Greetings from Maggie

First contact at last!
The trip has not been an easy one by any means, but it has been a blessing. The Cabecar women are very friendly, kind, and extermely appreciative. They are picking the skills up very well, and the communication barrier has not been bad at all. We get our point across by hand gestures and a lot of modeling. Some of the women sew VREY quickly, and straight!
The starts very early, as some of the other ladies have said. What they have left out is really a prayer request. You see, the Jones family has some roosters. They have broken internal alarms! They start crowing about 3am - if God can close the mouths of lions, surely with you all praying He can close their beaks!!
I am missing my family terribly. I love you all.
See you soon,
Maggie :)

Hola! from Costa Rica!! Wow! What an experience this is :) Last night after supper Phillip and Saukeen told us a little bit about themselves, how they met and what brought them to this ministry. What a wonderful blessing they are! After that us "girls" went back to our house and had our own devotional andshort of a wind-down time. That was a blessing to me - what awesome friendships we are forming. Our hope was to be in bed by 9ish. Our days start very early here :) After our own personal quiet-time with God, and another great breakfast we headed to the church to have a Bible study time withthe Cabecar women (studying the book of Ruth, which has been quite cool to me-most of the girls went on a hike yesterday afternoon and Maggie and I stayed behind and had our own little devotional time with both of us reading the book of Ruth) and then to get started with our sewing. Pretty comical - the Cabecar woman I am paired up with to "teach" (Zoila) was sewing circles around me :) Haha! Maggie and I stayed behind this afternoon to help finish up some sewing so we are ready to move on the the next step tomorrow and the rest of the group took another hike to one of the Cabecar woman's home (Maria). I'm looking forward to hearing all about it and see some of the great pictures I know they took.

I am missing my family (AND FRIENDS ) very, very much! And yes that also means the furry ones ;)
Love to you all!
Tammy

Feb 2, 2011

I just want to start out by saying how amazing the Jones family is. They are the family that we are staying with. (Phillip, Saukeen and their 4 children) On their property they have a home, guest home, church, school, and a Cabecar house in the making) This morning we woke up and all split up for an hour of prayer. We were encouraged to go and find an area that we could read or journal or pray. After that we all met for breakfast. Carmen, a Costa Rican missionary who is currently staying with the Jones' does most all of the cooking. the food needless to say was delicious. After that we went into the church and met with Cabecar women for a Bible study. Saukeen led the trilingual study (Cabecar, English, and Spanish). The love of the Holy Spirit present was beyond words. Each of the women shared a little about themselves and we prayed for each of them. Then the crafts began. We began step one to making our quilts. We have most of the prep work finished and tommorow we will begin sewng!

What an adventure God has given us...

Hola!! Wow what an adventure we are having. Our flights went smooth, except we left late in Detroit getting deiced. So, we were late getting into Charlette, NC and we ran to our flight and praying all our bags would make with us. Praise GOD they did.. The drive to the Jones' was quite the adventure ride. Driving in Coasta Rica is just crazey, but our driver was awesome. Then we reached the mountains what a beautiful sight and winding roads. Dirts roads, if love to mud bogg, you would have had a blast. Thankgodness, for my motion bands. Lots of bumps, potholes, water over roads, the singing bridges, and curves. I'm glad it was dark out. The drive from the airport was about 5 hours. When we arrived we had dinner and was ready for bedtime..
The alarm was set at the wrong time and went off Theresa got at 4 am and took a shower. Then I got up and took mine. I woke up Michelle and she said oh it is still dark it is not time to get up yet. Go back to bed for 2 more hours. Then the roaster started to crow.. what a pleasant sound!!! The day here has been beautiful and God has blessed thus far.. What an amazing time
we are having with the Jones and the Caebecar women.

To my family I love you and missing you..,
Thanks for Loving me oh so well,

Sharilynn

Greetings from Costa Rica!

Hello Mr. Spann and my wonderful students... I bet that as I write this you're all enjoying a wonderful snow day? We are having a great time in Costa Rica! Yesterday the Lord blessed us with some terrific travel - we managed to avoid the snow in Michigan, raced through the airport to catch our plane in North Carolina, and finally landed safely in Costa Rica. But that's only where the adventure begins!!! We had a 4+ hour van ride into the jungle and the road was bumpier than you could imagine. The roads were very narrow and I thought that at times we were going to tip right over the edge... our van drove over bumps and stones and tiny rivers of water until we finally made it to our jungle home.
This morning we woke to a beautiful view of many kinds of fruit trees - tangerines, papaya, and grapefruit. We started the day with a little "God-walk" (remember those 2nd and 3rd grade?) and I found a quiet spot on the hillside to look at God's creation and read from His word. For the rest of the morning we studied the book of Ruth with the Cabecar women and then began our quilting projects. I think that you would all love it here very much! I can't wait to share more about our adventures and thank you for praying for all of us.
God bless,
Mrs. Kreh (a.k.a. Julie)

Praise!

I Just wanted to tell you a praise: today I went out to lunch with my friend Julia and I was telling her about a little anxiety I was having. You see, 6 years ago I flew down to Costa Rica for the very first time. I was going there to learn Spanish after I graduated from college. The Spanish school I chose had a big brother/big sister program. This program was to help the incoming students find a place to live, show them where things were, and to pick them up from the airport. Well, when I arrived in January 2005 there was nobody at the airport. I was in a foreign country with no ride and no idea where to go. I didn't even know how to call my family back home for help. To add to my stress, I was toting two 70 pound suitcases.(I was moving there for half a year) Therefore, I couldn't move to far. Thankfully after standing around for 2 hours or so and being haggled by the taxi drivers one of them offered me his cell phone. I called the school and by the fifth try someone picked up. It was a Sunday afternoon and the school is closed but this someone had forgotten something and returned to the office. I believe the Lord intervened to help me. So eventually I got to where I needed to be and for my big sister, I can't be upset with her, her father died and she went back to the US to go to his funeral.

Since this time, I have flown many times into Costa Rica and every time I have a little anxiety that my ride won't be there. So, just after telling this story to my friend Julia, I received an email from the missionaries assuring me that my ride would be there. The Lord is FAITHFUL in His timing!

I cant believe the time is finally here!

I finally finished packing my suitcase! What a relief that was. We spend the afternoon at the church packing up all of our supplies....6 suitcases! It is so wonderful to see the generosity of people! I am really excited to use arts, crafts, and hair cutting as a way to minister to other women. I'm so thankful to be a part of such an awesome team of women! I pray to God for strength and wisdom for all of us on this mission! 31 hours until departure!