe that's a reason why I couldn't stop crying when I got on the planee to head back. Los Guido is a place where family is strong, where relationships grown immensley. In this shantytown, no one has internet or TVs, or any of the technology that most of us have. They hardly have anything. So instead of doing what most of us do, like surfing the internet or listening to music or facebooking, they people there will just sit down and talk for hours with each other in no hurry. No one ever has anywhere they have to be.

I usually played with kids from morning till evening, but whenever i wasn't playing with them, the family would just sit down with us and talk with us for long amounts of time. One day it was raining so all the kids ran home to their shacks. there was a few left, so about 6 or 8 of us just sat down under a small roof talking to each other for an hour or two. It was cool to see how relational these people are.

THe church services were also really cool. Every sunday during worship the kids and youth would come up to the front and dance for an hour. There were a number of people that had come off the streets from doing and selling drugs or being in gangs or had a history of some major violent crimes. The doors if the church gate were open for church every Sunday evening, so any one was welcomed. It was cool to see how real lots of these people were; admitting their problems and getting help and learning to surrender the little that they could control over to God. People here come from broken families and horrible histories but somehow still have a passion for life and have a desire to change. Not everyone was like that, of course. Los Guido is huge with I heard around 50,000 ppl within the whole providence. We could hardly ever leave the gated area because of the danger. There's still lots of violence in the streets. The pastor even got worried one time that we drove in a car at night time back to the church; apparently its dangerous to even be in a car late at night there if you're not in the driveway of the church.

I was definately excited to see my parents, but I didn't want to leave. I was an emotional wreck, I've never seen myself cry that much before! a few of the kids in Los Guido lined up against the church wall to say bye to us with cards and candy for us. While we were driving down the street, one of my favorite boys, joshua, ran alongside the car trying to keep up with the speed, sticking his hand through the window giving me a final handshake. It was a handshake I taught the kids there. there were a few other kids running alongside the car as well. While many of them were happy, it was so sad to see some of them really upset. One boy, Antoni, who can't be more than 7 years, asked me as I was leaving in Spanish, "are you coming back tonight?" He didn't understand that I was going to the U.S. When I told him I was leaving, I tried to make it sound okay, but he looked really sad. Another one of my favorites (i have too many favorites, haha), Yader, hugged me for like 5 minutes because he knew he wasn't going to see me for a long time. He kept asking me when I was going to come back, and when I told him I didn't know, he looked like he was about to cry so after he hugged me he left really quickly. I could go on with these stories but I just want to share one more. API, a two year old that pretty much lives with the family I stayed with, could tell that I was really sad the night before I left. I sat down on the couch, and this little boy sits down and tells me to sit by him. he picks up a pillow and puts it on his legs and pats the pillow motioning that he wanted me to lay my head down. So I put my head down on his pillow. This little boy is so sweet and intelligent! He then proceeds to brush my hair with his hand and bends down and gives me his big slobbery 2 yr old kiss on the cheek. then his brother who is also young, christopher, comes to me too and hugs me. then the two of them almost at the same time star having a tickling war with me, which made me laugh and forget I was sad for a few minutes.

This all just goes to show how incredibly AMAZING these people are. I've never built so many relationships in such a short amount of time with people who speak a different language than me. I didn't realize how close you can actually get to someone. I was able to usually hold a conversation with someone, but I messed up a milliion times. for my birthday the family surprised me with a cake. i was trying to say in spanish something like "I'm shocked, thank you so much for all the cake." but i used the wrong word. i said "caca" which means poop. so I ended up saying "i'm so shocked, thank you so much for all the poop." haha. that happened a number of times while I was there, but they got used to me messing up.

Both me and Emma miss the kids like crazy. The kids are so giving. Like I said before, they really don't own much, yet what they had they always wanted to share. They usually would give us candy or even part of their only meal for that day. Some of the things the kids gave me I had no idea what it was...I prayed a lot before I ate some of the mystery stuff, haha, but I was fine.
After being in Los Guido this summer, I fell in love with that place and the people, and I'll do whatever it takes to go there again :)

- Megan

just so you know...

soo the school was amazingly fun and we are going to be working there tomorrow too, but i am just not happy here. i called charlie today and he set it all up so daniel is picking me up tomorrow at 2:00 to take me back to los guido. megan debated for a long time on whether she was going to come or whether she was going to stay here for the rest of the week, but as of now shes coming too.

im SO excited to be back with the people in los guido. if it was this hard to stay away for a week, i dont know how we´re gonna say bye when we leave to go back to the US.

but really im just typing this so you all know theres a possibility we wont be able to blog or use the internet the rest of the trip. theres no internet in los guido so unless daniel decides to take us to the internet cafe again, we wont have a chance really.

we miss you all!

-Emma