Mi casa interesante

My house. Where oh where should I start....I knew that this would actually be the biggest adjustment for me because I really loved my house.  I mean I lived there for almost 10 years and had it just how I wanted it. For many months I have prepared myself for living in a house that is not mine with stuff that is not mine.  I actually wasn't sure how I was going to feel about living in someone else's house but I told myself that however I felt, I needed to remember to stay positive. 

Of course the day Tyler got to Costa Rica my first question was..How's the house???? Well the fact that he wouldn't give me a straight answer and kept using words like cute, will work, needs a little cleaning..and the list goes on. I actually think sometimes he didn't answer when I called because he was out of words to describe the house.  Well the word he should have used was ..scary! Okay Im exaggerating a little but apparently when he got here it hadn't been lived-in for almost 6 months and had not been cleaned and was "alive" with visitors:) 

The owners live in Germany and have someone here in Costa Rica managing it for them and he was suppose to have it cleaned before we arrived but that didn't happen. So Tyler and Asher spent the first 2 days cleaning the place from top to bottom and then Tyler hired someone to come in and clean some more. Our neighbor cleans houses for $2.75 an hour and she spent 6 hours in here on top of what the guys did! 

The night before I arrived Tyler told me all of this over the phone. I think he was trying to prepare me. So my expectations were pretty low by the time I arrived. Yes ..Jehovah  prepares you for things:)  They did a really good job cleaning and I was pretty impressed with the guys hard work. The house is cute but a huge adjustment for us all having only 1 bathroom and 2 bedrooms. From 2200 square feet to 850. So I promised some pictures and I haven't held back! haha no photo editing here:) As far as the house is laid out..it has a pretty nice sized kitchen for the size of the house. Functionally it does work great! The only thing it needs now are a few little things to make it ours ...temporarily!!!:) 

Casa Baxter 

Our side yard

Our bedroom.. my little office

Our closet. I still can't believe that this is all of the clothes we brought! So far we really haven't missed anything;) 

This is the kids room. The bottom bunk is a full that the boys share and Ella gets the top. There is barely any room in this bedroom so it was hard to get a picture. Asher has set up a little desk in the corner out of 2 bins stacked to play Mine craft with Timmy, Kieren and of course his favorite cousins Riley and Audrey:) 

Hey ya gotta do what ya gotta do!...

Our living room .. or as Peyton calls it.. The media room :) 

Next up our bathroom .. 

This is my favorite part of the house. This cool shower! It barely gets hot water but it's so hot here.. no ones complaining!

Our hall way.. Do you see my tin roof?? here let me give you a better view..

It's rustic right? :) 

Our kitchen.. and more kitchen .. 

I didn't even clean it before I took this picture. I'm keeping it real for you guys:) 

my kitchen ceiling ..

My stove.. 

yep that's the stove! No oven.. kind of feels like camping :) We brought a skillet on a friends recommendation (Thanks Katherine & Kerry) It's been a lifesaver!! 

and my sink..

I have no words for this one:) Well I have some words but .. oh well..it's a sink who cares:) 

My washer .. and pepto Bismal pink laundry room.. don't be jealous you too can have this color:) 

This light switch is insane and nearly killed me! well again.. I exaggerate but its wired backwards! 

and my dryer...

yeah I don't have a dryer:) 

This next photo is for my dad .. the plumber. the pipes you see are my shower and my washer draining into.. well nothing. Don't worry nothing can get in them. 

and our car! We love it! 

... our happy place! Every house needs a hammock:) 

My BEST friend!! 👇

 

So that's it! And you know what .. it's all worth it because now we get moments like this..

We are able to be together every day just as Jehovah originally intended and we are loving it! Already we have noticed changes in the kids and that makes us feel so excited about this adventure. We are so thankful to Jehoavh that he helped us get up the courage to do all of this. It already feels like home. Talk to you all soon! Keep your emails coming were loving getting them each day! 

