A look at our life overseas

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Changing Seasons

Today marks yet another point of change for us. Since 2001 I have been hopping from town to town, state to state, and country to country. It has been quite the adventure but the frequent packing up to go and all the "good-byes" have been challenging. Today we graduated from language school and are getting ready to head back to the states for a whirlwind 2 week trip before moving to Bolivia. We said our farewells yet again and are looking forward to actually setting up home and staying in one place for at least 2 years. Over the last 8 years or so, I've made a lot of friend around the world then had to leave them behind. At first it was really hard, then I hit a point of trying to stay uninvolved emotionally to avoid the pain of leaving, but now I have found it is worth the effort and investment to enjoy relationships while they last, even if I know they will be for only a short while. And so, I leave Costa Rica with more fond memories of friends I have made to add to the many other amazing people I have met on the journey, and looking forward to new friends and new adventures that lay ahead.

Since we have not posted in a little while, here is a quick recap of our last month here in Costa Rica. Jenna's parents came down to visit us and we had a great time back at Arenal Volcano and showing them around the San Jose area. Unfortunately it was cloudy most of the time so we only heard the volcano. The teachers and some of the students at ILE put on a great show of whirly-twirly cultural dances to celebrate the Anexion of Guanacaste. We took our final Spanish exams; Jenna did great, I choked. Then last weekend we took an amazing boat ride to Tortuguero National Park filled with all kinds of wildlife. I wish I had discovered this place sooner! We saw crocs, sloths, monkeys, toucans, an Eyelash viper, and a Green Sea Turtle laying eggs.

It has been a great 8 months. I am sad to leave Costa Rica and our friends here, but I can't say I'm sorry to be done with school. Onward to Bolivia!

A Future Home

A Street View of Our Future *Temporary* Home in Bolivia!

Well God certainly does provide, and when He does so, he does it lavishly~!

Our team in Bolivia jumped on an opportunity for us to sub-rent a home in Santa Cruz while a missionary family is on a four month leave back to the United States. Although this does mean that we will have to move (again) to our own place in January, it gives us an incredibly beautiful and comfortable home in which to stay while we get orientated to the field. We will move in as soon as we arrive on September 3rd, and will be able to take our time finding our own place to live for the rest of our term. We will be moving into a fully furnished and equipped home, complete with a large back yard (Jason's estatic), a gardener, a guard at night, an empleada (maid) to help around the house on 3 mornings a week, internet set up, phone set up, and best of all- much to our delight- a dog and a tortoise to keep us company! Yes, we will have to pay rent and salaries for all of these luxuries, but it is such a blessing to be able to make our transition a little smoother, to give us time to check out the best places for us to stay afterwards, to set up our home, to wait for our things to arrive by mail, to look for the best deals. I am excited. We are excited! Things are coming together and starting to feel more real- especially after almost 3 years of preparation time!

Check out the photos of our future, temporary, home:

This is Roger- their pet (red foot?) tortoise- We will be taking very good care of him. Tortoises are my favorite.

This is Beethoven (yellow) and Jerry (black). We will just be taking care of Beethoven and I believe the missionaries are working on finding someone to take care of Jerry- the Rotweiler. If they can't, I'm sure we'll take him under our wing as well, always nice to have good guard dogs. :-)


A view of the living room/ front door?

Kitchen with lots of counter space!! Yay!!

Dining room- very pretty


I'm sure Jason will have lots of fun planting all sorts of random, but yummy things in this yard. I'm sure he will also include a compost pile :-)

Office area- I can't wait to read some of those books!

As you can very well see, this place is huge and so far above and beyond any expectations we had! Not to mention the perks that come with it! Who else would be so happy to take on a tortoise? (Let alone know how to take care of it!) Like I said, God is very good. :-)

Arenal Volcano

Jason & Jenna in front of the smoking Arenal Volcano

Last weekend we made our long anticipated trip to Arenal Volcano along with Jenna's brother Kyle and a bunch of people from our school. It was a welcome 3 night getaway from the stresses of language learning. We enjoyed hot and cold pools along with a few water slides all fed by natural springs at the foot of the very active Arenal volcano. Whenever the clouds parted we had an excellent view of the volcano from our hotel and the constant stream of smoke from the top. Occasionally we would hear a rumble from deep within its belly. One night we took a van to the other side of the volcano where the lava is currently spewing. It put on a nice little firework display for us while we fought off mosquitoes.

