shenanigans: An eventful week in the Rica

It's been quite the eventful week, so let me catch you up to speed!

-We had our 3rd basketball game on Tuesday. Lost by one point. Dangit. But the girls rallied, and they are getting better every game.

-We had Young Life club on Wednesday night, and it was awesome! I actually gave the talk at the end of club, and it was so fun. When I was prepairing throughout the week I keep finding myself being really nervous, and then I remembered that I freaking get to tell kids about Jesus! The talk was on the image of God. I talked about different images that people might have of God-misconceptions if you will, and then used Colossians 1:15 "Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God" to tell kids that to see who God really is we can look at the life of Jesus, because Jesus is God in the bod. (I think that was a run on sentence. Just go with me.) So club on Wednesday night...it was so fun, and so great! Booya!

-Thursday was the first time that I ran on the side of the highway. Mom if you're reading this, don't be mad! :) Here's the skinny. Kate and I took a bus to the mall to go see a movie. We've taken the bus there twice before, and I forgot for a second that this is Costa Rica and just because you have taken a bus somewhere before doesn’t necessarily mean other times are going to have the same end result. We were on the bus approaching our stop to get off. We could see the bridge that we use to cross the highway to get to the mall up in the distance. BUT THEN...our bus veers off of the highway and starts going on this side road in a totally different direction. Kate said "Oh no!" or something along those lines, and the guy next to her asked where she was going-"Adonde va?" Kate told him we were going to Tarramall, and he said "Get off now!" So we did. And we were left with two options-we could either walk along side of the highway, or run. So we ran our little hearts out because we wanted to get that experience over as fast as possible. I had pepper spray in my hand too...just to be safe! You might be thinking that we are crazy for running on the side of the highway, but really this is very, and I mean very, typical in Costa Rica. We see people all the time cruzin' along via bike or foot on the side of the stinking highway like it's no big deal, but I hope that was my one and only time. No me gusta.

-On Friday, Jessie, Kate, Fer, and I went to Arenal for the weekend. Arenal is a huge active volcano. Yes, I said active, and yes I was nervous the whole time that it was going to explode. All I know about volcanoes, thanks to elementary science fair projects, are that they erupt and hot lava comes gushing out often times killing people. Can you see why I was a little nervous? Good news though...I'm still alive! We had dinner Saturday night at the Arenal observatory restaurant where you can watch the volcano and the small eruptions. It was sweeet! Volcanoes. Man! They really are cool-mind blowing really. During the day on Saturday we went windsurfing. Let’s just say that I like wind surfing a million times more then actually surfing. It was challenging, but I was actually capable of doing it after a couple hours, unlike surfing where I just felt completely dominated and defeated. Wind Surfing...check!