Can I borrow your mulch monkey?

Once again, the title of this post if a Corner Gas quote...you should watch it.

I forgot to mention this earlier...
This is officially the longest I have ever been out of the country

Saturday was quite a day. It was just like a saturday back home...and just how it should be. Eric mowed the hill part of the lawn and seemed to injure himself more than I have ever seen anybody injure themselves mowing the lawn. The Holland vs. Russia soccer game was on saturday afternoon so I showed my support by taking a nap on the couch in front of the TV. We went to Youth Group at Princepe de Paz last night which was nice. I saw a lot of the people I spent a week with last summer there.

Today I awoke promplty at 6:30am. Eric and I had to leave the house by 7:30 so I decided to get up early and head up to the Rancho to do some reading and praying and such. This was our free day so we decided to do a horseback ride, canopy (zipplining), cascades tour. It was really a blast. The resort was only about an hour away, up throught the mountains. We saw a tipped semi-truck on the way. We payed the toll of 50 cents and had no problems on the way there. I was the first one to mount a horse. The asked me if I had any previous horse riding experience and I said yes...though I failed to mention thats its been at least 8 years since I had been on a horse, OOPS! I also made the mistake of wearing boxers to go horseback riding. Wow... It was about a 45min ride up to the first zipline. Let me tell you, going from riding on a horse to wearing a harness...not the best combination but I digress.

The zipplining was very cool. This was the second time I had done this but enjoyable none the less. After the canopy tour they took us to this place called the cascades which was a place in the jungle with some water falls and a pool...very nice. We took a visit to the butterfly garden which was also near there. Instead of taking the horses back we took what they called "the jeep" It was really an ancient Toyota Land Cruzer that they had modified to accomodate a group. It was the most uncomfortable ride ever!...the horse was 10 times better. However on the way back we saw 2 weasles, a tiger snake and a few "Jesus Christ Lizzards" (named because of there ability to run across water). Eventually we got back to the main resort and they provided lunch for us. Then the journey back through the rainy mountains home.

I was exhausted when we got back so I showered and took a nap. Caroline made us Costa Rican style chicken fingers for dinner...which I didn't really get the difference but it wasn't worth asking, but they were good. Now I'm watching the Cubs eat up the White Soxs once again.
This trip has been wonderful since day one. I am so greatful that I have had the opportunity to come back, see old friends and live the life of a missionary for two weeks.
With all that said I am also excited to go home. I have three days of rest and then I'm off to Salt Lake City for a youth conference for a week and a half. I'm keeping as busy as I can...

-Chip

Thursday/Friday

I applogize for the lack of posting over the last few days...by the time I would have time to write I would be too tired which of course leads to lame posting. Yes...I am just coming up with excuses.

Thursday:
On the campus here there is a building for temporary housing for work teams and such. The first two times I came to Costa Rica I stayed in those houses (oh the memories). As I mentioned in an earlier post a group of highschool kids were coming thursday night. So I was put on prep duty which consisted of putting together the welcome bags, sweeping rooms, making beds...oh yeah, and testing the food in the welcome bags to make sure it was ok to eat ;-) Michelle Mcqueary and I were the people who made up the prep team and it was quite a fun couple of hours. Thursday afternoon was pretty relaxed. Eric and I had originally planned to go on my free day thursday but this that and the other all seemed to happen at the same time so it didn't work out. So that evening Eric and I headed to the mall just to get away from the campus for a little while. We found some tables outside of a Cinnabon (which almost seems more popular here than in the States) and studied a couple days in the Life of Christ.

I saw an interesting thing at the mall...relating to the lack of trust everywhere here in Costa Rica. We walked past an ATM machine and there were 3 men standing by it. One man was repairing the machine, another man was the security guys watching as people walked by and the third man had a video camera and was tapping the guy who was repairing the machine. Can you guess why he was video tapping the whole thing? It was so they couldn't be blammed for taking any money out of the machine...PROOF! This fascinated me. I thought it also provided for a good joke "How many Costa Rican men does it take to fix an ATM machine?" Well the answer is really just 1 but that 1 man won't do it without somebody video tapping him and somebody else watching the people. WOW. Ok...I digress.