Arenal Volcano at Night

This week was also a little bit of a breather from the routine. It was spiritual emphasis week. This week the teachers were not permitted to give us homework so that we could feel free to go to the two chapels a day and focus on spiritual health. Last weekend and this week was a nice break, next week it is back to full steam ahead. Classes continue to go well as I learn to speak Spanish poco a poco. My one class has been especially good for me since it requires me to get out in the community and build a relationship with 8 people with whom I talk to on a weekly basis. It continues to be a stretch for me but it is great practice. !Vale la pena!

Green Basilisk (Basiliscus plumifrons) at Arenal

Harlequin Long-Horned Beetle (Acrocinus longimanus) at Arenal

Rambutans, Toucans, & Blackberry Wine

Jenna with a handful of Rambutan

This weekend I made my weekly run to the Feria (farmers market). I love this weekly event, I never know what fun tropical fruits I may find. A few weeks ago, an amazing fruit known as Rambutan ("Mamon Chino" in Spanish) started to come into season. This weekend I found the best looking ones yet, and in two different color varieties (red y yellow). Some people call it hairy fruit, which makes sense. You eat these little self-contained snacks by popping the skin open and eating the white flesh inside which looks a lot and is the texture of a skinless green grape. They have a wonderfully fruity flavor which I can only describe as... Rambutany... with a hint of Lychee. If you don't know what that tastes like, well I guess you are out of luck, that or you need to take the next flight to a tropical country.Red and Yellow Rambutan

Speaking of Fruit, a few weeks ago we bought a bag of Blackberries at the Feria with the intention of making them into juice. Well, two weeks later we found them in the back of the fridge. The still looked okay, and I tasted one which also tasted okay but a little tart... or was that alcohol? Well we blended them up, added some sugar, and stuck the juice in the fridge. Tonight we went to drink some with dinner, only to find it wasn't juice anymore, but rather Blackberry wine. Oops!

Waterfall at Parque Monte de la Cruz

This past weekend I also took a little trip with some friends from the school to a park nearby, well nearby on the map. An hour and a half later, and countless stops for directions, we found the park... right as the rains started. Fortunately, after a lunch in the van, the rain let up long enough for a short hike to a waterfall and up a hill. Before this trip started, for some reason I had an urge to see Toucans. I have never seen them in the wild before and hoped to see some. Soon after we arrived, a couple flew out of the woods and into nearby trees! Unfortunately due to the rain I couldn't get a good picture but I had a fun time watching them!Emerald Toucanet

Well, back to the Spanish homework during one intense thunderstorm. I might want to get off the computer before it melts to my lap.

Catch up

Blue-crowned Motmot from INBioparque

First off, our latest newsletter is on its way. If you are signed up for an electronic version, you should have received it already. Also, I have downloaded some new photos from Costa Rica into Picasa. You can get to the albums by clicking on the slideshows bellow and to the right of this page or you can follow this link http://picasaweb.google.com/JayWeigner?feat=email

Last trimester was rather slow. I felt like I was riding on top of things, sometime running way ahead of life, now this trimester I've been run over and am now being dragged along behind. Classes are much more intense this tri and I have taken on a few more responsibilities. It is mainly the Spanish learning that is getting tough. Some days I really don't want to be learning another language when I already have one I can use. But I must admit, I am getting better at Spanish and it is incredibly rewarding when I can actually carry on a conversation. I've recently learned how to talk in the past and future rather than saying silly things like "I go to the store yesterday". Unfortunately, as my Spanish skills increase, my ability to speak and write in English seems to be waning.

