Photo... but not from Costa Rica

I just found an old iPhone photo I took whilst we were preaching and serving in Totogalpa Nicaragua....  a cool dude very proud of his musical abilities.
Now I had to admit that he looked kind of cool... so I just had to ask if I could shoot him with my iPhone ;)

Getting back to normal now

Loads of running around in this town for many days...  various reasons all related to our move of accommodation.
But we are finally settled and back to normal; so from now so we can start focusing on our bible studies and return visits again.

Below is a snap that i shot during the meeting we had earlier this evening... taken with my useless Samsung phone....
Oh man I miss my iPhone so much... I'm missing out on photos all the time here.

Yes I can't document in the same way I did over in Nicaragua using this phone.... but even though my updates are not as frequent as back there .... rest assured we DO enjoy it here as well.
We are just unable to share as much and as often as we did over there due to my phone issue :(

Moving on!!!

Great stuff... we finally found a place :)
We are moving into another place this Monday.....

No more disgusting mold .... hopefully ;)

Change again... and again... and ...

We will soon have to move from our current place... which we really liked a lot actually.  But on the other hand; we already knew we could only stay short term here anyway.
It's just a bit frustrating to not have a stable place to lay our heads, especially when one gets accustomed to where we now lived for a while.

However this is life on the road & life traveling after all.... and it comes "as part of the package" when one is out and about on a trip (living on a very limited budget).

Now the trouble is that we have not found an alternative place to stay yet.... but hopefully we will be able to do so before we have to move.... which will be in 3 weeks time.

We do ask around frequently in the area we live now since we like it so much here.... and hopefully it will pay off sooner rather than later.
But nothing is certain in life.... except for uncertainty.

 

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Our cong in Costa Rica

Preaching with circuit overseer

Our circuit overseer is here this week and today we preached close to where we live.
Turnout was the best one ever.

But as you probably noticed already I'm not taking many photos nowadays because it just annoys me BIGTIME!!!
The camera on this phone is sooooo slow & it takes 10 seconds just for my phone to be ready to shoot, then there is a second delay when I shoot as well. And finally the quality of the image files are rubbish.

I really wish my iPhone was working because im missing out on a lot on memories .... and all if you in Europe miss out on following us in the blog as well :(

Riddled with bullet holes

Out preaching in our personal territory today and came across this traffic sign on the main road.

Now this comes across as a fairly quiet place to us (in the daytime at least) thus I don't understand why the sign is riddled with bullet holes from a rifle or handgun.
Strange indeed.....

Supermarket. ... hardly not - LOL

This is the supermarket where we live; its a corner shop on the "main road" going through the village.

The good. ...
We don't have to travel all the way to the city to get the basics (it's a 30min trip and the bus only leaves once an hour).
The bad. ...
Expensive and not very much choice.

Forgot to mention one thing...

Its rainy season here at the moment, thus almost every day it rains.... and when it rains, then let me assure you..... then it rains bigtime!!!
We therefore have to attempt to get all preaching-work completed by midday, because when it starts raining its simply too much to do streetwork or any other kind of witnessing.

Another problem is ... its also impossible to predict where/how/when it will start raining, because looking at the sky does not give any clues.
One day.
It looks like it will rain and we might hesitate to go out.... but it's no rain in sight all day.
The next day.
It looks all fine... so out we go and then.... surprise surprise... we end up standing in a shower on full blast.

Some stuff

Some of the stuff we find on the trees when walking home after the ministry.... and we are picking to our hearts content.

There is so much around it just falls on the ground and wastes away.

On these photos u see we brought home Oranges & Guava today.

Great territory

Today we been to our personal territory again that is called SAN RAMÓN SUR link.
The feedback + response we normally get in that area is just fantastic, so it's such a shame we can't go more often to that area of the city (currently only once a week approx).

Now.... since we always find people who are interested over there we thought that we should maybe even move over in a months time (since we have to move out of our current flat then).
But as we kept looking we found that its very hard to find any type accommodation in that area; thus it does not seem feasible now.

In any case.... today we yet again met several interested persons... and one guy especially was really keen; so I will probably start studying with him next time around. He is open to discuss with us every time we show up there.... great potential & a guy who seems to think a lot outside the box!!

Another good (and different) thing today was that we found quite a few men in the territory... normally its always women who are home during the day in this country.... but for some reason that was not so today :)

We just had an earthquake.

Below is an extract from 2x English speaking news sources related to an earthquake which just hit us here in Costa Rica.
But its quite funny actually (at least seen from our point of view) since neither me; nor Mily, noticed anything at all of what happened because we sat on the bus at the time ...
And believe you me this really proves the point regarding the state of the roads here. Going into town and back from here is just so extremely bad + bumpy that we never even noticed what happened around us.

