weekend and such.

have you ever thought of funny english words that we say and cant quite really explain? welp, im sitting here in that situation, trying to explain what words mean that i honestly never use. take, for example, the word "baller". now that was a funny conversation. i realized how much slang i use completely jokingly thanks to roommates i have and strange friends. we have our language, and we just get each other. now i know i dont use the word baller on the reg in the us, but it was just a funny comment christy and i made, that turned into a long discussion of what baller actually means. grateful for urban dictionary sometimes, just to help me out when i cant stop laughing.

this past weekend, host mom karla was sickly, so we didnt do too much, however on sunday we all had to get out of the house so we drove to the beach for the day. i stole a tourist hat from karla just for kicks and giggles. and i wore it all day long. dont hate on me.

but we enjoyed some sunshine and lots of rain and scoped out where we would do our surfing. now here thes delima...we dont know if our bodies are physically able to do so. thats where this whole idea of a week of working out has come from. pushups. updowns. crunches. lunges. you name it, christy and i are doing it. we are determined surfers. and this coming up weekend we will be in sámara all weekend (thats right friday-sunday playing at the beach). surfs up, pura vida mae.

school has been quite fun the past few days. the kids are taking exams, so some of our classes are basically done for the year. christy and i are going to teach a few slang classes for our own entertainment. now heres what im thinking... appalachian redneck. "i aint done it and i aint fixina do it." dont worry, ill take some videos.

in other news...i saw the worlds largest flying cricket thingy at school yesterday. im not kdding. it was the size of my hand. my whole hand, not my pinkie finger, my hand. thats HUGE. the pictures of his face make it seem like its under a microscope, but its just on my regular lens on nigel. i poked him with a pen and he flew away. i screamed. and later on the 10th graders asked me what was going on and were laughing at my dramatic self. this i know, i can be slightly dramatic.

but as for now, i dont have anything too over the top and crazy. just living life in costa rica. missing the fam this week since i dont get to be home for thanksgiving. but fam: dont forget, we ARE doing thanksgiving for christmas, because lets be honest, a thanksgiving turkey is way better than a christmas ham. ohh my stomach very much misses america.

ok, hasta luego familia.

enviando todo mi amor.

and so ive almost been here two weeks. only two weeks. my oh my i feel like ive been here for so much longer, but im so excited that i have more time here. this week was a full week of teaching...thats right monday through friday. but i will tell you we got out early 3 days this week. why? national soccer game against spain (the ticos tied 2-2. ballers.) because of some cleaning, and lastly because the principal had to leave early today. just really funny reasons that they get out of school early, at least i think so. i wasnt complaining though. when its 90 degrees at 1130 in the morning, all you want is to go home and take a nap. but lets be honest: i. dont. nap. i only rest a little while watching some tv. karla and christy are the extreme nappers. so that leaves me sitting here on the tile floor, writing my blog, while they are snoozing away.

this week has been roller coasters of rides. sunday night karla came home and told us that her good friend had found some spots on his lungs and did some blood work on them and it wasnt good. his trachea was moved slightly to the right which isnt normal, obviously. and he was going to san jose on monday, basically believing he was going to find out he had lung cancer. and since ricardo is a doctor himself, he did the research, and was beyond depressed, believing that he would only have about 5 more years to live.

now something in me knew this wasnt right. i was hearing the facts but my spirit really couldnt believe that his man had cancer. scripture says that we are healed. ive seen people healed of lifelong problems and diseases before my eyes. thats how awesome our god is. he literally has given us authority to speak to things and they disappear. dont believe me? google any scriptures on healings. they are real. mark 16:18, jeremiah 30:17, mark 11:24...the list goes on., and the testimonies go far beyond that. healing is apart of the finished work of grace. prayer has incredible power. so with little needing to be said, ricardo has no lung cancer, and no spots on his lungs. his lab results that he completed on himself show his old self, but in san jose he saw the finished work. yep, praise party.

i also got to sit and talk about some jesus stuff with the cafeteria lady the other day. she wanted help finding this scripture. sooo, i helped her. karla made sure to tell me that this lady was "like me." and by that i think she meant, she likes jesus and goes to church. i havent had the chance to really sit and talk with her, but its on my list.

fun fact about costa rica: doing laundry on a cloudy afternoon can be a big fail. damp weather basically reverses the process. my clothes smell bad. and enough complaining about that.

