Pieces of the Journey

Crazy to think we have been here 8 months, first I want to apologize for not keeping you more informed. Things have definitely been interesting to say the least; Ryan and I have been going through some growing pains recently.

I'm writing to share my heart with you today, Ryan is currently in North Carolina and I'm here in our CRican apartment. The Lord has made a way for Ryan to complete his dream of getting his pilot’s license. As he was researching programs, we found out it was cheaper for him to go back to the states to do the program since fuel is so expensive here. He left for the first part of his program on March 5^th, (he was gone about 1 month then got to come home for 3 weeks before heading back on Tuesday of this past week to finish up) I stayed behind because I started working.

One of the hard things was that the day Ry left in March was the first day I started to answer calls at work…I've been trying to adapt to my new routine, to be honest it has been quite a challenging. I find myself having really good days and really bad days. I'm working for HP- Hewlett Packard. They offer technical support to clients in many different states/countries and companies. It’s been a bit overwhelming at times...you can imagine there is tons of information, overall this is a great job, but it is like no other job I´ve ever had.

It’s been had getting adjusted to my schedule since I work from 6am-3pm I have to wake up at 4 to be ready to leave by 5. I've been finding that I'm being more isolated and keeping to myself, I didn’t really realize how isolated I had become until this week when I started to feel anxiety again about going to work. I'm struggling to have a good attitude about work.  This had already happened once when Ryan left the first time, but I'm now finding that I'm dealing with it again.

            I just pray for the Lord to allow these feelings to go away or for a new job, not really sure which will come first. I know he is asking me to work that is not the problem, I just pray I am able to overcome these strange feels that make it so hard and painful. I know that the Lord has great plans, and this job is just a path in that direction. I'm trying to overcome this…that’s the only word I can come up with right now.  Don’t misunderstand me, I'm not questioning being here in CR, WE KNOW GOD BROUGHT US HERE…I'm just trying to have peace about the current part of this journey. It’s no one’s ideal world to be apart from your spouse for 8 weeks (that’s how long it will take for Ry to finish) its just simply part of the sacrifice we both have to make to get the desired results.

I went to church tonight with some friends of my parents…it had been a few weeks since I last saw them…I'm blessed that the Lord spoke directly to me, to my need. I feel better than when I walked out a few hours ago…Glory be to God.

All I know is that this too shall pass…it always does, we grow and learn. God is faithful, forever faithful.

I know that a lot of what I've been going through the past month is because the enemy doesn’t want me to have peace, Ryan and I have seen the hand of God move taking us into a new direction regarding our ministry. You see my heart was deeply touched by the experience I had at the Hope Center. I've been praying for the Lord to show me if there is anything I could do here. You see CR's government states that abortions are illegal. Yet we all know that abortions ARE happening left and right. I want to know what is being done to bring HELP, HOPE AND HEALING to them.  In my search I came in contact with Sue Liljenberg from Healing Hearts which told me about this woman named Melissa that is starting a pregnancy resource center here in CR.

At first I could not believe that the Lord had opened a door so close by. We were blessed to have met Melissa and her husband Ken on Ryan’s last weekend here. We were able to see the Lord orchestrate a divine meeting and I believe in my heart that this is the direction we must take.

I have been overwhelmed by the desire to fully dive into this and perhaps it has really affected me at work. I don’t want to be there you know…I just want to be serving God in this ministry...funny how I am reminded every day that I need to do EVERYTHING as unto the Lord. I'm just pray that my spirit, my mind and my attitude will have the desire to work on everything that I need to get done on a daily basis, that I don’t feel so shut down after work that I become distant, get it? 

Another piece of good news is that we traded our car…and got an automatic!! I can finally drive around town by myself! :)

If you think of us and would like to pray for us on a more specific way here is a little list:

            -Protection...for Ryan as he is flying and me as I go about life here in CR

            -Against any anxiety attacks

  -new job closer to home with same pay as the one I have now or a change of attitude about my current job

            -The perfect job for Ryan when he completes his commercial pilot’s license

            -wisdom as we embark on a journey to start a non-profit

-For the Lord to be moving in the hearts of the volunteers, potential clients and the community to embrace this new concept.

                        -For Melissa and Ken from Beautiful Feet and other potential support

                        -For financial support to start buying 

                              supplies (pregnancy test to begin with)

                                     

 

We miss you all so much, thank you for taking the time to read our blog.

