Chica Tica

Dick Francis

2010-02-14T17:09:00.000-08:00

It’s sometimes difficult to think of a topic to write about for these bi-monthly e-mail updates. I usually try to take advantage of holidays as well as strange creature sightings to provide fodder. But what do I do when there are three holidays in a row as well as a close call with a scorpion?

Valentine’s Day is always good inspiration for an update, but many of you already received an e-mail from my dad commenting on this holiday. So I won’t bore you with a repetition of its history. I don’t have much to say about President’s Day; except I’m sure those of you who have the day off are sure thankful for Washington and Lincoln sharing the same birth month. Mardi Gras could be an interesting topic because I have lots of good memories of getting a few days off when we lived in Louisiana. I feel like I have used scorpions enough for my updates, so there is no need to tell you about that. (Except to say that it was very big and very near my foot!!)

So what shall I share with you today?

Dick Francis died yesterday. Although I never met him, he was a great friend of mine. Of course he never knew I existed, but his books have kept me company on many vacations, flights, and lonely Saturday afternoons. His books were predictable. The narrator always fell in love with an unlikely woman; he always got beaten up at some point, but always solved the mystery in the end. Equine themed mysteries, my favorite place to read them was up at our cabin looking out at the two horses next door. I would snuggle into a sleeping bag and watch the fog roll in as I devoured the latest Dick Francis. Now I know there are only two more of his left for me to read, and I’m kind of sad.

Of course I need to find the books first. Sometime soon I will go to San Jose and scour our used book store for the final Dick Francis books. I will save them for the moment I can truly savor them at the cabin and celebrate my final moments with my good friend.

I don’t think I will be getting up there for a while. I will be traveling to Ecuador on March 1st to participate in training four new International Teams missionaries. Also in March I will be in the US to visit family, returning to Costa Rica in April. Also in April, it’s my great hope and desire to travel to Africa with Catalina to investigate the possibility of her joining the team in Kenya. Finally in May I will be traveling to California to be at Suzie’s, my current roommate, wedding. Maybe after all those flights, I will settle into my sleeping bag and devour Even Money and Silks.

What author or book is your guilty pleasure? Will anyone else out there miss Sir Francis?

Park and Shop

2010-02-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

Does anyone outside of my family remember a game called “Park and Shop”? It’s a board game from Milton Bradley, and the goal is to move your car and pedestrian pieces from home to a parking lot. Then you must move your pedestrian through town accomplishing several errands before returning to your car and heading home. If your pedestrian landed on an unlucky box, you might have to pick a card that would add another item to your list.

I played this game often at my grandparents’ house and from it learned how to plan out my errands in the most effective way possible.Unfortunately, my skills failed me yesterday.

This week I am house sitting for my parents while they are in Mexico. Really I am dog sitting, but I guess the house needs to be taken care of as well. Yesterday I went down to San Isidro to do several errands. Within the first few minutes of my walk, I realized I had already made a strategic mistake. I was headed to the post office, when it would make more sense to start at the butcher’s. So I turned around, and headed to the butcher first. Then I began to walk back to the post office only to realize that I should have gone to our little super market right from the beginning. Oh well, adding it on now would only make things worse. Post office to mail 80 letters? Check. Vegetable stand for ingredients for tonight’s stroganoff? Check. Walk four blocks past my taxi stop to the super market to buy other odds and ends? Check.

In all I had to walk 13 blocks to finish all my errands. If I had thought through it all correctly, if I had used my park and shop abilities, it should have taken me only 9. I fear my mom would have been disappointed in my park and shop abilities yesterday. But really, she shouldn’t complain; I’m taking care of her dog. :-)

Christmas Turtle Watching

2010-01-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

There are only 100,000 or so female leatherback turtles left in the world. Thirty-three of them came to Playa Grande last year to lay their eggs. Each turtle comes six to seven times during the breeding season. Each time she lays 80 eggs, of which only a fraction are fertile. Of 1,000 eggs laid, only half will reach adulthood. Leatherback turtles eat jellyfish and other sea creatures and can grow to weigh over 1,000 pounds.

I happen to know all this because on December 27th Krista, my mom, and I went to a national park to turtle watch. We were not guaranteed to see anything, but God allowed us the great privilege of watching this giant marine reptile lay her eggs on Playa Grande in Guanacaste. The turtles come thousands of miles to lay their eggs at night on the beaches where they were born. They come anywhere from three hours before high tide or three hours after high tide. That is why we found ourselves playing games at the national park at 7 PM; there was a good possibility that we would have to wait there until 1AM.

