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Tarea

January 26, 2006 in Day2Day, Devotional, Language by Dave | Permalink

Tarea (f)

(Spanish) Work that needs to be done in a limited time (eg. homework)

Homework has been the key word for the past few weeks here in Costa Rica as we continue through our second trimester at CINCEL. And as you can see from the stack of books, there won’t be any let up in sight for a while.
This picture represents the books that we are using during our courses, and each comes with it’s own particular set of tarea. So in addition to the 4 hours of class time that we have each day, we have been working with at least that amount of homework. Add to that the time that we have to spend talking with people on the streets of San Jose, and that makes for a full day!

But this isn’t a post to complain, no it is much more to express our gratitude for the deadlines that God gives to us. I have found that we have a tendency to work better when there is a time frame set in place. So it is with Spanish study. There have been several times in our lives where we have wanted to involve ourselves in learning Spanish. The desire was real, but the deadline was never set. Now here in language school we have the motivation and, for sure, the deadlines. The wondrous thing is, with God’s help, those two elements have combined to result in some tremendous progress. Now for certain, we have far to go, but to be able to understand and to be understood in a foreign language is indeed a tremendous blessing. So the next time that God assigns you tarea don’t look at it as a time to cringe, but rather as a time to grow!

The Feria

January 18, 2006 in CostaRica, Culture, Day2Day by Dave | Permalink

Where can you get fruits and vegetables unbelievably cheap and fresh, feed the entire family breakfast for less than $9.00, and get a lession in culture at the same time? The supermarket? No, you need to go to the feria.

Each Saturday and Sunday in Plaza Viques in Central San Jose, and in Zapote, east of San Jose there are ferias, or open air markets, where you can take in the sights and the sounds of the everyday life of the Tico people.
There are farmers selling everything from ajo (garlic) to zanahorias (carrots), chanceros selling lottery tickets to the passersby, and artisans selling handmade jewelry. You can hear vendors yelling prices and people catching up on the latest news and opinions of day in the various stalls along the avenues. Among all of this is the smell of typical Costa Rican food like gallo pinto(beans and rice) and of course coffee! (Unfortunately the booth we stopped at only sold coffee with sugar.) All of the produce that is grown in the country can be bought at the feria.

We had the opportunity to drive to the feria this weekend with the kids and take much of what it had to offer. We came away with full stomachs, great strawberries, watermelon, and carrots, money left to spare, and a new perspective of life here in Costa Rica.

Taking the plunge into 2006!

January 8, 2006 in Coffee, CostaRica, Day2Day by Dave | Permalink

The New Year has begun with a bang, literally, here in San Jose. It all started with a get together in our house, where the language school students, as well as several of the resident missionaries rang in 2006 with some highly competitive games of UNO Attack and Cranium , as the kids stayed up to celebrate amidst the explosions of bottle rockets and firecrackers throughout the neighborhood.

Following a groggy first, I drove for the first time here in San Jose (good thing I had a license), practicing in order to get the new students arriving on the third to the grocery store to pick up their first round of necessities. Following a slight detour onto the autopista, we were able navigate successfully thorough the streets of Curridabat and Zapote, arriving at our house a little wiser, and perhaps older from the excitement.

The new students arrived on the third, full of excitement and wonder as they hit the tunnel leading from the airport and into the Costa Rican night. Memories rushed back of our first days here. It is hard to believe that it has been 4 months since we’d landed. Among the arriving students were Josh and April Amiot and Peter and Delia Breit, fellow missionaries to Mexico, and we got to pass along the favor that Missionaries Mark and Sandra Smith did for us as newbies here at CINCEL.
Some other items:

The trimester starts tomorrow with a welcome lunch. We begin classes on Tuesday morning.
Mike (my twin brother) was mistaken for me during the World Missions Summit you can read about his experience at his blog.
We tried for the second time to view the crater of the Volcano Poas, but we were unsuccessful as the clouds kept us from reaching the top. We did stop at the Tres Generaciones coffee plantation again, this time for the tour. We’ve added more pictures to our coffee collection for your viewing pleasure.
Kelly updated her blog with more about the kids and the goings on in the Godzwa household.

