Spanish 101

If you have heard any Hispanics speak, it seems like they have a machine gun in their mouth spitting out hundreds of words per second. It is really hard to try and understand people when they talk so fast. Of course when Hispanics are learning English, they say we speak very fast.

But there are reasons that the Hispanic speakers truly talk fast. Two of the reasons are uniones and dipthongs. Dipthongs are when two vowels occur together in a word. Take the word for God--Dios. The i and the o occur together. Both letters are pronounced but with the timing of one letter so the pronunciation is very fast. The speed of pronunciation for the two letters is the same as is normal for one letter.

Uniones or unions are when the last letter of a word is a consanant and the first letter of the next word is a vowel. Then you join the two together, only when speaking, to form one syllable. So the words "infundiran aliento" (from the 23rd psalm) become one word. The syllables are divided as follows: in-fun-di-ra-na-lien-to (the ie in lien is a dipthong as well). So now the two words are pronounced as one word making the speech very fast indeed! Trying to understand a new language is hard enough but when 2 words become one word, deciphering what people are saying is a true challenge.

The good news is that when I went to the market this past Saturday, I was so appreciative that all the venders had decided to start talking much more plainly and understandably. I just wanted to thank each and everyone of them. Or maybe I am just learning to understand what they are saying and they have not really changed at all. Either way, it's a good thing!

Little Dogs

Some of the garage doors are opaque, and those homes are where a teeny tiny dog with an inferiority complex and a really loud bark lies in wait for an unsuspecting gringo to walk by. He waits until the gringo gets almost past and then springs into action. If he times it just right, he can jump high enough to get his mouth right next to the gringo's ear and then let out a bark that exceeds all safe decibel levels and sounds like he's ready to rip your throat out. Then I picture him laughing hysterically in his dog-way as he watches the gringo jump two feet off the ground with the adrenaline pumping, and then look around to make sure no one saw it. With the satisfaction of a job well-accomplished, he settles back down for a little rest to wait for his next victim. We are his entertainment for the day. Now we've learned him and his evil ways, so he doesn't bother with us much anymore. ; ) Yes, this is the voice of experience talking. And yes, the little dogs are all over the city and all the same. And yes, there are a whole new slew of unsuspecting students coming in for the January trimester.

Smells

It's true what they say . . . you can be walking along through your day-to-day life and then all of a sudden, with no warning, you're taken back to some point in your past by something you smell. It seems so strange when it happens. Last week, as I walked home from school, I smelled cotton candy. Weird. I did find out that they have cotton candy here. Trey said it smelled like bubblegum. It reminded me of fall fairs at home.

Here the smells range from big city smells (cigarette smoke, diesel fumes, car exhaust) to particularly Latin American smells (chicken roasting over coffee beans--YUM!--frijoles and rice cooking, and fried food, cologne) to regular everyday smells (laundry detergent--that is different from home but still nice (some of it), and cleaning smells, shampoo, etc.)

All of the houses are open and very close to the street, so as you walk around, you can catch snippets of conversations, hear pots and pans clanking together, the swish-swish of a broom, a TV or radio playing, but most of all, you can smell what they are doing--cleaning, cooking, showering.

Last weekend, we went with the school to a restaurant on a little mountain above the city. We enjoyed typical Costa Rican food by candlelight, and when the fog lifted, we were able to look down in the valley and see the lights of San Jose twinkling in the night. It was beautiful. My favorite part was not the beauty of the lights in the distance, nor the taste of the delicious food, nor the time out away from school with friends, although all of those were great.

My favorite part of the evening was the opportunity to smell woodsmoke for the first time this fall. The restaurant had a fireplace which we smelled as soon as we got off the bus. Some of our fellow missionaries here are from much colder states than South Carolina, but we all talked about the same thing. How wonderful it is to smell woodsmoke, which we had taken for granted before.

Various things

The city of San Francisco de Dos Rios has trash pick up every Wednesday and Saturday. I usually put the trash on the sidewalk right outside our garage early so that we're not rushed to do it when it's time to leave for school. We always leave the house by way of the garage as that is where we keep the stroller. When the garage is shut we have no way of seeing what is outside the garage. So it was somewhat disconcerting to open the garage door and see a man opening our garbage bags and going through our garbage only four feet away from us. It was even more disconcerting when he pulled out a small plastic bag of food we had thrown away and proceeded to eat it right in front of us. It is hard to put into words how it made the boys and me feel but it was not a good feeling.

