Trabajando

Today we went to a place 1hr away from where we live to assist in the building a new Kingdom Hall.
It was a great time and I took some snaps with my mobile ;)

Absolutely awesome ! !!!!!!

This was just an outrageously fantastic experience!!
An awesome event!!

My brother in law said he was paying for me to do this ... and it was the best gift ever. .. we both enjoyed this to the extreme and here are the photos to prove it.

It was a lot easier to learn than I expected  as well; thus after 10 min training we were able to do it without any major problems.

The only hiccup was in the beginning when i was learning. I fell in front of the water-scooter which was speeding in the wrong direction.... and for this reason it ended up driving over my face so I now got a black eye as a result.
But it was worth it anyway ;-)

Smallest Kingdom Hall ever

We drove past a native Indian reserve up in the North of Costa Rica and came across this Kingdom Hall. ... the smallest I ever seen!!!
It was around 1.5 hrs drive from Golfito but I'm afraid I don't know what language they spoke (the sign is how it's written at least).

Sadly we met no JWs but tried to approach the others in the comunity but they were very suspicious ... so I could not take any photos or anything (not even sneaky photos) because the were so "on the edge" and watched us at all times.

Chinese community

When in San Jose we understood they have a huge Chinese community in Costa Rica!

We noticed they got their own newspaper, their own Bank their own area in town (a China town like in London& New York etc) and they also got their own JW meetings/congregation.

MANDARIN meetings at...

Sur, San José (SJ)

Río Segundo-Alajuela, Ala.

Ebola? ??

This is a genuine poster I came across but I really don't understand why they are paranoid about Ebola in Costa Rica.

Maybe the government here knows something we don't? ??

The North

Thanks to Mily's brother we managed to go outside the area where we been since we arrived.
We are now up in the north of Costa Rica and this is how it looks here!!!
Jah's creation is "pura vida"  ;)

Snake and snakeskin

Snake and snakeskin

More animalitos

Some more animalitos we come across; but this time it was not in the ministry though.

Today's territory

Today's territory for preaching, this is a nice place innit?
This is outside the city in the country side in a place called Quebradas and most people (one exception only) are exceptionally open and willing to discuss with us.

The only negative. .... if you dont have a car its literally impossible to go back on return visits.

How do we stay current

   Well I have to admit my weakness now....I am a bit of a "BBC Newsnight nerd" and in my ignorance I thought it would be like cutting my arm off to not get my daily dose on Newsnight ;-)   But funny how quickly one adapt to things... we have been without TV for around a year and we just found other means of keeping busy instead.

   Studying Spanish and preparing meetings in Spanish + preparing return visits and Bible studies for others in another language is one of these things that takes a lot more of our time now. Because it's not easy digging into the deep things of God in a 3rd language.
   Studying the Bible in English takes time in itself.... but doing the same in Spanish is even more of a challenge.

   But admittedly there are things similar to TV that kept me going on the education / knowledge level; and it's podcasts which are freely accessible everywhere on the internet.
    To keep my IT knowledge up to scratch I watch a lot of technical podcasts.   When we manage to get wifi access somewhere I download episodes to watch on my laptop at leisure in the evenings.... The reason why this is important is because when I go back to work again I need to know and be current regarding what happens around IT, computers and technology.

   Equally on the spiritual side its fantastic to have our www.jw.org site because it helped us so much.  Both in our ministry but equally to keep ourselves up to date with current developments + having access to ALL our literature in ANY language we needed at the time when we learn a new language.
   For example really helpful to have 1x English and 1x Spanish WT side by side. We are very grateful that the organisation provided this to the global brotherhood... a truly practical tool that really helped us on the ground here :)

A daily reward ;-)

After the ministry ... a small reward that brings great joy.

Just a simple cup of coffee and 2 small biscuits to some maybe... but for me it's one of the highlights of the day in this country ;-)

After the ministry in the local fruit shop

Lots and lots of fresh fruit here; Mily is sitting next to some freshly harvested bananas and we are buying a few of them after a day in the ministry. 

Now it's not the cheapest; however we now found out why this is the case.
Most stuff is actually bought at a wholesale in town and only a few things is from his/her own land... and this is just one way they try to make a living here... they don't have much of a choice :(
Life is not "pura vida" here at all.

The second photo of that brown lump is a type of sugar.  My most capable wife cooks something super yummy by mixing this with fresh coconut and then it becomes some type of paste that we put in our bread etc.
The closest thing I can liken it to is a bounty bar where you take the white thing from the inside and mix it with brown sugar & then burn it slightly.

One thing is sure though. ...  its fantastically tasty :-)

The kid next door in Morazan

The kid living under us in Morazán, drawing and painting on the ground outside his doorstep. 

He is so well behaved and intelligent it's just amazing.....

Cutest puppy ever

I know I recently posted a page where I complained and said the dogs in Costa Rica are a nuisance etc... but here is something different and we came across it today.
The difference is...he is clean!!!

