Arrive on time...

Hello again. It has been quite awhile since our last post so we will try to update as best as possible. Praise God things have been going well. Justin and I have been pretty busy lately...yesterday (Tuesday) we gave an English class at the church in Palmares before the discipleship classes. So many people here want to learn English and everyone is always asking us to teach them English so I believe we are going to start doing that class each week. We started with the basics: the alphabet, pronunciation, and general salutations. It was a lot of fun and I believe the 'students' really enjoyed it. After the English class, Justin and I taught the discipleship class for the children and youth. This week we had more kids than youth, and we were both amazed at how well they listened...it was interesting- we were talking about the story of the Ethiopian eunich and Philip, and it just so happened that a kid named Felipe (Philip) was there...he payed attention really well.

The church started on Sunday a campaign called "50 days of love". During this time the pastor is preaching and emphasizing the importance of love in our lives and walk. One cool thing that is going to be happening during this time is that different members of the church are going to be opening up their homes for cell groups to meet in different areas of the city during the campaign. I am thinking that is going to be pretty exciting.

Justin and I were also able to get out of Alajuela last week and visit some friends in Cartago for a day or so. One of my good friends, Spencer Young, has a cousin who lives in Cartago, and we were able to take a bus there to visit him and his wife's family. They were a super-hospitable family who took us around Cartago (Cartago used to be the capital of Costa Rica). It was a good time. One of the highlights was getting to visit an orphanage where this couple has taken in 35 children. Most of the kids have come from difficult pasts, so it was cool just to go and play with these kids and love on them. Below is a picture of some of the 35 kids and also a picture of our friends in Cartago.

Another comical event that happened last week was when a family from the church in Palmares invited Justin and me to come eat at their home, along with Dimas and Enny. The family is from Colombia, and had planned a traditional Colombian meal for us. We were supposed to arrive at their home at 12:00 to eat, but due to the fact that we are in Costa Rica and life doesn't happen on time, we arrived at their home at 1:45 (Actually one of Dimas' brothers-in-law came to visit, who lives in another state, so we couldn't really just leave right when he got here). Upon arrival, the lady started kind of going crazy and talking about how she had been trying to call us and how she thought we weren't coming. And since she couldn't get ahold of us by phone, she invited the neighbors over to eat the meal!!! So we apologized and waited while she made some more rice and beans and this awesome salad. Even though we missed out on the meat, it was still a great meal.

Please pray for Justin and me as we are down here. Please pray for the youth from the different churches, as we work the most with them. Thanks!