Another Thought on Light :)

This last Thursday bands, dancers, floats, and people from many different places in Costa Rica came to celebrate the festival de la luz in Monteverde. It is a celebration of the coming of Christmas time, the celebration of light. The whole down town around 6:00 blended into a blob of red and white santa hats standing on the sides of the street. On top of the fences were the teenage boys, up in the restaurants were the tourists or elderly people. Sitting on the roof of a restaurant was an old Santa Claus comically drinking beer. On top of the telephone booths, level with the kids on their parents shoulders were more teenagers climbing to get a good view. An announcer stood beneath flashing lights narrating loudly who was doing
what and were they were from, trying to shout over the remix techno versions of hit songs in the United States. Police forces from all over Costa Rica were there too, looking intimidating. Everyone came out for the festival of the lights. There
was fire, spotlights, fireworks. There were those glow sticks, the ones you have to break and shake up until they are free of themselves and able to shine to their full potiential. There were Christmas lights, destined to shine only in their time
of festivity, though they are magical year round. And then there were the lights that caught the most attention, the lights of an ambulance. I never did find out what happened, but those red, white and blue lights spun around clearing everyone out of their path. After the ambulance passed through, the colored disco lights projected once again on the pavement and the glowing Star-Wars-like swords lit up. It isn't to say that the ambulance passing through the parade didn't have
an affect..it took some minutes before the party really began again.
I wrote about it a couple months ago I think, what it is like to live in the light and how powerful it is. It's something I have to remind myself to do every single day. It's hard. I know God is there, I know God's light is real and yet I am on an endless search to fully know it. I love being here in a place still new to me and working to understand His light. A young man I knew went out running a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way walking home and I was watching the sun set, a beautiful orange and red, revealing itself after weeks of rain. When I got near my driveway I saw the one police car that is in Monteverde, and many friends that I recognized gathered around this young man who in the last couple minutes had died of a heart attack. I caught the eye of his brother, and withheld from crying when I saw the confused look on his face. There were no tears, and only a tint of sadness. It seemed he couldn't understand the sunset. When the sun rose that morning, his life was different. The sunrise brought a day of work and of the busy passionate life that he lives. I don't imagine that to him, he expected that the sunset would look like this and bear the death of his brother. The next day I asked my teacher Rita who is also in his family how they were doing. She replied by asking me a question right back, if I had seen the sunset. When I replied how beautiful it was, she told me that there is the answer to my question. Her family is fine because there is no doubt that her nephew is with God, and that he really is resting in peace.

The colors, the light of that sunset painted a little more my picture of life and death. Light is emotions and beauty, a shallow thought and the most profound one at the same time. It can be emotions, or reality. It's a lot like God.
I think that's why He is called light of the world.

Language

"If I could speak in tongues of angels and men, but have not love I am nothing."

My host dad speaks English. He works blowing glass and selling what he makes to tourists up in the rainforest and in town. Last night he acted out his interactions with English speaking tourists...
Tourist: "Wow, did you make this?"
Angel: "Yes, I make."
Tourist: "How much does this cost?"
Angel: "20 million dollars" (smiling)..(it's one of the only numbers he knows)
Tourist: "How long did it take you?"
Angel: "Usually about three hours."
And so on for a couple of minutes until the familiar questions run out. This is how he speaks English.

Many kids at my school are billingual, having taken classes to learn English most all of their lives. We speak Spanglish to each other, Spanish to most teachers, and English to some too. Some kids were out playing soccer and ran into each other, and were both crying. One girl was saying what she wanted and needed to comfort her in English and the other boy in Spanish. When you are hurt it's hard to speak in your second language...you just want to speak in your first and have someone understand you, so they both explained their needs in their first language.
Then, like yesterday, on Abolition of the Army Day, there are moments of silence too. On Abolition of the Army Day it was a silence of remembering wars, of lost loved ones in battles, and to think about where hope among all this is found. Other times silence is open and wandering, wordless. If you think about music, it wouldn't exist without silence. It's as big a part of it as all the notes.