Where's Weigner? Jenna trapped in a maze at INBioparque

One of the responsibilities I have taken on this trimester is to organize once a month "Paseos" or little trips from the school to other parts of Costa Rica. The first paseo was a little over a week ago to a nature center/zoo/botanical garden/farm place called INBioparque. We went with about 32 other students from the school and had a great time exporing their trails, observing wildlife, and checking out the farm that reminded me a bit of ECHO. You can see photos from this trip on the Picasa page. The trip I have planed for June is to Arenal volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the world giving viewers a daily show of smoke and lava (if it isn't cloudy). Then in July the plan is to go to a little island off the coast, assuming people sign up for it.

Worship time at the men's retreat

A few weeks ago, the men from the school left their women and children behind, passed through the "corador of death", and vanished into a secluded little valley for a men's retreat. We slipped and slided our way down one of the worst zig-zaged mountain roads I've ever seen (and I've been on some bad roads) in the pouring rain dodging mudslides and trying not to slip right off the mountain. We survived and had a great time at a camp tucked away in a beautiful cloud forest valley known as "Valle de los Quetzals". We enjoyed time on the ropes course, rock climbing, hiking, playing paintball, and just hanging out. It was a great time to get away, relax, and reflect (and not speak in Spanish). We had some great speakers and spent a bit of time talking about our struggles and fears. Some times it is nice to be reminded that all these pastors and missionaries I am surrounded by here are are just as broken and are struggling with similar things as my self and everyone else. One of the topics was on fears that hold us back. The following is an outline we talked about concerning the fears that hold us back and their consequenses.
Fear of criticism leads to leagalizm
Fear of insignificance leads to over compensation
Fear of falure leads to paralisis
Fear of exposure/vunerabiligy leads to duplisity
Fear of loss leads to control
It was a great reminder to me to fight these fears that would keep be from living efectively.

Giant Silk Moth (Copaxa syntheratoides) from men's retreat.

Follow this link for more photos from Costa Rica

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!

(The picture is of a sunset near Monteverde Cloudforest that we visited during Easter break).

Ahhh a week of rest. Last week brought to conclusion our first half of language school. I can't believe we are halfway done already! On Friday Jason and I attended graduation where about 50 of our fellow classmates graduated, ready to move on to their assigned country. It made me very eager to finish our time here and move on to Bolivia. It was very encouraging and exciting to see all these missionaries ready and excited to head out to follow God's calling in their lives.

This week is a bit eclectic in our plans. We are finishing settling into our new apartment. We rearranged our kitchen and living room. It's such a wonderful thing to have our own space again, our own kitchen (even if it means we have to do dishes!), and a little extra privacy. Our neighbors are another student couple without children and on the other side is a lovely Tica lady with her Panamanian husband. We live just a short walk from school, which is very nice as well. Check out the video we've attached for a short tour of our new place!

As for our mini break from school, we plan on relaxing, getting random errands done, maybe spend a day at a volcano, and we get to head back to the US to visit! Yay! Due to complications with plane tickets once we decided to extend our time here we now are planning on spending a couple of days in the states to get our stuff from Florida and take it back to PA and NY and renew our visas. (Costa Rica allows a 90 day tourist visa + a one month extension, and after that you have to leave the country for at least 3 days and then you can return). So, lots happening and lots going on before classes begin again. But until then, I get to sleep in tomorrow. :-)

Puerto Viejo

This past weekend we went on a little trip to Puerto Viejo on the east coast of Costa Rica. Jenna arranged this trip for me as a little birthday getaway. She found this nice little hotel (3 rooms) that was off the beaten track. Puerto Viejo was a nice little town that revolves around beach life. We met up with some missionaries that our host family knows. They run a little ice cream parlor and coffee shop in town. We enjoyed visiting with them while eating their ice cream with the beach a few steps away. While at their shop, they connected us with one of their employees who has a boyfriend who works at a dive shop. So our host family connected us to the missionaries who connected us to their employee who connected us to her boyfriend, who set us up on a dive. Connections are fun.
So we did get a dive in. The conditions were better than in Guanacaste. It was good to get under the water once again. The rest of our time there was spent resting and relaxing either by the beach or at our hotel. Well, that is except for a little 5:30am hike up a nearby forested hill which I found to be a relaxing experience as well. Countless colorful birds were up and about singing their songs along with a few chattering monkeys. Of course I came across quite a few interesting creatures, the highlight of which were the Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs I found calling from the leaf litter.