and the last thing ill blabber on about, because its amazing, is this new book i started reading. its called "radical" by david platt. talk about wanting to pick up everything and move somewhere, welp this book just further inspires me and speaks so much about the reality of the american church.

ive realized i havent done the best job of sharing events that happen here and am writing more about things im learning. cool things are happening, i just like to talk about what im learning. apologies if its not what youre wanting to read. ill share stories later.

and thats all for now. love yall!

did you know...

well, did you know its perfectly legal to drive a car in costa rica without any special license if you are an america. your us license is valid for up to 3 months here. with that being said, i drove with this crazy latin american drivers this past week. multiple times actually. karla needed a ride to the bus stop so since i told her i could drive a manuel car she said i would drive to and from school for practice, then take her to the bus stop. now let me go ahead and explain the honking policy in nicoya. you honk if you see someone wanting to pull out to say, hey dont come. you honk if you are going to pass, just to give a heads up, you honk if people just do stupid things, and lastly you honk to your friends. now in the us, we do the double toot, just a honk honk, like 2 small taps. here in costa rica, its 3. so when i gave the dance instructor a ride home he kept pointing out his friends walking, so i honked at all of them, and the students walking. karla was crying laughing in the back seat and the dance teacher had no idea what to think of me. so yep, heres a picture of me in the drive way getting ready to leave the house:

karla went to san jose this weekend to see some family, so christy and i have been left on our own. its been rather uneventful, except for yesterday. theres a festival in nicoya called pica [d]e leña, that basically involved a lot of wood chopping and big oxen pulling carts full of wood. theres a long story, that i can explain another time, but christy and i went with some of karlas friends to the top of the mountain to watch people cut wood for a few hours then saw the parade later. we were really excited to go, and kind of disappointed by the end of the day, but its ok. i at least worked on the tan by being outside all day long. my backpack tan lines are almost as bad as the life jacket tan lines i had this summer. #stellar (yes i just trended in my blog.)

sunday i did something i havent exactly done before. not even in the states. i randomly went to a church without anyone with me, nor knowing anyone there. i wasnt meeting up with someone. i just walked in the doors, and started talking to someone. the pastor came right up to me and greeted me, and introduced me to almost everyone. there were about 20 or 30 people at the church, and i think i kissed everyone on the cheek. cheek kissing is cultural. dont go run and tell scott im going around kissing everyone. not true. ANYWHO. i love how the lord can speak to me in other languages. they did a prayer at the beginning of the service that seemed just like prayer at summit. people were walking around, lifting hands, and speaking all about the holy spirit. now yall, this was a methodist church. just found it a little different for them, but i LOVED it. i hadnt had a hug in over a week, and church came at just the right time. this one old lady came up to me multiple times and spoke with me and hugged me, and was the most genuine person. i want to know more about her. but one of the most exciting things was that, i understood almost the entire message. it was about carrying your cross daily, regardless or ages, and seeing how the lord can bless people at all ages of life. simple, and great, and oh i love spanish church.

and to end this blog i thought id finish by telling a few fun facts that go along with the title.

so, in costa rica, DID YOU KNOW...

- you can buy milk at the liquor store. i thought it was a long shot when we walked in there, but they had it

- a rooster can jump nearly 9ft in the air to hop on the roof after they accidentally fall into your patio

- trucks randomly decide to do parades for no reason at all...and by parade i mean tractor trailers, weaving in the streets, blowing their horns, thats all.

- cowboys can ride their horse right up to the bar and get a beer.

and now im having thinking problems, so ill quit for now, and leave you with two more pictures. one is of my morning alarm clock, and the other is of my afternoon cup of joy.

ciao mi familia.

cant stop telling.

no school today, so im sitting outside with my coffee, bible, journal, and the infamous blue book. i may be scratching a thousand bug bites, but its been the best morning so far. i love how the lord speaks to me to sweetly and faithfully when i am so far from everything familiar. and well, i read some things today that i just really wanted to share. so today was about the "ordinary". but heres a quote to start this blog off (which might be long, what else is new though).

"you enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary. something you have seen a thousand times you suddenly see as if for the first time"

so now, go ahead and grab a bible. sure why not. or use the internet. but read these two things: 2 corinthians 4:7-18, then acts 4:1-22.

