These are pictures of our local produce market. The market is every Saturday in the morning and this is where we always go to get our fruits and vegtables for the week. Once we get the produce it all has to be cleaned in a bleach solution prior to eating. These pictures were taken later in the morning when it had slowed down a lot, normally there is a lot more people.

The girls were in a Christmas program at school this week. They both learned a few Christmas songs in Spanish and presented those to us. It was great to hear them speaking the language. They normally don't like us to hear them speak Spanish. Kaitlyn was an angel in the nativity and it was very cute. We are very proud of both of the girls and all they have accomplished in the last month.



Here is also a picture of Kandi and the Girls decorating the Christmas tree at our house. It was a very fun time. We made our ornaments this year and had a good time as a family doing it. I wish we would have done this sooner.

We have also been on a couple of ministry projects the first was to a drug rehab center pictured here. This center is a Christian facility that teaches the love and truth of Jesus to the men and they actually live at the center and work during the day making blackboards and desks for schools. The men were very nice and a joy to be with. As a team we went in to teach work safety, interpersonal relationship skills, and cooking. Kandi and I presented how to cook banana bread. It was great, I felt like I was on the food network except I was talking in Spanish (well reading in Spanish).



We also spent two days going door to door distributing the Gospel of John to several hundred people with a team of Ticos(Costa Ricans). We also invited the people to come back to watch the Jesus video and during this presentation there was 2 people that wanted to make a decision for Christ. The local pastor will be working with them to make sure they understand what that means and discipling them but it was very exciting to see the Holy Spirit at work.
Kandi and I have been making relationships with several nationals and hope to be able to witness to them soon. My relationship with Carlos the store owner down the street from us is growing very fast and I think God is preparing a witnessing opportunity. Pray that I will see the chance when it comes and that I will have the words that I need for him to understand the truth.

For the last month or so we have been very busy. We have been going to class each day for about 4 hours. Our class is in Spanish only, so since day one we have had to listen to our teacher talk only in a language we don't know. It has been interesting learning this way but it has worked very well and Kandi and I both have learned way more than we would have thought. We are in class each day with 8 other peers that we know very well and have come to be very good friends with.

On some of the days we spend time in the city getting to know the Latin America culture. We have toured the Basilica here in Costa Rica. It was sad to watch people praying to Mary instead of Jesus Christ. We can't wait until the day we know enough Spanish to explain the truth to these hurting people. We also went to an interesting play on women's rights put on by a Baptist church in the area. The play was in Spanish of course but it was also in the dark and the actors had paint on that lit up under a black light. It was very interesting and very good from what we could understand. We have also gone to a parade to celebrate the oxen and ox carts here in Costa Rica. This is a very big part of the culture and they went all out for this parade it was very interesting.

Today we reached the end of our barefoot classes. As a treat our teacher took our class on a little road trip to the mountains. The view was beautiful as we went. We saw many gorgeous flowers and spectacular waterfalls. It is so awesome to see God's creation in another country. We decided God did not spare anything here in Costa Rica when he was creating it.