A Birthday on Wheels and a Birthday on Spiritual Knees!

Josiah's birthday was September 7th, 2010.  He is twelve.  Time surely goes by quick.  So, one asks oneself, how do we have a birthday celebration in Costa Rica?  Parks are great areas to have a celebration where you can invite many families.  So, it became a birthday on wheels.  We carted with our market cart and the neighbor's cart, the drinks, the fruit salad, the chips, the cakes, the plastic utensils, plates and cups, the decorations, and a folding chair.

Well, it was really a time of blessing.  The families had a great time and interestingly, the firemen showed up at the Park.  They were going to play soccer at the park as part of their training, but could not play because the ground was too wet.  I thought:  "there are a lot of children here, how nice it would be to have a presentation by the firemen for all these children".  Well, they were game and we had a wonderful time listening to their information, the description of their vehicles, and what each one of the vehicles were used for.  Josiah got to wear a uniform and found out how heavy the equipment is.  It was a God providential moment for our family and the families in the park.  Below are some of the pictures from the party.

Pray for the Bomberos of Costa Rica, Estacion Barrio Cujan.  The main ones in leadership are Adrian Rowe, Alejandro Mesen, and Fernando Rodriguez.  We are thankful for their instruction and care for our children on Josiah's birthday.  Interestingly, they are very familiar with the Fire Truck Engines Factory in Ocala, not because they have gone there, but because they purchase engines from E-1 in Ocala.  They would love to go there and have a tour of the factory.  We will see what may happen.  Who knows?  God might arrange for such an opportunity.

The kids got to play some soccer the rest of the time and around the playground.  It was a fun time for them.  We ended up with enough cake to share with some of the boys from the community who were playing soccer in the court.

For Noemi's birthday, September 22nd, we went to the Sam's Club of this country "PriceMart" and got her a cheesecake.  By God's provision, a missionary from the Institute was there shopping with her van and told us that she would give us a ride back.  Otherwise, we would have called a taxi and waited around twenty minutes to go home.  This  became important to us, because we got home on time to put away groceries and receive the children from school.  The children have been walking home from school as a group as a rule.  This time was different.  

Another Missionary kid who had his guitar with him and our two children walked home that day.  On the turn of our street, two individuals robbed them at knife point the boy who had the guitar. One of the guys took the boy's guitar and the other individual asked Kaila to give him her bag and lunch box.  They did not ask anything from Josiah.  When Kaila got home, as she was trying to open the gate, she called us crying telling us that they just had been robbed.  Kaila and Josiah came inside of the home and so did the other boy at his home.   In the meantime, the two fathers went to see if they could find the robbers.  Once Kaila was inside she wanted to have all doors closed and be secured in her home.   We did some debriefing, one of our supervisors came to the home with the Director of Administration of the school to see about obtaining a description of the individuals and give a report to the police.  While all this is happening, the fathers were still out looking for the men,  finally after it seemed like an eternity, Jeff and the other father made it back to our homes.  We were glad they did not find the robbers, and decided to be back home with their families.

That evening we were planning on going out to celebrate Noemi's birthday, but decided to remain home.  Jeff made the best steak he has made in a long time and we had a quiet evening at home.  The conversations went from fear, to what would we do different in that scenario if it was to happen again, to: "Mom, can you give us the salvation plan in Spanish so if we are robbed again, at least the robbers would have a chance to accept Jesus".  

Thanks to the many prayer warriors on that day, our children were not harmed and we were home to receive them under such circumstances.  If we had taken the taxi, we may not have made it home on time to be there for them. We are thankful for God's protection and for a quiet birthday in our home.  Our Member Care personnel has been in touch with our family and gave us some direction on how to handle situations like these ones.  Our member care happened to be missionaries that had been here in Costa Rica for Language School and our children knew them and really enjoyed them while they were here in the summer.  They called us the same evening and it meant a lot to our family to be loved in such wonderful way.  Thank the Lord for your prayer support and for the organization's support in the midst of difficult times like these ones.  The children are doing good, but of course with some added precautions in their walks back and forth to school.  Life is getting back to normal in the two families who dealt with this time of testing.

This concludes the two celebrations of our birthdays while in Language School in Costa Rica.