It was a great weekend getaway and I came back refreshed, ready to learn more Spanish. For more photos from our trip, click on the slideshow link on the right side of this page.

Where did the time go?

Wow a month since the last post? How time flies. Well as far as school goes, life continues as usual. The Spanish learning process is becoming more challenging for me but still encouraging to see how much I am learning. Yesterday we had a break from the academic routine. The faculty sponsored a cultural day. We had the option to pick two out of four workshops. We picked one on food and one on dance. The other two workshops were cultural games and home remedies. The cultural dance workshop consisted of a sampling of a large variety of Latin dances followed by an introductory dance class in Salsa and Merengue. We butchered our way through it but it was a lot of fun. The food workshop was a tasty experience. We made a huge tropical fruit salad with ice cream, coconut & unrefined cane sugar candy, and Picadillo (kind of like a stew only eaten with tortillas). Tasty times!

We have had a few eventful weekends over the past month. The last weekend of February we spent up in the northwestern part of the country in the driest part of the country known as Guanacaste on a SCUBA trip. Each trimester there is a SCUBA course offered here at the school. Jenna took the Open Water course so now I have a dive buddy! Of course I wanted to go along on the dive trip so I took the Advanced Open Water course.

Guanacaste, right now during the dry season, looks like a combination of the northeast USA in the fall (after the leaves have fallen) and Arizona. There were huge cacti growing between bare trees. We set up at Playa de Coco (coco beach). This area is known for some great diving and incredible wildlife. Unfortunately we were at the right place at the wrong time. A cold, cloudy current moved in and made for an interesting dive with only 5-10 feet visibility. I was rather disappointed with the first two day dives. It was hard to see much and the cold, constant currents were frustrating. However, part of the advanced class was a night dive and it was incredible. I thought it would be overwhelmingly eerie to dive at night, and getting in the water at night was a little creepy but once we descended it was one incredible experience floating in complete darkness guided only by our lights. We saw quite a few Sting Rays and the biggest Green Moray Eel I've ever seen. One of the most fascinating experiences on the dive was when we turned off our dive lights. In the darkness, any movement in the water caused phosphorescent bacteria to glow green. It felt like we were swimming through a galaxy of green stars. Each diver left glowing green trails in the darkness. The next day of diving was a bit better than the first since the water had cleared a little over night.

Change of Plans

Life is full of changing plans. Well plan A for us was to be here at language school for one trimester. After half of a trimester we realized that four months would not be enough to bring my Spanish speaking ability up to par. Most of the missionaries here stay for at least 2 trimesters if not the full year. So we are resorting to plan B. We are going to stay for a second trimester which will put us back in the States mid August and in Bolivia at the end of August. This change will be good for us and enable us to be more effective more quickly in Bolivia.

Our address here will still be

(Our Names)
Instituto de Lengua Espanola
Apartado 100-2350
San Jose, Costa Rica
America Central

Anything sent needs to be sent by mid July to arrive in time.

Our next update letter is on the way so keep an eye out for it in your mailboxes. If any of you would prefer to receive an e-mail copy rather than a snail mail copy, let us know. Also, if you would like to go back and read some of our old letters, I added an option on the right side of this blog where you can download our old letters. The first couple are Microsoft Publisher files, the more recent ones are PDFs.

Caimitos, Mamey Sapote, y un Colibrí

We have settled into a routine here at language school. I have been learning a lot and I am beginning to gain some confidence speaking Spanish, even though I speak like a 3 year old. I am finally back to full health. My last post said I was almost better, well that was right before I had a relapse. After a visit to the hospital for a chest x-ray I found out I had walking pneumonia. At this point I was looking pretty bad and had lost a bit of weight. After a course of medication I am back on my feet, bounding up stairs and chasing lizards. It is amazing how much you appreciate feeling normal after a long period of sickness.

