I'm Dreaming of a Wet Christmas

It is 9:42 am, Christmas Day 2007, and I am sitting on our sofa in our house in San Jose, Costa Rica. There is Christmas music playing on the stereo. Our two girls are playing with the presents they opened EARLY this morning. Today is our first Christmas spent outside of the United States.

Although December is technically in the "Drier Season" here in Costa Rica, it is heavily raining right now. There have been very few rainy days in December thus far, mostly just some sprinkles here and there that didn't last very long.

Earlier this morning I was gazing out of our living room window at the plants in our small back yard, wondering if they had been getting enough water during these drier months. God decided to bring out his watering can and give them a drink. We have a small new gardenia plant in our backyard next to the large cactus tree. We are patiently waiting for the sweet white blooms to appear so we can enjoy the lovely fragrance. I was never a big fan of gardenia-scented items when we lived in Kansas City. Keeley used to make candles, and gardenia was a pretty big seller for her, but I never cared for it much. One day at our Language School here we were walking down the main sidewalk that leads to our class rooms when we were captured by the scent of something wonderful. Planted next to the sidewalk is a large gardenia plant with many flowers. It has become part of our morning routine to "stop and smell the flowers" on our way to our classes.

This Christmas is very different than what we are used to. But as I stop to reflect on where we are and what God is doing in our lives, there are so many sweet blossoms to smell and enjoy.

Thanks God for giving us your only Son. Thanks God for giving us so
much to be thankful for. Thanks God for giving us fragrant blessings to
stop and enjoy.

What fragrant blessings has God placed in your life today? Are you slowing down long enough to enjoy them deeply?

Merry Christmas!

God's Hand Upon Us

I am not much of a shopper. Surely this does not come as much of a surprise since I am a man, and most men are not shoppers by nature. So while I enjoy celebrating Christmas with family and friends, I do not enjoy the craziness this time of year brings to any store bearing the description of "retail".

Here in Costa Rica, I have not been able to escape this end-of-the-year phenomenon that causes me to be extremely fond of online shopping.

This past Saturday Keeley and I and some other friends of ours from the Language Institute traveled down town (by public bus) to the Avenida Central to do some Christmas shopping. This part of San Jose is an enjoyable place to visit. There is an approximately 10 block stretch of Central Avenue that has been converted to a walking mall, so you don't have to be distracted with being run over. (Pedestrians here have the right........the right to be run over). It was extra crowded with Christmas shoppers.

So we were picking up some gifts here and there, enjoying our time downtown, when we ran into some close friends of ours from our church. We stopped and talked for a little while and I introduced them to the other students that were with us. While we were talking, my Tico friend (who has a lot of street smarts) interrupts and says, "There are three guys standing behind you all that are waiting to rob you, I recognize one of them". He then tells us to all turn around and stare at them.

All eleven of us proceed to turn around and stare at these three men who were suspiciously standing behind us. They weren't going around us, and they weren't looking at a store, they were waiting for an opportunity. Needless to say, they were the ones that looked uncomfortable when we demonstrated clearly that we knew they were there and we knew what their intentions were. After staring at them for a long time (I'm sure it was every bit of 30 seconds...), my friend instructed us to keep walking down the avenue while he waited there to make sure they would not follow us.

Down the avenue we went, stopping to look behind us every so often. No one followed us, and we concluded our visit to downtown without incident.

Yesterday at church I was able to find out the rest of the story from my friend. He said that after we started walking again, the three men began to walk after us. He stood in their way and told them they would have to deal with him first. At that point they quickly left in another direction.

While reading this morning in the book of Ezra, I came upon this verse that reminded me clearly of how God's hand was upon us.

Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go unto Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way.
Ezra 8:31

Was it coincidence that we ran into our friends downtown at just that moment of time? Definitely it was not coincidence. It was the hand of our God upon us.

Could God have allowed us to have been robbed and then used that event in our life to draw us closer to Him? Yes, that could have happened too. But I was reminded of how closely God interacts with every detail of our life, big and small. What an awesome God we serve.

The hand of God is upon His children, most of the time we are not intentional enough about seeing it. How do you see the hand of God upon you?

Does a high dollar turkey taste better?

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We did.

This was our first American holiday not shared by those in our new home here in Costa Rica. We decided to celebrate with a traditional meal shared by 14 other people in our home.

Since you can hardly have a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal without a turkey, we searched for one of the fabulous flavorful fowls. There are several stores here that cater to the large gringo population in Costa Rica, and they stock frozen whole turkeys for this special day. For a price that is.

I must confess, it has been a while since I "personally" purchased a turkey from a grocery store in the states, so I can't tell you exactly what a turkey normally costs these days at a typical supermarket in Missouri. But I am quite confident they are much more afordable then the gobblers available here. 32 big ones. No, not 32 thousand. Well, in Colones (Costa Rican currency) it was 16,000, but in US dollars it ran us $32.00 for the medium sized bird.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I am glad there are turkeys available at all. It was a wonderful treat. Keeley cooked it up wonderfully, moist and juicy. Along with the other usual suspects you find accompanying the turkey, we enjoyed a great meal and great fellowship with some new friends from our Language School, and some new friends from our church here.

To top it all off, our cable company here provides NBC, ABC, and CBS. So we were able to enjoy the traditional American Football games too.

Swimming with the Fishes

My wife Keeley and oldest daughter Avigail had some excitement yesterday. They were having a Mom's Group activity at one of the prettiest parks in Kansas City, Loose Park. There is a nice lake complete with ducks and turtles, my girls love it. Yesterday Avigail got a little too close to the edge of the lake, lost her balance, and fell in to some water about 4 1/2 feet deep. Since she is not yet 4 feet tall this presents some obvious problems other than just getting wet.

Fortunately, Keeley was right there and heard the splash. Unable to reach her from the side, Keeley jumped in and got her. Although wet, cold, and smelly, everyone was fine (Keeley's cell phone is another story....).

After the incident and all the way home, my daughter repeatedly thanked Keeley for saving her life and told her that she loved her. Keeley and I were discussing the incident last night and she brought up how as Christians we are so grateful for Jesus saving our lives at the time we receive Christ, but then as time passes we stop telling him how thankful we are. The trauma of falling into the lake and then being rescued by mom will fade into my daughters memory. She will stop thanking Keeley for saving her life. That's just how it works. This is human nature isn't it?

When it comes to God pulling me out of the lake of my sin and its consequences, I don't ever want to stop telling Him, "Thank you Father".

(This picture is the lake at Loose Park, I don't know who this lady is.)

Father Daughter Dance with Avigail

On February 11th, our church put on a Father Daughter Dance called Puttin on the Ritz. It was held at a hotel near Royal's stadium. We had a great time. For months ahead of time Avigail was so excited to go to "The Ball" like Cinderella.

We danced to every song on a very crowded dance floor.

It was a huge blessing to be able to spend that time with Avigail (she just turned 4 on the 22nd of February). I am going to make something like this a yearly event.