January 6, 2008 Costa Rica News...

We saw this rainbow on the way home from Wal-Mart.

Well this has certainly been one of the hardest weeks of our lives. I don't think we were able to comprehend how hard it would be to get on that plane until we actually did it. But God has been faithful and has sustained us and this week has been a blessing. This is a direct result of so many of you praying for us. We know that and we appreciate each of you so much. We will never be able to repay all of you who are 'holding the rope' for us. But, we know you do this for Jesus...not just us. Thank you.

We arrived here last Monday evening and were swept away to our new house. Here's our address...Go to San Francisco of Two Rivers...Find the Park Bosque...go 20o meters east...then go 25 meters south...white house with black fence. We're number 501! Literally, that's our address...there are no street names here. Wild stuff.

Our house is a SMALL three bedroom house with a small kitchen, eating area, and living room area. It's small. It's possible to be in the kitchen, dining room, and living room at the same time. Hah. But it's a nice place and will be our home for about 45 more weeks until we get to Peru. We live on the street with several other missionary families so it's been fun here in the neighborhood on a street with no name.

We have found our way to Wal-Mart, the grocery store, the local mall, the bakery, Costa Rica's version of Best Buy, and Liesa went to the farmer's market Saturday morning at 7:30 to kill some fresh vegetables and drag them home. Nice.

The weather here is spectacular...70's during the day and 60's at night. Days have been sunny and windy. Very nice. We do think about those of you in the frigid USA!

Everything in our culture here takes time. We're learning to be patient and expect things to take longer to accomplish than back home. You would be amazed at how much you miss being able to jump in your car and go to the store. But, we do have taxis to haul us around so that is nice in its own way.

We have begun orientation at language school and the kids begin their schooling on Monday, Jan 7. We begin language classes on Wednesday, Jan 9. We'll be in class each day from 7:30 am until 1:00 pm. We are expected to spend time on our own studying each day. Language study is our full time job but we do expect to do some ministry work as well. What all of that will look like is still unknown.

We have a church here in our neighborhood that we attended this morning....ALL IN SPANISH. Quite interesting. Jackson was a big man and volunteered for children's church so he got to leave and go have some fun. The rest of us were stuck pretending to be interested. Hah.

We love you all and miss you. Things are going well. Thank you for your prayers. Please let us know how we can be praying for you. Email us at jholeman@samregion.com or lholeman@samregion.com.

Prayer requests for this week...

1. Haylee and Jackson beginning school.

2. Language classes...Pray that we'll be able to learn quickly.

3. Ministry opportunities...even though language is our job we want to be involved in spreading the gospel. Pray that we'll see the opportunities before us.

I shot some video from our campus where we will be in language school.

The clouds sweep over the mountains pretty fast.