When we arrived at our first class this morning there was alot of talking and animation--much more than usual. There was an earthquake just over the Panamanian border that registered 6.2 on the Richter scale. It occurred just after midnight. Dawn and I slept through it but many students felt it. Elijah came downstairs (and fortunately went to Dawn's side of the bed) during the night and we wonder if the quake is what woke him up. Fortunately there were no injuries. Those who felt it said it was a very eerie sensation. Well life goes on and the earthquake was forgotten by the end of the school day but the man going through our garbage will not soon be forgotten.

Dear Jesus break my heart with the things that break Your heart and Holy Spirit teach me to respond in a way that will only bring glory to You. Amen

Forgiven and Healed

I entered a blog on October 16th talking about the guilt I felt after Trey, my oldest son, tore the medial meniscus (cartilage) in his left knee. I knew I needed to forgive myself and received wise counsel as such from my wife and a very good friend and mentor. I knew it was sin to continue to feel guilty when the Lord Jesus Christ has forgiven me. It is an act of the will to make the decision to forgive myself. I know from practicing medicine for 21 years that many people are weighed down with a chronic guilt (like I discussed on Oct 16) they cannot shed and it adversely affects every aspect of their life. But thanks be to God that He forgives us and therefore we can forgive ourselves.

After Trey injured his knee, we had an ultrasound done that clearly showed a tear of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus of the left knee. A few nights later, as Trey was going to bed I decided to pray for Trey's healing according to the biblical model found in James Chapter 5. I went into Trey's room, sat on his bed, confessed my sins, laid hands on Trey's knee and prayed for God to heal Trey. In the meantime I had called an orthopedist back home and he suggested we go ahead and get an MRI of the knee to get a better look at the cartilage and to see the internal ligaments in the knee that the ultrasound will not show. The MRI was done 2 weeks after the ultrasound. It showed a small amount of swelling and some bruising of the bone but the cartilage tear was healed and no longer present. In the meantime Trey's knee seems to be healed clinically as well. He no longer has any pain and the click he had frequently complained of has resolved. We give God all the credit and glory for healing Trey. While I know that the cartilage will on occasion heal on its own, I never in my 21 years of practicing medicine had a patient I was aware of have their knee cartilage heal on its own. So in my mind Trey's healing is a miraculous healing. As I had my quiet time this morning I was reading in John ch 14, verses 12-14.

" 'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.' "

We should not be surprised when God does the miraculous. Rather, I think, we should expect it.

We love you Jesus and give You, God, and the Holy Spirit all the glory, honor, and praise that we have. Amen

Costa Rican Fall Festival

Theresa Anderson, a fellow missionary with BMDMI, checking out the treat bags the girls received.



Gabriel, who thoroughly enjoyed himself--and especially the candy


The older kids completely designed and worked the carnival themselves for the younger ones.



Our friend Ben, having a great time with the "Which cup is the treasure hidden under?" game




One mom remarked to me in mid September, "Sometimes, do you ever feel like your kids give up so much being here?" She went on to relate that Halloween was such a special time at their house in the States. They live near her parents on family land and the grandparents have everyone around over for a big celebration complete with costumes and hotdogs. After dark, they pile all the grandkids and their friends onto a wagon and have a long hayride through the countryside. She really wanted to do something special for her kids while here.

What we ended up with, I can honestly say, was the best Fall Festival we've ever attended. We adults, of course, all have tests to take, papers and homework and talks to prepare and complete through the week--not much extra time for planning anything. In the days prior to October 31, another friend's teenage daughters got on the internet and looked up festival games and picked out a few. Without help from the adults (except to buy the supplies), the older kids designed the festival.

