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

in this moment...

SOO its been a while since we have updated this thing so we´re gonna try and fit everything in here in a semi-short entry.

sunday we had to say goodbye to my dad and it was sad, but we were soo glad to be back in los guido!! after the service, we went to two different malls with josa, tamara, daniel (the pastor´s three kids) and daniel´s wife, sandy. it was a good chance for us to start to get to know them better before we headed off on our trip with them.

monday we basically spent hanging out with the kids in los guido. we started off the morning early with chalk and stuff with the kids. them some of the older kids joined in and megan and i had a little water balloon fight with them. needless to say, we ended up soaking wet and the boys did not. haha. then we got out the beads and started making bracelets with the kids. it was most definitely a SUCCESS! they LOVED it and everybody is still asking us when´we´re gonna make more (although i dont think we have enough to get them out again). we taught the family how to play phase 10 and they absolutely LOVE it! the first time it was just megan, me, edgar, and norma, and it was HARD to explain the game in spanish. the next night though i wrote out all the phases in spanish so it would be easier. im pretty sure we´ve played it every night since.

guanacaste was pretty fun but hot as i dont even know what. there was probably 5 minutes the whole trip where we weren´t sweating. we ended up going to aguas calientes (hot springs), one of the beaches, and on a car ride to visit some family. overall, the trip was pretty fun and definitely a good experience. i feel SO close to the family now and really loved spending time with them. (not to say there wasnt any drama haha).

friday we got back around noon and we were pretty much exhausted. we did play with the kids for half the day though and then just hung out with the family.

the kids club was cancelled on saturday because they couldnt find the keys so we ended up just playing with the kids on the playgroun all morning. they were having some conference of pastors so things were pretty hectic. around 3 or so we went with daniel and sandy to the mall to get on the internet and then we were to the church in guadalupe to listen to daniel practice with the band. it was LONG but megan and i had a good time getting to know sandy better.

today was pretty chill. i hung out with gordo most of the day. we sat at the table most of the morning and colored and listened to music with josa. the church service was good, but there werent as many kids there since it was raining. so that was a little sad.

and now we´re at the house we´re possibly going to be staying at for the rest of the week. i know we´re going back to los guido next week, but megan and i were almost in tears when we were saying bye to daniel and sandy. and then some tears were shed once we got inside. im hoping things get better, but as of now we´re not too sure. we´re going to work int he school for kids with disabilities tomorrow so hopefully that´ll be good. we looked through it last week and it looks realllyyyy nice. but anyways. we might end up going back to los guido in the middle of the week. we´re gonna talk to charlie tomorrow.

all i know is if its this hard to say bye to them for a week i dont even know what im gonna do when we have to leave to go back to the US. i dont wanna!!

but everything is good overall. :-)

-Emma (and Megan too!)

QUICK update

soo we´re in Monteverde still on our little break from everything and it has been pretty fun. last night we went on a night tour and got to see some cool and disgusting things. our guide´s name was andres and he was initially gonna do our tour in english but we asked him to do it in spanish. and i have to say, hes one of the easiest people every to understand in spanish so it wasnt any trouble at all keeping up.

My dad and i went zip lining today which was pretty scary, im not gonna lie. We also did this Tarzan jump\swing thing which was amazing. i told the guide though that he was gonna have to push my off though or i probably wasnt going to be able to do it. haha. the guides were all VERY nice and VERY cute so that was good. We got lots of pictures and even videos of my dad and i doing the Tarzan swing so ill be excited to show everybody! haha.

heres how things are looking for now. tomorrow we leave really early to take my dad to the airport to head back to GA. then daniel, the pastor at los guido´s son, is coming to pick megan i up in time to go to the church service. we´re gonna spend sunday night and monday in los guido and then we leave EARLYYY in the morning to go on the trip with the pastor and his family. megan and i are both soo nervous but SOO EXCITED! i know this is going to be totally out of my comfort zone and that im gonna have to use my spanish A LOT but im soo glad to get to do that and to get to know the pastor and his family more!

we will get back from the family trip sometime on friday and spend saturday and sunday at los guido, helping with the kids program on saturday and going to the church service on sunday. THENN as of now we´re going to spend the next week in the school for kids with disabilities. and we´re at least gonna start in the school for kids with Down syndrome and autism. im SO excited to go here. we visited on friday before we left for monteverde and it just looks like such an amazing school that really cares about the students and helping them learn.

i think the plan is to spend every weekend at los guido helping with the kids program and going to the service. as of now, its my hope to spend our last week in los guido too, but we´re gonna wait and see how we like the school first.

okay, we´re in a bad internet cafe now so i think im gonna go.

miss you all!