First Meeting for Field Service

We have been so busy getting situated in our new place that we were finally able to get out in service Saturday. But first I want you all to know that I hope to share our experiences with you good and ..challenging. If you ever decide that you yourself would like to move to another area or a foriegn language group you would be a little more prepared & learn from our experiences & mistakes:) We prepared for over a year for this move but I don't care who you are, you will always encounter things that you don't expect or catch you by surprise. Its part of the adventure:)

Since we have gotten here, we have been able to see in more detail, the way the congregation functions. A group is obviously much different then a congregation. When it comes to service we work right along with the spanish. On Saturdays to help support the spanish we work spanish territory..in spanish..I don't speak spanish :) But guess what The Baxters did Saturday? Thats right ..preached in spanish. As the brothers and sisters started to come into the Kingdom Hall it dawned on me that none of them speak english. I naively thought they would, just a little (typical American I'm told). Well 1 did but he knew very little. The brother started conducting the meeting for field service in spanish. He soon pointed to me and to another spanish sister. I just said, "si"I had no idea to what until after it was over, but I figured,  he's a brother.. I can trust him :) So It was me, a spanish sister and Asher and Peyton. I looked to a sister in front of me who is in english and said.."little issue..I don't know spanish." (of course she knew that but I didn't understand how this was all going to work) She just said yeah nobody in English does don't worry and she scribbled down this sentence: 

" Me gustaria este tratado" 

and she said after I say that, hand them the tract. Before I had the chance to ask any questions, a spanish brother came up and started talking to me, I think my eyes were the size of gum balls! He knew I didn't speak Spanish but he wasn't letting that stop him from .. I think welcoming me?? Anyway it ended in a hug:)  It was very overwhelming. So all the way to the territory I tried my hardest to talk to the sister that was with me. Now this may come as a shock to you all but... I like to talk. Haha so it was very frustrating. Finally we got to the territory and the car in front of us stopped and out popped a little girl just 9 years old running over to my car. I rolled the window down and she said, "Im here to translate for you ." Thank you Jehovah! This little girls family is from Canada and they have been here 5 years and she speaks perfect Spanish. I felt so bad for the sister I was with, so up until this point, I had been using every spanish word I knew. I was all out.  So for the next 2 hours this little sister was able to translate which was great!

This was also my first time driving in Costa Rica and the roads here are unpaved, rocky and STEEP ( My capitals are to show you..I mean business about it being steep!) I was in 4 low for almost 3 hours straight. I was a little on edge all morning, totally out of my comfort zone. When we finally got back to the hall one of the English elders got out of his car and came and gave me a big hug and asked how it went..man I needed that hug!:) It was a day of firsts for me but we all placed literature and although I couldn't understand my partner I stood alongside as she spoke with people and was just amazed ..again.. at how Jehovahs organization is united. Here we were 2 strangers when we woke up that day, who spoke different languages, yet there we were on someones doorstep talking to them about what WE believe. We have a connection. Although it was overwhelming, when that past, it made me want to learn spanish even more so that I could talk to her and get to know her. So that was the highlight of the week so far. In other news we are exploring the town we live in, visiting random waterfalls and just enjoying our new life here. We keep reminding ourselves that we don't know when our circumstances could change so we are trying to enjoy every minute here. On my next blog I will get some pictures up of the house we are renting and tell you all about that crazy story! talk to you guys soon!!

Uvita English Group

Last Sunday we went to our first meeting as a family. There were 22 present for the talk and Watchtower study. The brother who gave our talk drove from about 50 minutes away where they are also short on elders and brothers. The brother gave a great talk about not letting recreation distract you from spiritual pursuits. It was so neat to have the same material in another country. Wherever you live, we all have the same things to deal with. He did mention that although this isn't a really big problem in Costa Rica, everyone  loses focus on occasion.  He also mentioned that he knew most of us in the audience had probably made huge changes in our lives just to be here in Costa Rica. That was nice because looking at the audience..he was right, we are ALL living much different lives here then where we came from. Regardless of that, people are grateful to be here and happy to be helping right along with Jehovahs purpose.

The Watchtower study was great. You can imagine how hard that is for the conductor with only 22 in attendance, 8 of those being kids. But the Watchtower conductor was awesome. He had little points to share on each paragraph that really helped you to understand things better, like the definition of being gentle or kind in the insight book. He also had additional questions that really made you think about how the article applied to the people we meet in the ministry. He really kept things moving along.  Now in this situation you do find yourself keeping track of who answered when so that you know when it's your "turn. Just getting into town the day before and tired as can be, I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to be for meeting but I still wanted to do my part. The  point is..answering and participating at meeting is just a must. It's like everyone is relying on everyone to really make the study meaningful, and it is! Tyler ran the 1 microphone so he was happy( and sweaty:) to be put to work right away. The kids here..I underestimated them, they answered just as much as the adults and gave awesome comments! It warmed my heart after meeting to have Peyton say to me," Mom, I love this meeting"! Okay,  it was probably due to the neighboring puppy who comes over to the Kingdom Hall every meeting and plays with the kids (He was promptly uninvited when he tried to sit in), or the fact that they go outside of the kingdom hall and look at bugs and have races before and after meeting. Whatever the reason the kids seem to be liking it here in Costa Rica.