Next weekend we are going on our first big excursion out of the city. Yes I know, how sad is that, almost two months in Costa Rica and all we have done is hang around town. We are going to spend a weekend on the coast up in the northwest region of the country. I cannot wait to get out of the city!

Each weekend there is a "feria" (farmers market) that I really enjoy going to and checking out all the local produce. It is great Spanish practice for me to talk to the vendors and learn about the variety of produce. I love trying new fruits that most of the students here are too afraid to try. I might try setting up a little tropical fruit workshop for the students here to help demistify some of these amazing fruits. This past week we tried Caimito/Star Apple (in the photos) and Mamey Sapote. I thought both were delicious fruits. The Caimito had a very mild, flowery flavor with hints of persimon. The Mamey Sapote is a bit harder to describe. It was kind of like a cross between sweet potato and pear with hints of carrot.

If you go early in the morning to la feria, you will be the only gringo (person from the USA) there among lots of Ticos (Costa Ricans). Later in the morning there is a funny shift, most of the Tico shoppers have left and there are mostly Gringos shopping. I guess we just like our Saturday morning sleep-in more than the getting the best produce.

Last night we had a visitor, a tiny little visitor. A bright green colibrí (hummingbird) flew into the house. I must admit I took great joy in catching the little thing. It was so small and delicate, it is amazing that they can move so fast. They are not easy to hold onto either! God has so many cool creatures out there, I love any opportunity to get up close to one.

One thing that has been fun about being a part of the community here is the diversity of skill people bring and the opportunities to share or exchange these skills. Jenna has been offering her hair cutting skills, much to the delight of many of the women here. Recently we have had a lot of computer problems so Jenna traded hair cuts for computer repairs from a tech savey missionary. I think I like this bartering system better than money, well it is atleast more fun.

Back to Kindergarden

Life here in Costa Rica has calmed down a bit and we have settled down into the school routine. All that is left of my virus is a cough that gets a little better each day. Updates on the earthquake are still on the local news. It created quite a mess and they are still trying to clean things up. I'm not sure what the death toll is at right now but last I heard it was going on 100.

School has been going well. I have three classes; Grammar (2 periods), Language, and Phonetics. For the first time in my life I am enjoying learning Spanish and feel like I am understanding it. It is nice to not feel like I am just barely hanging on for dear life like I did in high school. Maybe it is because I am slightly more motivated to learn it this time around. Jenna has two classes; Grammar and Language, both are two periods long so we both end up with 4 periods of classes. Classes end by 1:00 so we have a lot of free time in the afternoon which is nice. Of course some of this time is devoted to homework, but there is still a bit of down time. I have to admit, I am feeling a bit boxed in here in a city after living on a farm for a year. I am itching for a chance to get out of the city one of these days.

We spend a bit of time with our fellow students/future missionaries. We have reunited with Joe and Heidi DePuy who we knew from back in high school. There are also a few other SAM missionaries here who we have been getting to know. We also spend a lot of time with our host family. The other week, our host mom Aida had a birthday and what a birthday party it was! We were told it would start around 6pm. We left the house a little before 7pm with the daughter who was hosting the party. We then proceeded to buy food for the party from Price Mart which is the local equivelent of Sam's Club. When we got to the house, we sat around for several hours while people gradually trickled in and the party got set up. As the party geared up, Jenna and I debated with Reinko, a fellow from Holland who was staying here at the house with us, about how long the party would go. Reinko thought the party would wrap up around 10. Jenna and I guessed it would only be getting started around 10pm. It turned out Reinko's gross underestamate was because he did not realize it was a birthday party, much less a party for our host mom. At one point we mentioned the purpose of the party and it took Reinko a minute to wipe "You're kidding!" off his face before the embarasement set it. Needless to say we had a bit of fun with that.

