Welcome Home Harvey

Hey everyone. First of all, Aaron and I would like to apologize to the friends, family, and girlfriend for not updating the blog lately. The past few weeks have been pretty busy for us with coming and going to and from the U.S., a bike wreck, fishing trip, bible studies, Church services, English classes, etc.

I (Justin) went home for 10 days (8th-18th) to join my dad in a beautiful rut week to hunt Deer. I stayed at the cabin pretty much the whole week. Lindsey Mills, Ben Hobbs, Matt Attaway and Maggie were able to come over and spend some time with me and dad as well. Dad was the only one to kill anything the whole week. He killed about a 100 lb doe. I saw a good many deer including 2 8-pt bucks fighting over a doe about 60 yards from my stand. Neither one was a trophy buck, so i let them walk for hopefully another year. I also got to spend some time with the whole Mills side of the family on Sunday night at the cabin eating, playing cards, and of course breaking out a game of Scrabble, in which I unofficially won. (here is a picture of the plane breaking the clouds and finding the sun. This was on the way to Orlando from Atlanta)

About halfway through my trip I got a call from Aaron on Skype, and we got to catch up a little on what had been going on in Costa. We got a friend named Dauber to take my room for the week so that Aaron wouldn't have to stay by himself. Aaron informed me that he had a bike spill coming back from paying a bill in town. Aaron was coming down a hill that is really steep and always has water on it from a leak in the road, and a car was coming his way. Well he braked, and his tires slipped out from under him, in which he hit the pavement and the bike slid up against the oncoming car. To make a long story short, he ended up with 6 stitches in his chin, some rough scrapes on his arms and a 100$ charge for a new paint job on the car he hit. All this being said, he feels very fortunate to only have that happen to him. It was a very dangerous wipeout and could have been a lot worse. Thank the Lord it wasn't. (He gets his stitches out today)

During the week, Aaron was also able to enjoy a fishing trip to Playa del Coco (Coco Beach) with Dimas, Cesar, Gualberto, Henry, and Rony. He says that the water was incredibly beautiful, and that he had a lot of fun. One pretty funny story from the trip is that while they were fishing, Dimas threw out his line with sardine bait, and as soon as it hit the water a Pelican scooped it up, and Dimas had to cut the line. This happened twice. The second time it happened 2 Pelicans were fighting over the sardine, one swallowed it while the other got tangled up in the fishing line. First time I've ever heard of someone catching a Pelican, much less 3, on a fishing trip.

I returned to Costa on Wednesday the 18th. Thursday we had our routine Cell Group, which has basically just turned into a regular bible study now. One of our youth members brought the Word. His name is Ariel, and you may remember him from the river excursion that we went on earlier in the year. He did a great job, and it was really good to see one of the members of the youth step up and do what he did. Not only that, but 18 or 19 show up to the bible study which is more than we have ever had. Afterwards we celebrated Catherine's birthday with Costa Rican ice cream and pound cake. If you would, continue to pray for this youth group and our leadership.

Church Sunday was great. The music was better than I think I've ever heard it, and Dimas' sermon was quite eye-opening as well.
After the service, a lot of the church members, mainly youth, went out to this open field, made 3 teams of 7 players, and played some soccer. This kind of stuff really allows me and Aaron to get to know everyone a little bit more.

The dog that lives with Dimas and Enny had puppies about 4 weeks ago. Aaron and I are going to take one to keep here at the house with us. We have named him Harvey, (from Last Chance Harvey) and we are really excited about having a bilingual dog.

We don't have too long until we both go home for Christmas. Aaron is going to try and go home on the 8th to visit a Seminary school that he hopes to attend in the future for about 3 days in Chicago. Then he'll be at home in Tifton around the 11th. I am going to wait on the Mission Group from the Voice of Truth (my dad's church), which is coming on the 12th, and we are going to have our 6th or 7th Bible school with the kids here in Alajuela. We are also going to build a "youth room" so that the youth will have their own separate place to hang out and have bible studies. I think my dad is bringing 26 or so people, which will be the most that we have ever had. The dates for this trip is the 12th-19th, and then we will be going back home for the holidays.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers; the youth group here, the mission group that is coming, mine and Aaron's ministry, and so much more...