This week will be an adventure (we have dubbed everything challenging, an adventure now..it just sounds better). Our midweek meeting will be in Spanish and we aren't quit sure how the kids will react to this. We are going to try some different techniques for study so we will keep you updated on how that goes. We have seen the kids interact with some little Ticos and its amazing! Kids can just play together even if they don't speak the same language. I was so glad to see that they weren't getting frustrated by not being able to understand each other.

Additionally, Im not sure how long we will even continue to have a Sunday meeting in english.  This is something that has been a challenge for the brothers here, for instance, we have no speaker for the next 3 Sundays. When that happens local brothers have to give the talks and we only have 3 elders. To get speakers we often have to send a brother out,  that means they are constantly giving talks.  The brothers here are working tirelessly and really need more brothers. Our territory has changed tremendously.  it is much smaller now making the need for pioneers less of an issue. The real need is for brothers... lots and lots of them:)

Going to all of the meetings in Spanish is not something that we had prepared ourselves for, but we are here to help and that means doing whatever Jehovah directs the congregations to do. There have been some other changes here as well. The spanish have 24 publishers with only 1 elder so this brother is so happy to have the help of the english friends.  One brother we know has given at least 4 parts, all in Spanish in the last 8 weeks and he speaks hardly any spanish! He writes it out in spanish and then corrects it the best he can. Then he gets on stage and reads it! Of course he has already had a few blunders, but he says "it's going to happen, it's all part of the learning process." He spends so much time translating his talks. This brother also has a wife and 2 kids and runs a business in the states. After the first part he gave, the only elder in spanish came up and gave him a huge hug. This particular elder usually gives every part on the service meeting , conducts the school and conducts the Watchtower. Oh yeah.. and shepherds the flock:) This brother was moved to this hall so this isn't his home congregation.. but it is now. I can't imagine the way that elder feels having so much help now! And that right there really is the reward, knowing that as a united brotherhood you are helping support the congregations in anyway that you can. Your helping your brothers and sisters just meet together to worship Jehovah. Here the friends work 6 days a week and they work hard, in the heat. Those meetings bring to them a whole new level of refreshment that I have never realized. It has helped me to see that whatever you are doing to support the congregation here, or where you are, means so much! The most important thing you can do is be there, because being there leads to all other good things. Well It's getting hot here so were headed to the beach!!!! I love getting emails from you all it's the highlight of my day so keep in touch!  Love you all! 

Temporary Resident

Well we finally made it to Costa Rica! On Wednesday night when we got to the airport everything seemed fine. It wasn't until 40ish minutes before our flight was suppose to leave that I started to get worried. The plane still had not arrived at the gate by our departure time. Long story short.. our flight out of Seattle left 3 hours late landing us in Denver at 1:30am. Although we were told in Seattle that we would not miss our connecting flight to Costa Rica ...we did .. by 5 minutes!!! I strolled over to customer service expecting... I don't know.. a miracle?? Well they were fresh out of miracles and I was told that there were no available flights until Wednesday! That's right ..Wednesday. But I did have the option of flying stand by in 2 days, on a packed flight. I took it! What other options did I have? In Addition,  I was also booked on a flight into Liberia, Costa Rica Saturday at 8am if I didn't get on flying standby. Liberia is an 8 hour drive for Tyler and 8 hours back but I just wanted to get to Costa Rica! I was then informed that not only would they not pay for my hotel stay, but that every hotel in the Denver area was completely full. So sleep in the airport it was:) We were able to finally book a room for the night after and get into a hotel that morning around 8. Needless to say we slept all day! After almost 2 days of R&R in lovely Denver 

( I'm never going back to Denver) we went to fly standby on Friday night at 11:59 pm which was so fun with tired kids and 6 carry ons. But guess what? 3 seats came available .. only 3! I think Jehovah knew we had reached our limit!  I was so happy!!! No longer temporary residents of Denver! Had we not made it on that flight we would have had to sleep in the airport until our 7:15 boarding to Liberia! Thank you Jehovah!