If you would like to email me directly please do so at VRMartin31@gmail.com.

With love, Vanessa & Ryan

Happy New Year

Hello Dear Friends, We hope you were all blessed with a great Christmas.
We wanted to share with you a little bit of what the Lord has been doing in our lives.

We were able to go to the States for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful blessing to have our friends and family around us. We had truly missed "home". The funny thing is that we are so comfortable here in CR that we started to miss it a bit as the weeks went on. We were glad to be back!

We recently decided to get an apartment of our own in town. We have been soo blessed by our landlord and his wife. It turns out that this man knows my grandfather and most of my family from back when they were teenagers, so there's almost an unspoken bond that we have now become family to them. We were able to have a great community dinner on Christmas day at their house and we got to meet all of our neighbors...about half of them speak English...imagine that!

We are so grateful to our family who so graciously opened up their home to us, but as you can imagine we are soo happy to be on our own.

Our apartment is 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, very safe and in a great location. We can walk almost to anywhere, the closest is the grocery store, bakery and the farmer's market! 
We can't wait as we prepare for the arrival of our first guest Elena. She will be here on January 2nd.

May each of you be blessed with an amazing new year.
We look forward to having you visit us. We love you! Vane and Ryan

FOR PICTURES OF THE APARTMENT CLICK HERE!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100119697058163.2389748.23204109&type=1&l=2825f5847c

2 Months and counting!

It's crazy to think we have been here 2 months. Although our attitudes have been tested many times God remains faithful and continues to stretch us.

My mom came to visit us about 3 weeks ago, it was wonderful to have her here but at the same time it was much harder than I expected. I don't know if it is because part of me HAS to block out “that” emotional part of myself because otherwise I would miss everyone very much. If I sit and think about all the things I have left behind I wouldn’t be able to move forward…and that’s what it’s all about right now…moving forward.  I’m excited to have our own place with our things which are currently stored at the Griffin’s…I think this will help me really know that this is our NEW home!

I’m ever grateful for today’s technology. I’m able to “see” my nieces and nephew, family and friends. I know that 16 years ago we could barely call Costa Rica (from Georgia) b/c it was so expensive (Skype is free…find me under Vanessa.martin31)

On my last post I shared with you about the Cabins at the Volcano…well as of right now it doesn’t look like that’s the direction we need to take. Initially we were kind-of heartbroken, it just seemed like a good plan, something we could really enjoy doing. After all, the owner and his family’s request was something we could not meet…we saw this as God’s way of saying…“no, this isn’t it”. I’m not gonna lie it was hard getting that answer. My friend Marvin said “if it didn’t work out it’s because whatever God has will be much better”. I’ve taken those words to heart and we are trusting that the Lord will show us the next step soon.

I love how much Ryan has embraced the C.Rican culture and truly loves it here…I also love that sometimes he just forgets how we are no longer in the States! 

“It'd be nice to find a McDonalds right now”...just came out of Ryan's mouth.

You see its 7:30 on Saturday night and we are heading home from the beach… there are no Drive-thru’s in sight and we’ve not had McD’s in 2 months! (I just "googled" as the nice co-pilot wife I am and there aren’t any for at least an hour).

We got word of another facility near the beach for potential business for us. (This time we are learning to be guarded and not to get our hopes up.) It took us two weeks before we could arrange a time to go visit because Costa Rica was hit with a tropical depression that caused a lot of flood damage and landslides blocking roadways, etc.…it was pretty intense. I had never experienced anything like it. Ryan was pretty happy since he loves the rain. :P

Finally, last Friday we loaded up and headed towards the port in Puntarenas, we took a ferry ride across the Gulf of Nicoya and not long after we found ourselves in the remote roads of Gigante…a small town on the bay. We had a wonderful visit, the property is absolutely beautiful! Met some really nice people and started to formulate a plan of action…one we need to present to the owner. The place is set and ready for business; our job would be to bring the people in. Please keep us in your prayers regarding this opportunity.  We don’t know what the outcome will be but we are expectant…God has a divine plan all we are trying to see it to completion. 

 We sent a small survey out to get some feedback in preparation to our meeting next week. If you would like to take our survey please click this link: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=5002xsja280nyss982419

Remember the McDonald’s comment? Well, on the way home we missed our exit. We took advantage of the opportunity and drove to Santa Ana, a very “Americanized” town we recently discovered and love!

 The question of the night became…Wendy’s or McDonalds? With no hesitation we went with McDonalds! 