Fortunately we were called out to the beach around 11:30. For two hours we took turns with another group of sight seers peeking at the turtle as she dug and redug a nest, laid her eggs, and covered them with sand. As she laid her eggs, we also had the privilege of watching another turtle swim toward the beach and begin climbing up to dry ground. We finally got back to where we were staying around 1:30 in the morning, sleepy, hungry, but content.
As the Christmas season ends (I still need to take down the Christmas décor at my apartment), the journey of the turtles makes me think about Mary and Joseph traveling far from home to return to Joseph’s familial home. Of thousands of babies Jesus’ age, only He survived. And now we wait for him to return.

Waiting for turtles, a bus, or an appointment is hard. We keep looking at our watches. We keep wondering, “When will it show up? I’ve already been here too long. How long will I wait?” We get anxious. We ask ourselves, “Did I get the wrong day? The wrong time? The wrong place? Did I already miss it?” And when it (whatever it was) shows up, we are so relieved we almost forget how long we spent waiting.

Is that how we are waiting now? Anxiously looking for the coming of the Lord? I know that I am guilty of being more impatient for my bus to arrive than for Jesus to return. Let’s take some of those waiting moments to remind us of how we should wait for Jesus to come back to earth. This time to take us with Him.

A Good Translation Makes a Big Difference

2009-07-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

A week ago my mom and I accompanied the Alpine Short Term Team on an overnight sightseeing tour. On this trip, we took the whole group on a tour through the rainforest canopy. Part of the tour was walking, but most of it involved zip lining through the trees. For some of the group, it was a real step outside of their comfort zone being hooked on to a line and flying through the jungle. I think, however, that everyone had fun. I was very entertained by the thoughtfully placed signs on the paths. Some of them gave useful information about fauna surrounding us. One sign enigmatically informed us, “Rain and sun jungle. Tree growth and leaves.” But my favorite was, “Thank you for do not smoke.” It just sounded so sweet.

This weekend I had a great experience with translating. Today Luis Diego, the director of International Teams Costa Rica, is traveling to the Middle East to visit some of our workers there. In preparation for his trip, he asked me to translate a document from English to Spanish of best practices for fruitful workers in a Mus lim context. Because I did not have much time to work on the document while we were hosting the team from Alpine, I had to do most of the translating this weekend. I was very fortunate to have help from my mom and her house guest Phil. I was happy to translate this document because I am so excited to have this wonderful tool for all our workers, in Mu.SL.im contexts or not. This eleven page document will prove to be a great asset in helping our teams become more fruitful in their ministries. I wanted to share some of my favorite points from the document.

Fruitful workers pray for God’s supernatural intervention as a sign that confirms the gospel. A demonstration of God’s power has been a key factor for many MusL.im.s who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Aware of this, many fruitful workers pray specifically for God to intervene through dreams, healings, deliverance from evil spirits, and other clear signs to confirm the truth of the gospel.

Fruitful workers model following Jesus in intentional relationships with believers. Fruitful workers recognize that discipleship is a relational process. While spending many hours with seekers and believers, they reveal their own faith journey. Whether they are hanging out at a coffee shop or praying for the sick, fruitful workers find ways to share relevant biblical stories or teachings from the life of Jesus. Their goal is to demonstrate vibrant faith as a constant follower of Jesus and to coach the seeker and believer to do the same.

There are so many more I could share with you, but instead I will just ask you to pray that God might use this document to encourage our teams and help us bear more fruit.

By the way, the Alpine Team went really well. They accomplished a lot of work such as redecorating an apartment for a missionary couple that will be staying here on furlough and building a retaining wall. However, the best part was seeing them return to Illinois more interested in being and making disciples of Christ through authentic, every day relationships.

Please Praise:

The Alpine Team went so well with only one injury (some broken glass and a quick trip to the ER for stitches).

We had several great conversations with new Alpine friends.

I had a great overnight trip to the beach with my mom. We both slept 11 hours!

Please Pray:

Luis Diego is traveling to a difficult country where we have workers. There seems to be a lot of spiritual warfare going on in that area of the world right now. Please pray for protection for Luis and our workers in that country.

I had a great conversation with one of the teens on the Alpine Team and am praying that he will continue to pursue an intimate relationship with God.

The Roland family is getting pretty tired here. My dad will be arriving from a hard trip to Bolivia just a week before we receive another work team. On top of it all, we received the sad news of my Great Aunt Jeanne’s death on the 4th of July. Please pray that God might be our strength as we continue to serve Him.

