"Mama Said There'll Be Days Like This"

 For those of you hopeing to hear about a true day in the life of  a missionary...this is a post for you!
Last night ( 9/8/10) we spent a good amount of time wide awake and unable to sleep. Most likely from all the stress of  ministries, we just could not sleep. Because I spent so much time awake last night I tried to stay in bed a little longer than usual, for us this means anytime past 6am would be great!

By the time I finally drug myself out of bed, my feet hit something very odd on the cold tile. It was kind of warm, soft and very "rope like". I looked down to see my bare feet on a dead snake in the middle of my bedroom! Our cats must have killed it sometime last night (thank God for our little protectors!). As you can imagine by this time I am fully awake now and headed to take a suicide shower.

Hot showers in central america are not just showers they are called suicide showers. The reason for the name is because you must be ok with possibly dying everytime you use them. In order to use these showers you must mix two notoriously unmixable things: electricity and water! Yes, thats right! Our shower head has an electrical coil in it that must be plugged into the wall. The electricty in most places is not grounded by any means and we constantly have power surges/brown outs. Our house is no exception so this puts a little added edge to our morning shower game of chance.

Our Shower

 While in the shower I noticed the sound of an extra rushing of water. After some inspection we realized that we must have had an earthquake in the night that shifted our water tank. The mechanism for stopping the filling of our tank when full had broken off. This means our water tank had been filling all night and our landry room/storage was flooded. We must not have heard the water during the night because of the heavy seasonal rains.We lost a car battery charger and small vaccum in the flood. I am sure our water bill this month will be quite interesting. I know there are worse things, like when we have no water in dry season! We are thankful for the rain and the water it brings!

Finally after a successful shower and cleaning up the mess, we headed out to walk our dog. While walking, Luke walked right into a huge spider web that had been built over night across the walk way. The web was so big it covered his hair, face and even made its way into his mouth (eek).

By now, it was time to head out to La Carpio for our morning work at the daycare. La Carpio is roughly 8 miles from where we live. We nearly got hit by other cars some 10 times before making it to La Carpio (anyone who has driven in Central America will understand how stressful it is). The kids were great! Our ministires are so uplifting by this point after our eventful morning. On the way home we sat in traffic for almost an hour since a major road has been closed and will be closed for the next 3-6million years (probably much longer than they have stated).

Prisila-One of the girls we work with in the mornings

Taxi in front of us (notice the bumper is held on with a bungee cord)

Traffic on the way home (notice the prominent catholic church)

  That afternoon we finished off the day with some much needed laundry. I put the first of 3 loads in and about an hour later I walked out to our landry room assuming it was well done. The washer had been running its first spin cycle for the entire hour. We now have to manually change each setting of the washer. This takes some guessing as we have to guess if we think the clothes have been spinning, washing or rinsing long enough etc. On a side note we are so grateful to Luke's parents for helping us buy our lovely dryer last month, it works great!!!

 That night we had a good laugh at yet another crazy day on the mission field!
(Sorry I do not have a picture of the snake. In all the caos we did not think to take one)

*Please note that this is in no way a list of complaints but merely written as a glimpse into everyday life for missionaries. Not all days are this bad and some are worse. We are quite grateful and thankful to those missionaries who are working in much more dangerous countries around the world! We thank God for the amazing calling He has given us. We are honored He has choosen to use us for so many incredible things here in beautiful Costa Rica!

2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

-James 1:2-3