DC in the CR

The beginning of this month we got to host a Spanish Immersion group from a high school in the States...but not just any high school: my old high school! It's sort of funny as I studied German throughout high school and was now hosting the Spanish group. God has a great sense of humor for sure.

Read this blog post I wrote about it for the ADE blog: Students Learning Together

ADE Happenings

Over the past few months (with the help of one of our summer interns and the new focus of one of our staff members, we have been a lot better at keeping the general public up to date on ADE Happenings. There's been a lot going on over the summer. I wanted to share with you all some of these blog posts to give you an ever growing and developing understanding of ADE and what I'm doing here.

Check out the ones that seem interesting to you!

ADE's Zero Down Development and Economic Sustainability Projects
If you ever ask the questions: What is ADE? or What on earth is Lindsey doing in Costa Rica? This should help answer those questions a little. It should at least give you a good little overview of what we as ADE are working on and how. It should also give you a good idea about some of our most current projects.

The Role of the Church During a Disaster
As a seminary class did research up here in this area, one woman wanted to share her findings with our local church. This same woman is now one of our very active Costa Rican board members!

Organic Garden and Fruit Co-op
Something we as ADE are working on as week look to use our hands and the land to serve the Lord and others better here in this community.

Vara Blanca's First Strawberry Fair
Our town (along with some partners) put on a strawberry festival. As this area is full of just that - strawberries - it was a great way for people to really come together over a mutual fruit! We, as the high school, put on a few fun activities that surprising went off very well.

ADE Girls Soccer Team First Game 4-1
Our students are now playing indoor soccer (both a girls team and guys team with a few other community members). I'll be writing more about this, but hear about the first game and how awesome my girls are!

New Talent Search - Congrats to our students!
The students in our school participated in an art day at a local business. Though we as a staff aren't the most artistic group, our students LOVE any type of art they can get their hands on.

Tropical Agriculture and Mission Class
Here you can hear about the class that we hosted here in May called "Tropical Agriculture and Missions" put on by Au Sable and taught by a professor from Eastern University.

My US church & CR church

From the 16th to the 24th of July, I had the awesome chance to see God connect and work together through my home church in the US (Church of the Saviour - COS) and my church in Costa Rica (Iglesia Vara Blanca). The high school group from COS - that I was a part of way back when - came to spend time with our high school students here and be a blessing to this small rural church.

It was an odd convergence of two of my worlds where many things are different, but Christ unites.

• COS is a church of like 2000 people  -  my church here is about 30 people
• COS is all in English  -  my church here is in Spanish (obvious difference)
• COS brought a group of all high school students  -  the church here doesn't really have any youth involved
• COS is in the Philly suburbs in a pretty wealthy area  -  here we're located in rural Costa Rica

The differences are many, but I really believe that the church here was incredibly blessed and the youth and leaders who came from COS also left blessed. It's an amazing picture of the diversity of the Church. These are often things that divide and separate, but in Christ they can be things of incredible beauty and peace and fellowship. Praise God for how He unites! Galatians 3:26-28

The whole COS group

Helping us with our house  :)

Sharing with our students

Sharing testimonies with the church

Back in the Mountains & Busy

As I warned you, I haven't been as good about writing now that I'm back up in the mountains. I may be a little busier, but I think it's more that when I'm living and working in community (like I am up here) I'm so dependent on other people. It's not always fun and I feel busier as all the work happens not on my scheduled time and often last minute and I have to remain flexible. But I do believe that God calls us to seek community and seek to live that way. There definitely can be some great joys within it also and great opportunities to ask forgiveness and offer grace - living the Gospel every day with each other. With all that said, I do want to continue to update you all on my my last two weeks:

I had my last week of language school July 4th to the 8th. It was a really great week and I got more connected with the other students that week, which made leaving sadder. I definitely got to know better those in my classes (AJ, Mary and Jim). We had a lot of fun together, and became a great encouragement to each other. Jim and his wife Pat are maybe going to come visit me here in Vara Blanca before they leave CR. I'm hoping to go visit Mary in Nicaragua the next time I need to leave the country to renew my visa. And I'm definitely planning on continue praying for and staying in touch with AJ and his wife Brittany as they get ready to move to Belize as missionaries. I really believe that God brought us all together even for this short time for greater purposes. Both my teachers were also really awesome and I wish I could be there learning from them for at least a few more weeks. I left in the middle of learning all the subjunctive rules and so have to try to learn the rest on my own. The work they're doing at ILE is definitely a huge ministry to all of Latin America. I was definitely encouraged and uplifted in my short time there.