There was a pizza place in the mall so Eric and I ordered some pizza for take out and headed for home. We were talking about movies while eating dinner and it came up that I had never seen the movie "V for Vendetta" So of course we watched it and I thought it was fabulous. And thus ends Thursday.

Friday:
About wednesday afternoon I started to feel a little crummy, cold symptoms. Thursday came the sneezing and headaches and Friday was the peak of crummyness. So I spent most of Friday morning laying in my bed with a shirt over my eyes. Thus I have survived on expired Advil and plenty of kleenex. However, today I am feeling as though the cold is coming to the end of it's course and I have become a stronger man (wow, must be the expired advil talking).
It has been great being able to wake up around 7:30, shower and dress and go off and find a quiet place here on campus. As I have been studying the life of Jesus I have begun to realize how important it was for Him to be able to go off by Himself and find a solitary place to pray. It is so easy to do that here, there are very few distractions. However, I know I can't just wait till I am here again to find that place...the challenge is on.

Friday afternoon we went to a mall by Princpe de Paz (the church I worked with last year) to meet Jonathan (who I stayed with last year). After Jonathon arrived we headed over to Marlons house to meet Jose Luis and David Obando. We played video games for a couple of hours and then headed to youth group. YG was interesting...they made me dance, I looked like a fool but I guess it was all in good fun.

Well, thats all for now.

-Chip

Tuesday/Wednesday

Mark Derosa just made his first error in left field in 29 games...
They are showing the Cubs on espn 2 down here, it is quite exciting.

Well the last few days have been full of activity. Monday had a little less activity given the fact I took two 45min naps... :-) Around 1pm Eric and I picked up Suzie (a member of the Team down here) to go look at buying a new car. I was informed that it is normal down here to go pick up a mechanic and bring them with you to look at the new car...so that’s what we did. We went to the local mechanic, picked up a guy named Jason and headed to the car dealership. The mechanic did all sorts of tests and checks to make sure the car was sound and worth purchasing. Monday night Eric and I met Sadrac and his friend at Pizza Hut for dinner and Discipleship. I couldn’t believe the number of birthday parties going on in that place. They played their annoying birthday song over the loud speaker while waiters sing and hit small instruments at least 4 times. I'm not complaining though because the pizza was fabulous.

Side story: I forgot to talk about my experience at the bank the other day. To start...there is a guy holding a shotgun by the front door who looks at you with a glare as your approach, then there is another security guy on the inside of the door who unlocks the door every time somebody comes. Then that same man has a metal detector wand and he wands you down. So once you are actually in the bank you are welcomed with 11 security cameras which are actually there more so they can watch the employees hands...lots of trust going on down here.

Anyways, on to today. Every Wednesday there is a thing called "Chicos" It's like a bible study for the youth leaders and team members here. I was glad to see my old friends Marlon, Jose Luis and David Obando. We had a few laughs remembering my trip here last summer. Chicos ended about noon and I headed down to the house for some lunch.

A fusion group of about 11 highschool students is coming tomorrow. Fusion is the general name of teams who come down, stay on campus for a day or so and then go to host family homes to work with a local youth group for the rest of the week. Jeff Mcqueary is another missionary down here who is in charge of the fusion groups. I went with him to buy a bunch of food and other things in preparation for there arrival tomorrow. We went to Price Mart (which would be equivalent to a Costco in the States) and Mas por Menos which is a grocery store. Jeff's driving is a little bit less "exciting" compared to Erics (which isn't really a bad thing). No offense Eric...

Now I'm home. We had a wonderful dinner of pulled pork, mashed potatoes and carrots. The Cubs are on ESPN so what more could I ask for.
It rained quite a bit today so tonight was even more beautiful than normal. The orange glow of the sun shining on the tips of the mountains will always fascinate me.

