Land of Pura Vida

     We left Raleigh, NC in the wee hours of January 2nd.  All 5 of us had drousy eyes and knots in our stomachs for the next few steps of God's amazing will for our lives as missionaries.  The day had some typical airline frustrations, with a major financial setback of $820 because Delta made us change our tickets due to some new western hemisphere anti-terrorism law.  But when we finally made it to Costa Rica that day, favor began to unfold right before our eyes.

          We flew to Atlanta then on to San Jose.  When we arrived at the terminal of our new home for the next year we stayed on the jumbo jet until all of the other 200+ passengers got off the plane.  We were a motley crew rag tag bunch with 3 anxious yet whiney boys who were jet lagging for the first time in their little lives.  Angela and I had to pull, carry and drag all ten pieces of the carry-on's.  Being last in line at immigration is intimidating.  First you hope they are still happy after dealing with all of the Americans, secondly you are praying that your luggage is still in the claim area!  As we drug all the stuff through the serpentine lines made of poles and hemp string  and came to the end of our line a lady greeted us with a phrase that has set the tone for this whole yet of Spanish Language School.

     "?Habla Espanol?"  Do I speak Spanish, well not really but enough to get us through the airport!  I said "Si!" and she pointed to the other line and told us to go that way.  My heart started racing because no one was in it, either God had just really blessed us or I just crammed my feet in my mouth up to my knees!

     We started passing folks by the dozens and some even shouted out, "Hey, why do you get to go ahead of everyone else?"  I just looked back and smiled with too much confidence and said that it pays to speak Spanish.  We made it around the hallway and the line was wideopen to the immigration desk.  There was no one in the Spanish Speaking lines.  Why us?  I was nervous, anxious, full of God's peace, scared to death.  I greeted the two men, handed them our passports and papers.  Slowly, one by one they started stamping our passports.  I made each of the boys walk around for the men to see that their faces matched the passports.  Minutes later with smiles the men greeted us and welcomed us to their country and said !Pura Vida!

     We made it down to baggage claim.  Our 11 containers were no where to be found.  I walked all over the place and got that really uneasy fealing.  I returned to our screaming boys and Angela gave me the look.  I put on a false face of assurance not kowing how to feel and said, "It's ok baby, it's going to be fine...I've done this before."

     As I turned around Angela and I said, "Hey look."  The baggage workers began seding out our footlockers through the oversized compartment.  One by one they were all spitting out!  Well, that was exciting.  But now there was this next problem.  How were we going to move 11 footlockers and 10 carry-on's with a 2, 5, and 6 year old?  As I started stacking the boxes and breaking a sweat I said to the Lord, "I could sure use a really big cart right now.  As I stacked the last footlockers and leaned against them, one of the airport workers came walking up.  I began thinking how he was probably going to tell us how we needed to move our stuff out of the way.  When he opened his mouth in Spansh that I perfectly understood he asked me if I would like for him to go get a BIG ROLLING CART!  I almost cried.  Si Senor, por favor!  Minutes later this blessing of God came pushing a nice big 4 wheeled cart.  We loaded it with the 11 footlockers and put the other 10 carry-ons on a standard cart.  He took us to customs.  They knew him.  They only scanned 2 of our footlockers and made us open none of them!  As for he other 10 carry-on's, they scanned all of them but only opened Angela's because it setoff the metal detector with all of the jewelry.  They were concerned that we had come to sell it.  I assured them that the reason we were here was to study language and that we are missionaries with the Assemblies of God and had come to buy from their economy not sell anything.  Seconds later were on our way.  !Pura Vida! they said.

     We made it through some curves and through hundreds of squawking people.  And there stood our reception party!  After the microbus was loaded, I tipped the guy extremely generously and we exchanged salutations and he said to me !Pura Vida!  We headed for our new home for the next year in San Jose, Costa Rica, the land of Pura Vida, or in English...Pure Life!  These first few weeks have been amazing.  We are so thankful for this wonderful call to missions, the opportunity to focus and study solely on the the language this year and those of you who have financially made it happen!   There are some photos and other scripts on our website www.nelson5missions.com.  Also if you would like to contribute to our minstry there is a contribution page with various options on the site as well.  Visit back for the posting of some of our adventurious stories.