Happy Easter Season!!!

Donovan prepared yummy lamb all day Saturday and
early into the morning on Easter.

We were so blessed this Easter to celebrate with our friends the Geerlings and some of our Tico friends. Our landlord gifted us a lamb for our Easter feast and a smoker for Donovan to cook it in! What a double blessing (the meat for the feast and a chance for Donovan to bar-b-que).

Our friends gathered in our new living room.

We were able to see our friend Claudia for Easter. She
used to live in Coopevega as a missionary but is now in Nicaragua for
a few more months before she will return to her home in Mexico.

So much has happened since our last blog post at the beginning of Lent so I'll try to give you a quick rundown.

February we did our 40 Days to Simplify while Donovan helped with the new house. The Geerlings (the new family in mission here) arrived from the United States and we all drove to Liberia to welcome them and meet them for the first time. We continued to gather things for their new house and continued with our regular ministries (home visits, walking rosary, Catholicism video series and English classes). We were also praying, planning and preparing for our first FMC Costa Rican short-term mission trip.  

Our friend Jorge cutting us fresh sugarcane
from his garden. We were at their home for a
house visit and got a tour of their property
that is covered in all kinds of fruit and
vegetable plants and trees.

Jorge's wife Leoncia holding a squash.

Our sweet little missionary.

 At the end of February the Geerling family finally arrived in Coopevega after spending 3 weeks in language school and almost 2 weeks living with Pablo while our house was being finished. As soon as our landlord gave us the ok we moved into our house and the Geerlings were able to move in to theirs (our old house). They only had a few days before the short-term mission trip arrived on March 4th. 

We had an amazing week with students from Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, TX and their awesome chaperones. Suzanna Vanvickle (daughter of FMC founders Frank & Genie Summers) and her 5 children came a few days early to get the lay of the land and prepare for the mission trip. She was such a blessing to have here for our first short-term mission and helped make it run so smoothly. Even though we were exhausted we were even more blessed by the experience with this great group. Stay tuned for a separate blog about this special mission trip that was held in Florencia with Pablo and his family.

After the mission we tried to rest and settle into our new homes. We did not have the time before the mission trip to put everything away so it was really nice to be able to get organized.

Gabriel helping us sort through the donations from the
mission trip.

We put together bags to take to our home visits.
We used our chapel to sort through all the items.

One of my favorite parts of our new house is that Jesus has His own room. We now have 3 bedrooms so we dedicated one bedroom to be our chapel. It is the perfect place to pray quietly and read scripture for our personal prayer time or as a family or community.

We LOVE our new kitchen!

Gabriel enjoyed watching the men pick up
rocks from the property after the house was
finished being built.

Donovan built a little bed for Gabriel and some ladders and
rail guards for the girls new bunk beds.

This past week we were able to go to Santa Rosa (the parish and main church of our area of the diocese) where we introduced the Geerlings to our Pastor Padre Alvaro. All 12 of us packed into our 7 passenger SUV for the hour and 15 minute drive to Santa Rosa. 

The girls playing a game of  "Mother May I"
in front of the Parish office and rectory in Santa Rosa.

There are three priests who work in the Santa Rosa boundaries that covers Coopevega and other communities. This year they started a rotation so that every 2 weeks we have a different priest in Coopevega. This priest stays in Coopevega and travels to the 13 surrounding communities to give Mass. Some communities receive weekly mass, others twice a month and others only once a month.

Tomorrow we will be travelling to Ciudad Quesada (2 hours away) to introduce the Geerlings to Bishop Jose Manuel. Please pray for all of our travels and for the mission trip coming up in June! We are in the middle of praying, planning and preparing for our 2nd short-term mission trip this June.

A beautiful bouquet of  hibiscus flowers she
brought to me. Our yard is surrounded
by them.

Gabriel visited the hardware store with me
and our friend Maritza (the owner) gave this
chair to Gabriel. He loves it!