We would love to hear from you! We love you! V&R 

Abuela's Birthday Yesterday!

Georgia's Southern food in CR by Vanessa

Ryan's Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Blue Dot-Home base  Red Dot-Beach Villas

  

Pieces of the Puzzle

Hey Guys,
Sorry it's been a while...things have been moving pretty fast (and slow) around here and I've been too caught up to write. So here it is…
I would first like to thank God for his continuous reminder of LoVe and mercy to us! Ryan and I have been able to count the times the Lord has provided for us in the past few weeks. I can't believe we've been here almost a month! I think it’s gone by fast...I wonder if Ryan agrees.
As some of you may know we have our own car! We were able to purchase a Toyota 4Runner, it’s a manual transmission...which means I haven't driven yet! I'm thinking this week I’m going to have to put on my big girl panties and give it a try. Just to give you an idea of how long it takes to do anything around here, we purchased the 4Runner on Wednesday September 7th and we weren't able to go back and pick it up until the next Wednesday while we waited on all the paperwork to get done. Moreover, the dealership lost part of the paperwork so we had to ride to Alajuela with the owner to redo part of it. Haha!

Last week we celebrated Costa Rica's Independence Day on Sept 15th. There were so many things I'm sure Ryan thought were crazy but to me it was as if I was a small child re-living my childhood memories. At church on Sunday they had a whole service dedicated to Independence Day...there were plays, singing the anthem, clowns and folkloric dancers. The night before on the 14^th we walked down to the town square to watch the “Lantern Parade”. The legend says that when independence was declared from Guatemala they went through the rest of the Central American countries with a torch telling the people that they had gained their independence…The cool thing was that this is a reenactment that is done every year. At the end of August someone starts traveling with a torch stopping at every capital and from there others bring that original fire to their town squares, our fire arrived on wed 9/14 at noon. It was quite the commotion. All the little kids are encouraged to create their own original lantern…thankfully it had poured earlier that day -not that night (like its happened before many times) and the parade was a success!  The next day the whole town was in Party-mode, we made our way down to the streets and watched the beginning of the school band parade, it was so HOT! We waited to see my aunt and her school march in front of us then we escaped the Heat!

We finished the morning with an authentic Costa Rican Meal :Olla de Carne: Soup…yep you heard it was hot and we had soup…this is the kind of soup you just don’t pass up! It was delicious! Thanks Grandma!

Ryan’s birthday was the next day; we took a little getaway trip to La Fortuna de San Carlos; a beautiful town at the foothills of the Arenal Volcano. We packed our car and took our old faithful map and got underway. It was a wonderful site…the 2 ticos were free to go, funny how a car can make you feel powerful for a second! J We traveled THROUGH the mountains and valleys of the beautiful CR country side…yes there’s a direct highway…but why would you pass up the opportunity to play “miss the pothole”, the small country roads are much more entertaining. J 35 minutes before our arrival we made a pit stop at KFC for a pre-birthday celebration…it was the best KFC experience of my life! J As we continued to drive into La Fortuna we were met by the amazing view of the volcano…it was breath taking.

At that moment we realized that this town could possibly become our new home…you see what I've not yet shared with you is that this trip had 2 purposes... 1. A birthday getaway and 2. a job opportunity.

Ryan and I have been patiently waiting on the Lord to reveal himself to us. We are ready to take on this new phrase of our lives; we want to do something for others and even for the community. We had been looking at properties to purchase, but of course everything is quite out of reach for us right now. At the beginning of that week I made this declaration: “ I'm going to find a job before the week is over”. A week later it feels like an answered prayer.  Here is the story…

La Fortuna is a well developed area thriving on tourism. My uncle Ever’s cousin owns land there: 3 acres to be exact.  1 acre of the property has 8 bungalow style cabins…and not to make the story very long they are looking for someone to lease the property and get this little resort on its feet again. Remember when I told you I would tell you later about the business plan we were writing….well that was it. We were looking for land to build cabins to use for tourism and retreats; I just never imagined such opportunity in a “well known” area of CR. Although things are not set in stone…God has supernaturally open doors we never imagined. I'm beyond impressed by the God I serve! There is soo much potential here that we cannot wait to get started! It’s a risk we are willing to take, believing that God made a promise to us…FOLLOW ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRE OF YOUR HEART. We are learning that giving up our “normal” American lifestyle has been hard and it even continues to be but the reward is bigger. I think life is based on seasons…right now it’s our season to “leave and cleave” to God and each other. We ask that you keep us in your prayers; we have a meeting this Wednesday!  

