Yes it is a tomato

Yes you are actually looking at a tomato that we bought in our local corner shop.
Its in my hand and its massive! !!

We got 3 kilos for around £ 1 UK Pounds Sterling.

Why so few photos & posts nowadays?

Some wonder why there are so few posts & photos on our travel-blog nowadays (in comparison to when we lived in Nicaragua).
Well the simple answer is..... The phone I used back then (iPhone) died and I have not been able to repair it since there are no Apple centres nearby.     I have to fix it when I'm back to Europe.

Thus the current status is ....

1. My current phone is HUGE in comparison so I can not hide it when I shoot around me. 
2. It is unbearably slow, when I am ready to take a photo of whatever was in front of me at the time..... this has changed or disappeared when the phone is ready to shoot.
3. The pixel/resolution is lousy, whatever I shoot is really low pixel quality.
4. Posting on the blog is a nuisance as well.... my phone is just running like a dog :(

Believe you me.... since I do not have real camera (or other backup) and I am truly annoyed .... this it is in actuality preventing me from collecting memories here :(

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We now got our personal territory :)

We have now been given our personal territory and its quite a distance away from where we currently live.
However it seems to be well worth it travelling there :)

The congregation went out with us today to show where it is, educate us about the layout and helping us understand what type of people who lives there.
It was so different compared to the center of town where people are more materialistic and westernised.

It was soo good we did not have time to visit many houses; instead we spent a lot of the morning in two only; very fruitfull.

The first was a young man about 25-30 in age... he was the most educated person I met up to date in our journey to Central America. 
He had lots of insight and asked us very good questions about everything between....
    1. The Bible and what makes the New World Translation "different".
    2. The religious and political layout of the middle east & the absurd (but very real) difference between the Jews and Muslims.
    3. He had fantastic insight into our latest Watchtower and Awake regarding the extreme speed we are destroying our planet + the logical conclusion that in a few decades at this speed our future is  doomed. We cannot continue to consume more than we put back (even if we try to recycle 100%).
Im looking forward to discussing with him again, very knowledgeable and interesting chap.

Mily met a family (especially the wife) who was quite upset by the hypocrisy in many religions... so we highlighted why we are different and reject rather than accept many of the things she seen in other churches. She seemed very impressed and wanted to talk more to us... she even asked where/when Jehovah's Witnesses meet in town.

Because it seems so good over there we will try to move closer to this area. But the problem is there are not many places to rent in the area for some reason.
If that fails we will try to move closer to the bus that goes over there so we don't waste time travel across town.

"Non essential" differences compared to UK?

This is probably quite a personal subject and we all possibly differ in views here.... but what are some of the "non essentials" I miss when serving abroad?

Only a few things comes to my mind.

1.
I probably never watched so little TV in my entire life as I done these last few months!!!
But when I do watch;  what have I found?

Well watching in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica (including Cable) there are lots of series, soaps & films + other stuff not worth spending time watching.... and in my eyes it's 100% time wasting.
But why do I say that?

Well being a "knowledge and fact addict"
I found there are VERY few channels we can actually learn anything from, such as documentaries etc.
Its easy to forget we are quite spoilt in UK when it comes to education and informative programs where we can learn something by watching them.

2.
Diversity and assortment in food and shopping is way better in the UK than most other countries in Europe, but compared to this part of the world it us certainly an eye opener in regards to how spoilt for choice we are in both the UK and Europe.

This was very unexpected ... and bordering on funny ;)

We come to realize something we kind of  expected when serving in rural north of Nicaragua ..... but here it is actually more of a problem because it is a much bigger place; in a more developed country.
It is bordering on funny ... and that is why I felt I have to write a post about it :)

When meeting for the ministry in the morning we obviously asked the local brothers as one always do "where is the field service tomorrow morning?"
Well guess what... it's impossible to ask for an address here! When asking for directions people keep using for example "it is one street on the opposite side from the McDonalds".

You probably guessed it now..... as it turns out they do not have (nor use) street-names??!!

They simply address places with "200 meters down from Pharmacy on the south side of the street". This actually had a domino effect since we can not even use the GPS on the phones either to find any locations.... we are permanently lost here.
For being such a big place it sounds strange to us as Europeans ..... however it is just life here.... and that is the way it's done ... so we simply have to adapt.

Welcome to Costa Rica and "Aqui es pura vida" as they say locally (an expression they keep using that means "here life is great").

As you probably noticed through our previous blog related to Nicaragua we have continuously learned new things in every place we been to.... and Costa Rica is no exception.
It is one of the joys of traveling and serving abroad as well... one is constantly getting a bigger picture of things and finding out that everything is not done in the same way across the world..... this also means one has to put on some genuine Christian qualities and humble oneself in order to adapt and do what they do locally on occasions.

It obviously hits home more when one experiences this firsthand... both for the better ... and for worse at times LOL :)

One thing you should realise

Just a friendly piece of advice for your consideration :)

If you ever decide to go and serve in a foreign language then one thing you must consider before taking your decision is for example ... preparing for meetings will take a lot longer.

You have to sacrifice more personal time in the process. Its hard to do anything on "autopilot" in a foreign language. ... thus important to calculate the cost in time before doing anything drastic. 

If you are NOT a Jehovah's Witness

I thought I could write a special post to all followers of this blog that are not Jehovah's Witnesses (we got quite a few actually).

