We've reached the 3-month mark!

2 more weeks of classes left in this trimester! Wow! We have definitely picked up speed in our classes over the past few weeks as we try to learn as much as possible before we change classes. Josh is learning past tense verbs (it's great that he can speak in more than just present tense now ;-) ) and I learned the 15th out of 15 rules of the subjunctive today. We have continued to use a lot of Spanish around the house and have gotten creative :-). Some friends of ours loaned us a fantastic board game called Settlers of Catan. We have been playing almost every night with our Tica family in Spanish and it's a ton of fun, not to mention great language practice. The currency in the game is madera (wood), ovejas (sheep), ladrillo (brick), piedra (stone), and trigo (wheat) - we will never forget those words in Spanish ever again!

I have been blessed with the opportunity to do a lot of dancing recently through the school! I have mentioned in previous blogs that we have been practicing traditional Costa Rican dances throughout the trimester and in the past two weeks we have gotten to perform them twice: once for the school's Cultural Day and once for the Costa Rican community around the school. It was an incredible rush to get to perform what we'd been working so hard on and it was super-fun to get to wear the traditional Costa Rican skirts, blouses, and shoes.






Also, for the past two weeks I have been choreographing and rehearsing a liturgical praise dance to perform at chapel and last Tuesday I got the chance to do so. Psalm 149 says "Praise his name with dancing, accompanied by tambourine and harp" and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to use a talent that God has given me to glorify him! I danced to the song "Shadowfeet" by Brooke Fraser. She is an awesome Christian contemporary artist and I'd definitely recommend checking out her music!

Josh and I have started meeting once a week with a missionary-pastor, Mike, and his wife, Tricia, to augment our scriptural knowledge. It has been an unbelievable blessing for us! We have realized that while we have a clear understanding of the importance of LIVING our faith day-to-day as a witness of Christ in our lives, we really need to focus a lot more on sharing the gospel verbally with those around us. Mike and Tricia have been talking with us about various ways of lovingly sharing our faith and answering any questions that we have. I have shared my testimony before but it feels great learning how to clearly articulate the gift of Christ Jesus and what that can mean for someone. We plan on continuing to meet with them in the weeks to come and want to specifically learn about Roman Catholicism in Latin America and ways to serve and minister to Roman Catholics in Ecuador.

There has been cause for praise as some of our best friends here at the Institute had their first baby on July 17th: a healthy, beautiful little girl named Eliana. We visited them in the hospital and have been over to visit at their apartment quite a few times and they are doing very well. :-D

We are definitely missing some people and things from home after 3 months here in Costa Rica. We've started really craving some foods from the states and Josh just tortures himself by watching the Food Network at night. Overall though, we are still incredibly happy here and blessed to be living in the will of God. Thank you for your prayers and love and enjoy the rest of your summer!!!



(We wanted to post a pic of Josh's birthday party from the last blog as well!)

Love and God Bless,

Steph and Josh

Panama, 4th of July, and Josh's Birthday!

What a crazy month its been!!

We've been in Costa Rica for over two months now - wow! Things are going great and we are continuing to learn a ton of Spanish. We only have 5 weeks left in this trimester so the teachers are really picking up steam so that we can learn everything we need to learn before our second trimester begins. We both have grammar exams tomorrow. It's hard to believe, but we are already picking which classes we'll be taking. Josh will be continuing to focus on grammar and conversation, and I am planning to take a Spanish/English translation class and also a Spanish Bible class. The translation class will be invaluable to me when mission teams come to Ecuador - I will definitely need to know how to translate for doctors, nurses, and pastors in the hospital. The Bible class will give me a lot of the tools I need to be able to clearly share my faith with the people we come into contact with. Also, we would like to hire a tutor to learn some key medical words and phrases so that we are prepared for the communication we will need to do. We are very excited about the upcoming semester!

We've also been kept very busy helping our "Little Brother" family. We've been talking to landlords over the phone (in Spanish - what a challenge!) and setting up meetings to view different houses. Tomorrow we will be meeting with the landlord of the house that our family has selected and signing the preliminary paperwork. I can tell already that having this experience will help us a ton once we are in Ecuador looking at properties for ourselves and for the hospital we'll be building.

Since we've been in Costa Rica so long, we needed to get our visas stamped so that we could stay in the country. At the end of June, Josh and I went with about 40 other people from the Institute to Panama for a weekend to achieve that goal. It was great fun, but also served its purpose. Panama was beautiful - but VERY hot! Thankfully the hotel that we stayed at had air conditioning and we got to enjoy AC for the first time since we arrived in May. We are now legally in the country for 90 more days!

