We have been in Ecuador for 25 days and they have been packed full!

This past Saturday, we finished working a two-week project with 4 medical professionals from Missouri. The team worked at the hospital in Milagro and Josh and I helped manage the trip and did some translation for them. There were two medical residents, their attending, and an ophthalmic tech and they had been working with the medical director from the hospital in Milagro for a year arranging the details of their trip. This was a different sort of trip because in addition to the team spending time seeing patients and doing surgeries, the medical director here in Ecuador taught the doctors a different technique for cataract surgeries. It was really inspiring to see the team-work that took place.

The team arrived on January 29th and we spent the 30th doing a little sight-seeing and introducing them to Ecuador.



We climbed almost 500 steps to reach this lighthouse in Guayaquil!

The evening of the 30th we went to the hospital and arranged all of the supplies that they were able to bring so that they could start work first thing on Monday morning. They all worked VERY hard throughout the past year to acquire an incredible amount of donations from hospitals and medical companies in the states and they were even able to leave a lot of donated supplies for the hospital's use after they left.






Supplies the team brought

Everyone worked very hard that first week and it flew by. Before we knew it the weekend had arrived. The team decided they wanted to visit the mountains for their weekend excursion so we went to Cuenca. Cuenca is BEAUTIFUL! We stayed at a great little hotel, saw all the sites, and headed back to Milagro on Sunday in time to see the Super Bowl in Spanish at our hotel!

The second week of the trip went just as well as the first and the team left very happy last Saturday. We are so appreciative of their work and look forward to more MMI trips in the future!

Josh and I rested over the weekend and headed back to the hospital today. We were able to spend time observing the Social Worker and we also got to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the hospital:




Tomorrow we will be going to the transportation office to find out what we need to do to get our driver's license. Hopefully this process will be quick and painless but we are prepared for anything!

Oh, for all those who love T.J.Maxx and there incredible bargains, we found a "sister"-store (A.K.A. knock-off store) in Cuenca:




Happy Valentine's Day and God Bless,

Stephanie and Josh

Ecuador!

On Friday, January 21st at 2:00 am, Josh and I officially arrived in Guayaquil, Ecuador! We are so thrilled to be here after a year and a half of preparation. Thank you so much to everyone who supported us throughout this process!!!

We didn't waste any time getting down to business after we arrived. After a few hours of sleep, we got up and dressed and drove with our host Jone and our boss about an hour to the existing MMI permanent center in Milagro. We met the staff of the hospital and got a tour of the premises. Here are some pictures of the hospital:





Afterwards, we got some lunch and purchased a pre-payed cell phone so that we had a way to communicate with Jone. That evening we met again with the hospital staff and some members of the board of the hospital to discuss more details of our goals here in Ecuador. The meeting went very well and it was decided that we will spend most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at the hospital to learn everything we can about how it is run.

We spent all day on Saturday in meetings with our boss planning out where we will travel and when, and also when we will begin to assist and direct short-term projects here in Ecuador. The plan is for us to live here in Guayaquil for about 2 months to learn the workings of the hospital and to take care of getting our visa registered, our censo (ID card), our license, and a car. Then we will travel around Ecuador doing site reports on multiple cities that are possible locations for the new permanent center. Throughout the year we will also assist the current project directors with short-term projects until we learn the ropes and can direct our own projects. Needless to say it will be a VERY busy year! After the meetings, we all went downtown and had dinner before our boss had to leave to go to Bolivia.

Yesterday, we attended a beautiful church:



and we finally got a chance to unpack! It is nice to feel settled in here and to begin working. Today we have been working through some of the documents from our meetings the past few days, and we spent about 3 hours at the Subdireccion General de Extranjeria starting the process of getting our Visa registered. We didn't quite have all of the papers we needed, but now we think we have everything, and we are planning to return to the office tomorrow to finish up with this part.

The past few days have been hectic, overwhelming and stressful, but also so exciting! We know that God is with us and that brings us comfort and the confidence that we need to begin this enormous job. Please pray that we are able to obtain all of the paperwork that we need so that we can get our censo and license as quickly as possible. That way we can focus 100% on our work in the hospital. We will keep everyone posted on how it goes!

Love and God Bless,

Stephanie and Joshua

Costa Rican Thanksgiving!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone!

