Letters from the Hansens

6/6/05

Hi friends,

Believe it or not, we miss Christine's perky face around the house. She keeps us from getting too obsessive in our studies. My conversation teacher, who is a 50-something yr. old divorced woman & a fine ( if sometimes a bit prissy) Christian layperson in an Assemblies of God church here, explained to us the proper care of a ceramic tile floor in this culture. It requires two sweepings, one wet mopping with a disinfectant, & an application of a paste wax followed by buffing ( for a high shine!). This is done as often as needed in order to have continually spotless floors. This is one cultural pressure that I'm happy not to succumb to!

I know our lives probably sound a bit exotic from your end but believe me, they don't seem very exciting from this end! Our school & study schedule is the same day after day and we've fallen into the habit of frequenting the same stores, malls, & restaurants. It's not bad; in fact, the movies are pretty inexpensive here & have become our main weekend entertainment. With our student discount it costs us a little less than $3.00 each to see a movie & on Wednesdays, its half price! (You see why its a favorite with the missionaries here?!)

I'm casting about for exercise ideas. Now that we're officially in "rainy season" or winter (invierno), the weather pattern every day is pretty predictable. It's usually pretty decent in the mornings, sometimes downright hot, when we are in Spanish classes and anytime after 11:00 am it begins to cloud up & rain. Depending on the day, it may rain the rest of the day or stop after a couple of hours. It gets dark at about 5:30 pm here. The nice thing about the rain is that it cools everything down. The bad thing is that it makes going anywhere a soggy affair & is a bit depressing after awhile. I think it will seem less oppressive in Panama when we have a vehicle so we don't have to get soaked in order to go anywhere. In May a group of missionaries just graduated from language school & moved on to their fields of service. The good news for us is that many of them sold stuff that they didn't want to take with them, stuff like muffin mixes(!), and other food items that are either hard to find or very expensive here. Right now I must have the world's largest collection of muffin mixes outside Sam's Club! (Maybe this will not be good for my weight!)

Saturday we went on a day trip with a group of language students to the La Paz Waterfall & Butterfly Gardens. The place is 25 miles away but it took about an hour & 15 minutes to get there on the windy mountain roads. (Dramamine is a travel staple here!) We stopped first at the town of Sarchi, which is known for its hand painted ox cart replicas, which are favorite souvenirs from Costa Rica. However, since John Mark & I have seen them before, we skipped the souvenir shops & headed, instead, for the furniture store across the street. It had beautiful custom made hard wood furniture. Some of the dining table tops were made from single planks of wood, obviously from a huge tree! We asked about that & were told that furniture was made in Nicaragua because Costa Rica has laws against cutting down virgin wood in the rain forests but Nicaragua does not. Costa Rica's economy is based on its tourism so it guards its natural resources very carefully. We're hoping for furniture as pretty as that in Panama. The La Paz Waterfall(s) were another half hour down the road. It is a lovely development with a couple of restaurants, a huge butterfly garden & education area, a garden filled with hummingbird feeders and hundreds of darting hummingbirds, a display of lizards, snakes, & frogs and a very well done series of steps that take you down the mountain following the Rio Paz ( Peace River) where you stop at a number of scenic spots to view the series of waterfalls as the river makes its way down the mountain. Even though it rained the entire time that we were there (thankfully not a downpour), in many ways it heightened the sense of being in the rain forest & added to the ambiance. John Mark & I enjoyed watching the hummingbirds from a distance of only 2 feet and discovered some colors that we don't see in the hummingbirds in Nebraska. Our neighbors next door have a hummingbird nest in their bush & we enjoy checking on it & watching the mother bird come & go.La Paz is a beautiful place & good exercise to boot!

Sunday morning John Mark & I had our Sunday school class for the high school and college crowd at the Chinese church. John Mark did I full gospel presentation and we both did our testimonies in Chinese and English with some Spanish mixed in. Please pray for Rocio (Xie Lan Xi) as she seems like she was searching spiritually today. We will follow up with the group this week.

WE APPRECIATE YOU!

Cheryl and John Mark

6-12-05

We will be picking Christine up at the airport in about an hour. Her friends on MSN have been hearing more about her trip than we have! Actually we're glad that she isn't clingy & homesick when she's away from us. It will be fun to hear about her trip.

Rainy season being what it is, it has rained every day this week. How do you combat the blahs after the 2nd or 3rd week of rain? You take a trip to the "used" book store in downtown San Jose & stock up on some books. ( Por supuesto, I only read after my homework is done!)

This is family emphasis month at Primera Iglesia Bautista San Jose & we played a "Hollywood Squares"-type game on Thursday night, with two teams answering the pastor's questions about families in the Bible. I am pleased to report that in the first round, John Mark was the only person on his team who correctly answered a question & proudly took his seat on the platform. (His team ultimately lost but that's beside the point!) We observed a vigorous spirit of competition in the crowd, one might even say cutthroat, despite the admonitions of the mothers & grandmothers that "it's only a game". This, in spite of the fact that we have been told repeatedly how uncompetitive the Ticos are. This theory obviously needs more thorough research! We continue to enjoy our time there. They are a fun-loving bunch & seem to be very caring. Pastor Amaya is a very sharp guy, a good preacher/teacher and loves his "flock". Thank you for praying for us as we come & go on Thursday nights.

Please continue to pray also for our Sunday school class on Sunday mornings. John Mark & I gave our testimonies last Sunday and a very clear gospel presentation. Pray for clear understanding of the gospel, conviction, and a growing relationship with the students. We are hoping to grow some of the older students into possible leaders. You can pray also for their boldness & willingness to step forward when the time is ripe.

One of my two oral exams in conversation class this trimester was on Wednesday. I had to talk about myself for 20 minutes. I started with meeting John Mark in college & just kept talking until I was out of time. I made it through our dating, marriage, first jobs & house, our move to Texas for seminary, & part of our experience in Taiwan. That was the longest 20 minutes of my life! One down, one to go. . .

We finally broke down & called Christine in the States. She has been having a great time - she arrives back in Costa Rica on Sunday night. The next day she will jump into her summer intensive Spanish course.

Friday evening we enjoyed a potluck cookout with other IMB language students in the Middle America/Caribbean Basin area. Our regional trainer, Ken Sorrel, was here for some training sessions on Saturday. It was refreshing to take a little time out from language study to look ahead & think again about our target group, church planting movements, and the process of forming strategies to reach them. It gives meaning & clarity to why we struggle with the verb conjugations every day!!

Thanks again for keeping us in your prayers. Our perseverance now will pay big dividends in the years to come. . .

Cheryl & John Mark