Chepén, PERU!

I arrived in Lima, Peru to meet a group from Apple Valley, MN in the airport Thursday, June 14th!! They are from Hope Church in Apple Valley, and I was to be part of their group and try to translate for them! This picture below is our welcoming night, Pastor Juan and his wife Marta are on the far right, with their middle of three kids in the front. This group had been to Chepén for a week last year, and now their church has made a "sister" relationship with the church here in Chepén. They taught me the ropes of living in Peru in the 12 days I had with them, and accepted me as if I had been preparing with them all along!

One of our jobs was to help with construction! It was some hard manual labor, but we loved helping and getting a workout in the process! Last year the group helped with the columns for the front in the sanctuary, but now we were helping put in the bathrooms agains the back wall, and an office for the Pastor. A lot of shoveling dirt, wheelbarrowing, and tossing rocks was done, but all in the name of Jesus! The mayor of the city of Chepén paid us a visit too, and did an interview with one of the leaders of the group, and I translated. Then that night they put the interview, and all of us working on the news for all to see! The town was amazed that we were actually HELPING with the construction instead of just paying Peruvians to do the work, and also it amazed them that us women would get down and dirty right with the men!! That's not their culture! So it was a great way to tell the whole city (who are NOT used to North Americans at all) that we were there to serve just as Jesus served!

Below are pictures of the soccer camp that the group had hoped to put on!! The pastor and the "coach" (both named Juan) rounded up 20 little boys ages 7-10 to come to the camp that was Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours each. There they taught new soccer skill games, taught lessons from the Bible, and just had some fun! A person had donated some money to the group for a ministry that they would be doing, and they used it to buy all the boys new soccer balls!! You should have seen their smiles!!

Some other things we did was we went door to door evangelizing. That was very fun, and it was amazing to see God work in that! We went to youth and young adult groups and played games with the kids, we helped out with the Sunday School, and we went to prayer groups on Wednesday.
Here is a little description of some random pictures below: first (from right to left):
This is our Sunday School group of kids that showed up (normally there are only 12 or so!) with thier pictures they colored for kids in the Sunday school back in the home church in the group, next is a picture of our hotel we stayed in right in Chepén, next is the hill that is North (I think) of Chepén-- the city sits right next to it, lots of bakerys with great cakes like this!!, here's a pic with me and some little Peruvian girls, some traditional Peruvian dancers at the airport (but not there to welcome us... haha), this is a picture of a couple of the adolecents, a picture of the museum we went to-- we couldn't bring in cameras--- but it was really cool!, and me with the young girls of the team right before they left to go back to the States.

And that about sums it up!! It was a wonderful group to be a part of, and to serve with! I was honored for the opportunity to translate for them. Oh, and below is the sign for the church! The Pastor and his wife moved here to Chepén from Trujillo (it is an hour north) to plant an Alliance church. Wonderful people, and good times all around!!
God is SOOO good!

Wonderful Trip to North America!

A quick two weeks home, but filled with family, friends and FUN!!
My oldest sister Nikki got married to my new brother Mike!! They got married on the North Shore, and it was beautiful!! It was just family, so small, but amazing. It was so wonderful to have all the family back together again!! I loved getting time to catch up with all my siblings, and to see my neices and nephew and how they have all grown!! That's when I know I'm missing out on time, because they grow up so fast!! But they are super adorable!

I also got the opportunity to go to my best friends wedding in Ontario!! I was a bridesmaid, and it was a privlidge to stand for her on that day! Sarah and Andrew got married May 5th, but I got to spend the whole week with them before the wedding. We drove down to Niagra Falls one day, and they are very beautiful! It was a great time to catch up from lost time, and to celebrate with them on their special day!

I rode home with a group that drove out from Minnesota/Manitoba to go to Sarah's wedding. We made a pit stop in Toronto, which was really fun, and also stopped at Niagra Falls (again!!). That gave us ample time to catch up being it was a 17 hour drive home, but it was well worth it!

Everyday that I was home home, in Monticello, I got to see my cute neice Myli!! She's growing up sooooo fast, and talking soooo much!! She now says my name, and calls me by it!! I love it!

Running everywhere to see friends was part of the trip, but a great part at that!! The little amount of time that I had with everyone was cherished sooo much!! Everyone was so encouraging, and happy to seem me too, it was wonderful!

