Hi from Denver! 

   When I woke up this morning at 4:30am, the only though I could think was ”there is nothing good about this day, except the fact that I will be seeing Erika tonight” (and that will be at like 1 am Costa Rican time, so it doesnt really count…). But as the day has gone on, I have seen so much stuff that I should be thankful to God for!

Last night, for instance, it was pretty much just awesome!!! I packed and I updated my blog and stuff, and after that, while the Children At Risk school had local outreach, DTS intercession and um… I dunno what the SOW did, Ashley and I went to McDonalds Café (I know it sounds wired to go there to have coffee, but the one by the base is pretty much AWESOME, and McDonalds in Costa Rica is waaay nicer than in the US and Norway), and after that to Pequeno Mundo. And then to Jumbo. Yeah yeah yeah. Just small stuff I needed to take care of. But all of that is not what was amazing. Or, that was amazing too, but last night… aaah!!! J Ill never forget you guys: never! No: the amazing part was the dinner/desert/coffee party at Fresas, with bunch of people. Some stayed the whole time, others came just to say bye, and the teachers were really nice and let Giezi leave class early, and we all ate and talked and wrote notes to each other and just chilled out. Im gonna miss doing that. Not that I wont in Ensenada, but Im gonna miss doing that with those people!! Brianna, Suzanne, Kelsey and I went to get Cinnamon bread, and then Bri and Susie spend the night at our house, so the four of us and Anna made music videos…. J They are… AMAZING! I think we are talented. (NOT). I went to bed at like 1 and got up 3 ½ hours later, and I have never slept so bad in my life, so I was DEAD tired. Giezi and Maruko came and picked us girls up at 5, and then we drove to the airport. We took a little detour and checked out some neighborhoods close to the airport (not by purpose). It was fun! Then I had to say bye. And then I had to thank God for the AMAZING time I have had here in Costa Rica, with some of the most AMAZING people I have ever met. It has really been great. I am excited about what´s next, but it was hard to let go and leave what I had there.

I checked in, went thru the security, and then got something to eat. As I was sitting eating, feeling kinda sad I hear “Martine?!” behind me, and there is a Japanese girl from my language school! She is leaving to go back home, so I had a nice talk to her before I left. So I thanked God for that.

I bored the plane, got seat in between two kinda big guys, all the way in the back, so you can´t lean your seats back. I didn’t thank God for that, but I don’t think He minds…. Anyways. As the captain starts speaking, he tells us that because of the strong wind in San Jose, we have to stop in Liberia to fill fuel… And Warner who had just been talking about how I need to go to Liberia next time I come… It made me kinda sad, and I wasn’t too happy about flying for 17 min and then going down and then up again, but I figured that I would thank God for “dren i øra” (sorry guys, I just have no idea how to say that in English…) so I didn’t even have to worry about the pressure I have always had so much trouble with earlier when going up and down. And then I fell a sleep. And I thanked God for that, cause I find is surprisingly hard to sleep on a plane. Anyway, I wake up to a kinda awkward sound as we are reaching Liberia, and when we are well down on the ground, the captain tells us what that was…. I bird that pretty much flew into our motor…. It had a wingspan on 6 foot, or almost 2 meters, so it was pretty big. I guess it was good that didn’t happen in the air…. So I thanked God for that. But then I kinda stoped thanking him for a little bit, cause because of that we ended up having to stay on ground for over 3 ½ hours, not able to leave the plane, but we could walk around. It was pretty bad. And booooring. They had to call in a guy from the city to come and check to plane and the motor, and then they had to fill out some paperwork and all that jazz…. So yeah. But we got our fuel and we were ready to go! The 5 ½ hour trip ended up being over 9 hours long, so it was long enough. The sad thing was that they did not have any movies, expect 3 different you had to buy to see for 8 dollars, and neither real food. What they had was nuts and chocolate for freaking 8 dollars a bag (RIP OFF!!!!), so I started thanking God for the cinnamon bread we got last night….. J Yay! So I didn’t starve to death. But I was more than hungry when I got here to Denver…

The rest of the trip went fine, as soon as we reached American airspace, we had free TV, 24 channels. Nothing really exciting was on, but it killed time, so I thanked God for that.

Almost all of my fellow passengers lost their connection flights, but I could thank God for my original 9-hour layover.  As we left the airplane, one of the stewardess walks up to me and goes “I like you shirt”. I am wearing my “Homes Of Hope”-shirt. He´s like “Are you working with them? You guys are doing an awesome job! Ive been down there working with an orphanage, and yeah… just great job you guys!!!!”. So I thanked God for him.

