Glimpses from Costa Rica Jan-March 2013

Glimpses-Costa Rica from john armstrong on Vimeo.

Random video clips between January and March of 2013...put in an imovie template!

Rover Rescue

Rover Rescue from john armstrong on Vimeo.

A little break from language school for a weekend.  Went with four other guys to help get this beast fired back to life...fun trip!

The First 4 Months in Costa Rica

Costa Rica - the first 4 months from john armstrong on Vimeo.

A glimpse of Costa Rica

Happy Independence Day!  September 15th is the day that Costa Rica celebrates their independence.  There is a lot of traditional dancing, and all of the school children march in parade formation around the schools and than the streets carrying lanterns at night.

Farmers Market every Saturday

These green and orange trees can be found at any park (click on this picture and take a closer look)

Kattiana & Karsten in the Central Park

Latest Newsletter Available

Well after a month of transitions, we've finally been able to catch our breath and send out a newsletter.  Click on the picture to read an online version.

Hola Costa Rica!

 

Following an amazing send-off by friends and family in Worthington, Minnesota, we boarded an airplane Sunday morning and landed in Costa Rica that same evening.  Arriving at the airport, we made it through customs without any problems and met another missionary family who took us to our apartment.  Praise God for an incredibly smooth trip!



 

 

“Is the Barbed wire to Keep people out or keep kids in?”

-Karsten

As if school wasn’t intimidating enough, they have plenty of barbed wire and a guard shack.  I’m not sure what will happen if you don’t complete your homework…but I’m not about to find out!

The Joys of Packing

Nothing has a way of making a person feel older than sorting out junk (er...um treasures) that were put in boxes sometime in the last century.   Like running across an old application that had the following request:

I actually brought a manual typewriter to college! Not all was trailing edge of technology; most of my papers were printed on a state of the art “dot matrix” printer. 

Other signs that I am from another century:

·         I actually have slides (not power point…slides) that I took!

·         I have more cassette tapes than CDs, let alone MP3s! Still need to hand a cassette to my kids and see if they can figure out how to play it (makes me feel better about the fact I can’t work the TV half of the time)

Things that I can’t throw away:

Maybe it is me, but there are just certain things that I find difficult to throw away:

·         Pennies??? I get to the bottom of some box and there are paper clips, random business cards, pens, miscellaneous hardware, and some old candy. I can dump all of that into a trash can without blinking…except when there are pennies.  There may only be 3, with some type of green stuff growing on them, now I have to sort through it all and pick out the pennies.  WHY IS THIS?

·         Bibles- I don’t think I am superstitious, but I simply have a hard time throwing away Bibles.  Do you bury them, or put them into jars and leave them in a cave?  At some point I’ll have to accept the fact that my copies aren’t the original manuscripts.

·          Thanks to Pixar, I can’t even throw away my kids toys because there is a Woody doll in the box!

I still remember the days when I could fit everything that I owned into a Chevrolet Chevette, and complete the task in less than 10 minutes.  It was good thing, because the time I saved in packing was lost during the painstakingly slow drive offered by the 70 horsepower engine…probably was for the better not to have the option of getting a speeding ticket during my college days. 

Gone are the days when it takes 10 minutes to pack