-Emma

OKAY. So i dont even really know where to begin. We spent Monday and Tuesday at an orphanage called Hogar Vista de Mar, which is quite possibly one of the best orphanages ever. You can just tell with how they care for each child and stuff that they are doing a wonderful thing. It made me soo happy to hear all of the kids calling their house moms ¨mommy¨and stuff like that. Most of the time at the orphanage we were unscrewing hinges off of old doors and screwing them back on new doors. Also, we hung some of the new doors.

The most important things from these days though were the relationships we made with Wilbert, the head of construction for Strong Missions, and Daniel, the pastor from Los Guido´s oldest son. We spent these days talking Hawai, helping both of them with their English and them helping us with our spanish. I dont know what it was about last year, but i really just dont feel like i got to know either of them very well last year. This year, though, ive only been here a few days and know them sooo well. I know im going to get to spend a lot more time with Daniel over the next few weeks, and i hope we got to spent more time with Wilbert too.

I havent gotten to know too many of the kids at the orphanage yet, but ill tell you guys about just a few. So one of them is named Michael and he was sooo sweet. Ask me more about him if you want to know why he was immediately my favorite! Haha. But my favorite by far so far is this little girl names Tifany. We played with her a little the first day and she was very shy, but i played with her a good chunk of time on Tuesday and it was soo much fun. The only downside was when i had to leave. She was almost in tears and wouldnt let go of me. She kept saying ¨no se va. No se va¨(don´t go, don´t go) and it was breaking my Herat. Eventually of course i had to go with promises that i would be back soon.

Only other excited thing for the orphanage was that i got bit by a dog. Haha in the dogs defense i was playing around with some kids and got pushed into stepping on the dogs toes. He started to bite me and then backed off really quick though so im fine. Just a big bruise on my knee.

THEN we were off to los guido. For those of you who heard a little about my trip last summer, this is the neighborhood we worked in that whole week. Its kina of a shantytown where a bunch of people from nicaragua and other places fled to so its a very poor place. We stayed with the pastor and his family in the dorms that we worked on last year (hannah, im going to take a BUNCH of pictures of it so you can see them when we get home!) It was kina of overwhelming overall how welcoming and living the family and the people of los guido were towards us. We ate every meal in the pastor´s house, participated in all the services and all that, etc. Since i dont have much more time im going to have to cut this a little short. Basically, the time in los Guido was AMAZINGG and i cant wait to go back. We´re going to Monteverde tomorrow to see the stuff there and then megan and i will probable head back to los Guido on Sunday afternoon or evening. Pastor Edgar invited us to go on a family trip with him and his family to the place where he was born. I´m so excited to spend that time with the family and really get to experience costa rican culture. Then we´re gonna stay the weekend on los guido too so we can help with the kids program on Saturday. Not sure whats gonna come alter that. Before we leave for Monteverde we are going to visit the school for kids with disabilities. Then we´ll decide if we wanna work there more.

I love and miss all of you guys! I am having an AMAZINGG time though so dont worry!

(and ps YAYYYYY that adam didnt go home on american idol!!!!!!!!!)

and make sure you read megans post below!!

-Emma

Our latest adventures

This week has been eventful. Too much to write about in this amount of time, but I´ll pinpoint the major things:

We went to an orphanage for a couple days doing construction and painting. But half the time me and Emma were playing with children. I thought language barrier would be a problem, but it´s not so horrible alter all. Children will just run up to you here and wrap their arms around you. I know I´m not supposed to have favorites, but at the orphanage this girl named tiffany is my favorite. If you even look at her she´ll laugh. She loves attention and is SO joyful.

So far Los Guido is my favorite. Los Guido is like a shanty town that has pretty much shacks as homes with bars that guard each ´home.´ Apparently the town is dangerous. We weren´t allowed to walk the streets. There are gangs and lots of robbery, etc. However, the church is in the middle of Los Guido (don´t worry, its gated!), and throughout all 8 years of Pastor Edgar pastoring there, there has never been a problem in the church. Even though the neighborhood itself isn´t too great, they have deep respec for him and his church. What suprised me was the type of people. These people consist of refugees from other countries, and 60% consist of people from Nicaragua.

