Big Problems

Posted by Wes on September 27th, 2008 @ 12:06 pm under The Newest News, Website stuff

If you’ve tried to stop by our website over the last couple of days you’ve likely either seen some kind of error message or the site has been broken or shown the completely wrong stuff.

Well… it seems that some bad people did bad things to our site.  For one, they were sending spam out from our site and because of that it had to be shut down while we tried to get it fixed.  Well, in all of that, our blog has gotten broken.  Right now we’re missing a bunch of stuff… everything since May 18th.

I’m working on it… hopefully we’ll be able to get everything back… or at least most of it back.  If you are subscribed to our feed, I have no idea what you might be getting over the next few days… have patience.

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Happy 4th of July From Our House

Posted by Wes on September 15th, 2008 @ 6:53 pm under Costa Rica, Mission South America

That’s right. Today is the 4th of July. Well, at least it is in Costa Rica. Today is the day that Costa Rica celebrates its independence from Spain. Everything has been covered in red, white and blue, there have been parades and parties and all sorts of festivities. So, happy independence Costa Rica.

What better way to celebrate Costa Rica’s independence than by meeting our house. So, without further adieu, Internet meet our House, House meet the people of the internet.

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This is our lovely home here in San Jose. As you can see, we’ve got a little garage that we keep our stroller in downstairs, then walk up the stairs to the front porch. We’ve got 3 bedrooms and a really nice backyard… more on that stuff later.

This is our view down the street both ways from our house.

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Notice that in Costa Rica (and this will be the same in Perú) the houses are all independent buildings but there is absolutely no space between them. Also, for the most part, yards are pretty nonexistent… our house is an exception to the norm since we have a nice backyard.

I have no idea what the name of our street is, if it even has one. This is one of the quirkiest (and at times annoying) things about Costa Rica. None of the buildings in this crazy place have addresses! Seriously. What were they thinking? I have no real address, and neither does anybody else. So how do people find other peoples houses? Well, often they don’t. But, when I do have to give somebody my “address” like the cable company, this is the official version of how it goes (translated to English)…

City of San Jose, District of San Francisco de Dos Rios, La Pacifica neighborhood, from the San Francisco Pharmacy, go 500 meters East and 25 meters North, the Papaya colored house on the left.

Doesn’t this seem confusing? That’s because it is. When our housekeeper was coming here for the first time, she walked around for about an hour before she finally found it… and the cable guy, he was 3 hours late. Oh, wait, that’s just what cable guys do. Oh, yeah, didn’t I tell you? We got a maid. But, that’s another post for another day.

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Visiting El Doctor

Posted by Wes on September 10th, 2008 @ 9:07 pm under Costa Rica, Everything Derek, Everything Jakob, Life and Culture, Parenting

One of the really nice things about the Spanish Language Institute here in Costa Rica is the many connections that the school has. For one, there is an “American” doctor here, Dr. Longworth that comes to the school twice a week to see students and goes out of his way to help us poor, lost, gringo souls when our kids get the goo and such. I put “American” in quotes because Dr. Longworth was a missionary kid right here in San Jose and was, in fact, born in the the Clinica Biblica where his office is now. He’s lived here in San Jose for most of his life and is, I think, about as much Tico as he is American.

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Anyways, with two little guys like ours, Dr. visits aren’t exactly rare. Derek just passed the 2 month mark. Along with that milestone, as all moms know and dread, comes a series of vaccinations. So, we set up an appointment with the Doc for a routine 2 month well check. They do all the normal stuff… look in his ears and his nose and pull on his legs and poke in his stomach. Now, it’s easy enough to see that Derek has been packing on the pounds for some time now. Sure enough, the doctor only proved this to be true.

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Derek is right at 61 cm long and 14 lbs. Both his height and his weight are at about the 95th percentile mark. So, yes, he’s big and he’s fat and we like him that way.

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In addition to the routine baby stuff, since getting here, Jake has had pretty much had some varying degree of sickliness the whole time.

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First, just after we got here, he came down with a nasty cold and just about completely lost his voice and was kept up at night by a pretty mean cough and sore throat. Got over that pretty quick but was stuck with a nagging runny nose. Then, just last Saturday, we were on our way home from the store in a taxi (in the rain as usual) when Jake yacked all over the place. So bad that we had to pull over, pull the poor kid out onto the side of some San Jose street and strip him down to his diaper. We used about half a box of wipes to “clean” the taxi seat… but, what can you do? We told the driver we were sorry and tipped him 400 Colones… about $.80. He was sick all afternoon, emptying his gut about every half an hour for the next 4 hours or so. I made a mad dash the El Jumbo, a local grocery store in search of Gatorade, Crackers and some Chicken Noodle soup.

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He chugged down the Gatorade and crackers and by that evening was already feeling better. I guess that macaroni and cheese just didn’t agree with him. Now, he’s got a pretty brutal rattling cough that’s keeping him up at night. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Well, Dr. Longworth prescribed some antibiotics and some cough medicine. So, he’s sleeping better and will hopefully be well soon enough.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks… we sure are thankful for good health care here to take care of our two amazing little boys.

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When There Are More Questions Than Answers

Posted by Wes on September 6th, 2008 @ 1:44 pm under Costa Rica, Life and Culture, Uncategorized, Upcoming Events

It’s amazing the power that only a few words, when strung together, can have on a persons heart. Sometimes these kind of impactful words can bring the greatest sense of fulfillment and joy a man can know. And then, there are others. Words that should never be strung together. Words that make you feel like your heart is falling out of your chest.

“The baby is gone.”

Right now our team is going through a difficult time. The Fletchers found out two days ago, with Stephanie almost 18 weeks into her pregnancy, that they have lost their baby. Any time things like this happen, it’s a time of heartbreak and difficult questions that don’t have answers and doubt and anger and I can only imagine all of the emotions. But, for them now, in another country and far away from family, tacked onto the end of a long line of challenges in the past year, it’s a particularly difficult time.

Please be praying fervently for the Fletcher family. You can find out more details on their blog. Just click here.

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