A few weeks ago we had a family get-together for Fathers Day and our Costa Rican brother's 20th birthday. Once again our "new" family included us in the cooking and celebrating. Josh cooked a buffalo chicken dip, which was another great taste of home. This was also a very good opportunity to force ourselves to practice our spanish. We will try to post a picture of this later when the internet is working.

It was very interesting celebrating July 4th in Costa Rica. The week of July 4th was also Spiritual Emphasis Week at the school and we had chapel twice a day and a lot of other activities focused on unity and families. During that week, the school threw a 4th of July party complete with games, hotdogs, chips, and cupcakes so we definitely got a taste of home, and of course I made sure to wear red, white, and blue on the actual day! The only thing we were missing was fireworks :-). Check out the photo below. We were so happy to have a hotdog.



And finally, Josh's 25th birthday was yesterday! A girl in one of his classes bought him a small cake from a bakery close by and the he and I used some of his birthday money from his grandparents to enjoy dinner together last night. It was a lot of fun and as awesome as it is living with our Tico Family, it was very special for us to have just a little time alone.

We are looking forward to the upcoming weekend and we will continue to keep you updated! As always, we can't thank you enough for your support, prayers and love - we could not do this without your encouragement behind us.

Love and God Bless,

Steph and Josh

Busy Times

Hello All!!

Things are definitely busy here and still going great! I can't believe we are half-way through June already. Josh and I are continuing to see progress in our speaking ability and owe a lot of that to the family that we live with. They have invited us to attend family birthday parties, baby showers, and church events with them and it has been so much fun to really feel like we are a part of the family.

I cleared a huge hurdle today in class and am sending up prayers of thanksgiving. Each student in my class has to prepare and present an hour-long Bible study in Spanish, and I delivered mine today. I was beyond stressed this week as I prepared - Josh can attest to that ;-) - and I spent hours researching, revising, and reviewing my notes.

My topic was the ways in which God speaks to His people. I started out speaking about the more unique ways that God made contact with his followers in Biblical times (burning bush, angels, donkeys, dreams, etc.) but then made the point that in Old Testament times, it was actually far more common for God to speak directly to his chosen people. Regardless of the means of communication however, it is obvious that God was extremely purposeful in the ways that he spoke in the past. We often feel like God doesn't try as hard to speak to us now, but in reality, he has just altered his methods. The Bible is filled with verses explaining that scripture and the Holy Spirit are more than sufficient to communicate God's will directly to us. In the Old Testament, they knew nothing of Jesus Christ, the cross, the Holy Spirit, or the Bible (as we know it) and so perhaps God was a bit stronger in the way that he reached out to his followers. Now, however, God has sent his son as our savior and redeemer and it is our responsibility to take advantage of this grace by spending time in scripture and listening to the Holy Spirit within us.

Now, my delivery today wasn't perfect - there were a few stumbles and some grammatical mistakes - but I am so happy that I was able to coherently convey a message to the class AND I was able to fill the entire hour!

Josh and I have also begun to tackle another project: being a "Big Brother" to a family coming to the school! During our preparations to come to language school here, we requested a "Big Brother" or in our case, a "Big Sister" and a woman already attending school here helped us find our Tica family to live with and answered any and ALL questions that we had about Costa Rica and the school. In requesting this help, we also agreed to BE a "Big Brother" for someone coming to start school in August. We were recently assigned our family and we have begun looking at houses for them. This is awesome Spanish practice for us and also great practice for when we look for a house in Ecuador because we have to call Costa Rican landlords and talk to them about what we are looking for and what the family needs in a house, as well as go visit the houses and take pictures to send to the family. We have seen 3 houses so far and we hope to see several more so that we can give them a few choices. We are very excited to get to meet them when they arrive in a couple of months!

Other than that, it has pretty much been business as usual for us for the past few weeks. Thank you so much for your prayers and love! We miss you!

Love and God Bless,

Steph and Josh

Becoming a Part of the Community

We have officially been in Costa Rica for a month - and what a month it's been!

Since we've been here we have tried to take advantage of every opportunity to get involved and learn more about the language and the culture. We are really enjoying the church that we are attending with our Tica Family, and this past Sunday they held a Walk/Run to increase their presence in the community. We were hesitant to commit to running the 5k, but we eagerly signed up to walk the 2k with our Tica sister. There was a great turnout and it was a ton of fun. Once everyone arrived at the finish line, we had a church service at the local park and heard the testimony of a former professional soccer player. At the end of the event, Josh claimed the prize for the second fastest gringo in the race, but I didn't have the heart to tell him there were only two of us ;-).

I am thrilled to say that I have been able to combine my love of dance with my language learning! In July, the school celebrates Costa Rican Culture Day and every Monday a group of girls meets with one of the Spanish professors to learn traditional Costa Rican dances to perform for the school. It has been so much fun getting to merge my passions and I can't wait to perform!