The afternoon of October 31, an excited group of teenagers transformed our garage into a fall festival complete with candles, apple-bobbing, face painting, bean bag tossing, Go Fish (one of Trey's crutches was transformed into a fishing pole for the evening), and several other games. Of course, no fall festival is complete without mounds of candy, ours included. The younger children were delighted by their candy loot, the older ones were champs at working the games, and the adults were mesmerized by it all.

Recently, . . .

We were blessed to have Pastor Beltane Harrigan, from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, over for dinner one night during Spiritual Emphasis Week. ILE brings in a guest speaker for one week each trimester (a little over the halfway point) to give students spiritual encouragement and rest. The Lord spoke to Tully and me through Pastor Harrigan's messages and he was a delight to get to know. He and the boys tried to stump each other with riddles and enjoyed sharing jokes. We look forward to keeping in touch with him.




Elijah showing off his new smile, minus one top tooth! It won't be long before the other top one is out, too!




A race at the track that goes around Parque la Paz (I think that's the name!). It has a huge hill that children slide down on pieces of cardboard. Our kids tried it, but got bogged down in the mud--it's too far into the rainy season for that, we decided! : )




From the top of the big hill, looking towards our "neighborhood."




Our sweet big sister, Lynda Gregg, went with us to the Parque, then treated the children to ice cream on the way back home! She has been such a blessing to us in so many ways--she will be graduating in December and moving to Honduras and we are all going to miss her immensely!!






Carmen's dirty feet after stepping in a mud puddle hidden by tall grass! : )



Fresh squeezed orange juice--a treat at the park.


View of the mountains from the big hill at Parque La Paz

Manuel Antonio Salas and Others

It begins with a ring of our buzzer. We greet them as we look out our window near the front gate. They start out asking, in español of course, if we speak any Spanish. We smile and say, "A little." That's the only encouragment they need to launch into a story at lightning speed. Our brains are left in the dust trying to play catch-up, and usually lag behind by at least 3 or 4 sentences if not a paragraph! : )

I would like to introduce you to all of the many visitors we've had at our gate since arriving here in August. Hunger and poverty have individual names and faces, and heartbreaking stories, and unlike in the US, they come up and ring your doorbell. Since I can't introduce each one, I would like for you to meet several in particular.

Manuel Antonio Salas came by one evening a couple of weeks ago. Tully and I went out and talked with him for a few minutes as the children were getting together some food for him. He said he had been a taxista, a taxi driver (which is a good job here), for many years and for the last few months had not been able to work. I asked him his name and he proudly gave us his whole name. "Manuel Antonio Salas." It was a little unusual as most only offer their first names, or first and last. Not Manuel. He gave us his whole name time and again. Like, please don't forget me. I'm important. Tully asked him if he knows Jesus, and he immediately grinned and said, "Sí, yo amo a Jesús." ("Yes, I love Jesus.") He asked if we knew Jesus and when we told him we do, and we love Him also, he stated that he thought so. Forgetting him is an impossibility. His name keeps going through my mind at odd times of the day. I wonder what he's doing right now. Was he warm and dry when it was pouring for several hours yesterday? Where does he sleep? Where did he eat last night? Did Manuel Antonio Salas eat?



Secondly, I'd like to introduce Eduardo. He's a regular. He has some stomach pain and is extremely thin. We give him food and he thanks us profusely. Last week he came by and had a trinket he was selling for the church up the road. He said it was a fundraiser for them, the money was not for him. It is the general consensus here that giving money is a bad idea for obvious reasons--just like at home, money can be used for drugs and/or alcohol. We said we couldn't give him any money, but we could give him some food. He protested a little, but took the food and went on his way.



This man came by yesterday and asked if he could cut our grass. Regretfully, I did not get his name. He said that he did not have any work and his baby needed milk. We agreed on a price and he went to work with his machete. A couple of minutes later, the bottom dropped out of the sky--it was the hardest rain we've had in several days. Gabriel and I were sitting in our living room reading a book together as we listened to the pouring rain. Over the sound of the rain we could hear his machete chopping rhythmically, never pausing, never hurrying. He was wearing glasses, had no umbrella, and he stayed on the job until it was carefully and neatly completed.



Confronted daily with poverty and hunger, we are constantly reminded of the verse, ". . .whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." May we do in all things as if we are doing for Jesus.