Doka Coffee Plantation and Sarchi

A Tico Christmas

A Tico Christmas is the same and yet different than Christmas in the US. One big difference is the food. Most people here have rice and chicken and tamales for their Christmas feast. It is a family affair the first week or two of December to make tons of tamales and freeze them for the whole family. They will gather together for this event and each take their share of the bounty home to last the month of December.

Another Tico tradition is celebrating on Christmas Eve with family instead of Christmas day. Family gathers around 8 or 9pm and they eat all evening and shoot off fireworks all night until about 3am. They actually use the large professional fireworks that you would see in the states for Fourth of July city celebrations. All this time we thought when we heard these loud booms they were some sort of canon, only to find out these are very large fireworks! Apparently these fireworks are a nightly occurrence until after the 1st of January.

Although this year was our first Christmas away from family and friends back in Alabama, God was gracious to give us family here. My mother came down for 9 days and we had another missionary (David) and a Tico family (Francisco, Yolanda, and their son). It was so different from any Christmas that we have had, but I was so thankful that God had provided us with new friends to spend this special day with. Mom and I cooked all the day before and Christmas morning (sweet potato casserole, stuffing, salad, chicken supreme, pumpkin cheesecake, and red velvet cupcakes). I can say for our Tico friends that it was very different from the typical Costa Rican fare. A special shout out to Mom, Nana, and my best friend ,Teena, for the wonderful gifts of pecans and pumpkin that helped make the feast happen!

The children had an amazing morning of opening all their presents. Grammie brought a suitcase full and Nana sent a huge box from our family in Mobile with all kinds of goodies for the kids. It was such a wonderful surprise! The children had so much fun playing with all their new toys.

My favorite part of the whole day though was being with our new church family that night. They had a special Christmas service that evening and asked one of the other missionaries (Ash) to play guitar and me to play piano with the praise band. It was so wonderful to be a part of the praise team. Even though most evangelicals here do not sing many Christmas carols (usually only the Catholic churches sing the traditional carols), the pastor asked Ash and me to play a few of our traditional carols. We chose 3 that we knew were also sung in Spanish (Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard On High, and O Come All Ye Faithful). It was beautiful to listen to the people sing the words in Spanish as we sang them in English, praising the birth of our Savior together. Afterwards they had a Christmas dinner that started at 8:30pm. Believe it or not this is considered early by some Latinos. The food was sweet, and the fellowship even sweeter.

Dios le bendiga este nuevo año. (The Lord bless you this new year.)

Our Christmas Card

Make a Smilebox greeting

And your address is...?

Yesterday while giving my mailing address here in Costa Rica by e-mail to someone the question arose "What is your zip code?" I hear these kinds of questions often and the answer is never a simple one. You see, here in Costa Rica, and other Latin America countries as well, it is common to not have physical addresses like those in the United States. Most streets do not have names outside of the old downtown section of the city, so we have to be a little creative in describing our whereabouts for any and all askers.

While the address you see on the right hand side of our blog is indeed a mailing address, it is a post office box for our language school. It serves a couple of hundred folks here as the location to receive mail and packages and we have a mailroom on campus for that purpose. Now if someone wanted to actually come to my house the address "description" is a bit different. We give addresses based on landmarks in a particular sector of the city. We start from known landmarks such as a park, police station, school, well-known building, etc., and then proceed to give directions and distances along with a description of the edifice we call home.

The physical address of Casa Nelson is as follows:
San Francisco de dos Rios - De la casetilla del guarda del Parque de Bosque, 300 metros al oeste y 75 metros al sur, casa blanca y verde con portones negros, mano derecha, en frente de la pulperia.

Now for you non-Spanish speaking gringos out there this loosely translates to:
In San Francisco de dos Rios (a "suburb" of San José) - From the small guard house at Parque Bosque, go 300 meters (3 blocks - however long that may be) east and 75 meters (3/4 of a block) south. Our house is the white and green one with black burglar bars (which incidently make up a sizable portion of the architecture). We are on the right hand side across from a small convenience store (ran out of the neighbor's garage).

This complete description is on our cable, phone, internet, and power bills. It is required to request a taxi, order a pizza, or get a membership card at the local PriceSmart (which is a Tico Sam's or CostCo). Get the picture? By the way, the car in the picture here is a prop. It does not exist in reality.

One of the things "veteran" language students do for incoming new students is to take them to a nearby copy center with "physical" address in hand to have multiple laminated copies made for the refrigerator and wallets. Don't leave home without them. I might add that our address is one of the more simpler ones due to our proximity to such a well-known landmark as Parque Bosque. Some of these poor guys here need a full index card to lead the taxi-driver home. It gives back-seat driving a whole new meaning.

And don't even think about trying to MapQuest me!

Big Things Come in Small Packages

The other night we came home to a hand written note by Connor that a package would soon be arriving from Nana full of candy, grits, and other goodies. Ken and I had gotten to go on a rare date thanks to a soon to be leaving student from a college in Ohio that is doing just one trimester down here. (Thanks Brandi! We will miss you when you go back Sunday. ) Any way it made the children's day to know that something special was coming for them in a care package from Nana. It was an unexpected gift.

A couple of weeks ago we received another unexpected gift from Mrs. Bredbenner (Mom to Brett, one of our fellow M's down here). She apparently told Brett's wife her Sunday school class and her wanted to bless a couple of families down here during the holidays with a care package. What a blessing it was! Complete with stickers, Christmas bags, garland, cookie mix, spices, a beautiful stocking (Connor was threatening to use his nasty stinky soccer sock for Santa to fill), chicken packets, stuffing, even Christmas napkins a table cloth, and a great dvd! What a wonderful and totally undeserved gift. You rock Mrs. B!

Ken and I had been a little bummed as it is the end of the school year and we are missing our family and friends. Ken was missing his annual game of Trivial Pursuit with his brother Jeff and seeing all of his family in Mobile. I was missing our ladies annual ornament swap from Sunday school and our Christmas program at church. To top it all off apparently the rainy season is still not over yet. We were especially bummed that we wouldn't be receiving any mail at Christmas, but the director said we could check our mail if we were willing to bring everyone's mail to the school during the Christmas break! (So feel free to send those Christmas cards and letters if you want to spread some holiday cheer!) That is a gift that we are so grateful for.

All of this reminded me of a gift that arrived 2000 years ago in a small package. This gift was foretold and still it was unexpected by the people. When the angels told the shepherds in the field they probably knew the prophecies concerning the Messiah. They probably did not expect to see Him face to face in a manger filled with straw in such lowly conditions or heralded by a host of angels singing , "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth and good will toward men."

When the Wise men followed the star from the east for years, I am sure they too were not prepared for the tiny house and the simple surroundings that greeted them when they found the Christ child. They were probably surprised too at the manner in which God provided salvation to the nations. A small child, born to young, poor parents. Why in the world would God send his only son to earth in such a way? Why was there no palace, no royal clothing, not even a parade? Why was this gift wrapped so simply in human flesh? This was God after all, incarnate. Why would He be willing to leave the splendor and majesty of heaven to be born in a stable for animals with only scraps of linen for his clothing?

Every year I am reminded of the wonder of this small gift that has been the most important gift I have ever received. I do not deserve it, but I am so grateful for it! Our prayer is that in the midst of all this holiday rush, everyone will take the time to think about that one special gift given to us more than 2000 years ago, unexpected and undeserved, but oh so grateful!

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:11