Thank you, teams!

This morning we said good bye to another work team from the United States. Though they probably have made it to Punta Cana by now, they will work there until Saturday before they head back to Erie,IL. They were a small team of just 6, but with a lot of great skills that were put to use in the medical clinic at the center where the La Romana church meets. In previous months since we arrived, other work teams have also volunteered their time and skills to serve the people of the Dominican Republic through Eastern Dominican Christian Mission. The mission has hosted, farmers, a doctor, nurses, salesmen, ministers, concrete layers, a horse trainer and students, to name just a few. And each person has offered something special that has touched the ministry here in a unique way. So thank you CCU, Cogan Station, Pomona and Erie. We thank you for your work here. We pray that you will continue to share in our ministry here in the Dominican Republic and that your lives have been touched as you have touched ours. If you have plans to be a part of the one of the work teams coming this year, we look forward to seeing how God will use your own talents and gifts to serve God here in the Dominican Republic. If you are interested in being a part of a team, contact Ryan at ryanvandelinde@hotmail.com to discuss how your small group can serve.

We are connected!

Finally after much ado. . . we have internet in our new home in La Romana, Dominican Republic. We hope to keep you better updated as we begin our new ministry with Eastern Dominican Christian Mission.

Please pray!

Haiti: Please pray for the people of Haiti. My heart goes out to the people. However compassion does not help, only action. Please ask God to help us know what we can do to serve the people of Haiti, our new neighbors on the island of Hispanola. Also pray that God will lead you in helping you know what you can do to help. Our home: Please pray that God will bless our new home here in the DR. Pray that we are able to make an impact for Him in our new neighborhood, Buena Vista, our new city, La Romana, and our new country, the Dominican Republic. Our physical needs: Please pray that God will continue to bless us financially. We received a lot of financial support while we were in the United States from friends, family and churches. However, we still need to raise more support so that we will be able to buy a car and furnish our home.

What a week!

This past week began in the United States. Looking back, it is crazy that so much happened in one week! Sunday morning we were blessed to be in McCoy, Virginia where we had the opportunity to share with Community Christian Church what God is doin in the DR. By that afternoon we were back in Roanoke packing up to get ready to leave for the DR. Monday afternoon, my mom and stepdad arrived in Roanoke, not just to visit, but because they are actually moving to Roanoke! After pedicures with my mom, we met up for dinner with my brother and sister and her family. Then back to the house for last minute packing. Tuesday we packed up and just before we headed out to the airport in Greensborough, we heard the awful news of the earthquake in Haiti. For those that may not know, my family established an orphanage in Haiti. Unable to contact anyone we knew in Haiti, we prayed that the children and staff were safe. (We later heard that they were all okay. Wednesday morning we got up before the sun and ushered our 9 suitcases to the airport. We were blessed by the woman at the counter who did not charge us for overweight bags or our three extra bags. A savings of $400! She asked us to help someone in need in return. By that afternoon, we arrived in the DR. With all our luggage and without any problems. Wednesday night Ryan headed over to the church where they had a prayer meeting for the people of Haiti and Micah and I crashed at Rick and Suzanne's (our mssionary teammates)too tired to go out again. Thursday, we found an apartment, got health insurance and started to price our household furnishings. The apartment is in a great area with large homes and spacious yards. Our apartment is a duplex that shares a lot with another duplex. It has a large living area and a big back yard that we share with our neighbors. It is a great place for our family and we look forward to being able to move in. Right now we are staying with Rick and Suzanne until we are able to get it ready and buy the necessary furnishings. Friday, we signed the renters contract and received the keys. Saturday, we spent the day cleaning the apartment, and I spent the afternoon with some of the women of the church while Ryan cleaned some more. Ryan spent the evening at a men's Bible study. Today, we spent the morning worshipping with the Body of Christ here in La Romana and tonight we will prepare for the work team that will arrive tomorrow. Wow! What a week! I will keep you all posted as we get settled in and I hope to have some pictures of the house once we get settled.

Update

Sorry we haven't posted since October. We have been busy. We finished up language school in November and returned to the US. We have been spending the past few weeks visiting churches, friends and family. We plan on spending Christmas with our family in the Roanoke area. Then we are headed to the Dominican Republic on January 13. We will keep you all posted.

La Carpio

La Carpio is a neighborhood of mostly immigrants in San Jose. It is a poor area streaming with young children. A few years ago, a Thursday afternoon children's ministry began to help minister in that area. Each trimester students from the Spanish Language Institute volunteer to be a part of that ministry. This trimester, I have had the opportunity to be a part of. The above pictures are of a few of the precious children that attend the program. The following link is a video about La Carpio that a former student of the Spanish Language Institute made. He is now serving as a missionary in Costa Rica and does some outreach ministries in La Carpio. Next week, I will be teaching a lesson at La Carpio in Spanish. So say a special prayer for me and the children of La Carpio. I'll update you again next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n9R9rkyONw

It's a boy!

