At graduation from language school, on April 20, Herb gave words of thanks to the teachers at the Language School. Of course, he had to speak in Spanish and in front of all of the teachers and students of the school but he did a great job! It was a final exam that all of the other students were glad they didn’t have to take!
On Wednesday, April 20 we “graduated” from our four months of language school at the Instituto de Lengua Española in San José, Costa Rica. We received over 300 hours of class time (plus MANY hours of homework, study and practice). We learned a lot, we are not nearly fluent but we hope to continue to improve our study and practice of Spanish.
While in Costa Rica several people asked if Heather Braden (a fellow student and great study partner) was our daughter, so we decided to just “adopt” her! It was a joy to get to know Heather and we pray for God’s richest blessings on her life and ministry. Heather is presently continuing her Spanish education in Costa Rica.
Here Herb is with Casey and Becky Kuhlman, their son, Levi and Casey’s sister, Megan. We met the Kuhlmans here in language school and they too have a burden to reach Hispanics. We have been blessed by this young couple’s desire to serve the Lord and to assist in reaching the over 50 million Hispanics in the U.S..
This is the church we have been attending while here in Costa Rica for these four months of language school. The building is very simple and really doesn’t look like a church from the outside but we have enjoyed the faithful teaching and preaching of the Word here. It’s been especially exciting as we have slowly grown in our understanding of the Spanish language – just last Sunday we were listening when all of a sudden Wanda realized, “The pastor is speaking rather quickly but I am understanding him!” That was encouraging!
We are so thankful for the gracious, patient help of Carlos, a christian gentleman from Nicaragua who agreed to help us with Spanish conversation. We meet with him for one hour twice a week . . . just to talk in Spanish. His clear pronunciation and patient correction of our Spanish has been a real blessing. And our hearts have been blessed by being able to discuss spiritual matters too. It’s a joy to meet a brother in another language!
We had to leave Costa Rica for 72 hours to renew our visa so a total of 51 of us took at 10 hour bus trip to Nicaragua for a few days. The heat and humidity of Nicaragua made us appreciate the more pleasant temperatures in San Jose, Costa Rica. We are thankful that our language school is located in Costa Rica – for many reasons and weather is one of them. We never thought we would be visiting Nicaragua but life has lots of surprises.
Here is Herb and Ben in front of our house here in Costa Rica. We live with a very gracious hostess, Maria Zuniga. We are grateful for the place where we have been living for the past 3 months. We only have about 3 1/2 weeks left here in language school.