Bounty for the Weekend

Saturday morning we had our first trip to the local “farmer’s market” for fresh fruits and vegetables. Although we didn’t take our camera to the market, we did get some photos of some of the stuff we bought. Someone recommended that we clean them first with a 15-minute soak in a weak bleach solution followed by a 5-minute soak in plain water. Here is a picture of the fruit drying after the final soak.

The strangest thing we got was a small red prickly fruit with a grape-like center and a large seed in the middle. The outside looks like one of those fuzzy stress balls. We had seen these in Honduras so they were not a total surprise, but they are unique, nonetheless!

We had several other surprises… the carrots were about as large as normal size cucumbers;
the “oranges” had generally green skins but were normal on the inside.

One more thing we are still getting used to is how many items are packaged in bags… salad dressing, mustard and mayo (we found ketchup in a plastic bottle, although it is sweeter than in the US), laundry detergent, milk, and a host of other things. We even saw plastic containers you could buy to put the bags in... a form of recycling!

Please understand we are only noting the differences, not saying anything about better or worse. We find it fascinating to see how different cultures use the resources they have and consider this part of our education.

We have one more day of orientation on Monday, August 31, and then classes start on Tuesday… woo-hoo!

Home, Sweet Home (San Jose, Costa Rica)

We are now one step up from homeless… we live on a street with no name. That is typical for this area, maybe even for Central America in general. Our official address, the street address I gave the cable company for installation, is “150 meters sur oeste del parque Los Sauces, edificio 309, apartamento 4” (150 meters southwest of Los Sauces Park, building 309, apartment 4). Please don’t send anything to that address: the box is very small and we probably won’t get it!

Speaking of housing, we did not expect the fortified housing we have seen. EVERY house has iron fences around their small front yards, and either iron gates to enclose their cars or mechanized solid walls that open for the cars. Our four-plex has a block wall, pointed iron bars, an iron gate, and razor wire over it all; I think our apartment is safe when we leave for the day!

Our Big Brother and Sister (Brian and Amanda) met us at the airport with Fernando and a van for our two trunks, two suitcases, and two backpacks: everything we own except for what we left in storage in Las Vegas. We got to our apartment with no problem. Brian and Amanda gave us a good walking tour of the area and we saw where the Spanish Language Institute (Instituto de Lengua Española) is (about a 10-minute walk). We stopped at a local place for lunch and realized it will take some time to get used to the money system here: lunch for 4 was 21,925 colones!

As it turns out, our apartment is on the bus route that circles our part of San Jose, which is not even on most tourist maps! Depending on the bus driver, the closest stop to our gate is about 10 feet or 200 yards! The closest major store is a Hiper Mas, similar to a super Wal-Mart, about 15-20 minutes by bus. It is so much like a Wal-Mart the employee badges have Wal-Mart printed on the top of the backside! One thing we found odd was that there were 1 or 2 vendor reps on every aisle helping customers choose the correct (their) brand! We’re not sure if that was because of the weekend, or if they will be there during the week as well.

The couple next door to us in our four-plex is attending the language school, also. They will be working in-country when they finish the course.

Saturday afternoon we found a nice church, spoke to some people that were making preparations, and decided to try it out Sunday morning. Although it was all in Spanish, we found we could follow most of the praise songs and the guest speaker used PowerPoint slides, so we could follow that, also. They emphasize small groups and we have a list to choose from.

Something we did not anticipate was how much we would have to buy once we moved into a furnished apartment: silverware, pots’n’pans, cleaning supplies, etc. The hard part is buying things we know we won’t be able to keep when we leave.

NONETHELESS, we are excited to be here, we are eager to start classes, and we look forward to what God has in store for us!

WE'RE HERE (HERE is San Jose, Costa Rica)

A big thanks to our Big Brother and Big Sister, Brian and Amanda Blalock. They met us at the airport with Fernando and a van to take us (and our stuff!) to the apartment they found for us. No pictures, yet, but we didn't expect to see everything looking like a compound. All the buildings, houses, apartments, have stone walls, or pipe fences, that go the the streets, and are topped with spiked fences and concertina wire!

We hope to have internet installed in our apartment sometime next week, and finish getting things setup. The priorities after we arrived yesterday were to get pillows for the bed and a coffee maker that worked.

Hope to have a more complete update, with pictures, in a few days.

Some of God's Men in TPI...

We continue to be amazed by the group of men God assembled called Training Pastors International. We are visiting with Greg & Cheryl Moore, founders of TPI, for a few days before leaving for Costa Rica Friday morning. Pictured with us are Jose Betancourt, Arodys Garcia, Gustavo Valladares, Mark & Cindy Gentry and Greg & Cheryl. Jose and Arodys were in the first class TPI taught in Cuba in 2003, graduating in December 2006! Jose felt led to reach other nations and is now leading the TPI efforts in Lima, Peru where he has started four classes and planted two churches! I was privileged to listen to his testimony going from a soldier in Cuba’s army to becoming a soldier for Jesus Christ!

Gustavo is the national director for TPI, overseeing training in Central and South America from his hometown in Honduras.

We feel so blessed that God has provided so well for us and opened our ears and hearts to the call to work with these men. We are eagerly waiting to get to our small apartment in San Jose, Costa Rica where we can finally unpack after two months on the road!