Language is hard to define. It's full of motions, meanings, words. So much to always be understood, but with love...it's universal. With love, we can know that just because we don't understand what someone is saying in a different language or because of something else, it doesn't mean there isn't meaning and thought behind it. Sometimes the love is hidden beneath the words and other times it doesn't have to do with words at all.
In Nicaragua to call someone over, instead of moving your fingers toward you like your fanning your face, you motion downwards with your wrist, as if you are telling someone to duck down. Which is what I did the first time I saw this signal. After crouching down on the ground at the Nicaraguan border so confused as to what was going on, the man calling me over told me "Venga!"..a word I understood means come. It takes patience and listening to be open to language and to learn meaning behind it. There are barriers, flaws, smiles, frowns, bad words, good words...so much to be defined. But one language we all speak is love and that is greater than all these.

Navidad and Closure

I can't believe I already come home in two weeks. I remember telling myself when I was so nervous about leaving home and the states that Christmas would come before I knew it and I would be coming home. I didn't think it would be this fast though! I have so many mixed feelings about leaving, but still three weeks to balance them all out. I wonder if the simplicity of my life is something I will feel change when I return, how strange it will feel to speak the language I think in, and even how different the weather will be. I have learned so much being here, things that have changed me without me even being able to put them in words. I'm not sure if this will be the last time I will write before I see most all of you reading this, but in the next few weeks (and the ones leading up to now) things will be really busy. Goodbyes, hellos, family and everything that comes with the holidays has flying at me. We have the a Christmas tree up and all but it feels so much different than I am used to, looking out the window at a bright sunny day and putting on shorts singing, "Navidad, navidad para todo la felicidad!" I'm so blessed to be experiencing something so culturally traditional like the holiday season in somewhere where the culture is completely different. I remember when I first came to Costa Rica, I had a hard time speaking Spanish and accepting the culture as my own for the time being. Always I was comparing it to that of the United States and I remember feeling superior; I was from the country that had such a strong influence here, the place where you have to pay $100 just to apply for a Visa to go. I speak natively the language many struggle to learn in search of opprutunity. The more I adjusted to culture here, the more this feeling of superiority faded. Now it is all but gone. I've been through the struggles of communicating in a new language that is native to the people I felt better than while they waited patiently, learned the traditional types of food in their uniqueness, even down to how you greet someone with a kiss on the cheek. All these things I have learned and experienced I can hardly begin to list. All these things I also would have never experienced had God not torn down my wall of superiority. I came with intentions of learning and living but not necessarily changing myself, none the less falling in love with a different culture and its people and it becoming a part of me forever. The closer I come to leaving, the more realistic it's becoming that there is a whole new part of me, a language, a family and a culture. I have loved hearing stories from the elders here that founded the community and experiencing God in the silence of the rainforest, respecting greatly the idea Quakers believe that the light of God is in everyone. With a teacher of mine we have been discussing some about spirituality and how we define God and why. Every Wednesday we have an hour to do this kind of stuff before meeting and we have been writing spiritual autobiographies. Today we shared them and it's been so interesting to think about my relationship with God in relation to everyone elses and to think about where I got my faith. In the meeting room there is a sign that says "strength without dominance, gentleness without weakness, courage without arrogance, love without possessiveness". I love looking at this and thinking that this is what I want to be. I'm so thankful this Thanksgiving for all that has changed in my life and most of all in me. I have found such genuine joy here and in God that I feel I hadn't yet known. I would write more but the sun is setting a bright red out over the Nicoya gulf and since dusk doesn't exist here, I have to head home as to not walk in the dark :)

Hopefully I'll be able to blog a few more times before I come home, but if not I am looking forward so much to seeing you all again!

Con mucho amor y esperanzas que ustedes son buenos.

Pura vida <3

Emma

P.S.

Spanish 2 class at OCS...Did you get the letters I sent?