The first night we went to their church and it was an incredible expereince. I can´t even begin to describe how welcoming and friendly and living these people are! The first service I went to, during worship, a little girl came up to me and grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the aisle to dance with her during worship. That right there made me automatically fall in love with the church J It was really cool to see all these people from all these different countries worshiping together. It reminded me of that verse in psalms somehere about unity in the body of christ, and how precious it is.

The children here are adorable and love to love! I´ve never had this many children run up to me tackling me with hugs! One time there were 4 children standing around me and I didn´t know what tos ay to them because of the language (im working on it! Im learning). So instead i grabbed all their hands and counted to three in spanish (i at least know how to do that much haha) and then ran around in circles, and then World pick them up themesleves and spin them around in circles. Its so funny how easilt entertained children can be. Last night there was a guest speaker who showed a never ending ´jesus´ film. While me and Emma were watching the movie, a bunch of kids flooded to the front of the room, and bc we were sitting in the front they all sat around us. One girl decided to become confortable right next to me and fell asleep against me, while another girl was sitting on top of me. Oh ya, and I have a nickname here. The pastor´s family call me “Super Megan” because of their supermarket in costa rica called “Mega Super.¨” and I´ve never ate so much food in my life! They are so generous and feed us HEAPING plates of “comida,” but i can never eat it all. I thought I was being sneaky by cutting up my food and sliding it to one side of the plate with a napkin over it so it would look like i ate most of it. However, third day into the week the pastor told me that its okay that I don´t eat everything on my plate, haha, there went my sneakiness.

There´s my novel for the week! Thanks again for all of your support and prayer!

--Megan

estamos aqui!!!

(which is ¨we are here¨if any of you guys were wondering.)

this is probably going to be a short post but who knows. i have 15 minutes left or ill have to pay more than 200 colones (which is like the equivalent of 40 cents US).

soo yesterday went fine. the plane ride wasnt too bad and we all even got to take a little nap! then luis picked us up from the airport and took us to the church to meet charlie, which is the man that runs the organization we are here through. so we pulled up to the church and got out of the car, and the first person i saw was a familiar face! it was wilbert who is one of the head construction guys with the organization and one of the guys we helped learn a little english last summer. i plan on asking him tomorrow if he has learned anymore, but i just didnt get the chance on that day. but anyways, all that really happened was charlie showed us around san jose again so we would know what all was around. other than that our day consisted of hanging out at the church and eating dinner. best part of the day was walking into the kitchen and seeing the pastors granddaughter laying on the bed in there and watching barney IN SPANISH (of course). it was pretty sad but my dad and i just sang right along to all of the songs in english. haha.

today we did a few more things. we went to a volcano and looked around for a while. it is called vocan poas which is right around where that big earthquake was just a little while. needless to say, some of the drive there was pretty sad, looking at all of the houses that had slid down the side of the hills or lost varying amounts of their house from the earthquake. pretty much every house had AT LEAST a HUGE crack in the side of it, which i know is sooo unsafe but they have no other choice but to live there. apparently the government is taking a loooooong time with helping them out. very sad.

after lunch, me, megan, my dad, and one of charlie´s interpretors, heidi, headed to los guido for the church service, which was amazing as always! for those of you who dont know, that is the neighborhood that we spent our whole week working at last summer, so it was definitely good to go back and see some familiar faces. i was soooo happy to see pastor edgar and his wife and kids. daniel (one of edgar´s sons) and sandra (daniel´s wife) were even wearing the bracelets that hannah and i made them last summer!!!! it made me SO happy! :-)

i saw quite a few of the kids from last summer. i know you dont all know their names, but im gonna say this for hannah´s sake mostly. i saw gordo, christopher, isca, yader, issac, joshua, fabio, rayna, the girl that lead all the dances during the service last year... uhh and thats all i can think of right now. i didnt get much of a chance to talk to any of them though. the service lasted ab out 3 hours and we had to get back for dinner. i absolutely LOVE the fact that a church service can be 3 hours and not seem like that at all though! :-)

okay VERY quick, heres what the rest of the week looks like...

Monday and Tuesday we´ll be painting and mostly hanging out with kids at the local orphanage.

Tuesday night through Thursday we will be going back to los guido to spend the nights and days there in the dorm we helped build last year! :-)

Friday morning we are gonna go visit the school for kids with disabilities and all that and then we will be off for the weekend to monte verde.

i am SOO excited about finally getting to spend time with the kids! AND about spending my 21st birthday (tomorrow) in COSTA RICA!!!

i miss everybody already and hopefully either megan or i will be able to write again soon!

-Emma