Jerusalem - Our Last Day

We visited two alternate sites for the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial: the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site for the past 1700 years, and the Garden Tomb, a site discovered in the late 1880s that better matches the geography of the bible narratives. In 300 AD, Constantine built a church here, and several other churches were built here since, some on top of the previous, some next to adjacent churches. Hence, the mismatch group of walls you see in pictures of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Sandy is standing in the photo.

A group of archaeologists discovered another area near the Damascus gate on the north side, that also may be the site of Jesus’ death and burial. This place has had a garden, an underwater cistern for the garden, markings in the rocks that look like a skull, a tomb with the burial slab on the right side, etc. Whichever site is correct doesn’t really matter. What matters is the truth of the events and the resurrection that occurred 3 days later!

We also visited many excavations. Here is a sample where Sandy is standing next to a spot where they found a wall from the 8th century BC, corresponding to when Solomon built the first temple, and another wall that dates to the 1st century BC, corresponding to the time under Hasmonean control. We also visited the tunnel excavations along the western wall of the temple mount. This tunnel exposes the extension of the western wall everyone is familiar with as the Wailing Wall. These are the original walls of the temple mount Herod the Great built when he rebuilt the temple for the Jews.

We have seen so much in these past 7 or 8 days that we will never read the bible the same way. We have seen physical evidence of where so many Old Testament and New Testament people lived and what they built. Not that we needed any affirmation, but we have a better understanding of what took place and how people lived. We are changed!

Jerusalem – In and Around the Temple Mount

Today we visited several areas in the Old City of Jerusalem, mostly in and around the Temple Mount. We started in the southwest part of the city. None of the temple built by Solomon still remains, but parts of the Herodian temple are still accessible (built by Herod the Great). We visited one of the streets near an entrance to the temple where the street is 2000 years old – from the time of Jesus. We saw some of the chambers that would have held shops and money changers. We saw many of the stones that fell when the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD (see the picture: "not one stone here will be left upon another"). We saw how the road had buckled when Robinson’s Arch fell on it. Amazing!

We walked around the corner to the southern steps leading up to the temple mount. Many of these steps are also 2000 years old and are where the Pharisees would often gather to discuss matters of the Law (Jesus could have also discussed issues with the Pharisees from these steps!). We saw some of the original gates, although they are now sealed, that people would have used to enter and exit the temple mount area.

We went up to the platform of the Temple Mount itself which is also 2000 years old, built by Herod the Great. Although he was a Jew, he had done so much to please Rome at the expense of the Jews, he built this temple to somewhat appease the Jews. None of the buildings from the original temple are here, including the various courts for Gentiles, women, or the Holy of Holies. Because of that, and because there are several Muslim mosques here now, most Jews don’t bother coming here to visit, preferring to spend their time at the western wall. We were standing on the same stones Jesus walked on!

We next walked over to the Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed the man who had been lame for 38 years. See John 5:1-15 for the story. Imagine: we were able to visit the pools where Jesus healed the man AND the temple where scripture says Jesus later saw him (verse 14). We are so thankful to have an opportunity to explore and visit these sites – we will never read these passages without remembering this visit!

After this, we had lunch in a nearby shopping mall and went to the Holocaust Museum. It was an emotional experience to say the least. This evening, we had the opportunity to listen to a Messianic Jewish pastor / rabbi talk about what it is like to be a Messianic Jew in Israel and some of the problems they face. Tomorrow will be our last day. Sad to leave, but forever the richer for it.

Gethsemene and Bethlehem

This morning we took in one of the most popular views of the Old City – from the Mount of Olives. From here you can see where Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover (the Last Supper), walked through the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemene, Caiaphas’ house where Jesus was held overnight, and the courtyard where Peter denied our Lord! We will never read that part of the gospels the same way again!

From this view point, we walked to the Garden of Gethsemene. Some of these olive trees are old enough to have been here 2000 years ago… what a story they could tell! Of course, there are several churches here to commemorate the site.

From Gethsemene, we drove to the Israel museum where we walked around a model of what Jerusalem looked like in 66 AD. Our guide pointed out the different areas of the city, where the different classes of people lived, the Temple Mount area, and where the original walls from Solomon would have been, where they were after Herod rebuilt the Temple, and where they are today. Inside the museum, we were able to see fragments from the Dead Sea scrolls, including a facsimile of the 24 foot long Isaiah scroll. As an added bonus, they had a display featuring the Aleppo Codex, the oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible in the world. It was copied by the Masoretes in about 1000 AD. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls date back to 200 BC, allowing anyone that knows Hebrew to compare writings that are separated by 1200 years of time, were made by very different groups of people, yet agree exactly! How can anyone be aware of documents like this and not believe?!?

We next drove to Bethlehem. Since that is now under Palestinian control, our Israeli guide and bus driver could not go with us. At the checkpoint, we transferred to a Palestinian bus and made our way into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Although our guide and bus driver were Arab Christians, it was still eerie having to leave an Israeli-controlled area. All was fine and we were able to view where Jesus was born and the Shepherd’s Fields area, fields that have been used for grazing in the past and were representative of where the shepherd’s would have been watching their flocks by night!

We are excited that we have two more days in Jerusalem, but sad knowing there is much we will not be able to see!