It’s about the fire!

December 28, 2005 in Coffee, Day2Day, Devotional by Dave | 1 comment

Christmas was different this year. Usually, we have our schedules full of family events, bouncing back and forth between Kelly’s family and my own in a dizzying array of dinners, shopping events, and get-togethers. This year, we’ve pretty much stayed put, and aside from sharing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner with our missionary family here in San Jose, we’ve been in our house catching up on some cleaning, snatching time to play games with the kids and of course playing with those cool presents that we got each other.

My present this year was yet another coffee maker. If you know me (Dave), you know that coffee has been a hobby for me, at times bordering on an obsession. I roast my own coffee as well as prepare it in a number of different ways in a number of different coffee makers. This latest coffee maker, a coffee syphon, or vacuum coffee pot, is something that I had owned before, but there is a distinct difference about this one.

This coffee syphon makes coffee like all others. You pace the coffee in the top of the maker, while the water goes into the bottom. As the water in the bottom is heated, it rises through the tube and into the upper portion of the maker where it is mixed with the ground coffee. Then after a few minutes of brewing, the heat source is removed and the brewed coffee is sucked back into the lower container, resulting in a perfect cup of ground free caffinated goodness. (You can use decaf as well.)

The difference in this pot is that the heat source is an alcohol burner, that’s denatured alcohol friends, and that is what makes it an extra special coffee gadget. There is just something about watching the flame lick the bottom of the pot that makes this method so intriguing.

Isn’t that the truth about fire in general? It has a certain mesmerizing quality about it, be it in a campfire, or a fireplace. It seems to cause us to just sit and watch for awhile.

So it is with those who have been touched by the flame of the Spirit of God (Acts 2:4). It seems that those who have really experienced the power of God in the way that the apostles did have a certain quality about them. A certain manner that causes others to take notice of them. It was true for Peter and John in the temple(Acts 3), for Paul in Lystra (Acts 14), and is true for us today.

So what should we seek for in the New Year? A better coffee maker? Perhaps, but ultimately, we should seek for the fire that will cause others to take notice, take notice not of who we are, but Who we represent.

What we did on our Christmas Vacation

December 22, 2005 in CostaRica, Day2Day, Media, Nature by Dave | 1 comment

Being the adventurous type, as most missionary families are, we decided to spend our Christmas vacation at one of the most active volcanoes in the world, Volcan Arenal. We drove for about four hours by van over less than perfect roads in order to reach our destination, and what greeted us was nothing less than majestic.

The volcano towers over the town of La Fortuna and dominates all of the surrounding landmarks. But there is much more to this volcano than meets the eye. During the day sounds that can only be described as roars emit from within the mountain as rocks the size of cars are spewed from the cone to tumble noisily down the active face. The nighttime, however, is when the show really begins as the volcano treats visitors to the sparsely populated and rugged west face to a light show that needs to be experienced in order to believe. The molten rocks, which look gray in the daylight, now glow a bright orange and leave trails like rivers of fire as they roll down to be extinguished hundreds of feet below the cone. It is a sight that forces you to appreciate the amazing creative power of God!

Of course, we did more than simply watch the mountain during our vacation. Take a look at our pictures of the trip here.

Tags: Arenal, Volcano

An Exciting Evening

December 12, 2005 in CostaRica, Culture, Day2Day, Media by Dave | Permalink

The 10th Annual Festival of the Lights was held in downtown San Jose this past Saturday. Knowing that this was an event that families travel from miles around in order to see, we felt it worth 15 minute trip to experience, and wow, what an experience!

By the time that we made it to our spot, about 15 minutes before the 6:00 start time, both sides of the street were packed. We had to pick our way through the crowd in order to find a spot to stand. Few were available but we were able to fall into line with some very gracious families. In, fact. One group gave Rebekah a front row seat while others helped us by giving us water and catching candy for Jonathan and Joseph. We had planned to sit with another missionary family, but we were unable to find them. The funny thing is that we found out later that we were probably only a matter of yards from them, but unable to reach them through the sea of people

The parade started promptly on time, around 6:45, and after one group filed by, it ground to a halt. It stayed that way for another half hour as a generator had to be replaced in one of the floats. After the repairs, the parade started rolling, and it was a sight to behold. I’ve added some pictures in order to convey the idea. Unfortunately, our camera doesn’t do the best in the dark. Still, click here or on the picture in this post to view the shots we were able to capture.

