In the thick of things.

I cant believe it´s already been a week since my last blog update... time is certainly beginning to fly! After returning from my 24-hour respite in San José, I moved houses. I am now living with Doña Julia, an older woman who lives in an apartment below her daughter´s house. She is very lonely, and absolutely loves having me in her house. She also clearly misses having her children around, as she is always insisting that I eat all that´s on my plate, take a nap, iron my shirt before leaving the house, not sit too closely to the TV, etc. By Tirrases standards, her apartment is extremely nice. It is in a quiet part of town, has all tile floors, warm-ish water, and cable TV in my room! It is a huge leap from the last house I stayed in, and is quite certainly spoiling me for the rest of my time here... but right now, I´m not complaining. I´ve gotten into a nice routine - my days have begun to look something like this:
-After waking up with the roosters about 5 and spending an hour or two trying to convince myself I can sleep through the noise, I begrudgingly get up and get ready for the day. I usually spend a lot of the morning reading or going to the internet cafe in Curridabat, a larger town nearby.
-Lunches and afternoons are usually spent with other families who have invited me to spend some time with them. There is one woman named Flori who (along with her family) has taken a liking to me and call me everyday to see if I am free to come over. I have been teaching her a little bit of English in exchange for the coffee and bread she gives me every day!
-Almost every night, I have some sort of activity at the church. For example, this past week I went to an intercessory prayer meeting/Bible Study, a children´s dance practice, a worship service, a women´s meeting/prayer service, a youth service, and church in Concepsion.

After talking to Mauro, the pastor of the church plant in Concepsion, I am going to be going with him out there about 4 times a week. I want to describe a little bit of what this town is like: Unlike Tirrases, the streets in Conce are quiet and people are really only out and about on this one corner that is quite obviously where the drugs are bought and sold. You can feel the hopelessness the minute you step outside. Although the town is obviously poorer that Tirrases, the more noticeable difference is that everyone is just so very hopeless. Mauro has told me that two different churches have tried to set up shop their in the past 10 years or so, but that both felt it was a lost cause and left the people high-and-dry. Every week, Iglesia Biblica Monte de Dios meets under a tent set up in an empty lot on the side of a mountain overlooking all of San José with about 20-30 attendees. With microphones and loud speakers, Mauro quite literally shouts the hope of the gospel from the mountain-top. He is clearly in it for the long haul, and his vision for this place is amazing: he wants to buy this lot where they hold services and build a real, live church complete with a cafeteria to serve children breakfast and lunch. He also wants to build a soccer field and basketball court to give the people an escape from the world of drugs. Other people have also expressed their hope to see a home for the elderly and a drug rehab facility. I am praying that I will be able to be of real use to him there.

This week, please pray for the following:
-For the church and people in Conce, and for the time I will spend there.
-For Doña Julia, the woman with whom I am staying right now. She is very lonely, and clearly plagued by depression. However, she has begun to make some connections with women at the church since I´ve been in her house, and I pray that these relationships will build and give her some respite from her loneliness.
-That I will allow God to steer me towards His purpose for my time here.