Josh and I have had an awesome couple of weeks celebrating with gringos and Ticos alike. We did have classes on Thanksgiving Day (I was so bummed to have to miss the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Dog Show!) but we got together with a group of friends that evening and had a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal. Then on Saturday Josh and I cooked another Thanksgiving meal for our Tica family so that they could share that experience with us. It was delicious! We had chicken instead of turkey (the turkeys here cost $72 a piece!), but otherwise we had what a lot of you probably had on Thanksgiving - mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, bread, salad and pumpkin pie. It was a lot of fun and our family really enjoyed and appreciated it.

Yesterday marked our being in Costa Rica for 7 months and we have 2 weeks left. It's definitely hard to believe. We took our "final exams" last Friday and found out today that we both did very well. The exam is more like a final evaluation and includes a 30 minute oral exam and a 2.5 hour written exam. It was very challenging but we are thrilled with our grades and how much we have progressed since we arrived here.

We will continue to have classes through next Thursday and then we will graduate from ILE on Friday and hop on a plane to good old NC on Sunday, December 12th. We cannot wait to see family, friends and of course pets :). We both know that the goodbyes that we say here will be incredibly difficult. The bonds formed here are so strong and I know a lot of tears will be shed, but we have the hope of seeing each other again - if not in this life then in heaven before our King!

We can't wait to see you all in a few weeks!!

Love and God Bless,

Stephanie and Josh

P.S. Here are some pics from the past couple of weeks:


A game of touch football with friends - and that's AMERICAN football, not soccer!


Josh and I cooking up some American traditions (doesn't Josh look cute in his apron?!)


Our Tica family after a wonderful Thanksgiving meal


Thanksgiving Day meal with friends


A friend of ours (6'10") with a Kuna Indian from Panama. God created us in all shapes and sizes!

What a busy month we've had!! Josh and I are very involved both inside and outside the school and we are so thankful for the opportunities that God has provided. As an update from our last blog, the prayer cards that we ordered came in and we are so excited to be able to mail them to everyone when we get back to the states in December!

We had our mid-term evaluations from our teachers today and both of us received A's in all of our classes. :) Knowing that we only have 7 weeks left does add some pressure to our learning though. We are so thrilled with our progress over the past 6 months - it really is amazing - but we don't want to lose a moment of the time we have left here with these great teachers and our Tica family. This week is Spiritual Emphasis week at the Institute which means that they bring in a pastor/missionary to share with the students twice a day to "refill our spiritual tanks" since language learning can definitely be draining. To encourage everyone in the institute to attend the after-school sessions, the teachers cannot assign homework or give tests this week. It is undoubtedly refreshing and I trust that it will give everyone the break that they need to push through to the end of the trimester.

The past month has provided some challenges that are par for the course when living in another country and probably foreshadow issues that Josh and I will have in Ecuador. We have made some very close friends living here, two of whom are Jessica and Tim who are a couple who will be staying in Costa Rica and starting a business in the construction industry while sharing the gospel. Since they will be living here, they have purchased a car and we have made plans on about 3 different Saturdays now to take a day-trip to the coast (about 2 hours away) and see the beach. About a month ago on a Wednesday we decided that the next Saturday we would go to the coast in their car. Well, after huge downpours at the end of the week, all three of the routes to the beach were washed out. In place of the beach, we headed into the mountains to explore and ended up having a really nice day! Well, two weeks later, the roads were all fixed and we packed up the car at 7am Saturday morning and hit the road. We made it to the gas station on the corner and the attendant accidentally put diesel in their car instead of gasoline. Needless to say that put a kink in the plans and we had to get their poor car towed to the mechanic's shop so that the engine could be flushed. Again, that day we ended up visiting the market and cooking a great dinner together and had a great time even though we weren't at the beach. Finally last weekend we were bound and determined to make it to the coast and it turns out the fuel pump on the car has to be replaced. I feel so badly for Tim and Jess as they have had to make so many repairs to their only mode of transportation, and I am trying to mentally prepare myself for issues such as these to arise in Ecuador. Just as Tim and Jessica did we will be sure to purchase our car from a reliable source, but used cars in Latin America just aren't as reliable as in the states, not to mention that cars cost about twice as much in Latin America than in the US. But, as Teo Beato one of our MMI mentors famously says, "if you aren't flexible, you will break," so you just have to keep a sense of humor about it all. God willing, we will make it to the beach before we head back to the states. ;-)