We made it back to our apartment around 9:30 exhausted, sore, and ready for bed, but certainly enriched by the experience that we had standing shoulder to shoulder sharing a moment with the culture to which God has called us!

Tags: Costa Rica, experience, families, parade, San Jose

Out with the old…

December 10, 2005 in Day2Day, Language by Dave | Permalink

As all of us approach a new year, we are looking forward to a new trimester of studies here at CINCEL. We celebrated graduation here on Friday, and said goodbye to twelve of our classmates, including Brian and Dena Norvell, missionaries to the state of Sinaloa Mexico, and Mark and Sandra Smith, missionary associates to the Mexican border. We are sad to see them go, but glad that they are now moving on to the work!
Kelly and I, meanwhile, received our marks for the current trimester on Friday. We have both advanced well, receiving high marks in our oral examination as well as in our classes. We have also noticed advancement as we go about our everyday activities. It is nice to be able to talk intelligibly with the people in street instead of playing charades! Thanks for your prayers on our behalf for this area of our ministry. They are working!

We are now able to rest for a bit before the new trimester begins in January. Actually, we’re looking forward to catching up on a few things that have been neglected since school began in September!

Words Cannot Describe…

December 3, 2005 in CostaRica, Culture, Day2Day by Dave | 2 comments

Words cannot describe the frenzy that I experienced as I attended what some would call the premiere Latin cultural event, a futbol (soccer) game. Some of the men from CINCEL hopped aboard the school bus in order to witness the championship game between Olimpia of Honduras and La Liga of Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Futbol in Latin America has no real equivalent in the US. There are baseball fans, there are football fans, but here they have fanatics! I had trouble getting a good shot, as it was nighttime, but the group of “fanaticos” in the picture were truly a sight to behold. Things got started as a flurry of fireworks erupted from the stands. Firecrackers, bottle rockets and sparklers exploded and flashed as the area was literally covered in a plume of smoke. Then the jumping began. The Ligistas jumped for 1 hour and 30 minutes singing and clapping their hands, only stopping to try to pick a fight with the contingent of Hondurans that attended the match. It mattered not that La Liga was putting on a subpar performance in front of them.

The game ended with Olimpia beating the Alajuelans 1-0, but because of a game with the opposite score in Honduras the week before, the series needed to be decided by penales, or penalty shots. As the final kick of the Ligistas entered the goal, sealing the victory, the staduim erupted into a deafening roar. With the game, the fans, the police in riot gear, and the smell of pepper spray in the air, it was truly a night to remember.

El Dia de La Accion de Gracias

November 24, 2005 in Culture, Day2Day, Media by Dave | 3 comments

There is no word for Thanksgiving in Spanish and no holiday either. So while most of the people in the US have the day off, for the people of San Jose, today was business as usual. The Gringos among them were celebrating though. We’re planning for a holiday complete with the turkey, the cranberries, the dressing, and, of course the running.

Here is a shot of field of the Inaugural San Jose Turkey Trot, 3.5 miler. We even had a total crowd of spectators of 5! Not a bad turnout if I say so myself.

There are more pictures of the run, along with shots of all of the festivities available by clicking here or on the picture to the right.

Teaching Missions on the Mission Field

November 13, 2005 in Day2Day, Media, Ministry by Dave | Permalink

God has called us to go “into all the world,” and if we are to fulfill his mandate, we are certainly going to need some help. How will we get it? Teach missions!

We were blessed to be a part of a missions outreach in the countryside north of San Jose last weekend. Here, we were able, through songs, skits and puppets to teach missions to the next generation of Costa Ricans. We believe that you are never to young or too old to respond to God’s call. Click here or the picture to view our album of the event.

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