The last week was really busy apart from school stuff with some really exciting things. Monday was 4th of July and the people at the institute decided for the first time ever (so I heard) to have a big party. Apparently the Canadians had one for Canada Day and so those from the USA had to do something. It was so fun. We ate stuff off the grill, had some great baked beans, burgers, apple pie and homemade chocolate chip cookies. We sat around and talked for a while (mostly while I held Titus - AJ and Brittany's baby). Then we watched as some of the guys set off some awesome fireworks. It felt very unusual, but oddly comforting.

Then my friend and one of my roommates from college visited me, Laura Welch! We became masters at the buses around the city and did lots of walking around and just spending good time together. My favorite bus ride was one evening when we got on only to be serenaded by a aspiring musician who wasn't really very good but was very entertaining. Our stop came up at the perfect time that we didn't have to give him money but got to see most of his "conciertito". Then we came up the mountain and I got to share with her some of my life here. For me it was so nice to have one of my closest friends in the world here and my favorite times with her was just hanging out amidst the craziness of my last week of classes.

Laura and I eating together downtown SJO

I'm trying to continue my Spanish learning and improving even though I'm no longer in classes. I'm trying to read an easy romance novel in Spanish (pretty cheesy), I'm reading some of my Bible in both English and Spanish, and I'm attempting to continue working through the grammar book and workbook that I was using at the institute. I'll also be practicing a lot, obviously  :)

Now I'm back up here in the mountains and though our students are on vacation until Monday, I've been working away preparing for a group visiting from my home church and the normal work I have to do. I'm glad to be back in my room and bed and with my puppy! Though to be honest, it's bitter sweet to be back here, but I know God has me here and is working. I'll try and keep blogging, but no promises at how often. Thanks for checking in, friends! I love your comments and messages and emails!

Remember Luke 1:37

Tropical Agriculture & Missions

For three weeks, the TAM (Tropical Agriculture and Missions) class by the Au Sable Institute was led by Dr. Unander into the strawberry fields of local farmers, up to the top of volcanoes, and into the ADE classroom to share their presentations. Not only did these U.S. students learn first-hand about local agriculture, but they also had the opportunity to travel for three days to the beach, the selva, and all around. After living together at the ADE center and riding in the green van for hours on end, they experienced Costa Rica together and became close friends.

**Click here to read and see more about the trip**

Eastern IDEV Students here again...

ADE and Eastern University in Pennsylvania have established an excellent partnership that links students in Eastern’s master’s program in international development (IDEV for short) with the communities of San Rafael and Vara Blanca in Costa Rica. Much of the reason for this partnership is that Tomás, Frances and Ben (our two newest staff members who came in January) were all students in the program. A group of students from Eastern’s program has come to visit each year for the past three years since the Cinchona earthquake in 2009.

From March 4-12 a group of twenty students and one professor from Eastern’s IDEV program joined ADE in Costa Rica. The group stayed in the ADE Center in San Rafael and each of the visitors also took turns staying for three nights in the homes of families in our community.

**Click here to read more and see pictures**

First Summer Update (and much too late)

As you can probably tell from my lack of blogging, we've been kept very very busy this summer. It's hard to know even where to begin, but I'll try. (Warning: I'm way behind, so this is going to be long!)

Eastern: The Masters students from Eastern University's International Development program spent a week with us at the end of April. We outfitted the ADE center with a new kitchen and bunk beds enough for 27 people - and just in time. It was a great experience for everyone involved. The Eastern students got to see some of Costa Rica, study natural disasters (specifically volcanos), work with the ADE colegio students, and help both ADE and our local community. There were also lots of really good discussions between individuals and the whole group and development, sustainability, ecology, and community resilience to name just a few. For our ADE colegio students, it was great for them to get to build some relationships with new people, learn about development and disaster preparedness with the masters students, get a view of higher educational possibilities and take part in serving their own community alongside others. It was great for our staff (myself totally included) to really get to have meaningful conversations with others in the same mind and gain the experience of hosting a group of that size. I was really exhausted after that week, but it was definitely good.