We are continuing to teach English as a Second Language and it is such a wonderful experience. We have the beginners' class so we are trying hard to balance teaching them a lot of material but not going too fast. As the leaders of this ministry remind us though, the real point is to take advantage of opportunities to share God's word. We teach for 50 minutes, have a 20 minute time of sharing and Bible study, and then teach for 50 more minutes. We are so glad to have gotten involved in this ministry and feel like a lot of times we are learning just as much or more than the students are!

As we get closer to January when we head to Ecuador, we ask for your prayers about every aspect of the upcoming transition. We are beginning the process of obtaining our missionary visas and of course thinking much more concretely about our first steps once we get on the ground. God is putting some amazing contacts in our path including the head of the board of directors of Clinica Biblica, the largest private hospital in Costa Rica. He works with Latin American Missions in addition to his work with the hospital and we were able to meet with him this week. We spoke for about 2 hours and we are very excited about the insight that he can provide about the healthcare industry in Latin America. He will definitely be a valuable resource as we move forward.

It's hard to believe that after about a year and a half of preparation, we are almost there!!

As always, thank you so much for your love, support and prayers. We'll be sending out our quarterly update in November so keep an eye on the mailbox!

Love and God Bless,

Stephanie and Josh

New Developments

Hello again!
At this point, Joshua and I are well into the trimester and continue to see improvement on our Spanish every day. I was actually pretty sick last week with a cold/flu and am happy to say that I am starting to feel better and was able to go to school today. My teachers were very understanding about everything and thanks to information from my classmates I was able to stay caught up on my work.

Last week was a big week for a number of reasons:

First, Josh and I were able to have a conference call with a key member of MMI who gave us more information about what our first few months in Ecuador will be like! It has been decided that we will spend our first 2-3 months in Guayaquil in southern Ecuador. This is where the existing hospital is located, and starting out here will give us a chance to get to know the MMI staff currently in Ecuador and familiarize ourselves with the set up of the hospital. From there we will spend 2-3 months in Cuenca and 2-3 months in Quito (we don't know in what order yet) to investigate possible locations for the new permanent medical center. We received a lot of other helpful information on that call, but the closer we get to arriving in Ecuador the more we see that this is God's project and we are simply lucky enough to be involved in what He is doing in Ecuador. We must use the knowledge the He has given us to make logical decisions, but He will be driving this project - and has been since before we were even involved. We give thanks to God every day for giving us the opportunity to be here and also for all of you who are supporting us. Thank you!

Secondly, after our time in missions training in Colorado and spending time with all of the missionary families who are here in Costa Rica, we have realized that an indispensable item for a missionary is something called a "prayer card". This is basically a postcard with our photo, information about what we'll be doing, and our contact information that we can keep with us and give out to people. It enables us to keep in touch with people that we meet and also spreads awareness about our work in Ecuador. The more people praying for this endeavor the better! So . . . I asked a classmate of mine who is an amateur photographer (and VERY talented) if she would help us create a prayer card. We walked around our neighborhood and she took some great photos of Joshua and I and then she designed a prayer card for us. We will be ordering them soon and you should all be receiving one by the end of the year!

Thirdly, September 15th was Costa Rica's Independence Day and it was wonderful to get to see the way that they celebrate. Although July 4th revolves a lot more around yummy food, there are a lot of similarities between the two days. We saw red, white, and blue everywhere (since those are Costa Rica's flag's colors as well), and there were fireworks. Also, it is a national holiday so we did get a day off of school to watch the Independence Day parades. There are, however, some differences. For one thing, on the 14th of September at 6pm, the entire country stops what they are doing and sings the national anthem - pretty neat! Also on the night of the 14th, there are special parades of "faroles" which are elaborately decorated lanterns made by the kids and every school has a parade of faroles. The students practice for months at their schools to perform in the parades held the morning of the 15th. There is a band, baton-twirlers, cheerleaders, a drill-team, and the youngest kids are dressed up in traditional costumes and ride along with the parade. Even though I was a bit under-the-weather, I was able to see some of one of the parades on Wednesday morning. Here are some pictures:







Well, Josh and I both have tests tomorrow so we better hit the books. Hasta luego!!

