Home

So I’ve hit the 2 month mark of being home in Australia, and not surprisingly it’s been difficult. I spent the first month feeling like I was in a bubble and I just went to each activity without really engaging very much in anything. After all, things were busy; I went back to uni 5 days after getting off the plane, jetlagged and overwhelmed. I also dealt with the fact that my part time engineering job no longer existed (I managed to find about 5 hours tutoring a week which has made up for it). But the idea of living without being productive and working was difficult.

The second month was interesting; my parents went off to Papua New Guinea to investigate their own mission hopes with MAF. It amuses me that the two times I have disappeared off for six months, within a few weeks of returning home my parents have gone to live somewhere else. They were only away for one month and honestly it didn’t affect my life hugely, I spent a bit more time cleaning and cooking and driving people around, but overall it was minimal disturbance.

But month 2 was hard, I found I was able to venture out of the bubble I found myself in, but I didn’t really like it very much. Parties and social occasions were very difficult; numerous times I walked in the door and wanted to go home again. Church has been hard, most of the time I’ve been very tempted to stay in bed longer. I’ve been missing my Tico lifestyle, my strong Christian subculture, the warm weather. But, God is good, He has brought me through this time. He has provided people to speak to throughout this whole readjustment process for which I’m grateful. And at the end of the day, it’s generally these hard times that we grow closer to Him, and I can certainly testify to this. The Psalms provide an amazing insight because they are so raw and honest. God speaks, so regularly, so comfortingly.
I never felt completely at home in Australian culture, and I doubt I ever will, with materialism and apathy seeming bigger than they ever did before, but I’ve come to see this as a blessing, that it’s good to see what’s wrong with your own culture. I’ve come to accept that I’ve happy to be a stranger in this world, after all it’s only temporary.
I want to finish off with Psalm 18, I love it, verse 6 espically, nut ti’s worth reading the whole lot!

1 I love you, O LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn [a] of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death entangled me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5 The cords of the grave [b] coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called to the LORD;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
7 The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
8 Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
9 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds were under his feet.
10 He mounted the cherubim and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—
the dark rain clouds of the sky.
12 Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
with hailstones and bolts of lightning.
13 The LORD thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High resounded. [c]
14 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies ,
great bolts of lightning and routed them.
15 The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, O LORD,
at the blast of breath from your nostrils.
16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.
20 The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD;
I have not done evil by turning from my God.
22 All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
23 I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
24 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
27 You save the humble
but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
28 You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my darkness into light.
29 With your help I can advance against a troop [d] ;
with my God I can scale a wall.
30 As for God, his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD is flawless.
He is a shield
for all who take refuge in him.
31 For who is God besides the LORD ?
And who is the Rock except our God?
32 It is God who arms me with strength
and makes my way perfect.
33 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he enables me to stand on the heights.
34 He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You give me your shield of victory,
and your right hand sustains me;
you stoop down to make me great.
36 You broaden the path beneath me,
so that my ankles do not turn.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
I did not turn back till they were destroyed.
38 I crushed them so that they could not rise;
they fell beneath my feet.
39 You armed me with strength for battle;
you made my adversaries bow at my feet.
40 You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
and I destroyed my foes.
41 They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—
to the LORD, but he did not answer.
42 I beat them as fine as dust borne on the wind;
I poured them out like mud in the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the attacks of the people;
you have made me the head of nations;
people I did not know are subject to me.
44 As soon as they hear me, they obey me;
foreigners cringe before me.
45 They all lose heart;
they come trembling from their strongholds.
46 The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock!
Exalted be God my Savior!
47 He is the God who avenges me,
who subdues nations under me,
48 who saves me from my enemies.
You exalted me above my foes;
from violent men you rescued me.
49 Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD;
I will sing praises to your name.
50 He gives his king great victories;
he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed,
to David and his descendants forever.

News

I watched the news last night. I was wanting to find out more about what was happening in Honduras (it's not really affecting us here- even though they did fly the President into Costa Rica orginally).
One thing that still shocks me about the news here is how graphic it is. There is a new murder every night and they film right next to the body and then show the body upclose. It's like a horror movie, except that it's the 7pm news that everyone watches over dinner. I' not sure what explains this culturally, but I'm looking forward to ratings when I get home.

