Happy Costa Rican Independence Day to you!!

You've asked "How are you settling-in?" and "How is your support?".

Our little family is sort of perched in San Jose, rather than settled-in. We've learned to work as a team to cross the roads safely. Last Wednesday, our neighbour, Kim, and her daughter were crossing a four lane road one block from our house. They began to jog across, when a semi truck seemed to accelerate toward them, laying on the horn. Kim ran toward one curb, her daughter ran back toward the other, as the semi roared between them. The week we arrived, a missionary was struck by a car just as he reached the sidewalk. Motorcyles here weave between stopped traffic. Even residential sidewalks are used for parking, and sometimes passing. So, when we are out with our three children we have to be very alert at all times. Ethan, Lauren, and Katelyn look and listen at each road crossing, then we all RUN across the road. The street directly in front of our house is a residential street, but we get coach busses, semi trucks, and speeding cars going by, all of which spew poorly burned exhaust. Don reckons San Jose muffler shops are not overly used. Muggings are common in San Jose, they are considered petty theft. Between the traffic and the thought of being pick-pocketed (we don't actually entertain the thought of being held-up in front of the children, though it has happened to others attending the school, recently in this neighbourhood) we five Murrays stick VERY close together whenever we got outside our gate (not usually after dark at 6pm).

When we go to the park, we're always sure to bring umbrellas. At the moment, it usually rains each afternoon, but as we head into October, we're told to expect rain all day everyday. This makes for lots of muddy laundry, but we still go out. Its warm, usually 28 degrees in the morning, then down to 22 degrees when it rains and overnight. The old equipment at the many local parks are all wet and swamped by puddles after the daily rain. Ethan comes home positively filthy from pick-up games of soccer with local children! The girls have had to learn not to ooooh and awwwwh at the many stray dogs. Lots of people have pet dogs here, but we've come to understand that lice and flees are a real problem; so our children cannot pet any of the dogs that they see in the parks. This "is like torture" to my canine loving kids, who are missing their own two dogs.

When it rains, the streets become gushing rivers. Last week, Don's classmate cut her foot on the flooded uneven sidewalk, she needed five stitches. The gutters here have gaping holes on each corner, where the metal sewer grates have been long-past stolen. These holes are locally called "gringo catchers", as you have to know that they are there, to avoid falling into them. Twisted angles and cut feet, ankles and legs are common injuries here.

Katelyn has only recently stopped asking if most buildings that we pass are a jail. Every house/building has bars on the windows and doors. The walls and fences around each building are about 12 feet high, usually topped with coils of razor wire. Armed guards stand outside of many buildings. Our block has a privately hired guard who does a twelve hour shift twenty-eight nights out of each month (two nights a month we are not guarded, while he has a "holiday"). A year and a half ago, there was a rash of break-ins in the neighbourhood, so the neighbours worked together to build a guard "house" and hire Don Antonio. Unfortunately, the children overheard our neighbour explaining why we all need to chip-in $30/month to pay the guard; the girls haven't sleep great in Costa Rica, they often wake up worried about robbers. The nights are very noisy! Dog fights, car alarms, in-efficient motors can be heard most moments day and night. The rain makes a deafening noise on the roof, so that you have to cuddle to have a conversation. We've had to warn the children that they can't go too near the ironed bar fence when they are playing in the front yard, we'd been warned that you can be grabbed through the fence if someone wants what you are playing with. Petty thieves here have a reputation for being very good with long poles, fishing items out of a front yard; so the children have had to get used to ensuring that no soccer balls, footwear, flashlights, or gecko-catching-devices are ever left out in the fenced front yard. Here's a photo of the "guard house" on sidewalk across the street from our house.

The other day, after a long walk to the grocery store, Ethan said, "I thought we came here to help. So why are we the poor people?". That morning, he'd played soccer with local tico children, all of whom had cleats (which they call "tacos" here). Ethan had running shoes "which are slippy" but work fine. So he'd been feeling a bit "poor" over that. At the grocery store non-tico (American) food is very expensive. Cheese at the deli (where it is cheapest) is marked by the kilo at $20/kilo. Cereal made in Costa Rica, but bearing the name Corn Flakes, etc, is $8/box. So we are eating lots of porridge in the morning, and lots of beans and rice in the evenings. Thank goodness we have a local bakery that is not expensive, so we often have fresh bread for lunch, but beans are really the cheapest thing to spread on the bread. We often splurge and get a little jar of peanut butter, but between five of us . . . .