Love and God Bless,

Stephanie and Josh

Back to School!

Backpacks are packed and pencils are sharpened! It's just like back-to-school time in the states - except for the fall colors :-). Classes at the Spanish Language Institute started back on Tuesday and these teachers mean business! They know we have one trimester under our belts so they are cracking down right from the start. Josh has 2 hours of conversation class followed by 2 hours of grammar. He is definitely feeling challenged, but I think he's up for it. I just hope his teachers give him more homework this trimester so I won't be the only one staying up at night working! I have 2 hours of translation class and then 2 hours of conversation class with a focus on the Bible. The translation class is very intense - from day-one we started translating passages from Spanish to English and from English to Spanish in writing and verbally. The goal is to be able to clearly interpret for someone in either direction. Everyone in the class has definitely had to get over our nervousness and stay on our toes because our teacher will put any one of us on the spot at any moment. Thank goodness it is a loving and encouraging environment! The conversation class is very similar to the one I had last trimester, just with a different emphasis and more complex sentence structures.

Josh and I have also decided to take extra classes to learn medical Spanish. One of the teachers at the school will be tutoring us for an hour two days a week so that we can be as prepared as possible for work in the medical community once we arrive in Ecuador.

We anticipate this trimester being even busier than last. On top of harder classes and extra tutoring, we are involved in volleyball one night a week at the school and I am continuing to perform traditional Costa Rican dances around the community when our group receives an invitation. Additionally I will have a women's Bible study one night a week, Josh and I will meet once a week with a pastor and his wife for mentoring, and we are praying about joining an ESL program for Ticos in our community.

Things are still going very well with our Tica family and we have made some very strong bonds with fellow missionaries at the Institute. Some of them have gone or will be going to live in Ecuador and I can't tell you how nice it is to already have a network - albeit a small network - of friends there when we arrive. A couple that we met here just left yesterday for Quito and they already told us that we can stay with them when we first get there while we are investigating locations for the hospital.

Well, time to get working on homework! We love all of you - thank you for your continued prayers and support!!

Love and God Bless,

Steph and Josh


From Josh:

If anyone would like to send us a letter we would love to hear from everyone back home. Our address is:

Joshua Tucker
Spanish Language Institute
SJO-8609
P.O. Box 025240
Miami, FL 33102

Also, we will be back in the USA from mid-December - mid-January and we will be spending time fundraising and sharing about our ministry in Ecuador. If you know of any churches or organizations were we might be able to go and speak please let us know!

We have finished our first trimester at ILE and we are experiencing a small sense of accomplishment having passed the half-way mark. In our day-to-day life however, we encounter the reality that there is a lot left to learn! Reaching this point has also meant saying some goodbyes which is always difficult to do. It is easy to build very strong bonds very quickly here and it is a hard fact that we might not see these friends again on the earth as we know it. What a blessing to be a Christian and to have the promise that we will see each other again on the new earth!

The end of the trimester has also brought some things to be excited about! My parents, my sister and my brother came to visit for a few days and I cannot express how wonderful it was to see them. We also had the joy of introducing them to our TIca family and sharing a meal together. There was so much love in that room - it was unbelievable! They enjoyed seeing a little bit of Costa Rica and learning about what our lives have been like the last few months. Now when we Skype they have a better idea of what we're talking about.

The same day that my parents left our "little brother" family arrived and for the past few days we have been helping them get settled. It was a huge prayer answered that the repairs to the house were finished on the day that we told them it would be and they are all moved in! They have four adorable kids and it seems like everyone is adjusting very well to this new environment. We have taken them shopping, shown them around the area, and today we went to the outdoor market to buy fruits and veggies. It has been really fun to use the knowledge that we have gained to help out someone else. I definitely remember what it's like your first few days and if Josh and I can make it a little bit easier for them, that's great!

We are feeling a little bit of apprehension about our new classes because we know they will be more challenging than last trimester, but we are excited to get back into our routine after a little break. Thank you again for all of your prayers and love!

Love and God Bless,

Steph and Josh