During the party we had live music from a musician playing the Marimba. When he left, Jenna, Reinko, and I decided we were becoming too exhaused to hang around much longer and called a cab. This was around 11pm. Soon after we called the cab, a Mariachi band showed up to serenade Aida for about half and hour. That was fun to watch. Once they were done, the cab driver showed up for which I was quite grateful since I was feeling rather ill at this point. Then to my surprise, the cab diver sat down with a plate of food and proceded to eat dinner. I soon learned that the cab driver was actually a relative of the family who's wife is dying. I guess it is always a good idea to get the whole story before I get too frustrated.

The photos above are of the house we are living in (the green and white one), a sunset view from our house, and the Mariachi band from the birthday party.

Earthquake Update

Apparently the quake yesterday was a bigger deal than we thought. It was the biggest Costa Rica has had since 1991. It was a 6.1 and the epicenter was about 20-30 miles from here. It was a shallow quake so it did a bit of damage. In some places the ground split open and in other the land folded over on itself. All that happened here was a light fixture detached from the ceiling. Something like an earthquake makes you realize just how small we are and how little control we have.

As far as our health goes, Jenna is doing much better and went to orientation today. I am still home sick with a fever. I hope I kick this thing soon.

Volcanos, Earthquakes, and A Virus

Well it has been quite the adventure despite the fact we have only been here a few days. Our trip down here went without a hitch but was a long and tiring journey. It was really sad to have to leave ECHO. With tears in our eyes, we left Fort Myers, Florida at 9pm on Sunday night and drove 3 hours to Miami airport. We had to sit around for quite some time since out flight was not until 4am. We then landed in Managua, Nicaragua for a little layover. From the airport we watched a volcano in the distance spewing smoke while we waited for our plane. We then flew to San Jose, Costa Rica and arrived at our host families house at about 11am on Monday. Needless to say we were exhausted once we got here and were soon to pay the price for stressing our bodies.

Tuesday began the orientation at the Spanish Language Institute. It is a nice little campus with a great staff. I am actually looking forward to learning Spanish, believe it or not. During one of the orientation meetings we had a little earthquake. The teacher did not even notice until the uproar among the students who had just experienced their first earthquake became too much for her to keep going. Once it was explained to her what everyone was so excited about, she said "Oh that, that was just a little tremor, we don't consider that an earthquake." Well it was certainly the biggest one I have ever experienced, that is until today.

Tuesday afternoon I began to not feel so well. By nightfall I had an extreme headache and just could not seem to get myself warm enough. I had a small fever when I went to bed and several restless hours later it peaked at 102 degrees Fahrenheit which is really high for me since my average body temperature tends to be about a degree lower than average. I finally went to sleep around 3am and then took some meds in the morning. I spent the day...

Whoa, there is another earthquake!

Where was I, ah yes, I spent Wednesday resting while Jenna went to orientation. Then in the afternoon it hit Jenna. Her's started with nasty stomach issues then the fever. She has been resting today and I went to some of the orientation since I am feeling a little better. Our host mom had a doctor come and visit us. He said it was something we picked up in our traveling since out bodies are stress, which is what we figured. It is probably the flu. At least we are sick before classes start. They start on Monday so hopefully we will be back to health by then. Usually you hear about people getting sick from being in a foreign country but this is the second time I picked up something before I arrived in country and went through the symptoms abroad. The last time was in Nicaragua when I had unknowingly picked up Whooping Cough in the States before I left.

I little earlier today we experienced a good size earthquake. We all huddled in the doorways for protection in case it became severe. It was a strange feeling. It does not seem possible that something as solid as a house can feel like a rippling wet noddle.

Well it certainly has been an adventure. We are enjoying our time here despite being sick. Our host family is wonderful and take good care of us. The earthquakes will take some getting use to, apparently they have over 100 quakes a month.

If for any reason you would like to send something here, we do have an address. If you do send something, make sure it is sent before April to make sure that it arrives before we leave.

(Our Names)
Instituto de Lengua Espanola
Apartado 100-2350
San Jose, Costa Rica
America Central

Of course the easiest way to contact us will be by e-mail. Check back later for more updates on life down here.