These are examples of some of the cultural/environmental things that we are adjusting to in San Jose. Maybe some other time I'll tell you about the bugs . . . . We are being obedient by being in San Jose. Don and I felt we could learn spanish anywhere and the school fees here seemed expensive. But the Spanish Language Institute that we're attending has a renowned reputation and is used by many many mission organizations, training people who are headed out to serve as missionaries all over Central and South America. We really feel that we are here to be diligent in learning as much spanish as we can in the eight weeks we're here (six weeks of classes, one settling-in week, one adventure-seeking reward week). The children's prayers have become fervent authentic prayers: "Lord please protect us from diseases" (they've heard about dengue fever from the mosquitos), "Lord please bless this food" (we are so fortunate to have potable tap water, but the chlorine taste is a reminder to be thankful that we can drink the water), "Lord please keep us safe!!!".

This picture is a view from our language school classroom window. This is our neighbourhood!

We feel so very blessed to have you journeying alongside us for this year of mission work. We greatly value your prayers! We are still in need of financial support to address the costs of our travel and daily living expenses. All of our work is volunteer work so our travel and daily food, etc, is not provided for by the organization, we purchase these things out of our donated funds. At present, we are about 50% funded, and in need of $20,000 to be fully funded. Thank you to each of you who have chosen to come alongside of us prayerfully and financially. We are awed by your generosity. If you would like to contribute financially, Kimberly at the OMS office in Ontario, is wonderful 1-800-784-7077 or 905-522-1605. She can take credit cards by phone; on-line donation is available through the OMS website @ http://www.omscanada.org (click on the bottom right logo "Canada Helps Org); our account number is: #08053. All donations are tax-deductible.

One Mission Society Canada
132-293 Wellington St.
N. Hamilton, ON
L8L 8E7

Thank you for your prayers and concern for our family. The Lord has impressed upon Don and my heart, each individually, that he is our strength and our protection; the walls and bars and guards and tight holding-on-of-little-hands is wise, but our trust for health and safety is in the Lord. Blessings to you, for a great day!

Yo hablo un pocito espagnol (I speak a little spanish)

It's September now, we are in Costa Rica for the six more weeks, to learn spanish. We're enrolled at the Spanish Language Institute in San Jose (the capital of Costa Rica) and we're living in a house one block away from the school. We attend the school each afternoon (year-long students attend in the mornings). We've JUST completed our first week of classes.

photo: San Jose area near our little green house

They call our class the intensive language course. Its NASA-like in its speed and goal-orientation . . . On Monday we learned to make nouns, articles, and adjectives agree. Its a French-like concept, for those of us who took High School French. Instead of "le" the spanish masculine article is "el". In addition, in Spanish the end of each adjective changes to match the noun. So on our first day of class, we learned to say "la case blanca" (the white house, which is feminine), and "el clime trio" (the cold climate, masculine), or "las aves exoticas" (the exotic birds, feminine plural). The instructors spoke only in Spanish. I heard about a billion new words in first three hours on Monday. We came home with eight pages of homework.

photo: the school gates and with a guard on duty 24/7

Classes have continued at that pace. By the end of this first week, my instructors have covered pronouns in subject and object form, verb conjugation, and irregular verb rules and conjugation. I have a test on Monday!

photo: Tahiri, one of our Spanish teachers hard at work

That's the BEGINNER intensive course. Don is in the next class up (he took a university Spanish correspondence course this past spring). He's already learning crazy reflexive verb use. I hear him mumbling about third person plural reflexive, as he slaves over his homework. Our heads are full of Spanish after one week of afternoon classes.

Ethan, Lauren, and Katelyn are keen to learn Spanish. During the first week, we put sticky notes around our house: "la peurta" on the door, "la cocina" in the kitchen. Then Lisbeth, our ninera (child-care worker) began coming each afternoon to take care of the children while Don and I are in class. She speaks only spanish, but she has worked with missionary families in the past. When Don and I came home the first afternoon, Lisbeth and the kids had begun a word wall of spanish vocabulary. The kids really like her. And Don and I get LOTS of language practice trying to convey all kids of things to her. She has been a real blessing!

photo: Lisbeth and Amanda

Each morning, we're up and at it early. The children do three hours of homeschooling, then Don and I get ready for our classes. In amongst the marking, homeschool planning, cooking, and cleaning, we're practicing our spanish with each other, and fitting in our homework.

photo: homeschool hub

photo: Don's favorite homework spot

We're getting used to shopping around our neighbourhood. We've found the market, the bakery, and various sizes of grocery stores, thanks to great neighbours!