When we got here to Denver, there were NO line for the passport control, so I thanked God for that, and even though I had been worried for a little while about my visa and stuff, I could thank God cause it was all good. You see: you get this paper in your passport when you enter the US, but sense I left through Mexico, no one took that one out of my passport… So I was a little worried that I had done something wrong (I have no idea what that would be, but…), but it worked out just fine. So I got my luggage, dropped it off again, and then I could thank God for Orange Chicken at Panda Express. And then for this airport: its really nice!

So thank you God!!! J

 

…the only thing is that they don’t have starbucks, im kinda bummed, but Ill be fine. Ill have a mocca with Erika in a couple of hours anyway! And hopefully that plane ride will be a little shorter than the one before…. 

Hi From Denver!!!

   When I woke up this morning at 4:30am, the only though I could think was ”there is nothing good about this day, except the fact that I will be seeing Erika tonight” (and that will be at like 1 am Costa Rican time, so it doesnt really count…). But as the day has gone on, I have seen so much stuff that I should be thankful to God for!

Last night, for instance, it was pretty much just awesome!!! I packed and I updated my blog and stuff, and after that, while the Children At Risk school had local outreach, DTS intercession and um… I dunno what the SOW did, Ashley and I went to McDonalds Café (I know it sounds wired to go there to have coffee, but the one by the base is pretty much AWESOME, and McDonalds in Costa Rica is waaay nicer than in the US and Norway), and after that to Pequeno Mundo. And then to Jumbo. Yeah yeah yeah. Just small stuff I needed to take care of. But all of that is not what was amazing. Or, that was amazing too, but last night… aaah!!! J Ill never forget you guys: never! No: the amazing part was the dinner/desert/coffee party at Fresas, with bunch of people. Some stayed the whole time, others came just to say bye, and the teachers were really nice and let Giezi leave class early, and we all ate and talked and wrote notes to each other and just chilled out. Im gonna miss doing that. Not that I wont in Ensenada, but Im gonna miss doing that with those people!! Brianna, Suzanne, Kelsey and I went to get Cinnamon bread, and then Bri and Susie spend the night at our house, so the four of us and Anna made music videos…. J They are… AMAZING! I think we are talented. (NOT). I went to bed at like 1 and got up 3 ½ hours later, and I have never slept so bad in my life, so I was DEAD tired. Giezi and Maruko came and picked us girls up at 5, and then we drove to the airport. We took a little detour and checked out some neighborhoods close to the airport (not by purpose). It was fun! Then I had to say bye. And then I had to thank God for the AMAZING time I have had here in Costa Rica, with some of the most AMAZING people I have ever met. It has really been great. I am excited about what´s next, but it was hard to let go and leave what I had there.

I checked in, went thru the security, and then got something to eat. As I was sitting eating, feeling kinda sad I hear “Martine?!” behind me, and there is a Japanese girl from my language school! She is leaving to go back home, so I had a nice talk to her before I left. So I thanked God for that.

I bored the plane, got seat in between two kinda big guys, all the way in the back, so you can´t lean your seats back. I didn’t thank God for that, but I don’t think He minds…. Anyways. As the captain starts speaking, he tells us that because of the strong wind in San Jose, we have to stop in Liberia to fill fuel… And Warner who had just been talking about how I need to go to Liberia next time I come… It made me kinda sad, and I wasn’t too happy about flying for 17 min and then going down and then up again, but I figured that I would thank God for “dren i øra” (sorry guys, I just have no idea how to say that in English…) so I didn’t even have to worry about the pressure I have always had so much trouble with earlier when going up and down. And then I fell a sleep. And I thanked God for that, cause I find is surprisingly hard to sleep on a plane. Anyway, I wake up to a kinda awkward sound as we are reaching Liberia, and when we are well down on the ground, the captain tells us what that was…. I bird that pretty much flew into our motor…. It had a wingspan on 6 foot, or almost 2 meters, so it was pretty big. I guess it was good that didn’t happen in the air…. So I thanked God for that. But then I kinda stoped thanking him for a little bit, cause because of that we ended up having to stay on ground for over 3 ½ hours, not able to leave the plane, but we could walk around. It was pretty bad. And booooring. They had to call in a guy from the city to come and check to plane and the motor, and then they had to fill out some paperwork and all that jazz…. So yeah. But we got our fuel and we were ready to go! The 5 ½ hour trip ended up being over 9 hours long, so it was long enough. The sad thing was that they did not have any movies, expect 3 different you had to buy to see for 8 dollars, and neither real food. What they had was nuts and chocolate for freaking 8 dollars a bag (RIP OFF!!!!), so I started thanking God for the cinnamon bread we got last night….. J Yay! So I didn’t starve to death. But I was more than hungry when I got here to Denver…

The rest of the trip went fine, as soon as we reached American airspace, we had free TV, 24 channels. Nothing really exciting was on, but it killed time, so I thanked God for that.

