Tomorrow, tomorrow...

In less than five hours my alarm will go off. I'm heading to Orlando airport tomorrow morning. It's a 1.5 hour drive there, then a 1.5 hour flight to Charlotte, NC, than a 4 hour flight to San Jose, Costa Rica (all with layovers and waiting in between). I should be in Costa Rica around 2:30 pm their time (an hour behind home).

I'm excited to finally get there! The last couple of weeks have been sort of hectic and fun being in California and having a few days with my mom and stepdad, but I'm ready to start the mission. Please pray for traveling safety. I can't believe it has been about eight months since I was there. It seems like I was just there a few weeks ago.

I'm trying to anticipate what it will feel like to know that it is my home for five and half months. Hopefully I won't get too homesick, and hopefully it will be a very successful mission.

Hasta luego.

San Francisco, California

San Francisco is a fantastic city! This past week I was able to travel to California with my third family, the Hitchcocks. :-) We were all to arrive in Oakland on Thursday afternoon. Well, I arrived Thursday afternoon, and the remaining three arrived on Friday. The Hitchcocks were stuck in St. Louis for a night due to bad weather conditions. So, I got an evening with their friends whom I'd not met before and they were great hosts to me, a stranger.

On Saturday, we travelled to Napa Valley and did the wine country thing... it was beautiful! We toured the Sterling Vineyard, the Culinary Art Institute, Dean & Deluca, and the Castle of Amorosa. Lots of wine tasting, cheese tasting, and one interesting lemon float/dessert. That evening we took a trip to Salsalito for dinner at Angelino's, an Italian restaurant. Yum!

Sunday, we went to Bodego Bay on the coast. The waves were huge and it was extremely windy. My hair didn't hold up to well. We ate at a seafood restaurant that is on the same lot where scenes from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" was filmed.

The highlight was on Monday... shopping in downtown San Francisco! We did stop by San Francisco State University in the morning, then we headed to the Piers. We ate lunch there and proceeded downtown to shop until we dropped (almost literally). We had just enough time to grab dinner in Chinatown before heading back home.

I definitely want to go back to San Francisco!

What will I be doing in Costa Rica?

Well, that's a good question. I have a good idea of how some of my time will be spent; however, I'm sure there will be alterations along the way. Here's a sampling of what I'm expecting:

• Assisting with teaching English
• Hosting work teams from the States
• Helping with a rapidly growing children's ministry program
• Doing home visits and praying for the sick
• Learning Spanish with a tutor
• Offering some administrative assistance to a school that is starting up
• Probably serving in some capacity at the church I'll be attending

There will probably be other opportunities, but I'll have to see how full my schedule is. The more activities - the better my Spanish will become. Tomorrow, I'm heading to San Francisco with the Hitchcocks! Flight leaves at 8:15am. Until later.

Where is Costa Rica?

People keep asking, "Where is Costa Rica exactly?" So, here's a map. Costa Rica is in Central America between Nicaragua and Panama. It's green in this map. The time difference from Columbus, Ohio to San Jose, Costa Rica is only an hour.

Passport Frenzy

I moved out of my apartment over the weekend. I was sad to say goodbye to my friend, Christina. We had lived together for over three years. I'm going to miss her a lot.

Now I'm living for a few days at Veronica's home, out of my suitcases. I almost had a panic attack Sunday evening... I couldn't find my passport! I just kept thinking of all the bags of trash I took out and wondering how I would ever find it. It was packed away in one of my bags among things that I should have never put it with. There should be a manual for how one goes about moving out of the country short-term. I can follow directions well, but figuring stuff out on my own is somewhat comedic.

I'm not superstitious, but I keep having these thoughts that I'm going to break my leg right before I leave. Everything has gone so well in the preparation process that I keep thinking something bad is going to happen. Raising support went much better than I expected. My goal was to raise 40% of my entire budget; I've raised over 50%. :-) My work is allowing me to come back to the same job that I have now upon returning. And, I have a living situation already set up when I come back. It's all gone so smooth and I'm AMAZED! I am really thankful to God because I believe it is Him that has put this opportunity before me.

What Time of Day Am I?