!Dios es bueno siempre!

BECKY: I went a week and a half ago to a specialist for the eczema on my hands. What an answer to prayer! Within a day my hands where in the least amount of pain that they had been in for previous month. I go this Wednesday for a fellow up appointment. The dermatologist really knew just what to do for me, and took pictures of my hands to document them to be able to compare the progress in the following weeks. She was the best dermatologist I have been to.

THE BOYS: We thought that Josiah had chicken pocks last week. So we kept him away from kids, and didn’t go to church last week, we were a little perplexed because they have both had the vaccine. We were praying about what to do with the possibility of missing school for a week. But, Dios es bueno! But the spots didn't do much and went away as quick as they came. We had a doctor friend of ours look at it, he has been a blessing to have on the campus.
We have a long weekend this week. Yesterday we went and enjoyed the children’s museum in down town San Jose. It used to be an old prison that looks like a castle. The boys really enjoyed it there! Their favorite things were the pretend banana plantation, coffee shop, live animals, and flying a decommissioned plane. Elliott liked the animals until a big bird came over and pecked at his little finger. He didn’t get hurt, just frightened.

STEVE: As I think back at Spanish at UNH, it was for 1 hour three times a week; on top of 3-4 other classes. Here we are getting 4 hours of Spanish 5 days a week! I have always enjoyed studying spanish in the past but could never put the time into it. The teachers are fantastic, certainly the best I've had. We had been praying for opportunities to use Spanish more. We were talking to our neighbors and they offered to practice Spanish with us teaching us common phrases, and helping us with home work. We are going to have them over for dinner this week, and hopefully set up a time to meet with them that would work out best for both of us. Pray that God would use us in any way that he would have regarding the relationship with our neighbors. This would be a wonderful opportunity for us to learn the language, build a relationship and share Christ with them too. We had a great time with some fellow students here from Korea who are going to Mexico (Elias and Joy). They live a couple houses down. They don't speak english entirely and I don't speak Korean, so we've met half way and converse in Spanish! They are a great example of hospitality.

I had the chance finally to play soccer the other night, I felt like a fish in water. I have to admit my walk to school the next day was a little belabored....

Thank you for your continued prayers!
The Diems

Mucho Agua!

On Monday Morning at 4:00 am I thought that I heard our neighbor taking a shower. The walls are not very sound proof here, and we share walls with each of our neighbors. When I went down stairs around 5:45 this morning I found out that it was not our neighbor who was taking a shower. ..A pipe in under the kitchen sink came apart and our entire first floor was covered with over an inch of water. Steve and I spent the morning sweeping the water out the door. Thankfully the only thing that really got ruined was Steve’s grammar book ( he can get a new one easily). The floor is dry now and Steve replaced the flex pipe that broke off at the nut (he got good practice using plumming vocabulary at the hardware store). Josiah came down the stairs this morning and said “ Dad, why is there a big puddle in our house” It was very funny! We are thankful that we were here when it happened, and thankful that there was not a lot of damage done. I should have shot a little video of it, but was not thinking of that at the time, we had to get to school! A “memory making" morning!

Dental Floss - $5

Please be praying for Josiah. He has a sore on the bottom of his foot that is infected. He had a hard time walking today. One of our friends at school is a doctor and took a look at it and told us what antibiotic to put him on. One of the great things about living here is that you can walk into a pharmacy and tell them what prescription you would like without even having anything written from a doctor. So now he is on antibiotics, and I have another appointment scheduled for Thursday with the Doctor that comes to our school.
Also be praying for my hands. I have had exima for the past 13 years. Some times it is worse then others. My hands have been swelling, and blistering. I was in pain today just holding a pen and trying to write for two hours in grammar class. Mary Dennett gave me a name of a really great dermatologist in the area and I’m going to try to get in there as soon as possible. It has been such a blessing having the Dennettes here and the help of our big brother and sister Steve & Diane.
Update on our date! We had a wonderful time! We went to an Argentine restaurant. For those of you who know us well, we loved Portsmouth NH, and this restaurant reminded us of a restaurant that would be in Portsmouth. The food was great, and about half price of what we would have paid in the states.
We are enjoying the food here very much. We are addicted to pineapple salsa that I make. And these wonderful all natural popsicles that you see the boys eating in the pictures. (The pineapple is less then a dollar and the popsicles are twenty five cents a each). We are learning our way around and trying to learn from the ticos of where to shop for different things etc. We have our grocery bill down a lot after taking some tips. I think a have learned my lesson after paying $5 for dental floss, $4 for Q-tips, and $3 for a role of scotch tape. It is about 550 colonies to one American dollar. Sometimes American products are cheap and sometimes they are 2x as much. Also, it is hard to figure out the price sometimes…until you get home and whip out a calculator with the receipt.
Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! We enjoy hearing from people! Thanks for the posts! The Diems

Who is Oscar Arias Sanchez?

Last Monday was the Costa Rican independence day. Which ment we had a long weekend off from school. Steve brought Josiah to the little parade by our house put on by a local school. They make lanterns out of paper, lit a tea light, and marched around following a marching band. Kids as young as Elliott where walking around with little lanterns too.
Monday we went down town to the park with a group from our school. We saw the president of Costa Rica (Óscar Arias Sánchez - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Arias_S%C3%A1nchez) and their were ambassadors from around the world. It was neat to be that close to them. We had TV cameras on us almost the whole time, because it was unusual to see “gringos” there. There were also people taking pictures of our kids to put into newspapers etc. When we went back to school Elliott’s teacher said that she saw him on TV that night. And this morning the guy that we buy coffee from in the open market said that his daughter saw me and Elliott on TV! It would have been neat to see it, but we don’t have a TV yet.
Tonight Steve and I get to go out on the town without the kids! There are three single girls that are teachers at the grade school on campus for the year. They called us up this week and asked if they could watch our kids for us Saturday. Josiah is excited about playing superman with them. God has provided so many great people to encourage us in different ways.
Last night we had pizza with the Dennett’s and their kids at our house. We really enjoyed getting to know them better, and just encouraging one another with what the Lord has been teaching us along this journey of serving the Lord. Josiah loves there son Brody, they are the same age and very much alike. It’s sad that they are only here for one trimester with us…. But we are excited for them to move on to where the Lord has called them to serve. They have been a great source of encouragement to us in the first month here, and before we came too. Today I’m going out with my big sister Diane, and a couple other women from the school to a little thrift store near by. It will be nice to get out for a little while.
The boys are adjusting well to there school. Josiah surprised me with how much Spanish he can comprehend, he is doing great! Elliott is doing wonderful in his class as well. He loves his teachers, and is taking his regular morning nap there too. Praise the Lord!
Continue to pray for our health, this week no one was sick! We know that is because of answered prayers by all of you. Also pray for our safety, it is a very real issue here, pray that the Lords shield of protection would just continue to surround us. Thank you for your prayers! Also pray for our time management that we would continue to spend the amount of time needed each day to learn this language well to convey Gods love to others.
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