The long silence

Yes, yes I know, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Well here's an update of what I've been up to for the last month.
I visited the below volcano with my host parents. First time in the last 6 months that I've been cold.


The director of eMi came to visit from Colorado Springs.
We finally finished our project in the north of Costa Rica today. The binding finished 5 minutes ago.

New interns arrived a few weeks ago, and suddenly we were the expereienced ones!

I went to the beach for the weekend with some of the interns and staff and even saw some monkeys! Though nice beaches, I still think Australian ones are better!

The rainy season has arrived

It appears that unlike Melbourne, Costa Rica is not in a drought. The raining season started a few weeks ago, and was definitely welcomed by me. The lead up to it wasn’t really great as everyone got sick, apparently due to the changes in humidity.
I’m normally in a basement office with no windows when the rain comes, so I don’t notice. This Sunday however, I was home with not much else to do. So I watched the rain and took lots of photos. I love it when it rains. The light changes just before, and everything smells and looks so much better afterwards.

I’d heard people say that in the tropics it always rains at the same time, so much so that you can set your watch by when the rain starts. I thought that would be really cool, but unless you want to be late by an hour every now again (which most Hispanics wouldn’t mind), it’s probably not the best idea.

Haitian Childrens Home

At the moment a team from our office and some other volunteers for the USA are working on a master plan (including orphanage, school and church) for the Haitian Children's Home (HCH). Haiti is the poorest country in Central America, with 75% living in absolute poverty. It's hard to believe the such poverty exists so close to Miami.
The following video shows something of the work of HCH.

And the water is off....again

One of the nice things about living in Costa Rica is that it's a developing country, rather than an undeveloped country, so where I live has power and running water. The problem is that it's not a developed country, so the water and power go off regularly. Which makes things very annoying when you work on computers in a basement office. Early this week the water was off for 2 days, about a week earlier it was off for 3 days. Without water, everything and everyone in this tropical climate tends to smell a bit. I find it especially amusing when there are advertisements everywhere telling people to wash their hands well because of swine flu, but you can't because there is no water.
However there are some advantages to lack of water.
1. It gives you something to talk about with everyone you meet and the vocab is really very simple.
2. It creates a sort of community feel as everyone waits for the water truck together or visit the few people with tanks.
3. Everyone in developed countries feels really sorry for you.
4. You get to change lunch plans because you can't prepare food in the office, or wash up the dishes- change is as good as a holiday.
5. You get to write a blog like this, or this, or even this (yes, someone came up with the idea of a little blog competition on the lack of water).

Granada, Nicaragua: Europe without the price tag

On Thursday last week I found out my visa had been denied and I needed to go Nicaragua for a few days. On Friday afternoon I was looking through a guidebook which told me Australians needed a pre approved visa o get into Nicaragua. It was at that point I began to worry. Some quick calls to various Australian embassies which were open assured me I would be ok and the rules had changed. Saturday I was all day with some of the staff. On Sunday I left my host families house at 4:30am. It was sort of a rushed thing. I’ve never been to another country without that little notice.
We crossed the border at about 12 noon. As we were coming from Costa Rica where there is Swine Flu we all had to get checked and fill in medical forms. They took our passports, told us to get off the bus, and we waited for 90 minutes. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Latin America behind Haiti. While waiting people tried to sell us food, phone calls, shoes and our passport were stamped we worked out which local vendors to support.The poverty was fairly confronting, like the 8 months pregnant woman trying to sell hammocks she makes to feed her children. On Sunday afternoon we arrived in Granada, a city settled in 1524, and known for beautiful architecture. We crammed a lot into the following 38 hours; wandering the streets, going to the markets (local and tourist), walking and swimming along the sore of Lake Nicaragua, lying in hammocks, visiting a few churches, eating pizza, accidentally gate chasing a private party at a bakery and listening to the music, going to an ancient pottery museum and touring by boat some of the 350 Islands of Lake Nicaragua. We stayed in this great little hostel which was super cheap (like everything in Nicaragua). Complete with hammocks and a beautiful court yard.
One of the best things about the hostel for me was that we got to meet David, a Modern Orthodox Jew in Nicaragua for a few days travel and some volunteer work. He spent Monday with us. All too quickly our time in Nicaragua came to an end, and it was time to head back on the 6am bus and the relative wealth of Costa Rica. Next time my visa get denied...I might not complain so much.