photo: getting to know the neighbourhood, where to shop, and how to cross a street and live

photo: Saturday's market allows us to purchase fresh fruit and veggies



We've begun e-mailing with the missionary family that we are going to work with in Ecuador. It helps make our purpose for being in San Jose very real . . . we need to learn as much Spanish as we can in the next six weeks, so that we can be useful (rather than a burden) when we get to Ecuador. We sure appreciate your prayers for our family!!!! especially for continued safety, health, and "sponge-like" language learning.

photo: we have to remember to drink LOTS of water! or the headaches hurt

photo: our "backyard", where the internet works best

photo: our front yard, where the kids play lots of soccer and catch geckos

photo: creative play is being discovered . . . empty juice bottles become "baby dolls"





Thank you for making time to think of us and pray for us! We pray many blessings for you and your family!
Love from the Murrays

Arrived Safely in Costa Rica

San Jose isn't the tropical Costa Rican resort that we all dream about in December.

This morning I woke up to the sounds of a lovely tropical bird singing away. I lay in bed, praising God for the bird, for my good night’s sleep (yeah!), and for the situation and safety of our family. As I prayed, God was gracious to me, and showed me the blessings of an optimistic spirit. I listened to Him, and I listened to the sounds under the lovely bird’s song . . . large trucks roaring past our bedroom window on our “residential street”, parked car’s alarms responding to those trucks near misses, sirens, stray dogs yipping and fighting; it is amazing how quickly we have become so accustomed to these “normal” San Jose noises.

We praise God for how well the family is adjusting! We're meeting people in our neighborhood. Also, some of San Jose’s amenities make adjusting easier . . . . garbage pick-up (the streets are generally clean and the stray dogs don’t hang around too much), potable water (not only does this make our life much easier in this house, brushing teeth, etc, but knowing that each San Jose premises has safe drinking water means that we can drink tea or punch elsewhere and eat salads and vegetables at local restaurants knowing they’ve been washed in safe water). This is a great transition place for our family, before we head to a more rural spot in South America.

Today we are going to the local market. We have been looking forward to this all week, as we can hardly wait to buy fresh fruit!! We arrived on Sunday. Since then, we’ve walked in each direction, finding local stores, restaurants, and parks. We are extremely fortunate, in that our house is one block from the language training school, where Don and I will begin Spanish classes on Monday. Everything seems very expensive here . . . eggs, bread, milk, all cost the same or more than they would at Safeway, in St Albert. The first few days we made porridge, peanut butter sandwiches, omelettes, and pasta with sauce. Now we’re beginning to branch out into more “tico” (Costa Rican) food, like beans, rice, and chicken. We’re only in Costa Rica for another seven weeks, so we don’t want to buy too much for spices, etc

The ants keep us humble. They really like our kitchen counter and table. Because of the ants, we only need five of each thing . . . five forks, five bowls, five plates, because we can’t put a dirty dish down anywhere, the ants find it and swarm. We do feel blessed to have a fridge, stove, washing machines, beds, and a kitchen table. Now we have internet too! Having internet in the house is more than we’d ever hoped for!! This week, we’ve been skyping with family for free, and we had expected to be phoning them from a roadside payphone. What a tremendous blessing, to stay connected and be able to reassure friends and family at home!!!

This afternoon, we’ll meet our tico nanny. She is going to come to the house each weekday to care for the children while we are in language classes. The kids Grandma Helen had planned to come and take care of them, but her white-blood-cell count changed days before we flew here, and she has had to stay home. We’re praying for her; she feels healthy, but her condition is a puzzle to her doctors, so please keep her in your prayers. Also pray for our children, please, as they adjust to being cared for each afternoon by Lisbeth; she doesn’t speak English, so this is a wonderful opportunity for the children! I will homeschool them each morning, then they will have the afternoon at the house (and hopefully at the park) with Lisbeth. She comes highly recommended from missionaries who have previously attended the language school we’ll be at each afternoon.

So far, it has rained most afternoons. Katelyn calls it the glorious rain, because she doesn’t like to feel hot. She dances out in our gated front yard in the rain.

We have gates and locks and bars everywhere. We’ve gotten used to it requiring fourteen key turns to go out for a walk . . . the door, the gate (like a screen door, with no screen), and the other gate (like a fence). Each has a built –in deadbolt, then the fence-gate has a secondary deadbolt that you attach. As we lock each section at night, I am reminded that our trust is in the Lord, and we are thankful for the locks, and window bars, and walls, and barbed wire, but we trust in God for security. He has certainly been gracious to us.

Well, I am in danger of writing a novel instead of a blog post. Thank you so much for your support and prayers! Blessings to you, as you begin a new school year. We’re praying for you, too.
Love from the Murrays and our ever-changing-catch-and-release pet geckos.