Mom's Visit & the Best YoungLife's Yet!

We'll start with a quick March Madness sports update that can be summarized with how terrible my bracket was/is this year. I guess I'll leave Bracketology to Joe Lunardi. Alabama sure didn't help me by losing in the first round...c'mon ya'll.

 

BUT, in the midst of my ESPN Tournament Challenge rankings plummeting, my mom came to visit me in Costa Rica! And let me tell ya'll- we had an absolute blast! I got to play tour guide/translator for 6 days as we traveled (via public transporation) around the country. Her first night here was a YoungLife night, and mom was able to attend her first YL club since she was in high school. The next morning we caught the 6 am bus to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast where we roasted in the sun for 3 days. We also did a rainforest canopy tour with 10 ziplines. We decided that was more like an overly priced Disney World ride because, as cool as the trees and rainforest were, we saw way more animals exploring on our own. However, we can check ziplining in Costa Rica off the bucket list! After the beach, we returned to San Jose and lived city life for 2 more days. I'm now a professional at economically & efficiently traveling in Costa Rica, not to mention translating, sooooo- Bring on more visitors!

 

This was the view from our hotel balcony-Manuel Antonio beach

The sloth that was in a nearby tree at breakfast each morning

First day on the beach!

Getting in some exercise/exploring the beach

The "white-faced" monkeys we encountered on the beach

This iguana wanted a good view & a sun tan

One incredible sunset...

Zipline tour of the rainforest canopy

Go, Momma!

 

It's always difficult to adjust back to the normal routine after a great vacation, but having YoungLife clubs to prepare for makes it much easier. Speaking of YoungLife clubs, in my opinion, we've had some of our best YL clubs yet recently. We had a YL Fast Food Progressive Dinner, YL Donut Olympics, and then YL Senior Citizen Club- all phenomenal ideas for you other YL leaders out there looking for themes/club ideas. Pictures will speak louder than words in this case, so here are some of the "best of" photos from each club.

Fast Food Progressive dinner

1st stop: Taco Bell for a taco eating relay

Next stop: McDonald for a french fry toss (my personal favorite)

3rd stop: KFC for some popcorn chicken (instagramed)

Then we finished up with some ice cream at POPS while we listened to Nicki's talk

 

Donut Olympics
The classic toothpick pass

Stuffing your face is always attractive...

Getting creative: The girls constructed a nice donut tower

...& the guys came up with a donut boxing match (typical)

Demonstrating the ol' donut swing & bite

 

Senior Citizen Club

Your elderly hosts & Green Acres Retirement Home residents: Oscar & Opal

Ready for our close-up...I hope I turn out nothing like this at 75!

Powdered white hair & wheelchair races make everyone 65+

 

As if we needed something else to celebrate this March month, my sweet friend Miguel (Mexico born, Houston raised, and now Costa Rican med school student) was baptized last Saturday!

 

Things you can be thinking about/praying for before you hear from me again:

• YL Costa Rica is taking 12 people to El Salvador for a Habitat for Humanity service project March 31st-April 7th! Speaker, Will Hawkins from Mesa, Arizona, will be flying in to join us.   
• A potential full-time YoungLife ministry opportunity for me is brewing stateside. I'll keep you updated, but I would love prayers through the process!

 

March Madness: Sports Edition & then some

I apologize for the long break in blogging for those of you who actually missed it. A mouse, or something along those lines, chewed through my laptop power cord, so my computer is dead until my mom comes to visit with a new one. (More on that further down) In the meantime, I couldn't wait any longer to post, so my good friend Alex let me use her computer to update you!

This is the sports edition of "Vida en Abundancia" because my life lately has been sports, sports, and more sports. While March Madness will soon take place stateside, we've been having our own sports madness in Costa Rica. Talk about some quality contact work on the YoungLife front! Jessie, my area director, and I are coaching two seperate soccer teams; middle school & high school. Then Alex and I, Alex more so than me, have been helping out with the newly formed cross country team. It's been an awesome way to spend time with students, encourage them, get involved, and love them well.