Well I hope all is well back home
Which I have realized what a privilege it is to have a place I call home, where people know and care about me, the place I grew up and have grown to love...
I love it here but there truly is no place like home...

Go Cubbies!
-Chip

Lunes "Now that is a valid inquiry"

So I have been told that my posts have numerous typos and such. Mind you I did pass English this year (Thank you Mr. Neff!) But I have decided that the rules of grammar do not always apply to blogging. Also, the internet is all in spanish here so the spell check in my blogging program says all my words are wrong! AHH! Ok, I digress.

Monday morning started promptley at 6am. Eric kindly told me the night before that he goes to a breakfast/biblestudy at 6:30am with the other guys living on the campus. So given I had a choice of whether to go or not, I guess I can't complain. We drove down to a little breakfast place in Heredia. It was a neat place. You get a big breakfast of pinto, eggs and bread. Now Eric asked me if I wanted cheese, and so I thought he meant cheese in my eggs which is normal. But no, they put this large recatagular slab of squeeky cheese on my plate. It was pretty nasty so I had about 1 bite and thats all I could handle. Normally I would eat the whole thing just to be polite but I couldn't! It was interesting being in a biblestudy with 5 dads. I was a little out of place but I did learn some good stuff.

After B-fast we headed up to the house and Eric and I studied 2 days in the life of Christ. I then headed up to the Casa Grande with Eric because their was a worker here grinding tile and stuff in the bathroom upstairs and it was quite LOUD. So I spent the remainder of the afternoon there, writing emails and such. About 4:30 we left to go to Michael and Andreas house to have dinner. Caroline made chicken noodle soup which I thought was fabulous but apparently Ticos didn't like it very much. Us gringo's had a laugh about that on the way home with Caroline saying, "That's what you get when you have the Gringa bring the food..." Maybe you had to be there...I digress.

If you are wondering as to the meaning of the title of this post, it doesn't have much meaning other than Lunes being monday in spanish. The quote comes from a canadian TV sitcom (which I meantioned in a previous post) Corner Gas. If you have never seen this show it is hilarious. Check it out.

So I will admit, I am very much looking forward to driving on roads that are flat and smooth and where people obey traffic laws. As much as I love the scenery here, the roads are a bit crazy most of the time.

Thats all I got for now.

Hasta Luego,
Chip

Saturday/Sunday

Dear Readers,

I would appologize for not posting yesterday but this blogging stuff is hard work! So I am not sorry...

Well not that I've got that off my chest, maybe you would all like to here what has "gone down" in the last two days. Saturday was quite the eventful day. I awoke around 7:30, showered (mistake #1) and then remebered that we were going to go play soccer with some of the guys from youth group. Now you see, God did not create me to play soccer. I was fully aware of this before I came to Costa Rica but my understanding of that fact has only become greater. We picked up Ariel on the way to the church (which has a decent sized field) and I was fast on my way to being humiliated. At first the game was 3 on 3 which meant I was very quickly out of breath for two reasons. 1: I am not in the best shape of my life, and 2: It was a rather large field on 3 on 3. I enjoy watching soccer but I just don't have the skill. I am too clumsy and uncoordinated with my feet...and I'm white...really white. Some other guys joined us to ease the running back and forth. So other than the fact that I stink, It was enjoyable.

We headed back home, showered, relaxed and then were back on the road for Ariels house. Caroline and Ariel have birthdays close together so we were going over there to celebrate and I was going to spend the night. We started with tea and sweet bread. As the evening went on, more and more people kept showing up. Anna Gabriel (who stayed with the Berges in 2004) and her family showed up. It was cool to reconnect with Ariel and some other people who I haven't seen in a long time. Dinner was excelent...meat, potatoes, rice, beans, fresh pineapple juice...sha'll I go on? Eric, Caroline and John left around 8:30-9 and the rest of us talked and watched soccer and such. It was overwhelming at times having up to 3 around me all speaking spanish. I only took 2 years of Spanish in highschool so it has been a year since I have really had to speak it. I know phrases like "where is the bathroom?" "nice to meet you" "talk slower" "I don't understand"...etc. Ariel's mother was upset that I have been to Costa Rica 4 times and still can't speak the language. I was delighted to find out that Ariels father spoke very good English. He is a receptionist at a hotel and has to speak English almost everyday. Needless to say we got along very well. I stayed in Ariels sisters room and she went and spent the night at her Grandmothers. Generally, the Costa Rican people are not very tall so the bed was rather short...not that I'm complaining or anything. *It turns out that the clock in my bedroom was about 3 hours fast. So on top of being in a very foreign place...I didn't have the right time...thats a story for another time.