We had an awesome weekend! We enjoyed the beautiful view of the volcano and the thermal waters of the hotel, enjoyed a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant “La Choza de Laurel” and a pit stop at the Cataratas(waterfalls) del Toro . A road that made the back of your neck stand up! There were no railings and it was just big enough for our SUV to squeeze between the rock face on one side and where the road had collapsed from earthquakes on the other.  You could look out the side window and straight down a cliff, sometimes more than 400 feet down.  Lori and Reg we thought about you as we made our way through every turn…

We hope you have your passport ready…the cabins await you!

With love, Vane & Ry

Laughter :)

Sometimes all you can do is laugh! We sure have been doing lots of that around here lately...

I think Ryan and I know most of the boys inside jokes and we even came up with a few of our own... I say we are doing pretty well!

Chicken chops! Yep, that's right, chicken chops...it was a poor menu translation we took to liking, so now if we eat "chicken breast" we call them chicken chops! :)

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The Birthday Odyssey:

My GA driver's license expired yesterday...my goal was to get it changed to a CRican license on Monday so we could be done with it (I had 2 options: change it over before 9/1 or let it expire and take the driver's ed course and the driving test) I was determined to get things done before it expired....I’m not ready to drive in CR yet... :) I spent all day Monday getting the documents necessary.
On Tuesday, A friend of mine drives us to "the DMV" in San Ramon, a town just outside of Grecia....to our surprise they were having a county fair in honor of Saint Ramon....the offices were closed for the day, we figured we would take advantage of the drive and visit around the area.

Not exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday...but Wednesday morning at 7:30 am ANOTHER friend comes to pick me up, and we head back to San Ramon...Ryan knew better and stayed home this time...

We get there only to find out that the license transfer I need is NOT done there!!! HAHAHAHA!! They send us to the capital, San Jose, a 40 minute drive in the opposite direction... Laughter! That’s all we can do! Things are different; it makes no sense to get mad about it...all we can do is keep moving forward. Good news, after a 3 hour process I now have a Costa Rican License....now if I could only drive a stick shift! PROBABLY a story for another day!

After the whole morning "Odyssey", my girlfriend Marjorie took me out to lunch! It was a sweet time...

Later that afternoon Ryan walked me down to the nearest nail "salon" as my birthday present. I got to be girlie girl and paint my nails and toes! (if you know anything about me...you know this makes me very happy) :D Best part it only cost $6 bucks!

I will never get tired of thanking the Lord for my sweet family. Later that day we had a family pizza party at grandma's house...all the boys came home from College to be here for the birthday party. Grandma baked a cake for me...and even my parents were there with us through Skype...(as mom put it "she wanted to be in on the commotion") We told jokes and laughed a lot, ate pizza and sang happy birthday...it was a birthday I will never forget.... I was sweetly reminded that I got my laugh from my grandma...that loud kind of laugh with a bit of a snort at the end if we laugh way to hard....yep, that was the kind of laughing we were doing last night...

It's not about the presents....it’s about the love. I know for a fact that my heavenly father loves Me! He tells me every day.

Pizza Pizza

A family Affair

Pretend crying

In the works

Notice Mom on Skype on the PC

Singing HB

Uncle Ever

Grecia

Our New Home

Grandma and Grandpa's Garden

Monti's Peppers! :)

My Tico Ryan

My Grandpa is a boot maker! Handmade-old school!

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On a more serious note, once I week I will be sharing with ya'll our prayer needs. Please don't feel obligated, we know a handful of you are praying for us and we wanted to share more detailed prayer points!

Here are a few things:
-Continued prayer for our immersion into the CRican culture.
-Easiness for Ryan to understand the language and retain all the things he's learned and learning.
-Healthiness: we are being very CRican drinking "their" water and feel just fine! :)
-Clarity of God's vision for our lives...we started writing our business plan. (more on this later)
-Direction in regards for a job for Vanessa in the mean while.
-A wonderful deal on a small SUV, which we are looking to purchase pretty soon.

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As Ryan continues to work on the language, now I defiantly cannot talk about him in Spanish! HAHA!! Today we will meet Ryan's Spanish teacher: "Teacher Ana".

...looking forward to seeing what the day will bring.
Happy Birthday Elena!

We love you!

The Martins