Puerto Rico

I love Puerto Rico. I pretty much want to stay here forever....we'll see.

San Juan has this crazy cool culture that's completely spanglish. Most of the people I know are bilingual. This is super fun but my spanish suffers because I often am not forced to speak spanish.

I'm generally intimidated by puertorricans and definitely feel like an outsider/foreigner but I have made a lot of really cool puertorrican friends. My soccer team has been super fun. The girls accept me despite my weirdness. I have so much fun with them. We're the best team in the league for sure.

I love church. I seriously look forward to it every week. It's always so encouraging and challenging and I love being with our community. We are small but it doesn't even phase me. I love church.

I have several close friends now which is a huge answer to prayer. Every week people come over and watch Glee on Tuesdays. We usually spend the first hour or so listening to our current favorite songs while dancing and singing our hearts out. It's a blast. Sometimes I make grilled cheese.

I love my family here. The babies are so cute and sweet and my affection for them grows daily. I'm learning so much and always having fun with R and A. Doing life with them is awesome but challenging because I'm generally more selfish than living with 6 people allows for. I'm growing though.

The youngest and I listen to the LOVE Song often and I wanted her to sing it for the camera but that didn't happen. This is two minutes of us just hanging out and her not singing the song.

PP (Peggy Poppins)

A few events from today:

1- A child handed me some poop.

2- I texted and chatted on the phone with my new friend IN SPANISH!

3- Connected with a minister from a town near us and hope to visit their church this summer.

I'm toying around with the idea of changing my name to Peggy Poppins in honor of the most famous nanny ever, Mary Poppins(seen right). You can call me PP for short.

First few days of the DR

Currently I'm sitting in an air conditioned restaurant enjoying some sweet tea and quiet. This is quite the contrast from my 11 days in the heat of the Dominican Republic. There was no air conditioning and no quiet while in a poor community giving out free eye exams and glasses, doing health clinics, playing with children and installing a water purifier.

My first two days were spent being the organizer/bouncer of the vision clinic in a community called Heina Abajo. I had a chance to speak a lot of spanish while in the DR but during these times my comprehension was at an all time low. I must admit that at times my frustration got the best of me. Later in day two I realized that no one could understand me if I spoke english so when anger began to rise I would just "express myself" in english. Many of the older women were very sympathetic to my stress and when I began "expressing myself" they would pray for me. No joke, they would just start praying in spanish. It was an interesting contrast.

Day three I got dehydrated and barfed. That's pretty much all I did. But I saw some beautiful qualtities of care that the Dominican people have. My helpers from the past two days, sat with me, held back my hair and took care of me. There were several others that cared for me by giving me water, gatorade or offering to take me to the hospital. I hardly knew these people and they truly cared for me(despite my grossness).

I'm going to split up the trip into a few posts. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!

Home Sweet Home

I was met at the airport by my three bffs. What a wonderful homecoming(they had a sign with an indian on it that said, "Welcome to our country"). My first two weeks in the states were crazy. I held a few meetings for BCM and met with everyone on our leadership team for next year. Every one has a great vision and I'm super pumped about what we are going to try to do. I honestly didn't have time to miss Costa Rica because I was so busy. I also made it up to Grand Rapids to visit some friends.

I also got to check out Club 3:16 which is a kids ministry for hispanic immigrants in Lexington that we started. It was really nice to speak spanish again with a couple of the moms. We do tutoring at the local library and go on saturdays for a bible club. I'm looking forward to picking that back up in the fall.

Now I am in Alabama with my family finally! I am so happy to be with them after so long. I am going on a road trip to Texas with my dad next week to visit friends, BCMs and seminaries.

I'm pretty focused on this passage currently, Colossians 1:21-23 (gospel...woop!)

Holy Crap, I'm going home tomorrow.

Last night in CR. Spent the day at the beach. Slept at least two hours in a hammock.

I didn't attain any of my goals for the last two weeks and I haven't packed yet.

I can't possibly explain what I've learned since I arrived. I would love to sit down and take about 5 hours to get to that with anyone willing(Mama here I come). So I'll just settle with this...

Top 5 Best things about CR:

5-Gallo Pinto: You may think it's just beans and rice but it's more. I don't know what they do to it but I could eat it everyday for breakfast, lunch dinner. Add some pure Costa Rican coffee, huevos y tocineta and I'm in heaven.

4-Pineapples and Palm Trees: Yes, my stomach cries out in pain when I eat pineapples but I can't help but have my little serving from the fruit stand for less than 50 cents. And honestly I don't really like coconut but busting one open from the tree on the beach and drinking from it in Panama was pretty cool.

3-People who don't speak English: Making oneself speak spanish to a person that could actually understand me fully(if I just spoke english) is an impossible task. I love meeting people in town and just striking up conversation. I've found that the best way to corner them is sit in the aisle seat on the bus and turn completely toward them. This way, their only other option is jumping out the window.

2-Pura Vida and Tranquilo:These words describe what I want to be...chill, just living. This is the tico lifestyle and I love it. It was said at graduation that I am intimate friends with the Tica hora. Which means I'm always late and it's all good.

1-Presbyterians(presbos): This may seem arbitrary, and it pretty much is. The Garcia's, Abby, the Jones and Millers. These people made my life. They loved me. They taught me about grace. It was amazing.

La conocì en el bus

Last Wednesday I saw Slumdog Millionare (amazing) and then had to catch a bus to downtown San Jose to meet Julia for coffee. I met a girl that helped me get on the right bus and ended up talking with her a while on the bus. I ended up inviting her to coffee and she spent the evening with Julia and I. It was really cool and she and I are going to get together to practice language together. She's from Nicaragua.

This weekend I went to Playa del Coco and went scuba diving. It was really scary, especially Saturday because there was little visibility but Sunday was really cool. I saw tons of cool fish, some sting and mantarays and go stung on the face by a jellyfish. Friday night was the best though because I met a group from Denmark and played soccer with them for an hour or so. Me encanta futbol.

Here's a cool pic of an island we saw. Looks like a monkey!

Mi Casa Es Su Casa

Yep, it happened. Someone actually said to me, "Mi casa es su casa." I feel like I really can't top that experience.