Nicaragua: Shortly after the huge group left, I headed on the Tica Bus to Nicaragua to renew my visa, visit my friend Leah and relax. It was so great to see Leah and Hemby who are in Nicaragua for the year with Manna Project International. I just hung out in their house (and pool) for a few days and read. I also got to see some of their projects and have lots of good convos about community development, learning from the good and bad of their program. It was a sweet time thanks to Leah - You're awesome :)

Interns: We've got interns (and volunteers) here for the summer! Amanda Rinker, previous YL leader at East Mont, came down in May. She's taking her summer break from getting her masters and seminary degrees to get her hands dirty in this community. Her specific role is working with our agriculture project (which Morgan, who was here over spring break and then came back for a couple weeks in May, helped to start). Lauren Ko, also a Hokie alum, came down in May also to be here for the summer. She just graduated from Tech and is working hard here. She's specifically working with some of the environment issues going on here with the reconstruction. Lauren and Amanda have been each so helpful with all of the different projects and needs we've got here. They've done everything from moving rocks and painting signs, to creating handbooks and inventories. For one week in the end of June we had Karen here doing a week of intensive English learning with our students. With years of experience in teaching English and in the process of getting her masters degree in it, she worked hard for a week and brought down tons of awesome resources. Hopefully from the training and resources she gave me, I can be a better English teacher! Now Maria is here for the month of July all the way from Austria (we met while I was in Vienna). She's up for doing anything and everything we need and filling a great need for us this month. And of course, we can't forget Mikki who was here from April to the end of June. She definitely was here right when I personally needed her - and I miss her lots now that she's gone. Look at all the amazing people God brought to join us during this summer. Blows my mind!

Georgia Group: We had a group of high school students from Georgia here for 2 weeks. They spent the first week down in our ADE Center seeing the area, working with our students, and learning and serving in this area. For the second week, they went to a small town on the Caribbean coast to do some service/learning there and our group went with them. Our students worked hard to fundraise for the trip. They hosted a Bingo night in town and made enough money for everyone to go. (Bingo is maybe the most and only successful fundraiser in this community - no lie). It was a great time with our students and serving another small community like ours.

Restaurant: Here's the big one that has totally changed my time here in many ways. On June 11th, 2010 along with the opening of the World Cup, we opened a restaurant with women from our community! It's been an exciting but very challenging venture. I myself have never really worked at all in the food service industry (much less starting a new one). So I've been learning a ton. The women are incredible! For me that's been the greatest part, getting to know each one of the "associates" (as they're definitely not employees as we're all partners in this business). The women range in ages and family status, but what is greater is bringing together and seeking relationships across borders that are usually not crossed - specifically between Evangelicals and Catholics in this community. It's been so great for me getting to know each one and feeling more and more like a part of the community and have friends (close to my age or older - unlike before when my only friends were my students)! It has also been very challenging and definitely needs your prayers in terms of money and response from other local businesses. You can check out our new website (still with lots under construction) at: www.RestauranteArcoiris.org


To come in July and August... visitors, camps, and my family!

Spring Time Pictures

I just put up lots of pictures on my facebook! You can check them out here whether or not you have facebook. I hope you enjoy.

I'll soon write more about the Eastern University group that was here at the end of April and my short relaxing trip to Nicaragua I took last week. Things have been busy. Please keep me and our team in your prayers!

ADE Blog!

Hey friends! I've got another blog for you to follow: blog.glocalADE.org! I'll be doing a lot of updating on that regularly. Some of the info may overlap, but I guarantee it will be worth your while. Make sure to share it with others too!

Also be sure to be praying for us as we're having a group of 26 people coming this Friday! It's a graduate class from Eastern University studying international development. We'll be focusing on natural disasters and sustainable development. It's going to be an exciting week, but please keep us in mind :)

Video of Spring Break!