I have made you all well aware that I coach the girls' varsity soccer team at Country Day School, and each season of international schools soccer culminates in the AASCA tournament that took place last week. (Februrary 29-March 3rd) The tournament includes American international schools from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama; a total of 25 teams and over 450 international school students. It was quite an experience to go with the team to this event and be a part of the opening & closing ceremonies as well as coaching the girls' games and supporting the boys' team. It was long, sunny days that were well worth the sunburns and exhaustion. I had some awesome opportunities to spend one-on-one time with high school friends and small groups as we spent hours relaxing and waiting for our next match. We finished 7th out of the 12 girl teams....not too bad at all. Get ready for photo overload of Coach Sydney and the CDS Lady Panthers.

The team at the opening ceremony with the school banner & country flag

My personal favorite of us at Wednesday nights' "meet & greet" with the other teams 

Meredith & I on the bus going from one field to the next

Sol (top), Erin (left), & Daniella (right) on the bus

Game faces for our game against Nicaragua

My favorite brother/sister moment after each game

Your coaches: J.M. Artavia & Sydney (frustrated hands going on here...)

Alex, Nicki, and the boys' team supporting like champs

Seniors after their last AASCA game (left to right: MaJo, Jime, Cami, Fish, & Eva)

The weekend before the AASCA tournament started, Alex & I put our cross country endurance to the test and ran in CDS's annual fun run with over 200 other students and parents. In my opinion, the best part of the whole race was the free bananas and pineapple afterwards courtesy of a Dole employee whose kids go to CDS. And not just your average yellow banana...ever tried a red banana? Don't. 

In the words of my 5th grade favorite, the Dixie Chicks:

"Ready, ready, ready, ready...Ready to ruuuuuuun. All I really wanna do is have some fuuuUUUnnn."

Another big project I've been working on is a scrapbook for one of our committee members/my in-country mentor of her families' historical tour of the United States last summer. Yvonne homeschools her 2 boys, so they contributed essays about the historical significance of the places they visited while I crafted each page to be visually appealing. It turned out great and was fun hours spent at the Van Slyke household with Yvonne and the boys!

The work in progress...

...& the finished product! God Bless America. 

A brief update on WyldLife & YoungLife clubs: We just hosted our 5th YoungLife club of the semester including 2 events; Beanbag-O-Rama & a fast-food progressive dinner. My personal favorites so far have been YoungLife ThugLyfe club &, of course, the fast food pregressive dinner (this meant eating items from Taco Bell, McDonalds, KFC, and POPS ice cream all in one night). I'm sure parents appreciated the nutrition value of that event...

The dark, shadowy figure in the right of this pic is yours truly 

My WyldLife favorite so far was Wet n' Wild club- pretty self explanatory & here are some photos. 

My group performing an out-of-water sycronized swimming rountine

What's more fun than soaking your student WyldLife leader?

2 of my favorite middle school friends, Harry & Andrew- endless laughs

Life outside of sports, ministry, and the combination of the two has been somewhat non-existent in the past few weeks, but it's about to get a lot more exciting! I'm having my first visitor come since Kristin dropped me off here in August...MY MOMMA! Mom comes next Wednesday, and we're heading to the beach for 3 days to soak up the sun & do a canopy tour of the rainforest. Then we're spending 2 nights in the city so she can experience a YL Costa Rica club, meet my host family, and see what my day-to-day life looks like here. You can be looking forward to the blog post that will follow her visit, because I can assure you that no one does mother/daughter vacations better than Erin & Sydney. 

Mom & I last parted ways in New Orleans, LA after watching Alabama win its 13th national title. This photo is of us on Bourbon Street. Here's to us reuniting in the Rica!

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." -Colossians 3:15-17

Feelin' Good, Livin' Better

This will be my first blog post in a while that doesn't begin with an Alabama football update. I wish Alabama basketball was worth updating you on right now- but unfortunately not so much. I have faith in Anthony Grant (our coach) though; he's doing big things with our program. As always, Roll Tide.

Nicki & I had a good few weeks of alone time when we first arrived in the country, almost a month ago now, because our fellow staff members were at new staff training and the YoungLife All Staff Conference in Orlando, FL for 2 weeks. What I initially expected to be a slow start getting back to the country with their absence turned out to be a busy time full of YL contact work opportunities. Soccer is back and crazier than ever because the big international schools tournament is at the end of this month. Because we had so little time once we came back from vacations, I am helping the team with workouts outside of Tues/Thurs practices on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We've been combining Saturday morning workouts with lunch together or afternoons by the pool. It's been an awesome opportunity to spend some time with the team off the field.

