Hot Tamales!!

Well today was Tamal making day.
I joined Dona Miriam (Jose's mom, wearing the cream shirt) and her friend 'Tita'. After they prepared the ingrediants all day yesterday & early in the morning today, we began to assemble the tamales at 9:30 and finished 3:30 this afternoon.
Tamales are the official Navidad (Christmas) food and every family has slightly different recipe and method of preparing them. Every fiesta for Navidad has tamales and it is a favorite of everyone that I have met. It starts with a paste made of (maiz)meal, the broth from cooking the pork, salt (sal) and a little sugar(azucar). It is similar consistency to pancake batter. The ingrediants we used were pork (cerdo), rice with orange coloring (arroz con achote) carrots (zanahoria), red pepper (chile dulce), 3 garbanzo beans & 3 raisins (pasas) which are the folded into 2 different banana leafs (hojas de banano). The first picture of the actual tamal is the normal version but the second one which is large (grande) is called a 'tonto' (which acutally means foolish). The final step is tying two talmales together which is called a Pina (which means cluster - and also pineapple). After boiling for 2 hours, they are served hot and will keep in the fridge for up to 6 months. Total we made 188 tamales or 94 Pinas & 2 Tontos. Whew!

Hogar Luz

This is the Hogar Luz (Light House) in Cartago where Jose and Fabi work once a month. This is a home for handicapped adults, teens and children. Last friday night we were at their Christmas Tree Lighting Celebration and this was the first Christmas Fiesta that I have been to and it was great to get me into the Christmas spirit. The first picture is of Jose and a young Cabecar Indian who has been handicapped since he had a severe sickness as a child. Living on the reservation, his family was unable to provide him with all the care he needed at home so he now lives at the Hogar Luz.
Jose and Fabi volunteer with a group of 20 or so people from their chruch. They paint, clean, and spend time with the residents. They have been asked to come back again next year and are even planning to hold Bible classes.

Christmas Decorating

It seems strange to be decorating a Christmas tree in Costa Rica. But it has been made a little easier by the coldness of the weather here. It gets down to 14 degrees at night and with ceramic floors, cement walls and no heat. Well, it feels really cold to me now that I've adjusted to the warmth here. But I hear I can't complain ,with all the stories coming from Vancouver with 1.5 feet of snow and power outages!!

Here is our "pequenito" Chrsitmas tree; it's normally Pequeno but you make it more Costa Rican and cuter by adding the "ito" to any word. We had to add some Canadian snow to the door...I am very impressed with all the Christmas decorations and lights in the neighborhood and I am really looking forward to learning another Costa Rican Christmas tradition. On Wednesday, we will be making Tomales. Tomales are huge in the Costa Rican culture and you can sample them at every event from the beginning of December until Christmas. I will have lots of pictures for you since this is almost a two day event to make the Tomales. stay tuned....

Jose & Fabi

This is Jose and Fabiana in Quepos (Manual Antonio). I am living with them in Cartago for the month of December and will be spending Christmas with them. They are long time friends of Josiah and Cynthia and also of many people from Northside as they have been apart of many of the Mission's trips to Costa Rica. Jose works in construction and has been a vital part of the men's teams in Ocotber for the last few years. Fabi acts as translator and has been a great help in cooking for the team as well. The are planning to come to visit Vancouver in late January so please keep your eyes out for them at Church.

They have also volunteered their time and help in preparing for the team coming down on December 30th. This team will include Ginny Sperling, Cliff Kelly, Sandra Wyant, and Lynn Brown. Currently Jose, Fabi and I are arragning accomodation and scouting out a few areas to find children who are unable to afford to go to school. This program will be run thru Northside and sponsors will be given the names and photos of the children they are sponsoring. The children will be provided with supplies like uniforms, backpacks, notebooks, pencils etc.

Once the team arrives, we (Jose, Fabi and myself) will work with the team to interview possible students and visit their homes as well as purchasing the supplies needed and distrubuting them.

If you would like more information about this trip, please feel free to contact the church directly. (001) 604.942.7711

DC RETRO

Well, here we are a "REGGAETON" concert at the beginning of December. I took our Jicotea Youths in the Scholarship Program to a Raggae/Rap concert. A Christian group DC Retro was playing in Cartago so we loaded up Josiah's truck and came to the Feria at Cynthia's dad's church and then off to the concert they went (with me.....Josiah bailed on me for time with his baby... well can you blame him??). Anyway, I'm not sure if I couldn't understand the words beacuse they were in Spanish or possibly because I am now over 30 and have no idea what they are talking about!!!! I'm gonna say the first reason just to make me feel better. :)

In the first picture (left to right) is Annie Maria, Noe, Esteven, and Ricky & then Elias and Randall.

Annual Missions Retreat

Here we are on November 26th at the 1st Annual Foursquare Missions Retreat in Quepos. This is the beautiful house that all 15 of us stayed in with a wonderful view of the water in the distance.

from left Matt (currently studying Spanish in San Jose), Alicia Heatherly, myself, Nathan Heatherly, Josiah Heatherly, Linda Richey, Caleb Heatherly, Lewie Richey, Bill Boling, Debbie Boling, John Overholt, Wyce Ghiacy, Debbie Overholt, Kathy Heatherly, Krister Heatherly

We spent lots of time together discussing our current porjects and plans for the future as well as many hours laughing and enjoying getting to know eachother.