Hope you enjoy and it gives you a good understanding of the week with our college student visitors.

Spring Break 2010!

So this week we've got 4 spring break students from different schools in the US here learning Spanish, contributing to the community projects and getting to see Costa Rica. We've done so much already and it's only Tuesday:

• Worked on Spanish with local community students
• Gone to church (awesome cultural experience)
• Seen waterfalls, butterflies, and jungle cats
• Eaten typical foods
• Held toucans
• Made empanadas
• Seen the volcano
• Hiked in the jungle
• Tracked a tapir
• Milked cows
• Laughed a lot

There's a lot more to come and I'm really excited. I'll write more and put up pictures after the week. Definitely be thinking of and praying for us :)

Lots going on...Sorry

Yet again, I'm sorry for not having written in like forever. Things have just been so busy here, but they're moving forward, which is awesome and exciting! I don't even know where to begin.

Well Jason (a good friend of mine from college) came down January 20th to spend a couple of months volunteering/interning with us. He's been working hard and helping out a ton where we need it. It's also nice to have someone that I've known for more than a few months around. Jason is living down at the ADE Center - meaning he is the first official ADE Center resident. We're still doing a lot of work on it but it's definitely come a long long way!

Jason and his roommate.

Shortly after Jason arrived and started working I actually headed back to the States for a week. My grandfather was turning 90 and we were making a big deal about it (as it definitely is a big deal). I took advantage of being home and spoke to all the Spanish classes at DCCS, which was sort of funny considering the whole time that I was a student there I took German. I also met with a biology professor at Eastern and spoke to a grad class there as well. Overall it was a good week, but very very busy and I was excited to get back here.

Once I got back, it was full force ahead getting the center and everything ready for school to start a week later. The night before we were up late as a team building desks and benches and talking about schedule.

And our school started February 10th, 2010! It was so exciting to actually see some of our hard work begin to be played out through the lives in this community. We only had 8 students this week (we'll have a few more soon), but they are awesome! Kim (my roommate and the "School Director") just kept talking about how our students are such angels. They're all between 13 and 16 with most of them just starting 7th grade. It's so exciting because most of them would not be going to school at all if this hadn't opened. This week was mostly orientation and going to get books. On Monday we'll be having biology professors from the University of Costa Rica come and see what we're doing, meet our students and families, and discuss how they can partner with us. And then Tuesday will begin more normal classes. So it's definitely an exciting time!

The bridge on the way to the ADE Center.

Now you should be at least sort of up to date on what's going on here. I did want to share with you a few random stories that have happened here that at least I find interesting:

*Walking back to the cabin at night, we often turn off our flashlights and things when it's clear outside and you can see so many stars it is ridiculous. You can often even see the Milky Way. I've also seen bats fly right in front of us and then learned that this is one of the few places in the world where there are real vampire bats...a comforting thought :)

*This is a large dairy area. So though you don't usually smell it (which I'm very grateful for), you pretty much always know as there are often cows or cute little calfs right on the side of the road. One little funny story that just happened the other day: I was walking up from the center and there's a little wire gate that was open because a truck had just gone through and so I left it open. A little while later as I'm hiking up the huge hill I look back and see 3 cows following me in a line on the gravel road! They had gotten out of their fence and weren't stopped by the wire gate and just kept following me. I didn't know what to do. So I turned around and started shooing the first one back and it starts to go...Until it gets to the second one that decides he's just going to walk passed me. So two cows are walking up the hill towards the main road in front of me and one behind me. I try and get in front of the two but they start running faster. I'm about to break down, thinking that it's going to be my fault that a family loses 3 of their cows. Then the son of the family sees and runs down the hill to put them away. I was so sorry and so grateful for him!

*Oh and I just wanted to share that my puppy is doing well and growing so so fast. She's great and I still love her a lot (even though she beats up on the other puppies and the now only one kitten).