On Thursday, Josh and I visited a local Nicaraguan community called La Carpio. This is an extremely poor area and the Spanish Language Institute has set up a ministry providing computer classes for the men, jewelry-making classes for the women, and childcare for the kids. It was a very moving experience taking part in this ministry and is one of the poorest areas I've ever seen. Our host family has explained to us that the government tries to help this area continually but there are huge problems with alcoholism and crime so it hasn't done much good. They told us that ambulances can't even go into the area because while the paramedics are helping the victim, people steal things from the vehicle. We are praying that God will show us if and how we can help with this ministry.

We are looking forward to jumping into June with enthusiasm and continuing to learn more of the language. We will keep you updated!

Love and God Bless,

Costa Rica Update

School is really ramping up and we are working hard! The professors are very encouraging and do a great job teaching, but it can definitely get overwhelming. We are so blessed to have each other and also to have such a great Tica family that is willing to help us any time we have questions.

This past weekend was crazy, but very fun. Early Saturday morning, we went with Flor (our Tica mom) to la feria (outdoor market) to buy fruits and veggies. It was fascinating and a great learning experience. Our family thought that we needed a little break from school so after la feria they took us on a surprise trip to Irazu Volcano about 30 minutes from San Jose. Since we arrived here I have been talking about how much I wanted to see a volcano, and I was so excited to have the opportunity! Here are some pictures of our trip:





On Sunday, I had the opportunity to go to a real tica baby shower for one of the teachers at the school where Flor works. What an experience! There was food, games, more food, presents, and more food. I got a LOT of practice on my Spanish talking to all of the wonderful women there.

This week has been going well so far. Each Monday, I have to give a 20 minute devotion in Spanish for my language class and this week I focused on the parallel that exists between the homesickness that I feel being away from my family, and the homesickness that Christians experience being here on earth. 2 Corinthians 5 talks about our heavenly dwelling and says:

"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. . . Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

It is comforting to know that just as I have the very real hope of seeing my family and friends again here on earth, we also have the very real hope of the return of Jesus Christ to take us to our permanent home with God the Father. What a comfort!

Joshua and I would ask that you would pray for us as we continue to work hard to learn this language. We are so grateful for your continued encouragement and love.

Love and God Bless

School Days

We have officially been in classes for a week today! And what a week . . .

Josh and I are in different classes (which is probably a good thing!) and we are both learning a ton. The classes typically only have 4-6 people in them which means we get a lot of one-on-one attention, and with our Tica family at home, we are getting plenty of practice speaking. In the morning, we each have a language (conversation) class mixed with some phonetics. Then, we have two hours of grammar class. We come home and eat lunch and then do our homework and practice with our Tica family. The school does a great job of encouraging us to get out into the community to learn. For example, each week I have to come up with at least 4 questions on a topic of my choice and then find 2-4 people out the community and ask them the questions. Today Josh and I went to a local park and talked to a woman watching her grandchild for about 30 minutes. It's definitely nerve-wracking to just walk up to some one and start asking questions in a foreign language, but it is really good practice and she was SO nice! She even gave me two mangos to take home :). We are treating this as our full-time job right now and so we tend to spend about 8 hours per day working on our Spanish. We can already tell a difference - even if it's a small difference - in the way we communicate!

We are eager to learn more about the Latin culture as this will be very important when we get to Ecuador. Our Tica mom was nice enough to volunteer to take us to see the inauguration (or "la toma de posecion") of the new Costa Rican president who also happens to be the first female president of Costa Rica. It was an inspiring experience and a real celebration of Costa Rican culture. The heads of state from countries all over the world were there - Georgia, Colombia, Honduras, Spain, Panama, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and lots more. Plus, there were performances of traditional dances and songs and every one was more than willing to help the "gringos" understand what was going on. It was another great opportunity to practice our Spanish. Here are a few pictures:



The new president



Josh and I taking it all in



It was great to see the national pride



A true patriot

Once again, we are so grateful for all of your prayers and support - please pass our website on to anyone who might be interested in our ministry. Feel free to email us at jrtucker8503@gmail.com. We will keep you updated!

Love and God Bless!

Stephanie does not let me write much on the blog so while she is in the bathroom I decided to post this picture. This is me and our wonderful Tica mom (Tica is what most Costa Ricans call themselves). While we were sitting around the dinner table talking, in spanish of course, we noticed that she is either really short or I am really tall. Thank you all for your support. Please keep in touch. If you want to, you can also send us mail at:

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

This is a forwarding address to our school in Costa Rica.

I have to go Stephanie is back in the room!!! :)