Almost all of my fellow passengers lost their connection flights, but I could thank God for my original 9-hour layover.  As we left the airplane, one of the stewardess walks up to me and goes “I like you shirt”. I am wearing my “Homes Of Hope”-shirt. He´s like “Are you working with them? You guys are doing an awesome job! Ive been down there working with an orphanage, and yeah… just great job you guys!!!!”. So I thanked God for him.

When we got here to Denver, there were NO line for the passport control, so I thanked God for that, and even though I had been worried for a little while about my visa and stuff, I could thank God cause it was all good. You see: you get this paper in your passport when you enter the US, but sense I left through Mexico, no one took that one out of my passport… So I was a little worried that I had done something wrong (I have no idea what that would be, but…), but it worked out just fine. So I got my luggage, dropped it off again, and then I could thank God for Orange Chicken at Panda Express. And then for this airport: its really nice!

So thank you God!!! J

 

…the only thing is that they don’t have starbucks, im kinda bummed, but Ill be fine. Ill have a mocca with Erika in a couple of hours anyway! And hopefully that plane ride will be a little shorter than the one before…. 

So, Here I am again!

 

The past couple of weeks has gone by sooo fast. I am now done with me language school, and is leaving Costa Rica tomorrow!!! Its crazy! Im excited to go Ensenada and for the ministries I am going to be involved with there, but on the same time I am very, very sad to leave this place and these people!!!

Its been a different time in San Jose than what I expected when I left Ensenada 56 days ago. But its been good. I have learned so much and I will never, ever forget this. The people here are AMAZING. Its been so cool to see how God is working here in Costa Rica, and the role this base has.

So, even though I haven’t updated my blog in a while, doesn’t mean that nothing has happened… Here´s some pics and some stories…

Also; I don’t really have pics yet, but there is a team from Ensenada here now! Kelsey, Giezi, Tony and I went to the airport last night to say hello, and Suzanne and Maruko came with us, just for the heck of it! Kody, Jacob, William, Teresa, Cesar, Oscar, Ben, Malcom and an other guy I don’t know, all came, and it was SO good to see them. I will see them again in like a week when they get back to Ensenada, so you might say that Kelsey and Giezi were a little more excited about the reunion than me! The team will be working by the volcano where the earthquake hit a little over a month ago. They are going to be building houses for the people who lost their houses. To be able to house them, the base has made a container into housing! Ive been helping a little bit painting, but some guys from the base has been working day in and day out for the first one to be done. A rich guy that owned the containers donated the first one to us, but we still have planned to rebuild 2 or 3 more, as we are having more teams coming down. Each container has bed for 12 people, and 2 showers and bathrooms. Its really cool!!! I was so surprised when I saw them; they look good!  For YWAM San Jose to be able to build these containers to help out at the earthquake site and later also other places, they need more money… If you want to support them, go to: www.ywamsj.org and donate!!! J

So, there will be a lot of pictures, Im sorry! Its just how it goes when I haven’t updated in a while… But today, as I am packing, I figured I should use the opportunity, and  start with clear paper as I am leaving tomorrow… J So enjoy! Or get annoyed..  I don’t care… 

The day before Valentines Day we had a valentines dinner on base...

DTS girls! 
The boys... Giezi, Chove and Maruko!
Me, Kels and Brianna!

Anna, Brianna and me!
Brianna, Kels, Me, Giezi and Maruko!
Me, Kelsey, Maruko and Geizi!
Dearest Paola!
Me, Giezi and Kelsey!
School Of Worship went to do ministry with a "metro ministry" truck, and Paola and I drove them... They played with the kids and then had a program with LOTS of music! Here Maruko is playing algo alla "Rødt lys". 
This guy was a good goalie.. 
Metro Ministry 
The language school! 

Fellow students and teacher!
The base! 
Before we started painting... The container is the white one to your right... 
Me and Chove. I had dirt everywhere, we had to lay down under the container the whole time, first removing dust and dirt, and then paint.... haha. it was fun, but after about 3 hours there are NO comfortable positions anymore.... 

After we were done painting........... It took me an hour to clean up.... and I was still not clean... 


So... We have this playground close the base that we usually go and hang out at... 

The playground.. 


