Flying time

Time is moving fast....it seems like just yesterday I was promising to post pics and here it is a week later. Last week was a little crazy, Titus was sick on tuesday and wednesday, and then he handed off the fever and aches to Cohen for thursday and friday. So Kate and I spent this week juggling who stayed home with the sick kid and who went to school with the healthy one and trying to keep up with missed assignments and homework. Praise God it was a quick flu bug that came and went. We have some friends in school who have been hit pretty hard with sickness and need prayer....for instance, one family with multiple sicknesses, kids breaking hands, mom spending time in the hospital, and dad currently in an out of the hospital with some sort of intestinal infection, possibly a parasite.

School is going great, becoming fluent still feels a looooong way off. I think the first couple of weeks are designed to show you how much you don't know.  It's amazing how important communication is to life. In a culture where you don't understand the language, it's one thing to be able to communicate your urgent need to find the bathroom. It's quite another to be able to communicate feelings, passions, and desires.....such as all that God has done for you and how much you love Him for it. You can share in small ways such as simply having a smile for the people you pass, the taxi driver, the bus driver. You can give a sympathetic smile and some food to the beggars at your door.  But I can't wait untill I can move from simple communication to being able to deeply relate. I know that can take months and even years, so pray for patience as we are trudging though language learning, eager to get there! 

       I think being unlingual can also can have it's positives. It highlights the bond we have in Christ as christians around the globe. Christian unity, true love from the Father, flows through languages, cultures, and traditions. It flows through the church we attended a couple weeks ago, where we couldn't understand much of the sermon but could feel the Spirit move in the praise and worship. It flows through the house church in China, the small but growing movement of the gospel through youth in Slovenia and across eastern europe, the christians in Dagestan aching for someone to come help them grow in Truth.  It flows through the church in Africa, through the church across the USA, making its way through so many denominations, divisions, and longstanding church tradition. It doesn't flow corporately, but individually from heart to heart. This is the passion we have for Nicaragua....to be a small part in helping the church there grow in Truth, so they can be a light to their neighbors and make much of God in every area of their life.

Ephesians 4:10-16

We've made some good friends here, and a few of them live a couple houses down from us. They will be staying in country after language school, ministering in a church plant in Jaco, so they shipped their car down. Yesterday we were finally able to get out of our ghetto neighborhood and see a bit of the city, as our family of four piled into their car with their family of four. We went across town to the childrens museum. It was great for the boys to get out and run around. The museum was built in an old prison, and it was actually pretty cool. It cost 3,000 colones($6) for our family to get in, and was well worth it for a couple of hours of adventure. I've decided to post pictures to phanfare and post the link here, since it saves me hours of uploading time. So just click here for some pics of the last few weeks. Just click "start slideshow" to begin. 

Thanks so much for all the love and prayers! We're sending them back your way as well.

In Him,

Dave for Kate, Cohen and Titus