Congratulations to Neil and Ashley and of course big sister Ava on the arrival of their newest family member. Harrison Ethan was born September 30 and weighed 7 pounds and 11 ounces. Ryan and Erin are proud to me Harrison's aunt and uncle and Micah is proud to be his big cousin.

We look forward to meeting him when we visit the US this coming Holiday season. We are so thankful to God for Harrison and our family.

Look to the SON

This past Saturday started out like a typical Saturday for our family. After off and on rain showers, Carlos came by to see if he could wash the car. Carlos is a Tican man that washes our car on a regular basis. He is deaf and unable to speak. He uses a little bit of sign language but communicates mostly with grunts and general hand motions. I looked to the sky, not wanting him to wash the car if it was about to rain, and noticed that the sun was burning away the darker clouds from the morning. “Okay, no rain for now,” I thought and nodded my head giving him permission to wash the car. Carlos smiled at Micah as he invited Micah to wash the car with him. “You’ll soak your tennis shoes! Go change them first,” I instructed Micah. Micah ran into the house to put on “car wash shoes.” I scrambled between assisting Micah with his shoe selection and helping Carlos hook up the water hose outside. I noticed that Carlos was looking at the sky but thought he too was trying to predict the weather. Carlos pointed to the sun. Our neighborhood guard, Luis glanced up at the sky, smiled and nodded. “Oh good,” I thought, “We all agree, it isn’t going to rain.” I returned to the house to see if Micah had finally made his shoe selection. When I came back outside, Luis and Carlos were still looking at the sky. I glanced up at the sky and then gave Micah the water hose. Carlos once again pointed to the sky and grunted “sol” which means sun. I grinned, happy to see the sun. But Carlos pointed again, this time handing me his sunglasses. I put on his glasses and looked at the sky again and noticed a perfect break in the clouds around the sun. “That’s neat,” I thought as I instructed Micah to put the water on the car not the sidewalk and gave Carlos his sunglasses back. Carlos joined Micah and they washed the car. A few moments later, Ryan came outside. Carlos stopped washing the car and pointed to the sky again. Ryan looked to the sky and exclaimed, “Wow, it’s a huge rainbow around the sun.” I looked to the sky and noticed what I now know is called a solar halo. There was a huge halo encircling the entire sun. Carlos had been trying to tell me but I had not listened. I had been too busy predicting rain, setting up the water hose, searching for the perfect pair of play shoes and telling my son what to do. I had missed it completely! I quickly got my camera and began taking pictures. The halo was so huge that I was unable to capture the entire circle on my camera, and minutes before, I had not even seen it! That day, God reminded me that many times we are so busy with our lives that we forget to look to the Son. Carlos repeatedly pointed me to the sky, but each time I missed it because I was preoccupied with trivial tasks. God is doing amazing things; we just have to slow down enough that we notice them. Usually His plans are so great we can’t even imagine what he may be doing. And when we finally see how is working, we are amazed that we didn’t see it before! Praise God for people like Carlos that help point us back to the Son when we get distracted by things less magnificent. And praise God for reminding me how great He is with Saturday’s solar halo!

Vacation. . . it was so nice

Our vacation is officially over and we have been back to classes for a week now. During our vacation between the first and second trimesters, we had to renew our visas so we traveled back to the US. We enjoyed seeing family and friends but the trip seemed so short that we didn't really get to relax that much. Well this vacation break was two weeks long and we had some friends and family visit us! It was wonderful because we got to visit with friends and family, see some of Costa Rica, and relax! It was a much needed break. It was great how God used the time to refresh us in so many ways.

The first week of vacation began when we picked up Ryan's sister, and two of our best friends at the airport on Sunday. We got to enjoy one another's company in San Jose for about 24hours before we headed west to Punta Leona, a beach resort on the Pacific coast. My former teacher and friend, David offered us his grandparent's beach house for the week. So David, Daniel, Dana, Erin, Ryan, Micah and I spent the week in a house overlooking the Pacific ocean. It was a great time of relaxation with good friends.

The following week, Dana and Daniel returned to the US and Jeanie, my mother-in-law, came down for the week. We enjoyed hanging out in town while helping Erin, my sister-in-law, get settled into her new home and classroom here in Costa Rica. (Erin is now teaching 3rd grade at the Sojourn Academy, an international school located on the campus of the Spanish Language Institute (ILE)that we attend.) And with Micah occupied by his grandmother, Ryan and I had time to look forward to our approaching transition to the Dominican Republic.

During that same week, we also welcomed Andrew Butz to San Jose and to ILE. Andrew also wll be studying Spanish as he plans to work in the Dominican Republic (DR) with Eastern Dominican Christian Mission. His ministry focus in the DR will be a camp and conference center in the eastern portion of the country. We have had the opportunity to work with Andrew on a short term mission trip in the past and we look forward to being able to share this time with him while we are all in language school.

Near the end of our vacation, we gradually warmed up to the idea of returning to school by helping out with the new student orientation. The school welcomed a large group of students entering their first trimester at ILE. We are excited to get to know other students wanting to serve God in Latin America.

God allowed us to be renewed so we were able to enter our final trimester with excitement and a eagerness to learn everything we can in our last few months here in Costa Rica. What a nice vacation.

