Looking for a City

This is a first for me in many ways. For anyone who knows me, you know that up until this point I have been a non existent part of the online community. I have strongly resisted participating in Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have had no urge to unleash my private life upon the digital masses. Of course my wife has been a part of the online social network for a while. It allows her to stay connected to people and through her I have been updated on the latest news such as it is. So you may ask why now? Why jump into a blog of all places? Well if you have been keeping up to date with the blog then you have an idea of what has been happening in our lives. God has been changing us and leading us in directions we did not plan for. Of course it should be noted that he has always been there leading us and shaping us. We have just finally realized it and we are trying to cooperate instead of fight against it. It continues to amaze me how much different our lives have become once we started to give up control and allow ourselves to be led. So the reason I am sitting here now telling you these things is not because of my desire to join the online social landscape. I am here because I have things to tell you that are important. I hope that through the process of our journey that you can realize that God will lead us and shape us into the kind of person he wants us to be. But you have to be a willing participant. Nothing that we can tell you is anything new but it is all in your perception. God has used events and relationships in our lives to change us, just as he does for all of us. We are dramatically changing our lives so that we can follow the path that we believe God has set before us. We are only at the beginning and only God knows where this path will lead in the end. It is scary in a lot of ways but also comforting. Comforting to know that God is in control and that he will be with us. Romans 8:31 and Philippians 4:13 come to mind. Well I have rambled long enough let me get to the topic at hand.



We have been very behind on posting all the info and happenings of our trip to Costa Rica. Now it is my for another portion of the story. I must say that I could not agree more with the previous post by Juan (John). Our Sunday morning service was easily the most inspirational service I have been a part of. I am sure part of that was due to the setting, I doubt there are many other places on this earth that so fully displayed the power and beauty of God's work. But it was more than just the location, I am not sure how to explain it except that you would have to be there. But our Sunday did not stop with the church service, just like every other day we did not have enough time to waste a single minute.


After the service was over we all piled in the car and started off on another journey of exploration. Our plan for that day was to go and see a few towns that we had on the list as potential locations to live if this all works out. First in the order of proximity was a town called Grecia. One thing I should mention is that the road system in Costa Rica is very different than anywhere in the USA. I am a big believer in maps and I generally have a pretty good sense of direction. If I have a road map, I have no doubt that I can get where I want to go. Well I had a decent overall map, but it did not show any of the smaller roads. The biggest problem was that there are no road names or signs in Costa Rica. The best you will get is at main intersections (some of them anyway) they have signs pointing which direction to the next town. So first you have to know where a main intersection is or just hope you get lucky. I had no idea where those intersections were I simply had to trust in my somewhat vague map with no road names. So what happens is you drive around in the general area you think is correct and look for those elusive signs pointing out the direction for the town you are trying to get to. So you finally find a sign pointing out the way to your destination. Well problem #1 is that as I said even these road signs are hit and miss. You will be driving along following the signs when you come to an intersection that has no sign. You can go left, right or straight and each way looks just like the road you have been on. So you have to make a guess or hopefully there will be someone nearby that you ask for directions. I lost count of how many times we had to stop and ask for directions. One word of advice if you want to drive in Costa Rica learn the Spanish vocabulary for directions, you will need it, a lot!! What we discovered later is that sometimes these intersections did have a sign but it could only be read coming down one of the other roads at the intersection. There was also the fun part of once you are in an actual town, they are a maze of one way streets and you hardly ever get to stay on the right road you want to be on. You have to weave your way thru town and hope to find the right intersection that will point you in the right direction.

I bring all that up to preface the Sunday drive because it was our first big lesson in getting lost in Costa Rica. We did a lot more driving than we needed too and we saw a lot more of the country side than intended. So off we went down one of the newer highways in Costa Rica, their version of an interstate I assume, but it was just a 2 lane country highway in the US. And according to the map it seemed like we were about far enough along that I needed to take the next exit. Well we came to the next exit and what do you know, there was no sign.....so I took the exit anyway. I was not sure it was the right way but I really had no idea anyway. I stopped and asked the first person I saw, Donde esta Grecia? He smiles and nods and points down the road right where we had been heading, jackpot. Well as we later found out, you really could get to Grecia that way but it was not exactly the easiest way to get there. After about 30 minutes of driving down a one lane backroad hunting trail (this was in fact what passed for a 2 lane sort of paved road) with potholes that could double as neighborhood swimming pools and numerous turns and stops for directions, we finally came to what appeared to be a decent highway. Ahh finally we were getting somewhere, and we arrived in Grecia about 5 minutes later. Of course we again found out later that if I would have taken the next exit off the main road we would have arrived at this same point in about 5 minutes instead of 30. But we did get to see some beautiful farm land and some very local communities.

Sarchi was the next town and it also had somewhat of a reputation. It was supposedly the best place to go in Costa Rica to find furniture. Now we are not talking about furniture stores like you find in the US. What we found were dozens of little furniture stores that were big enough to have a small selection of beds, dressers, end tables, coffee tables, dining room tables, etc. Every last bit of it was made completely of real wood. There was not one scrap of man made materials in any of it and it was all built very well. This was the kind of furniture that you would find in a high end furniture store in the US selling for thousands of dollars. There was not really anything that we saw that was dirt cheap, but it was very cheap based on the quality of the construction. We spent some time looking around and drove through town some more but besides the furniture it was a pretty typical town in Costa Rica.

So we moved on to the last destination for the day, a town called Naranjo. There is not really much to tell about our trip to Naranjo. We spent some time driving around and looking but again nothing really seemed inviting for us in Naranjo. The only eventful thing that happened is we stopped at a local Soda on our way back to Attenas and we had another interesting experience with food in Costa Rica. Without a doubt one of the biggest ways we learned more Spanish was by deciphering the menus trying to figure out what to eat. Well we thought we had finally found something everyone had been craving. This place had what we thought was chips and cheese dip. I can't remember exactly what it said on the menu but it was basically fried tortilla's and queso. So that looks to us like fried tortilla chips with cheese dip.......wrong. Much to our surprise what showed up was exactly what it said but completely not what we thought. It was a whole fried tortilla sitting flat on the plate with a thick slab of the local cheese on top of it. So that was a little bit of a disapointment but that is just part of learning the language, sometimes you get a surprise for dinner.

Slideshow design made with Smilebox

This ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated and the day did not really include anything eventful except for a wonderful church service and some not so wonderful food. Thanks for tagging along with us, don't worry the best part is still yet to come.........



Posted by David