"we now have this light shinning in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. this makes it clear that our great power is from god, not from ourselves." ive always heard, you have a light that the lord uses to shine to others, we all do as believers, but what a sweet way the lord chooses to reveal himself to others. he uses us as ordinary as we may come, to hold the greatest treasure (him) within us to show the world. we get to show the nations who the lord is! but the part that i love the most is that we are told to have the same faith of a psalmist who simply said: i believed in god, so i spoke. if we believe, then speaking should be am instinct. there are so many words of truth that the world needs to hear, so why wouldnt we speak. theyre true, we know they are, and words proclaim so much power. jesus simply spoke, and diseases were healed, people walked, bread was broken to feed thousands. words have power and authority. we are renewed each and everyday, so why wouldnt we use all that we have to go and speak. its so simple.

so after reading this in corinthians i read in acts about peter and john being taken in front of the sadducees (aka haters in the new testament). basically they are being told that what they were preaching was not okay, but the sadducees couldnt deny the healing of a man who was unable to walk for 40 years. so they tried to tell pete and john, hey we cant deny what happened, but just dont speak to anyone about jesus again. and they said "yea right". not quite, but really, "do you think god wants us to obey you rather than him? we cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard." i picture two guys so filled with joy that they are basically laughing in the council's face and not caring, because they know what they believe is the truth. such a joy and boldness that they could care less what other people think only that they come to know this powerful and mighty god. they spoke, and people listened.

so reading these things just really got me excited. i know the truth. i know the power the lord has, the joy he provides, and the light within me. im a 22 year old college student who probably hasnt experienced half the things the people here in costa rica have experienced. but i have it: the light, the ability, the love. and today i decided that i cant stop telling. nope. cant. there are people here that need to know the lord is here, right in this town. and i want to be used to tell them. and if the bible is true, which is is, words can be spoken from the lord to people, and their lives can be completely changed. now im not saying im going to go and speak crazy things over people, but i simply want to speak truths into their lives in ways that click. i want them to get it.

something great about my time here is theres a lot of freedom. im done with school around 130 everyday, and the rest of my afternoons are free. no lesson planning, no grading, nothing but time. i need to make friends and be intentional. so heres what im asking for: prayer. pray that there would be no language barriers, pray against spirits of inadequacy and laziness. pray for people to really see and be aware of a difference with in me. pray that i would love them in the ways they need it. just that this time would be fruitful, not that i need to see it, but that at least some seeds would be planted. im believing it.

once again, sorry this is long. i just wanted to share it with someone. but do be praying for me por favor. love you all.

just because.

anddd i just laughed out loud really hard at this. the last on is my favorite. incase you need a mid-week pick me up. enjoy.

mom and dad ate all the halloween candy.

first day of school! first day of school!

so. here i am, sitting on the kitchen floor after my first day at the school. why? because the floor is cool and the air is too hot, and because i kind of collapsed here. ive got country music playing in the headphones and im chillin in what i like to call my "sweat" outfit. mainly i dont see a point in sweating through lots of outfits, so i just come home and put on this stellar yellow tank ive got and some nike shorts. life is great. because, lets be honest, im in costa rica. pura vida.

monday, literally right after i blogged, i experienced something for the very first time. we (christy and karla and i) were watching greys anatomy on the computer. where? on the floor. weve been over this already. and all of the sudden.... i know, im great at buildin the suspense. so we were watching greys, and i was laying on my tummy, and i knew it wasnt growling in hunger, but man i was moving for a split second. thats right friends: earthquake! nicoya, the town im in, is near the nicaraguan border and there was a 5.9 earthquake there and we felt a tremor for a few seconds. we ran to the door frame. and ill shamefully admit the only reason i knew to go to the doorframe was form the hilary duff movie: a cinderella story. but hey: it was right. so that was something fun and exciting that happened monday.

tuesday there was supposed to be the civics national exam but it was cancelled for some reason. so after a relaxing morning at the pool, thats all i have to tell about tuesday. onto today: the first day of school (at least for me)! in general, the classes that i will teach will be different every day, sometimes longer classes, others very short, sometimes even multiple times a day. but my general classes are 7th, 9th and 10th graders (since the 11th graders are finished). today i remember why i loved middle schoolers so much. definitely my favorites of the day and the best students. teacher here is really different than my first 10 weeks of the semester in the united states. i pick up the book and simply start from where we left off, where as in the us, my teacher and i there made lessons plans, and thorough lesson plans at that, each and every day. but since the resources here are so slim, they use what they have. but whats fascinating is that the students can speak english, where as my kids were no where close to spanish at watauga.