Vacation!

Photo taken on Playa Blanca, Punta Leona, Costa Rica

Story to follow. . .right now, I'm too busy relaxing!

Another milestone!

We just completed our second of three trimesters in language school. Praise God! It really is amazing how quickly this past trimester has gone. I feel that we have learned a lot and sometimes I wonder where all the information will fit in my brain. Surely my brain has to be reaching its capacity! The greatest part is though classes ended Thursday, we live in Costa Rica, so everyday is a learning opportunity. Just this week, Ryan has had the opportunity to communicate with a mechanic (that's a whole different story) while I have had the opportunity to get to know our Tico neighbors. I feel the need to begin each conversation with an apology and warning, something like the following: "I am sorry. I am learning Spanish. Any way that I may slaughter the Spanish language in the following minutes is not intented to be offensive to you or any other Spanish speaker. Thank you for your patience." But I don't. I've learned that I CAN communicate, though not perfectly. I've learned that Ticos are wonderfully kind and patient. And I am thankful to God that they allow us to torture them with our terrible Spanish. So this weekend, we celebrate one more trimester down! One more trimester closer to serving the people of the Dominican Republic in a calling from God that we are honored to be answering. Please praise God with us for all He has done in our lives to make language learning rewarding and enjoyable. Continue to pray for us as we head into our final trimester, I believe it will be the most demanding one yet. And please pray for our new home in the Dominican Republic. Pray that God is preparing the way for us in the details of our anticipated arrival, as well as in the hearts of the people we will have the opportunity to serve along side of and minister to.

Where did July go?

Ryan just pointed out to me that it has been over a month since I posted anything on the blog. For those of you that may be following us, I am sorry! This month has flown by. So I decided to just give you all a quick run down of some of the things happening in our lives. We began this month by celebrating Micah's 3rd birthday. A few of our friends got together at a nearby park and had a fun time together. Of course there was cake and icecream but we also had a pinata, a very Latin tradition. It was tons of fun and we were blessed by the fellowship and gifts that our friends shared that day. We also had a treacherous adventure to Sarchi, a nearby town known for its handycafts. However, the brakes on our "new" car went out on us and we spent the day at a mechanic's shop in Grecia (a little town 15 minutes from Sarchi) while praising God for his protection and provisions. (More details in our July newsletter) Since we had promised Micah a fun day, we spent a little bit of time playing baseball in Grecia's townsquare and eating icecream before heading back down to San Jose with our new brakes! Later in July, we had the opportunity to enjoy a birthday party of another friend. Micah and all the guests were thrilled to have inflatable games to play in. What a party! Then the department of health closed down all schools and child care centers in order to prevent a furture spread of the Swine Flu. But our language school did not close. So Ryan and I spent the week taking turns watching Micah while the other was in class. Though a week without childcare made our schedule hectic, I enjoyed being able to spend the days with Micah again. I am looking forward to settling down in the Dominican Republic when my role as a mother will once again consume most of my day. Then just at the end of the month, we had to leave the country for 72 hours to renew our visas. We decided to zip over to St. Petersburg, FL for a long weekend and got to enjoy the beach, Busch Gardens and shopping with some of our family. Ryan got to celebrate his birthday a little early with Dairy Queen Cake and pizza by the pool in Florida! Once back in Costa Rica, we celebrated Ryan's birthday with our housekeeper, Marta. Ryan and Marta share a birthday. We had a little cake and exchanged some small gifts after lunch that day. All this happened while spending each week in classes studying Spanish. (which continues to progress little by little, some days better than others! ) I am thankful to God for how He continues to provide for us, not only our needs but many of our desires. What a busy wonderful month!

A "new" car

Since the rainy season is now here, it has made our life a little more difficult. The short walks to the grocery store, or to catch a cab to nearby shopping are now complicated by timing the trip to avoid torrential down pours. Though MANY people live like this, we have been praying that a affordable opportunity would arise for us to own a car. And God blessed us. A missionary associated with the school was returning to the states and wanted to sell his car and at a great price. So we are now proud owners of a 1992 Ford Explorer! We look forward to the convenience of life with a car again! We also are grateful that we already have a buyer for when we leave Costa Rica for the same price we paid! Praise God for helping meet not only our needs but our desires too.

Culture Day

We had a wonderful Culture day at school on Friday, June 19. The teacher’s shared with us about the tradition of the local “Turno” or carnival and how they are a large part of the Tican culture. Ryan and his grammar teacher, Francisco started the events off with a LOUD fireworks display as is traditional in all turnos. The fireworks were followed up by the commencement of carnival type games complete with our teachers as “carnies”. It was a great day to spend having fun with the staff and students at school without the stress of studying Spanish.

Our Anniversary

We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary last night by going to a wonderful Peruvian restaurant called Inka Grill. We enjoyed delicious food and the company of one another. I thank God for my husband, whom leads our family to follow God's will in our lives. I couldn't be happier and plan to spend many more years serving God with my beloved Ryan. Happy Anniversary to us! :)