Fear Not

"Fear not." Fear not is a promise we have heard our whole lives.
It was whispered, "Don't worry, you'll be fine" when you scratched your knee for the first time. Or when you cried at birth and
someone who loved you was right there to comfort you. It's one of the main thing
God tells us too. "Fear not of me." "Fear not for I am with you." "Fear not by learning about this perfect love I taught you."
So why do we fear?
Why do we hold back from our own emotions, the truth we know, and the dreams we have?
Fear consumes us on a daily basis whether we regonize it or not. I decided not to come here to Costa Rica, and only ended up
here a week later after asking myself the question "Why not?". Fear. I went through a phase in sixth grade where I reallyy wanted to be
good at soccer. I remember practicing almost every day and then one day when watching Maddy's soccer game, I gave up my
trying because I saw how hard it would be to be the best. Why? Fear.
It's not fear of failure alone that holds us back. It is often the comfort of our lifes, our routines, the things
that we know hold us back from stepping out without fear. Every day is a new challenge to fear not, to brave not only this new
culture, but also myself and the fear I am prone to. Last weekend, I woke up and felt so overjoyed to be sitting in my bed in my pajamas.
After a long week I deserved it. I looked outside at the brillantly sunny day and considered walking up to the rainforest reserve
but rejected my idea, thinking again how nice it was to just be sitting here. This is when I caught myself, in the midst
of a gentle fear pulling me away from experiencing all I could be doing. I got out of bed, putting all my strength in God because
I could not find it in myself and put on my sneakers to go hiking. The strength I found seemed a result of overcoming that fear
and sharing with God an experience where I could only depend on Him because I was so outside of myself. And wow. Lifechanging
it was to be up in the reserve looking at white faced monkies and avoiding stepping on tarantulas. Jesus is waiting
to walk with us right outside our comfort zones with His promise, "Fear not" to show us spectacular things.

Lead Me To The Cross

On top of the hill in San Juan Del Sur there is a huge statue of Jesus who appears to be looking out over the city. Yesterday, we road tripped with some local surfers who took us to their favorite beach which was located on the "road to Jesus". Along the way it became obvious that I was in a real third world country-most houses were wooden lean-tos with a piece of tin that served as a roof. Though it was so simple, the families and people we passed weren't begging for sympathy; they instead appeared to be appreciating the love that they had, and thus maintained peace and contentment. Some little boys were outside playing with their chickens in the dusty dirt yard while their mom looked on laughing. Another man came over with his machete to help us when our car broke down while his talking parrot shouted out "hola!" and other friendly greetings to us. Every road to Jesus is different; no one is better, no one worse. Each step that we take is our own and it cannot be judged by others in truth, because the only thing true about us is what God says. I love the song "Lead Me To The Cross" by Chris and Conrad, listen to it if you have time :)

1 Corinthians 13

"If I have not love, I am nothing."



I've learned so much of the reality of this chapter of the Bible...love. Yesterday my mom and I had to cross the border into Nicaragua because I don't have a student visa and have to leave the country every 90 days. A parent of the school drove us there, and a friend picked us up on the other side. It's not an understatement to say the border is a bit chaotic. It took us about four hours of lines, stamps, confusion..but amongst it all there was love. There was love in the people who drove us who stayed and waited to make sure we made it across, in a crippled young man who's eyes as he begged said something different-offering peace and not expecting sympathy, searching for an unknown destination it seemed. There was love in the police officers who joked with us when both my mom and I didn't get our passports stamped, and in some local Nicaraguans on the other side who shouted comments of congratulations when we finally came across the border.
Honestly, I was really nervous, straining my brain to communicate clearly and translate for my mom, but when I got past myself and my own fears, I opened up to the love that was all around me. In the bible it says that perfect love casts out all fear, and most often it just takes that push out our comfort zones to see it. Someone once said, "You can't steer a car if you're not moving,"; if we let fear consume us then we are nowhere, trying to steer while still in the same place. But when we allow the perfect love to cast out fear, we begin moving in a direction that God will guide and take the wheel. ."
My mom came down to visit me (and take me out of the country), and before we left she had a chance to spend a couple days in Monteverde. Being with her, it felt like I was back at the beginning, seeing everything for the first time. Buying food at the Ferria on Saturday, the big Frisbee game, square dancing, getting free rides when a familiar taxi driver drives by in the pouring rain, waking up in the middle of the night by howler monkies. All the things that have become part of my everyday life, I saw through her eyes and felt really really blessed. I have two worlds now it seems and having my mom here I realized I am a part of a new language and community here, as well as a part of something on Orcas and both worlds will never fully know each other. Still, I could have the best of both, but if I have not love, I am nothing..

Thank you so much for your prayers...lots of love and blessings :)

Emma

Pura Vida!