On our last day without a full staff Nicki, her roommate from Venezuela- Saray, and I went to the beach for a quick day trip. We rode the bus for 2 hours to enjoy the majority of the day in Jaco. It was SO crowded because it's the dry, summer season and it was the weekend. Any time at the beach is still a good time though. Getting sunburnt in January was a new experience for me. No worries- when the sun got too hot, I retired to the local ice cream shop and enjoyed 3 ice cream cones; all different flavors. Yeah, 3.

Me, Nicki, & Saray at El Barco ice cream shop in Jaco Beach

Not a bad day...

Then things with YoungLife and WyldLife hit the ground running when Jessie, Ali, and Alex got back in the country. We had our first YoungLife and WyldLife last week; both of which I spoke at. YoungLife's theme was YoungLife ThugLife, so naturally Nicki & I (aka Penny & Dyme) performed one of our famous bilingual rap remixes- this time to Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now". WyldLife's theme was Wet n' Wyld if you can imagine what that's like with 11-13 year olds.

After WyldLife on Friday night, we loaded up the YL van with our student leaders to begin an overnight leadership retreat that we do at the beginning of each semester to plan YL & WL clubs. We spent the night at the Gamble's home in Guadalupe and stayed up late devouring chocolate chip cookies, guacamole, and chex mix. The next day we went bowling as a group before we had an intense planning session at the YoungLife office. Get this- there's only ONE bowling alley in the entire country of Costa Rica. That makes bowling much more exciting and unique here than if we were to go in the U.S.

Here we are! 

Some of our lovely ladies...

After a Saturday of bowling and planning came Super Bowl Sunday/Jessie's pre-birthday hike. First, the hike. Jessie turned 28 on Monday, and, after living in Costa Rica for 5 years, her birthday tradition has become going on a hike. Since Monday is our day at the office, we hiked to a gorgeous waterfall on Sunday morning. The weather was perfect, and Jessie and Nicki even braved the freezing cold water when we got to the falls. 

The views on the hike were incredible- and you hike right out of my town!

Nicki & Alex on the trail 

The waterfall!

 Nicki- just livin' it up

There's one football game every year that Costa Ricans will actually care to watch, and, of course, that's the Super Bowl. So, to take advantage of this once-a-year interest, our sweet friend Mariana hosted a fantastic Super Bowl party! We had more food than we could eat and a great mix of American/Costa Rican/Venezuelan company. Congrats, Eli- you deserve it.

Mariana and her "gringas" enjoying the night

Finally, Jessie turned 28, and we spent the day working and celebrating at the office. Turns out, Jessie is full of birthday traditions, and with a broken oven, she couldn't make the monkey bread that she eats every birthday for breakfast. Well, we weren't going to let that happen- so yesterday morning, before going to work at the office, all the girls came over to my house bright & early to make monkey bread. It was ultimately a success after some trial and error experimenting. 

The team celebrating Jessie with freshly baked breakfast!

So, now we're all back- hard at work & hard at play! The craziness is never over, because this Saturday we're hosting our annual Ladies Valentine's Tea fundrasier- still lots of preparation to be done there. Not to mention, we're leaving for our week-long YoungLife service project in a little over a month! Please keep those upcoming events as well as our hard-working staff and community in your prayers. Of course, I will keep you updated. 

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." -Micah 6:8

America/Back in the Rica

College football's crystal ball remains in the SEC for the 6th consecutive year and is back where it belongs-in Tuscaloosa!

The Alabama Crimson Tide are 2011 BCS National Champions!!! Can I get a Roll Tide?!

You would think it doesn't get much better than that...but it does. After living in Costa Rica for the entire college football season, I was in New Orleans for the game! In my last post I gave an overview of my potential travel scehdule for my Christmas break, and I pretty much stuck to the plan. I started in Birmingham and ended in Birmingham, but I visited Mobile, Atlanta, Maryville/Knoxville, Nashville, Tuscaloosa, and New Orleans in between. Talk about a whirlwind trip to the States!

Brief overview of my time in the States:

• Birmingham- Visited with Mississippi State friends and celebrated with December Samford grad friends 
• Mobile-Spent the week with mom & Jack and worked at McCoys 
• Atlanta- family Christmas with mom's side of the family 
• Maryville/Knoxville- lived with the Coffields, saw old friends, had some important meetings, ate at all the necessary eateries (Los Amigos, Subs & Such, etc...) 
• Nashville- roadtripped with Louis & Ryan to spend New Years in Nashville with Dani and went to the Music City Bowl (Miss. State v. Wake Forest)
• Maryville again...and it snowed!
• Tuscaloosa- saw college friends, spent time with the Lancasters, and enjoyed being back in the City of Champions
• New Orleans- Celebrated Alabama's 14th National Championship win!