Eric picked me up around 10:15 and we were headed to church. The services down here can last anywhere from 2 hours to 4 hours...it all depends on...well I'm not really sure. So we were about 45min late...Oh well! There also a lot of dancing in the churches down here and it being fathers day...guess who got to dance? Not me of course but Eric! They called all the fathers and their children to the front and played a song to dance to. If I only had my camera! It was hilarious but Eric has been complaining about is hamstring all day...claims it was one of the dance moves he had to do.

After church we stopped at a little "hole in the wall" chicken place and picked up a chicken for lunch. The power kept coming and going as we were eating. I decided to take a nap for the rest of the afternoon. I love naps. Before dinner Eric, John and I went over to talk with Woody and place with his HUGE dog. After dinner we watched Tiger Woods make a sweet put to tie with the guy in firstplace in the tournament.

Well thats a summary of the past two days! I will write again soon.

Be Safe, Be Courteous
-Chip

Day 2

So I have come to a conclusion about the traffic laws in Costa Rica.

1. Drive as fast as you feel comfortable
2. Fit Where you can
3. Pass where ever you wish
4. Stop signs are more like guidelines
5. Pot holes are there on purpose to add to the excitment

If you ask me, a car ride in Costa Rica is equivalent to a ride on Raging Bull at Great America. I have never been so greatful that we have highly enforced traffic laws in the US. The constant shifting, passing, avoiding pot holes, dogs, people, parked cars...well it gets tiring even as a passenger. I do not mean to sound as if I am complaining but more of "just saying it how it is."

Yesterday we spent most of the morning hanging around the house, Eric went up to the office to work on finances and I watched a few episodes of Corner Gas (a Canadian sitcom everybody should watch). Friday nights is youth group which is a bit of a drive from the house so Eric and I left early in the afternoon to be closer to the church and avoid rush hour. We went to a mall which has the nicest movie theatre in all of Costa Rica. It has 3 VIP theatres which means plush leather seats that recline and a waiter who brings you your popcorn or whatever you want. We decided to see "The Happening" by M. Night Shyamalan. I'm usually not one who enjoys the creepy scary jumpy type movies but I did enjoy this one. It was kinda weird but entertaining none the less.

We stayed at the mall after the movie and studied some more of the life of Jesus and then watched some soccer while eating dinner at Rosti Pollo (I love Rosti Pollo). One of the kids from youth group asked Eric if he could help him with his math before youth group so we headed over early to church. I was at Gran Visitacion de Dios one Sunday last summer so I recognized some of the students. Jose, the guy that Matt Haynes stayed with last summer was there. We enjoyed talking about guitars and making fun of Matt Haynes (all in good fun Matt). Youth group was fun. We played a game where the loser had to have strawberry jello rubbed in their hair. After youth group my Spanish speaking skills were put to the test. It was very sad but I tried my best.

We headed home after youth group. I was pretty tired so I went to bed pretty quick. Today we may go play soccer with some guys from the youth group and later this afternoon we will be going to Ariel's house (who stayed in my home about 2 years ago) and I will spend the night there.

Well, Im out again. Will update again soon.

-Chip

Costa Rica Day 1 (aka. the first day)

The alarm went off at decent time this morning..7:30. I took a warm shower (which is a total blessing compared to my last 3 trips down here). Every time I come down here I realize how much I take for granted back home.