I'm sure you have heard "Pura Vida" is like Costa Rica's motto. Living here and becoming accustomed to the culture has made me begin to take in to account how meaningful that saying is to the people here. Most Ticos say it casually "Como esta mae?".."Bien, pura vida!" but the more I've heard it the more I sense how much it means. It's their blessing to one another, a greeting...a reference to pure life. David, my homestay brother, taught me to greet the driver of the yellow school bus that serves as the Monteverde bus with "Pura vida!" so that he doesn't charge me the "gringo" price :) Last night I sat leaning against the concrete of my house, surrounded by palm and lemon trees and a lush garden and remained in the ultimate silence of this pure life, watching the sunset until it began to get dark. The beautiful fading yellow light hit where I was at one point, then gradually moved, leaving me in darkness. I remembered what a friend of mine told me when we were in seventh grade about that brilliant light from the sunset. She said it was the type of light where even the ugliest person could look beautiful..
Isn't that light God? When we are in it we are beautiful, almost ethreal..content and at peace. When we leave it we are left in darkness, that though we try to light up on our own, there is no beauty like there is in the Son. Seeing this taught me so much about sharing that light. It's not something you can pick up and give..it's something a person has to enounter on their own. The best I can do is know that light and spend my time in it, then through me, people may see that there is a real light that exists and seek it. In God's love I have the power to be and through that the power to share. What a gift!

A few nights ago, a family friend came over with tamales for us. They are a common gift here and soo delicately fascinating! It is some sort of homemade tamale wrapped in bananna leaves. Often after school, a couple comes and sells their homemade cinnamon rolls and bread, pushing them in a stroller. Then there are the younger kids that climb up into the trees and pick some native fruits for me... I still have yet to find out what they are though :) All the food is so interesting and new! The other thing that has taken some getting used to but I really enjoy now is walking-twenty mintues to school, forty five to most friend's houses, an hour to the market..it's the pace of life here! God has blessed me and the routine of my life here is setting in, this is home now and I am enjoying learning and growing as this new comfort zone develops!
Thank you for your prayers and support,

Love, Emma

Tranquilo

Tranquilo is the word used by locals to describe Monteverde. You can probably guess the meaning of it...peaceful. I am enjoying the slow, yet interesting pace of life here. On Wednesday nights, I go to a salsa dancing class and every Saturday we play a long game of ultimate frisbee. Soccer isn't the only sport Tico's excel in! I also joined a choir, and we sing beautiful Spanish hymns and other pieces. This past Friday I ran into some people from choir at a Scrabble game, it was mostly the elders in the community and they played Scrabble like I have never seen before! I had my head buried in a dictionary trying to keep up. Right now the streets are running with water from the pouring rain but everything is still beautiful. The rainy season is beggining and the palm trees are a bright green, along with all the other lush plants in the rainforest. Last weekend I was in Puntarenas for the Dia de Indepencia torch run..some classmates and I got on the bus with other students from the Centro de Creativo y El Colegio esculas and we drove down to meet the torch, signifying Costa Rica's indepenence. People had been running with the torch since Guatemala, accompanied by about 40 or 50 firetrucks, police cars, ambulences, ect. Where we met the torch was where it entered a new district so all the sirens and noise stopped as the runners held the torch up high in the pitch black 2:30 AM darkness and we sung the national anthem. Then the noise started again as we lit the Monteverde torch and continued on. We ran all night long, climbing in and out of the back of a pick up truck and the buses, running hard and holding the torch high. We got to Santa Elena at about 8:30, where the people were out on the streets as the sirens echoed and our tired legs kept running...it was a truly amazing experience.
I am about to get washed away in the rain, so I'm going to begin the trek home :)
I will try to find time to update a little more but I love you all back home and hope things are great!
I'm praying for you always and appreciate your prayers too!

Emma

The Speck

Right now, there are children scared of starvation in third world countries,
people dancing in Hollywood,soldiers dying in Iraq, and you reading this off your computer screen probably halfway across the world from me. And here I
am..standing still on a spinning planet in a country that is foreign
to me. I feel so helpless sometimes, a teeny tiny speck on a spotted
globe. But I feel more alive than I have ever felt. I just finished
reading "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernest Hemingway. At the
beginning of the book, he has dreams of lions he once saw in Africa,
then the next day he goes through the trials and struggles of trying
to catch a fish and is defeated and tested many times. The last paragraph talks about how he
lies in his bed at night, dreaming of the lions in Africa.
I feel like the old man. Tested, struggling, defeated at times, and at
night no matter what, always lying with the lions. With my thoughts of doubt, joy, fear-The
new life I am experiencing is beyond what my mind seems to know how to
comprehend, so my thoughts always wander back to the same curious place.
My friend Dan, who is also an exchange student, had a good point..we
have been here near a month, eaten the food, met the people, spoken
the language and have had the short cultural experience we are used
to. He said he keeps thinking, "Okay, I did it, it's time to go home."
Now what we noticed is coming upon us is the feeling of our comfort zones leaving, and a new one coming. We are LIVING here. This is home! The new comfort zone is
foreign, and I almost find myself not wanting to let it consume me.
It's the familiar routine of walking through the rainforest to school,
looking around a crowded church of people speaking in a new language to me, and of being alone at night in the loud
peace of the rain knowing that this experience is mine. My life. So
many people exist and blur past me daily, new faces that I am
beginning to recognize, and I think back to the speck that about a
month ago was on Orcas Island. The same little speck.
The other day in assembly, which was in Spanish, I heard whispering
behind me so i turned around...there was a small second grader translating
to his friend. The face of the boy who was translating was all scrunched up,
concentrating carefully as he listened in Spanish to pick out the
words to use in English to tell his buddy. That same day there was a scorpion in Pre-Calculus. AHH! Every day really is an adventure!