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News Source 1.

Two strong temblors of magnitudes 4.9 and 6.7 shook most of Costa Rica on Monday at 9:31 p.m. and 9:52 p.m.
A report by the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica registered the first temblor’s epicenter at 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Bahia Ballena, in the southern Pacific, while the second was located in the northern Pacific, near the Nicaraguan coast.

The National Seismological Network reported the magnitudes at 5.3 and 6.3, respectively.
Emergency officials have not received any reports of injuries or significant damage to structures.

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News Source 2

The powerful earthquake was felt throughout much of Central America, including Costa Rica, as well as El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.

Nicaraguan emergency officials are continuing to assess the damage from the quake, which was followed by at least 17 aftershocks in Nicaragua alone.

The University of Costa Rica recorded a magnitude 5.3 earthquake s20 minutes prior to the powerful Nicaragua quake, with its epicenter 37 kilometers from Bahia Ballena, in Osa.

Local currency

This is the local currency. ... an awful lot of zeros ;-)

At today's exchange rate £ 1 is equivalent to 865 Costa Rican Colones.

A reminder of how good we have it

It's always an enlightenment to travel regardless of the continent or the country I ever traveled to; and Costa Rica is no exception.... and today as we were out preaching in our personal territory it hit me again from another angle.

As we spoke to people we were struck by our ignorance of this part of the world... how our outlook of this country has been formed (incorrectly) by information we seen on TV and read on the internet.
True, both Mily and myself are actually extremely selective in the information + news-sources we access to educate ourselves since we don't want to access junk, we want accurate and interesting information.
But it seems that what we thought was "accurate knowledge" regarding this country was nothing more than preconceived ideas accumulated from various news sources :(

I also recall a previous post on our blog where we highlighted our surprise of the amount of substandard accommodation when going house to house; and we also highlighted how poor many actually are. We stated how this was something we expected to see in Nicaragua; but not in Costa Rica.
In any case, my reason for writing this post is not a continuation of the standard of living issue.
No... today we were struck by another thing while preaching.

What I wanted to write about today is peoples level of education and their outlooks on life + the world today.
While we were out preaching we discussed the Bible's sign of the last days with a family here..... however we realized that our attempt to create common ground with them did not work out.

      As we spoke to them we tried to make the case for how things are deteriorating globally in the last days, for example increase insecurity, wars in the Middle East; earth quakes, deceases, the threat of ISIS etc, etc.
      But as we presented the case to them we realized that this family are completely oblivious to what happens on a global scale in this world!!??!
      They are unaware what happens in large parts of the globe.
      We can not blame them or hold them accountable since it is not their fault having limited global insight... they just happen to be fed with very limited news and limited information in regards to things on a global perspective.
      The only information they have (since many can not afford cable TV or internet) is very shallow and often irrelevant in the bigger picture. All information they get tends to focus on local issues; and at the very best sometimes what happens on this continent.

For this reason, today was a good reminder for us that we are not only blessed with material riches in Europe. We are also blessed with access to information (multiple sources as well) and this access can sometimes be a much richer blessing than access to material things and money.

Video and photo from our personal territory

Today we started working in our personal territory that we been given called San Ramon Sur.
Lots of need and lots of good returns and plenty of discussions. 

This will be a great place to spend a few months; it's not too far from San Isidro, only 30 mins on the bus. ... but still there is a very big difference in their mindset and approach to spiritual things. A lot of them think outside the box and are open to discuss with us.

I also noticed that quite a few are not very well off at all here; it's almost a bit like Nicaragua with very run down shanty houses that are in a dire need of repairs. 

The police that showed up briefly in the video-clip were looking for "someone", and lots of others showed up a bit later in other cars and motorbike.
We stayed in this area all afternoon but we still don't know what actually happened here or who they looked for and/or why.

I still have not got my iPhone up and running so photos are still far and few between on this blog. 
I can only use my Note 2 phone that is SOOO slow .... so once I'm ready to shoot something then it's already gone and disappeared :(

 

Back with the boys

After our ministry today we went over to visit the brothers in the first place where we stayed here in Costa Rica. They invited us to eat with them.... but looking at the amount of meat in the food we kindly declined ;)

They always seem to have a lot of people hanging around the house. ... I get the feeling they (Nicaraguan brothers) are a lot more social than the Costa Rica equivalents. 

Assembly

We had our circuit assembly this weekend. Around 1500-2000 present.

ASAMBLEA DE CIRCUITO
Tema: "Busque la paz y siga tras ella"
1 Pedro 3:11

No guns or dogs

Sign in the local supermarket;  no weapons or dogs allowed in the store ;)

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.