One Year Later

2009-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

A year ago on Friday I was at Sojourn Academy's senior graduation. Although I was not able to attend this year's graduation, I did pray for my former students who are going on to new adventures. Almost all of them are returning to the US to attend college. This will be the first time for them living in the US since they were small children. I know for a fact that it is an exciting, difficult, and confusing transition, and I pray that they will have great wisdom in their choices.

In the year since I taught at Sojourn, I have had many titles. I have been part teacher, part secretary, part personal assistant, and part human resource coordinator.

I have had the privilege of teaching English to eight Costa Ricans who are deeply invested in missions and discipleship. Each one of my students has been able to use English to communicate with short term missions teams, visiting pastors, fellow team mates, and potential team mates in an effort to further their ministry.

I have also had the great joy of living and working closer to my parents and helping my mom more. When I was teaching at Sojourn and knew that my mom had a full schedule for that day, I often prayed for her, wishing that I could help take some of that burden off of her shoulders. Now I am able to walk the two blocks from my office to her house to help her whenever she needs it. We have also been able to work together to plan and host three short term teams this summer.

Finally, in these past months, I have begun to see fruit from helping International Teams develop a clearer application and mobilization process. Although there are still kinks to work out (two of our missionaries in training have not been officially accepted yet!) it is exciting to see benefits of being more organized.

I can only imagine what other titles will be added in this coming year, but I will trust that God will give me the strength and dedication to embrace those titles and dedicate myself to the work he is doing here in Costa Rica and in the rest of the world.

Trusting Him,
Kari

Please Praise:
- Thank God with me for the two great English classes I have had with Veronica, a young lady I am hoping to invest in more.

-My parents are celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary today! They have been so faithful with every title God has given them, especially the title of parents.

Please Pray:
-Sojourn learned recently that the principal and his wife (one of the school's English teachers) will be returning to the US for an undetermined amount of time. I know that this week I will be receiving an invitation to return as an English teacher in the fall. As you can imagine I feel compelled to say no as I have made a commitment to work with International Teams for at least two years. So please pray that they might find a willing English teacher to work with them next year. If you know of any high school teachers or recent college grads who might be interested in working here, let me know! God may use them to answer this prayer!

Swimming Together

2009-05-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

When we lived in Louisiana we attended the only church I have ever heard of that had a swimming pool. I'm not talking about a baptismal, but a real swimming pool with a diving board. If you know of another church that has a swimming pool, by all means, correct me.

This swimming pool was great incentive for attending the Wednesday night prayer meeting because we always got to swim afterwards. I have very fond memories of rushing out of the church building and jumping into the pool. Now don't get me wrong, it was by no means refreshing. Jumping into a Louisiana swimming pool at the end of a sweltering summer day is like jumping into a warm bathtub.

One of my fondest memories is playing in that pool with my friend Annie McFatter. Our last swim together was about 16 years. Last week we both jumped into yet another steaming swimming pool.

This time the swimming pool was at Baldi Hot Springs at Arenal Volcano, and it was steaming because it was heated by the nearby volcano.

It was a pleasure to host our first summer missions team of the year that came to us from Lafayette Bible Chapel in Louisiana. Among the twelve participants were my swimming buddy Annie, her parents, and a young lady who was five years old the last time I saw her. It was wonderful getting reacquainted with old friends and meeting new ones as we scraped varnish off the brick floor, grouted the new floor, dug a foundation for a retaining wall, and traveled to and from one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

In the evenings we heard Latino missionaries share their passion for missions and learned what it meant to follow the discipleship strategy of Jesus.

Thank you to all of you who were lifting us up in prayer. Although by the end of the week my parents and I were tripping over our feet from exhaustion, God saw us through the very last moment of the trip - Upon which we all collapsed on beds and rubbed our sore muscles (scraping varnish is hard work!).

At the moment my parents are away at the beach resting while I house sit for them. As I begin to catch up on the work that I left undone while the team was here, I am also finding time to rest. This morning I spent a wonderful time on the back porch singing hymns and listening to a sermon from Autumn Ridge Church .

I wish all of you back in the US a happy Memorial Day and rejoice that you can enjoy the sun once again.

Trusting Him ,
Kari

Please Praise:
-Our first short term missions team was a great success. The team went away understanding better what we do here, what it means to be a disciple, and how a new floor can contribute to youth ministry.

-My parents are having a good vacation and I got to sleep past 6:30 today!

-Yesterday my roommate hosted the first training module for out new Latino missionaries. She did a great job sharing about fund raising.

Please Pray:
-On to the next team! Alpine Chapel will be sending us a short term team on June 20th. Pray for us as we put the finishing touches on plans for them.

-I have not been able to get back into a regular schedule with my English students since March! Pray that I might be able to invest in my English students on a more regular basis.