As I am learning more Spanish, I notice that I mix Spanish and
English often..there are some words that just sound better in Spanish
or vice versa. Ultimate Spanglish!


I´ve been spending a lot of time reading through 1 John in English and Spanish, this verse is one of my favorites :)

1 John 4;18-19
En el amor no hay temor, sino que el perfecto amor echa fuera el temor. Porque el temor conlleva castigo, y el que teme no ha sido perfeccionado en el amor. Nosotros amamos, porque él nos Amó primero.

I miss you all and am praying for you always. I hope the beginning of the school year is starting off well!

EMMA

Stars

Last night, my friend Jose showed me to this place called the Trocha, which is a steep road surrounded by rainforest, but exposed enough where you can see the whole sky. I never recognize the stars, they seem such a simple part of life. They shine through the night, and humbly shy away in the day. Jose turned off his ATV and I was breathless by the beauty above me. The stars were written across the sky, perfectly placed by God's spontanious hand. They were illuminated and not faded by any light pollution. Looking out, the stars and moon lit up the Nicoya Gulf, miles and miles away from where we were, up in the rainforest. Just days before I came here, I got to listen to Chris Tomlin sing "Indescribable, you placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name. You are amazing, God." with forty thousand people singing along with the melody and staring up at the stars in awe. Now here I was, looking up at the same stars in an echoing silence, thinking "Indescribable..."

God is everywhere. I see him all over the place here, often in places I've forgotten to look. I can hear Him when the thunder crashes and the rain pounds our tin roof, and I can see him in the eager faces of the younger kids, laughing together in innocent joy at school.


Look at the world around you, and look for God in it; in the places you've forgotten to look you will see amazing things :)

P.S.

I wrote in my journal yesterday about how it feels to be held and loved and to know that there is grace when everything fails..
I feel so honored to be thought of and prayed for-often when I find myself scared or trying to rid myself of the pit in my stomach, I remember the people, the God, the church and the family that is saying "You can do it!" :)

Thank you for believing in me,

Counting The Days

Hmm. Few days are left until I HEAD OUT! Woohoo :)

Life is so calm right now. We are all moved in to the new house, thanks to the many hands :). I feel so at peace just being at home. Which must be why God in his mysterious ways is calling me to step out of my comfort zone and find Jesus there, where He is waiting for me. It's like when Peter steps out of the boat-Jesus is right there waiting for him to have faith and to take his hand.
When I talked to some people about heading down to Costa Rica to go to school, and to serve and learn from the people, I kept hearing the phrase "Godspeed". I pictured myself like a car in a race through the ghetto with "GODSPEED-The kind of lightning speed only a god could have" painted across it and lightning bolts flaming from the sides. So I googled it. "Godspeed, as a word, is a wish for a prosperous journey, success, and good fortune (from Middle English God speed you, meaning "May God help you prosper")."
Godspeed is what I pray for in this journey and chapter of my life. I need God with me there, and even more I want Him. His speed would OWN any car in a race and I know I'll need it. I can imagine He is just as excited as I am as we go to prosper together in Costa Rica. I look forward to failure and the testing of my faith that in James, God says will help me to gain perseverance. And I look forward to successes and gained wisdom as well. I can't dream of all the things I will encounter and learn from this experience, and I look forward to sharing with YOUUU the adventures that God will take me on.

Thanks for reading my BLOG! Your prayers, love and support are amazing!


Godspeed,

Emma