ESL

(My Friend Amanda teaching ESL)

Oh the irony of my life. Growing up English was my least favorite subject. I hated grammar, I hated the busy work, I hated having to figure out what was a noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc. And now, I am teaching it. I have volunteered once a week to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) at a local ministry directed by LAM (Latin America Mission) called the AMCA house. We meet on Wednesday afternoons and my friend Amanda and I are in charge of the poco mas de precipiantes (advanced beginners). Today was my first attempt and I must say it didn't go badly at all- thanks mostly to Amanda who has actually spent time teaching English before she came.

We had a group of about 7, which was a nice size. We reviewed some more simple English to get a sense of what they knew and didn't know- numbers, alphabet, action verbs, greetings, colors etc. We sang the alphabet song, played a number game, and basically eye-spy. The afternoon consists of 2 50 min. periods with a coffee break/large group time/devotional minutes in between. It worked really well. It's good to get more interaction with Ticos here in the area and be able to offer them a specific skill (learning English) while having opportunities to get to know them and share the Lord with them. Super exciting!

Hurricane Weigner Sweeps the East Coast

(Fun with our ECHO friends, trying not to catch Heidi's germs)

We just returned from a whirlwind tour of the East Coast this Wednesday. It all started last week when left Costa Rica late Thursday evening for Miami. Long before we left for the airport, our dads (Jim & Gerry) began the longest airport run in history. They drove from New York to meet us at the Miami Airport (the reason for this insanity to follow). We arrived in Miami at midnight and then proceeded to drive 3 hours across the state to North Fort Myers where we spent a very short night at ECHO. Friday morning we forced ourselves awake so that we could spend the day catching up with all our ECHO friends and load up our stuff that we left at ECHO into the van our dad's drove down. It felt so good to be back at ECHO, to see the farm (despite its sad state from severe winter freezes and a drought) and to see our ECHO friends. That evening we had a potluck with some of our ECHO friends (mmmm... peanutbutter Chaya greens!). I cannot begin to express what a joy it was to spend time with them again. We devoured everymoment of our short visit.

Saturday morning we left ECHO and enjoyed a huge breakfast spread with my grandparents in Port Charlotte. Unfortunately that was a short visit as well but we had to get on the road if we were to get to church in PA the next morning. We drove from Florida and did indeed make it to PA in time to unload our thing into the Pfluges' basement, take a 15 minute nap, and get to church. Despite being exaused from our journey, we had a refreshing visit with CVC then hit the road once agian to make dinner at Jenna's dad's place in New York. We spent the night there then went up to Jenna's mom's place to visit for the day then spent the night at my parents'. The next morning we visited with my parents then made our way to the airport for our flight back to Costa Rica, or so we thought. We found out our flight to Newark was delayed to the point we would have missed our connection to Costa Rica so we discied to just spend another night in Syracuse rather than spend it in Newark. So we decided to try again the next day. The next day it was on time, that is until we got on the plane and found out we were delayed another 2 hours. We managed to make it to Newark with 15 minutes until our next flight and two terminals to hop to get there. When we made it to the gate (sweating and out of breath) they told us the flight was moved to the other end of the terminal. We then hoped on a cart with 6 other people who were also late for the same flight. Our driver took his time making a 7 point turn and snailed his way to our gate. Fortunately they held the plane since there were enough people late for the flight. We made it to Costa Rica amazingly with all our luggage. We did, however, miss the first day of classes of our second semester.

Incase you were wondering why we planned such a crazy 5 day visit to the states, we did have a method to the madness. For one, we had a return ticket left over since we were planning on only being here for one trimester and we had to leave the country anyhow since our visa was only good for 4 months. We figured we might as well use it and move our stuff back up from Florida while we were at it.

Finally, we are settling in for the next 4 months, starting classes and getting back into our routine. It feels good.