As I said before I am now refreshed and ready to finish my time here in Costa Rica!! Thank you all for taking time to spend with me while I was home. Love you all and miss you already!! And sorry to those that I didn't get a chance to see and spend time with... but we'll have to do it in October for sure!

Erikson's Come for a Visit!

My Dad's youngest brother John and his family came for a visit to Costa Rica!!

John, Karen, Vanessa and Jack were looking for a family vacation destination, and since I was going to be here in Costa Rica for a year, they decided to come and see the country and see me!!
It was SOOOO fun to have them here!! We went to a museum here in San Jose, and just walked around a little and saw some of the sights that the capital has to offer!
I also got to go on a tour with them one of the days there were here! We went on a 12 hour tour of Costa Rica, which was really great! We went to a coffee plantation for breakfast, and then went to one of the volcanos here, it has one of the largest sulfuric acid craters in the world, this was volcano Poas, then saw a waterfall, and had lunch at a resort area here in the rain forest where we saw some rain forest animals! Then went on a boat tour in the rain forest where we saw tons of monkeys and other fun animals!

It was so great to have my family here. It had been awhile since I had see them all, and my little cousins are getting so big!! They were so encouraging to have here, and super refreshing!
Thanks for coming to visit me guys!! I love you!

Horquetas de Sarapiqui~

I had the opportunity to go live in the jungle/rainforest for 10 days, and it was increadible!!

There is an Alliance church there, and I got the opportunity to live with the pastors and to experience their church while I was there. I met a lot of people in the church by doing house visits!! Each day someone opened their house to me and had me over to talk with me, and then they served me lunch. It was so humbling, because a lot of these people have nothing. They have the house they live in, and are sincerely grateful for each meal the Lord provides them. I learned a lot from these people. I also got the opportunity to go to the pastor's son's school and teach English for a week or so. That was interesting, and very fun. It is a small school (of about 20 students), and are from preschool to grade 12. I had the chance to teach grades 7-12. Since I'm looking at continuing my studies in college with this major (Teaching English as a Second Language) this was a great opportunity for me to see what I would be getting into!

I learned a lot in the days that I was there. The pastors were very welcoming and giving. They take so much time for anyone that comes to their door, and that was so amazing to see. The people are very accepting and loving. Just life in general there is more slow pace than the busy city life that I've been living in the time I've been here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I celebrated my 22nd birthday here in Costa Rica!!
It wasn't a huge deal, but fun none the less!! I had some of my gringas over for taco salad (my dinner of choice!) and tres leches cake that my host sister made!! We played games with my host family, and just hung out a little bit too!!

No pinata for me.... but honestly, that's quite alright with me!!

viaje a nicaragua!

The beginning of April, my co-gringas Ashley and Jessi, and I set out to Nicaragua for a short trip! The warnings of how "dangerous" Nicarauga was sparked our interest even more to check it out for ourselves. You see it's not more dangerous than Costa Rica, it's just that Costa Ricans have something against the Nicaraguans, so they think always say that Nicaragua is more "dangerous" than Costa Rica. And we needed to renew our visas anyways, so we headed North!!

This happened to be the week of Semana Santa, which is the week before Easter called the Holy Week, and EVERYONE in Latin America has this week off pretty much, so this is a huge time to travel! We knew it would be busy, but way busier than we thought!! We waited in line to get our passports stamped out of CR into Nicaragua for 5 hours! It was ridiculous! These are pics I took of the lines, they don't even do justice!

We arrived in Managua, the capital that night after a full day of travel, and our plans changed to the delay at the border, so we stayed with a friend of Jessi's that is doing their ministry in Managua, it was sooo wonderful!
Our plan was to head down to Granada, which is on the lake in Nicarauga, and we heard it was beautiful and colonial! So the next morning we went there and found our hotel that we had booked to drop our bags and then went exploring!
Granada was beautiful!! We climbed a church steeple thing and saw a sweet view of Granada at sunset, it was great! We also witnessed a semana Santa celebration from the top view, and later went and took a different picture! It was cool to see this cultural event!


The next day Ashley and Jessi were determined to find this lake that used to be a volcanic crater.... and it was the best decision ever!! Once we got there (another adventure!!), it was BEATUIFUL!!! We just swam and hung out there for the day, it was amazing! The best part of the trip in my opinion!

Then we headed back to Managua to catch our bus back to Costa Rica. It was a short trip, but very great, and wonderful to experience it with these great girls!