Cutest puppy ever... but kept in the smallest cage ever :(
For sale, it's yours for £80

Weird ambience

Not sure my rubbish phone is able to convey the huge size of this tree... but I just had to take a photo of it.

Very weird ambience;  no leaves and large yellow flowers.... i was a bit puzzled by the sight.

Dogs

Dogs dogs dogs everywhere,  stray dogs,  dirty dog, smelly dogs,  noisy dogs. .... everywhere,  everywhere.

Don't take me wrong ... I normally love dogs but here I perceive them as vermin, pests and a nuisance im afraid :(

What do we eat here

People from Costa Rica tend to eat rice, beans, meat, rice, beans, meat .... and since we told them we are vegetarians they are almost a bit frightened to give us food.
Seems like vegetarians are not heard of in this place LOL.

This is a great budget meal prepared by Mily.
Carrots, cabbage, casava, pumpkin and fried plantain. .. looks simple maybe... but it's very yummy in the tummy (and nutritious).

Juice in a bag

One thing they seem to like a lot here in San Isidro is frozen juice in a bag.
It's not natural juice.... but a brightly colored chemical mix with some sugar frozen in a bag.

This girl got the red flavour and it was some sort of tutti-fruti taste but I can't really tell what it should resemble to be honest.
My favourite is a purple and the green juice; but even though I like them a lot.... I can still not tell what this taste is supposed to be either ;-)

However we have to agree that it's great to have one after the ministry is done.... nice "cooling down" effect to compensate for the blistering heat  ;-)

Out of the blue

Normally is just sun, sun, sun, sun, sun, sun & hot this time of year..... but suddenly out of the blue the sky opened up and it started raining BIG TIME.
I was told this normally does not happen at all.
A bit odd but very refreshing :-)

Great service

This is where we normally go for our internet access.
They have a great free service where they got multiple power points distributed across the café for when your tablet or phone run out of power.

Never seen that in a place in Europe yet. Only a few points in airports where you have to pay an arm and a leg for the privilege :(

They also have some weird arty stuff in the toilet that I don't get the point of.... but maybe I'm just not "arty and profound enough" to get the point or.... ;-)  

We didn’t realise

One thing we did not realise back home was how the sun actually drains us completely. 

When back in Europe we somehow imagined how the sunshine would strengthen us and make us energetic instead of having to face drizzle and grey clouds in the ministry. 

Well now we understand that it takes more effort and it makes us more tired going in the ministry here than it does back home. 

It's around 30 degrees Celsius every day,  dusty roads and long walks in strong sun.  So 3 hours here feels like an equivalent of 8 hours back home.  We never expected that.... alternatively we are just getting older maybe ;-)

In short the sun is our enemy and below is a photo of our best friend. .. Our fan.

A love and hate relationship ;)

We spoke to a sister today in our congregation who mentioned something interesting.
She said she was hired for house-sitting for a family going abroad.

Now what made this extra interesting was that the owner hates Jehovah's Witnesses and don't want anything to do with us. ..  but still they specifically asked for her to do the job anyway??!!

Obviously the sister asked why her since she is a JW and why not pick a person in their own Catholic church?
Well funny enough she didn't get an answer; but its clear for all to see.

Since they have too many valuables in their house they are not willing to take a chance with any other people or religious affiliation in the comunity..... since they cannot be trusted :)

The only ones they trust and the only ones who got a honest reputation good enough to leave their house keys with are Jehovah's Witnesses.

There is this English expression "actions speak louder than words" and this was a clear example of such.
This was again more evidence that we are known all throughout the world for being genuinely honest and trustworthy people.

Today in the country side

A couple of things we came across today while preaching.

Someone on a horse "drove by" in the we area and I managed to have a chat with him.

Later we came across this weird lizard as well;  don't know what type and don't have any info about it either. I only managed to take one snap because my phone is soooo slow :(

Babylon the great & Romans 10:2

As we went to gate-crash an assembly for another circuit this morning we noticed the busses are full of people going to church early Sunday mornings.  So seems like Babylon the great is still alive and kicking in this country.

I also guess this is an indication that they actually have a zeal for God here..... but it's all Romans 10:2 though

Saturday field service arrangement

Today was Saturday field service = Bible study offers etc near the city centre...

Couldn't believe my eyes

Because my camera is so absolutely rubbish on this old phone I'm not sure you grasp the true size of this insect.

But let me assure you it HUMONGOUS in size.  It's way bigger than my hands and I was told there are even bigger around as well.

Been over to the shoemaker

The shoemaker lives in another part of the city so we don't see him that often nowadays.

But we DID see him on TV though! !!
Now you might wonder... why and the answer is because one of the TV channels from Costa Rica was here to film our 3 day  assembly ... and he was in the reportage ;)

In any case we saw him in the flesh and had a black coffee without sugar and discussed all sorts of things.   He is a nice "teddy bear" who loves other people's company.