The reason is ... I suddenly realised how I sometines take things for granted because I am a JW.... and I will try to explain a bit here now why I said so.

For example....the way we live with strangers/people who we can trust is an aspect of true Christianity that money can not buy... just to be able to trust (and be trusted) by people you never met before and don't even know.

Below is something that happened to us on numerous occasion whilst traveling; not only on this trip but in general in the past as well.

We have gone to the other side of the world ending up in cities and villages where we never been before and there we meet people we never met before.
They open their doors to their homes in full trust to us and provide access to all amenities; and many times providing food and other things needed too. 
Besides that; they at times give you their keys to their houses in full assurance that we will look after it and not steal/destroy or damage anything while they are away from the property whilst we live in it.

As most of you know;  I have not always been religious and I also have quite a "wide scope and outlook" in my life since I lived and travelled around the world on many continents. But I have still never come across any other organisation or religion on planet earth where this type of actions is NOT an exception but rather it is the norm!!!

It's simply something unique that I never come across before (and I have lived and travelled in many places + cultures where I met many individuals, faiths and attitudes).

Obviously I am not a JW simply to get a "free ride" when I travel; but it is an aspect that deserves mention in regards to true Christianity.... and I thought I could mention it because most people will never experience this type of trust and hospitality in their entire lives....
Today I realised I might (on occasions) take it for granted and think "its normal" however it is everything BUT normal.

It truly is a great experience to have such a close knitted brotherhood around the world.

Quite a contrast

Our previous assignment in Nicaragua is certainly different to here because in Nicaragua it was "dry as a timber box" and people living there desperately needed some rain just to survive.
Here thunder arrives like clockwork every afternoon and when it rains it rains A LOT A LOT & LOADS !!!
We can't even hear ourselves thinking because of the noise the rain makes ;)

Rice and beans

One of the brothers we live with preparing tomorrows breakfast.
Here they have rice and beans for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, rice and beans for snack, rice and beans for dinner. ..... 

And believe it or not... when they order take-away food then you guess... there is NO change or diversity in their diet... it's rice and beans again!!!
Crazy stuff.

We now have meetings on Saturday

In our new congregation we have meetings on Saturday rather than Sunday. ..
One of the brothers we live with is preparing his Watchtower for tonight.

The local market

Where we live is a great market area and most fruits and vegetables we find are grown in the surrounding hills and mountains.
Today we came across the main fruit and vegetable market and we bought a FULL Tesco bag of tomatoes for £1 only!!!

It's only open 2 days a week but we definitely know where to buy our food from now onwards ;)

I had too much in my hands so I could not take any photos with my phone,  will try next time instead.

First time out

Today was our first day in the ministry.
A lot more interest than in Europe thats for sure.... I met one guy who asked me to come back (without me even hinting I could do so).
I also met a Rasta guy who wanted a "Bible teach book" and one agnostic who said he wanted to chat again as well.
Quite a pleasant day!

Below a photo of one of the brothers we live with preparing his mustache before we went out LOL.

Family study

"Laurel and Hardy" got family worship every Monday evening with another brother who usually shows up as well.
When we move out from their place we might actually continue to come over and join them in this arrangement.

Laurel and Hardy

We are having a fun time here with the brothers.
We literally live with Laurel and Hardy and they are a laugh. Best friends for ages and a great relationship.... father and son in law; lots of cheeky words with love on top ;)

The son in law is a shoemaker and he will make me 2 pairs of shoes !!

Quite a day :)

We currently live with 2 elderly very friendly brothers who are actually both from Nicaragua ... but they lived here for a very long time now. They kindly opened their house for us (for us as long as its needed).

However today was a day of quite a lot of unexpected activities though!
We were invited by a family out of the blue to go to a beach close to the city; and in total 4 cars packed with brothers and sisters went.
We spent all day in 2 different places, one rocky beach and one sandy beach.
Once there one of them told us 2 of his younger members of his family drowned there  :( but he still goes there to swim.

A bunch of them also went harpoon-fishing but only one of them got any fish. .... and he got 14 in total !!!!
See photos below.

The beaches were in a fairly remote, uninhabited area and quite a distance between the houses ... and we even saw wild monkeys there !
In addition drinking fresh coconut milk and eating them...yummy tummy.

Another thing that struck me is the amount of "tough biker guys" that drives around the roads.... they are not Hells Angels but they look like they want to be. Maybe some sort of event taking place somewhere because they are certainly overrepresented on the roads.

PS: Here they also have day off from ministry on Monday's, don't know if this is a Central American thing since they did the same in Nicaragua as well.

On route still

Woke up 3.30 in the morning yesterday!!!
Then a few local brothers in Totogalpa helped us with the luggage to the bus that left 5 in the morning. 
After a lot of struggle, problems and hiccups (both in Nicaragua and Costa Rica) we  finally ended up in San José around 21.00 in the evening.

We staid one night with a couple from the deaf speaking congregation. They are both hearing but have dedicated their time and energy to learn the sign language and help the deaf community here.

Its a bit weird though.... for example coming back to a shower with hot water??!!
We have been without hot water for 4 months and forgot such a thing even existed... Isn't funny it funny how quickly one gets used to things.

Currently sitting in the San Jose bus station waiting for the next part of our journey; a 4 hours trip to San Isidro. That is a fairly small place we are going to and I guess it might be different. .. but on the other hand it is STILL Costa Rica so maybe they have hot water... maybe?  ;)