so with only one day under my belt, i can say that teaching here, at least i believe, will be a lot more simple. you go, you teach, and thats about it. but if students are not understanding something, they get left in the dust pretty quick. i hope to be able to see those students not doing so well in english classes really succeed. i was grateful that i knew the spanish i did today. karla tried to only teach in english, which is the best way to teach a foreign language, but today i was perfectly able to explain grammar in spanish. yall, teaching grammar in another language is really hard, buttt it came really easy today. huge praise.

as for the school itself, ill add some pictures another time. to me, the costa rica schools are something ive seen before, so nothing caught me off guard. but if you have never seen them, theres not much to show. the grades stay within their own classes, they have very old wooden desk and maybe a whiteboard in the room. nothing else is really needed. no projectors or smart boards. so, i honestly love it, because technology sometimes takes so much away from the content the students are to learn.

learning the students' names will be my biggest challenge. it was hard to learn 100 kids names at watauga, but here will be twice as hard. the names just are not familiar names to me and when they all grease their hairs, i cant tell them apart. ohh the challenges. they rarely pay attention, so im learning more and more about the little word patience.

other than that, i love being here. i love working on my tan in november. and i love teaching at this school and being in this community. it brings such joy to my heart to be here. but as for now, i type way to much as it is, so ill just stop.

but real quick: shout out to grandma meier. there is something in the kitchen of my host mom's house that makes me feel like im at your house. its a smell that i cant describe, but oh boy it reminds me of good ole knox, pa!

love yall!

equipped.

yesterday i got sunburnt, today im sweating gallons of water, and you know, im 100% okay with that. costa rica is going to be quite the adventure. i am excited that i am here and very excited to share with you all what i am learning. for starters i suppose i should tell yall about my crazy little flight:

i sat right behind the pilots, and basically watched everything they did. dad would be so proud of me. took some pictures, but one of my favorites is that i saw the landing strip, and watched the whole process or landing the plane. how cool is that?! i feel like i could do it all by myself. okay, maybe not, but you get the gest

anywho, my first two days at the school are teacher workdays, because the 11th graders are taking national exams, so basically we are just relaxing, which is kind of nice since everyday in the us was packed. and i also found out that summer break begins after the last week of november, aka the kids are out of school, well there is no school. kind of a blessing, but i have no idea what those days will look like. im hoping to learn a lot over these next few weeks of how teaching here works, so it will be interesting. i dont know what to think about getting done early, but i know i shouldnt complain :)

with it being summer time, yo would think the sun would go down later and rise later. false. let me go ahead and say how false that is. sun is up around 5am, and goes down around 530pm. so i am quite the early riser and early to bed kid here. and by early i mean, i naturally wake up around 6 and go to bed around 8 or 830. grandma status, this i know. but let me explain how mornings/nights work: first of all, neighbor is a relative term. they really live through the thin wall, meaning you hear everything, even phones ringing. the animals are quite the prowlers making all sort of noises, not because they are loud, but because what the choose to jump on is VERY loud. the roosters are the morning alarms, and then the man selling tortillas rides his bike yelling "tortillas" starting around 5 and comes by at least 5 times. i think im early, but to costa ricans, im quite the late sleeper i suppose.

fellowships is one of those things i knew i was leaving behind the second i stepped on the airplane. what a blessing it has been to live in boone since i was a freshmen, and the relationships i have built are beyond incredible. but what i sweet thing it is to know that there is no distance in prayer. none whatsoever. so although i am physically separated from them, their prayers jump all sorts of boarders bringing me such encouragement. and encouragement on skype is just a small something i needed today.

one of the things i wanted out of my experience here was to be observant with completely new eyes to see where the needs are for the people, and how they can be met. there are so many physical needs here in this country, and a lot of those need can be met at the same time as sharing who jesus is, but we have to know the needs. so today, as i sat and observed the lifestyle of the school, i noticed those simple acts of kindness were completely missing. no real love was being shared. everyone was present and knew each other, but the love was just gone.

and i know im not going to be here very long, but i know that if ive been called, then im supposed to be here. and if im called, then i am equipped to share this love. i am equipped to be a light to this community. i am equipped to just live as christ did. just as the bible says. thanks sweet friend for reminding me of simple truths. love people, and love them well.

but as for this hot afternoon, i am going to sit in the breeze and read a book i found on the shelf in karla's room. im expanding my spanish reading skills, so yall go ahead and take a guess. chapter one is "el niño que vivió."

walking on down 4 privet drive in harry potter numero uno.

wish me luck. i dont know many magic words in spanish.

love yall!