Me and Suzanne!
Ok; so here is the story! My friend Ashley from our DTS (also known as Jons girlfriend) decided to come and surprise Jon here in San Jose... So; for about 6 weeks Ive been caring that secret, trying to work things out... And even though I had to break the news to kelsey and Giezi and a couple of other, and we had to chaise Jon down the road from the base and tell him that it was my "goodbye night out", we managed to do it.... :) As we walked up toward the airport, and Jon is the only one now knowing that it is Ashley we are picking up and not "a YWAMer from Guatemala that are here to renew her visa", he keeps saying "how the heck are we gonna know who she is?? What if she´s like asian or something??"..... His face when he saw her..... awww... priceless!!

How many YWAMers can you fit in a YWAM van...? (it should be 15, and we were 3 in the front seat...) 
Roller-skating! 

A little update.. about everything..

So, at YWAM San Jose, we have something called Weekend Workduties. It basically means that you have workduties saturday and sunday. Which pretty much sucks. Unless you do something fun about it. Suzanne and Jessie did: They made up themes, and then Brianna, Kelsey, Me and whoever else who were not doing workduties could join if we wanted, and the people that were doing them kinda had to join no matter what, even though they were no all super excited about it. The theme was mostly color, and black and white for saturday night. sweet!

Orange and Blue. And the brains behind the fun!
Me and Brianna
Pink, blue, pink and purple. Briannas jeans are actually purple...
Black and White!

Just hanging out....
Giezi and Debra
The amazing danish girl!

Maruko! 

This weekend we went to the beach, Montezuma to be exact!! We left Friday at like 1, right after I was done with lunch prep and had eaten. From down town San Jose, we took the bus for about 3 hours to the ferry, which took us on a 1 hour long boat ride. We were so lucky to be able to see the sunset on the boat, and Suzanne, Brianna and I sang karaoke over the boats speaker system. It was intense. We sang “Happy Birthday”, just because they didn’t have any English songs, and it was Anna´s birthday. Just for the record: They didn’t have “Happy Birthday” either, so we sang without music. Pretty intense.

So after the boatride, we had about 3 more hours in the bus before we arrived at Montezuma beach. We slept in a tent on the beach. Or, some of us slept in a tent. We didn’t really have enough tents, so 5 of us slept inside one, and the rest of the 13 slept outside. It was HOT, so it worked out just fine.

The beach we went to had a tiny town, where we got stuff to eat and drink, and it was filled up with hippies, so some of the girl bought necklaces and stuff. It was sweet. As I said we stayed on the beach, like literally, there was nothing more than sand between the water and us. Sweetness!! Saturday was filled with sun and sand, and I had to wash all my clothes when I came back to base… Also because of the bonfire we had every night. Kelsey and I left early Sunday morning, while the rest left right after noon. We spend about  5 1/2 hours on our trip, while they hit all the traffic and used about 9. SANTO. 

Me, Brianna and Suzanne!
The girls!! Kelsey, Me, Brianna, Suzanne, Anna and Jaymie!
Giezi
Team Ensenada!!!
Sunset 


Rachel, me and Jessie, the staff of the CAR school. 
This is what I woke up to (at 7 am because of the light...). We didnt put the cover up over the tent, so it was pretty much just mosquito net... NICE.

Campground! 

Beautiful girls!

kiiiiiinda sunburned.. 
Dinner: chips and salsa..
Giezi had to do his homework on the beach; writing a song... The outcome was amazing!!


bonfire!! 

sunrise sunday morning.
Concert: 

Kelsey and I left early from the beach (there are only two departures from Montezuma every day), so we got to go to Mario´s concert.... It was in a church and kinda a fundraiser for the earthquake victims, so it was cool. I came there with two mexicans and two canadians, and it was first when I was there I realized that it was not only Mario´s band who was a metal band, but every band that was playing.... So the audience was metal fans, and thats more of a lifestyle... Lets just say Ive never felt so white in my life....!!! But it was TONS of fun!! 
Bere and I (trying the get the black people in the background in a picture.... Even the mexican was wearing too much color.... hahaha)
The one white dude, from our gang of course, teo. 
Fans!! Me, kels and Chrystal. Um, you can see parts of Mario´s body in the background... hah. 
Jeff, Mario and Kelsey! On the bus back to the base!
Mario, Jeff, Kelsey, Me and Teo. Jeff was trying as hard as he could to keep me out of the picture.. and succeeded.. 
Song Cafe!!

The School Of Worship has a song cafe every other monday, and yesterday was the first time the rest of the base was invited. Dude- they are SOOOO talented! My camera takes horrible pictures and the battery died, but here´s a little taste!!!
Debra from Denmark!! Yay! We speak norwegian/danish/swedish a lot. And we enjoy it!
Mario and Giezi.