Here's some pictures from the 28 day tour of the southeast:

Mom & Jack swing dancing in the living room 

The 3 of us on Christmas day in Atlanta

Jack & I on Christmas morning 

My sweet grandparents (Meme & Gran'dad)

The whole Henry side of the family for Christmas dinner

The view from Newfound Gap in the Smoky Mountains

Will, Josh, & I enjoying the snow 

What an action shot...

Mom & I eating at Camellia Grill the morning of the title game in New Orleans

I bet these people feel silly now...

Roll Tide!

Rebecca & I ready for the game!

 I arrived back in Costa Rica on the 11th and left to do work crew at Vida Joven camp on the 12th...crazy! Nicki and I were the ONLY Americans (gringas) at camp so it was quite a way to be re-introduced to the language and culture. It actually ended up being kind of a joke between the two of us because several things happened that ironically made our "gringa-ness" that much more evident. One example of this being that we returned to our cabin one evening to find that our beds were the only beds in the entire cabin that someone had done an incredible job of completely Saran wrapping...I'm talking like 7 layers deep, all the way around the bed. We were later told that it was a mistake and the prank was intended for someone else...but we laughed because that would  happen to the gringa girls.

On another note, camp was beautiful in so many ways. The location was amazing- on a mountain in Heredia where you could look out over the ocean. We were on a work crew with 8 other Costa Rican Vida Joven volunteers. We washed dishes 3 times a day by hand, cleaned bathrooms, chopped food for meals, and whatever else needed to be done to make the camp experience excellent. It was long hours and hard work, but seeing the leaders interact with the campers throughout the time made it so worth it! In many ways it was just like the YoungLife I am accustomed to in the States- leaders with genuine relationships with their kids, spending time together, and experiencing Christ in a very unique way. I loved seeing program done in Spanish, too- such a treat!

On a break from our long hours of work 

Some of the work crew washing dishes after dinner

Your Campa de Nuevos 2012 Equipo de Trabajo (Work Crew)

Mariana and Mario ready for Pleito de Pelos

Nicki's & my Saran wrapped beds...impressive, right?

Vida Joven camp was an all-around great experience, but it was also a good reminder of just what I was coming back to in this country...the little cultural things that reassure you that you are, indeed, back in Costa Rica.

I am, no doubt, back in the land of:

• Food from a bag- This used to freak me out a little bit, but I've accepted the fact that it's impossible to avoid. Here you find beans, potates, mayonaise, ice cream, jello, etc..packaged in bags. Yes, bags.
• Fashionable fanny packs- Fanny packs are "in" here and actually preferred to any other type of bag. After being at camp, Nicki & I decided that our Mountainsmith bags are actually just glorified American fanny packs.
• Extreme dental hygiene- This one was unexpected at first, but a pleasant surprise. Brushing your teeth after every meal no matter where you are is a must. There was a special "teeth brushing ONLY station" at camp.
• Flavored mayonaise- Not only is it in a bag, but it comes in a variety of flavors...
• Banana hairclips & scrunchies- Really anything but a rubberband is preferred for women in this country. I don't fit in in this regard.
• Down and/or fur lined coats- Keep in mind it doesn't get colder than say 50 degrees here...ever. But I guess if you have it...wear it!
• Cafecito- This happens twice a day. It's a break between breakfast & lunch and then between lunch & dinner where you stop and have coffee and a snack. You know I love this.
• Never ending rice- Rice can be served for every meal of the day...even dessert.
• No dishwashers or dryers
• Widowmakers or freezing water- Hot water heaters are rarely found here. You either have electrictity running to your showerhead (via a Widowmaker) and heating your water as it comes out, or you're taking the coldest shower of your life.
• Casual hiking boots- You don't have to be going hiking here to break out your boots.
• Bottomless coffee- all day, every day.
• 5 am sunrises and 5 pm sunsets year round
• Seranades- it's normal and traditional for groups of girls to seranade a boy or vice versa.

Well, I'm back! I'll keep the posts regular again this semester as I spend 6 more months in the Rica! Roll Tide, ya'll!