Well thanks for reading and Happy Valentine's Day! I'm so grateful for such incredible support and encouragement from the people back in the States. You guys are awesome :)

ADE Website

So the ADE website is up and running! There are still a couple of pages under construction, but overall it's good. You should definitely check it out:

www.glocalADE.org

On it you can see me on the ADE staff page and get my new email. You can see our internship opportunities as well as our short term opportunities for this spring and summer. We're even planning on doing a family camp this summer for a week, which should be awesome! You can start following us on Twitter and even become a fan of ADE on Facebook. Also go through our participate pages as you can see how you can be involved with us here in Costa Rica. (For those of you who had asked me to send you a support letter, though I'm still not raising support, we are asking for people to invest in our high school students and projects that we're doing. So check out the "Invest" page.)

There's a lot of exciting things going on and as usual: plenty of work to do. I'm getting really excited about our spring break opportunities and really building our network more and more to benefit this community.

Happy Christmas Eve!

Though it's the day before Christmas, it doesn't quite feel like it to me now. I'm currently sitting at a little internet café about fifty feet from the Caribbean. Up until last Friday or so I've been working a ton, doing everything from painting the house to working on getting organized and advertising for the spring break trips (which if you`re interested in learning more or maybe coming check out the facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=370727355220&index=1 ). Now I`ve had some time for the holidays, which is definitely needed as the past few weeks have been nonstop.

Last Wednesday, Tomas's sister (from Scotland) and mother (from Maine) came to join us. On Thursday, the Dozier family had to move out of their house as it was being rented and moved into my house with me. So my little house has had 8 people in it with mattresses on the floor everywhere. That has definitely been an interesting experience but good and a bonding experience. Over the weekend we did a lot: went to a couple's house for dinner, went to my first Costa Rican wedding, went to the local school's graduation (from Kindergarten and 6th grade only), went to church and had company over. Oh and we've played a lot of games like Boggle, Taboo and Apples to Apples).

Then Monday morning I left early to meet up with my roommate Kim (who had gone home to be with her family in San José for the holidays) and her family as they invited me to go on a little vacation with them. We drove a long time on some crazy roads. We stopped at a number of different stores along the way so that Kim's dad, Rolando, could sell the cutting boards that he makes, sells and distributes. Then we were on our way again. Somehow, he didn't get directions ahead of time and so we would just ask on the side of the road which way to go when we came to crossroads. Overall this tactic worked, except for a pretty important missed turn. We ended up going a couple hours on this crazy rocky/dirt road out in the middle of nowhere that led us to a river, which we found out was just about on the Nicaraguan border (on the Caribbean side), like far northeast in Costa Rica. It's actually a place where a lot of Nicaraguans cross the border illegally and is supposedly a not very safe place, though praise God we didn't have any problems at all. Once we figured all this out, we got back on track and found a place to spend the night).

The next morning we drove another long crazy road and ended up at the right location this time. We took a boat through channels with unbelievable nature and animals on all sides to Tortuguero. This place was beautiful and incredible and very chill. The people are all really friendly and relaxed. There are hammocks all over the place (which I slept in one for like an hour and woke up to a dog sleeping next to me as my guardian and friend). We took a canoe tour with a local guide where we got to see everything from toucans to lizards, turtles to crocodiles. God's creation so amazes me and I took tons of pictures that I`ll have to share with you later).

Yesterday we spent the day in Cahuita, an adorable beach town farther south on the Caribbean coast. The beach is definitely my kind of beach as there`s jungle right next to the sand and sea. I walked along the beach for hours. Right along the path I saw lizards, a sloth, and monkeys. (On a little side note- seeing and hearing all the monkeys really makes me want a pet monkey, but unfortunately it's illegal and I'm told they make very bad pets). This little town is also really cool as it's pretty small and chill right on the water. People here are nocturnal and it's almost like a different culture as they speak a different language and everything. I like it a lot and can definitely see why it's a more touristy area.).

Later today Kim and I are being picked up by the Dozier clan and heading to Panama to spend Christmas day there. Where we're going I hear is even more beautiful and amazing then where I've already been. I'm pretty excited, though it will be a very different Christmas than I have ever had. I'll definitely miss spending the day with my family, but it will be a new experience.).

Thanks for reading this long update. I figured I owe you one as I've been bad at updating this. I'll try and put up more pictures and things soon. I put a few on the facebook event mentioned above, so definitely check it out. I love you all and thanks for your thoughts and prayers!).

1 John 3:16-18