Christmas with Family

me and dad

For Christmas, I had the luxury of spending two mainly sunny weeks with my parents and several days with my brother Dan and his girlfriend Rochelle. It was a time for new adventures, and we also continued some ministry activities leading up to Christmas Day. These pictures (mainly taken by my mom) provide some of the highlights!

I watched this poor baby howler monkey fall from a tree onto the paved road, where it lay motionless. Because it was about to get hit by a car, I went over and moved it to the base of the tree, where the adults could rescue it. The adult monkeys really made some noise when they saw me picking up their baby! We decided to drive away so as to not interfere with the process. When we returned a couple hours later the baby and the troop were gone, so hopefully it recovered all right.

On the Pacific side, where my brother lives at Playa Hermosa, we got to practice "towing in" to some solid head-high waves, with the assistance of a friend's Ski-doo. Man, the speed you get going into the waves is incredible!! I would definitely do this again, if given the chance.

Franz Vasquez is a local artist, and for Christmas we visited his little house studio and picked up two original acrylics at a reasonable price. He likes to paint colorful Caribbean scenes with in a simple, idyllic style. Thanks for the painting, Dan!

checking the surf with my brother at a little-known spot south of Puerto Viejo called "Dedos" (fingers)

Early one morning we saw the receptionist at my parents' hotel arriving for work on her bike. Her first words to us that day were: "The ocean is big. Salsa is breaking." Indeed the surf break known as Salsa Brava ("Angry Sauce" in English) was breaking, and Dan and I caught some really fun and slightly scary waves that day. Scary because the wave breaks with Hawaiian-style power over a shallow coral reef.

The majority of the residents in the region I live in are known as "Bri Bri" people. This indigenous people group lives mainly away from the coast, and many make a living working in the banana fields, although some follow a very traditional way of life in the forest, using their extensive knowledge of plants to survive. Feeling adventurous, my parents and I negotiated a ride on a dugout canoe without knowing where exactly we were going. We ended up seeing things that are far off the beaten tourist path: a pig being ferried downriver to market in one canoe, stacks of bananas being tossed from another canoe into the back of a truck...

Here I am about the help push an overloaded truck of bananas out of the mud. These bananas were headed for Germany. I bet the Germans eating these bananas have no idea what the bananas went through to get to their grocery store!

There was no store or restaurant where we ended up, but girl in the red shirt was kind enough to knock down a few oranges for me and my parents as a refreshing snack. She was shy around us.
"Come here little pig..."

Here's what house church looked like for our Christmas party. After a nice pork roast meal, we watched "The Nativity" together. Great movie!

20 mins. drive south of Puerto Viejo is the small town of Manzanillo. It has some of the nicest beaches in Costa Rica, and that's saying a lot! Plus there's a good surf break where the jungle hits the reef. You can sometimes hear monkeys howling while you're surfing here.

Puerto Viejo has a nice botanical garden called "Finca La Isla." If you look carefully, you will see a red poison dart frog on the vine under my mom's neck.

My parents helped me throw a Friday night cook-out for the youth. Sebas (far left) prayed over our meal.

I moved! And yes, the railings are pink! I call it the Barbie house. My parents found a small house for rent in town. The rent is a little higher, but has more space and will hopefully be safer. One good thing is that all the windows have metal bars on them, and there is a tall fence around the yard...my own yard..yay! Can't wait to plant a plumeria.

Inside there are three rooms, plus a closet. There is one bedroom, one living room (which could be converted into a second bedroom), and a kitchen/dining room.

This is the bedroom, of course. It's small but that's fine with me!

I have this nice patio area. You can see the garage door to the left.

This is the view from the front gate looking toward the water. The ocean is barely visible at the end of the road. Check out the cool Caribbean-style houses on my street!

Living in town is going to be great for ministry: I'm a little closer to the skate park/house church facility, but mainly I will be right in the middle of where most of the youth live, so there will be a lot of opportunity for informal activities with them. Lord willing, I would love to start a Bible study at the house eventually. Plus there's a garage where I can do ding repair or even surfboard shaping as a bridge to the youth. Most of the youth here love surfing.

My main prayer request right now is for God's wisdom as Barrett, Amy and I make our personal and ministry plans for 2009. Also that my Spanish would improve. Although I can communicate fairly well in some ways, I'm definitely not at the level where it's easy to have deep conversations with people, so it's hard to be effective in evangelism and discipleship.