Caroline made Eric, John and I some pancakes for breakfast and then Eric and I took a tour of the Multiplication Center. It so cool seeing how much has changed in this place since my first trip in 2004. I have so many memories here. We returned back to the house and Eric and I studied a day in the life of Christ. LaterI watched a Germany vs. Croatia soccer game. Croatia won 2-1 and apparently it was a big upset. After lunch, Eric headed up to the office to work on some finance stuff and Caroline, John and I started watching Ratatouille. After a while John and Caroline went over to the neighbors house and I decided I was going to do some reading...which very quickly turned into some sleeping...1 and a half hours of sleeping. When I awoke I did some reading. Gordy Williams gave me a book on basic theology a while back and I have slowly been taking in those pages.

I headed up to the office to see what exciting accounting stuff Eric was working on. Then I took a walk around the property again. Now I'm back home finishing Ratatouille with John. Caroline is preparing dinner and Eric should be back soon. It was a very relaxing day but I am enjoying every minute of it. Tomorrow night we have youth group and I am looking forward to seeing some people I met last summer.

Thats all folks,
Chip

Planes, planes and more planes

My day started at approximetly 3:50am when my alarm so kindly reminded me that it was time to get up. I showered, zipped up my suitcases and was ready to go...my dad and I departed on schedule and were on are way to the every so welcoming O'hare airport. Parking was a breeze, checking in was a breeze...of course these days there is very minimal human interaction at the airport with all these machines and such.

My dad and I said are goodbyes and I was off to the security line. I think I accidentally took a pair of my brothers jeans which are a bit big so after I removed my belt I had a little bit of trouble keeping my pants up while waiting in line...but I digress. I found my gate and then searched for food. Dunkin Doughnuts seemed like a good choice so I had a hearty breakfast of doughnuts and chocolate milk.

The first flight was painless. Left on schedule, arrived ahead of schedule (which would normally be nice but it just meant that my 3 hour layover was now longer) The Fort Lauderdale airport is nice. I found a seat by my gate and read a book for a while. After about an hour this kind lady decided to sit right by me and not leave me alone for about an hour and a half. The small talk was fine and all but sometimes you just want to sit and not talk to anybody...I digress.

About 10min before I was supposed to board the plane we get the announcement that the plane had not power. GREAT! That is the joy about traveling by yourself...you only have to wait for yourself and there is no point in complaining about the annoyances of airports because you have nobody to complain too. It is just a wonderful thing. So, we finally boarded the plane about 15min behind schedule. As we were taxiing out to the runway the pilot comes on the intercome and informs us that one of the engines has a problem and we need to go back to the gate...GREAT! But I knew that Costa Rica wasn't going anywhere and I had an iPod and a box of granola bars so I was content as can be. So only 45min to 1hour off schedule flight 2113 was off the ground and headed to San Jose. The only interesting part of that flight was the lady infront of me had fingernails that we so long she couldn't push the button to turn on the overhead light. :-)

So I arrived in Costa Rica and got on a shuttle from the plane to the terminal. I went through immigration without a problem, my bags came in a timely manner, customs was a piece of cake and before I knew it, I was out the door into a new world (or country if we're going to be technical and not figurative) Eric had a prime parking spot and we were headed for home, with a stop at the Rosti Pollo by the airport. After a wonderful dinner of "Arroz con Pollo" (one of my favorites) we were headed for home. *more on the exciting driving here later.

So I made it, I didn't lose my passport and my bags were in one piece. I would say it was a great day of travel and I am thankful for how easy it was. So now I am watching the cubs on ESPN 2 "En Vivo" with Eric. Caroline made us some hot tea and I am reminiscing about the days activities.

I couldn't be anymore excited about this trip. I will update this blog as much as I can. Thank you to all who are reading this an have supported me in my effort to be down here. I have no doubt that this is where God wants me to be right now and I am excited to see what He has instore for me while I am here.

In the words of my good friend Tigger
"TTFN!"
-Chip