A Little Bit of Language School

I apologize for the long time between posts. Honestly, in language school there isn't a lot to write home about - unless you're interested in hearing a new rule of the subjunctive tenses or the latest vocabulary list we're learning! With only two weeks of classes left, I thought I'd throw a couple of highlights in of what we've been doing over the last several weeks.

Valentine's Day was a pretty low-key day for us, but Corey and I grabbed lunch at La Fabrica, an Italian restaurant we used to love to go to when we lived here in 2006. It was just as wonderful as we remembered!
A new translation of the Bible in Spanish was released. It's called "la Palabra" which means "the Word". We went to a lecture on the new translation to find out what makes it new and special. Honestly, anything other than Reina Valera makes us happy. Reina Valera is like reading our King James version - a lot of "old" Spanish used. Imagine trying to read the KJV if English wasn't your first language. Yeah...that's what it feels like for us reading the Reina Valera. La Palabra is supposed to have been translated from the original texts (not from English translations or previous Spanish translations) but in more modern wording.

One week each trimester is dedicated to AGTS (Assemblies of God Theological Seminary) classes. This trimester Professor Johan Mostert taught us in the class "Counseling Special Populations." It was a fascinating class studying differences in culture and how we relate to people alike and different from us.

We are in Costa Rica on 90-day tourist visas, so we had to take a few days and go to Panama in order to renew our visas in Costa Rica. That sounds complicated, but basically we're required to spend 72 hours out of the country in order to renew our visas for another 90 days. We took an 8 hour bus ride from San Jose to the city of David, Panama. It was nice to have a little bit of relaxation. We enjoyed exploring and a visit to the beach!

A great cafe called Momentos ~ very yummy food and ice coffees!

We spent a few hours at the beach with great waves! Corey, Alex and Maggie took full advantage of the opportunity to boogie board!

All of the students had a "cultural field trip" to the Costa Rican National Museum to learn about the history and culture of this country. The museum used to be a fort. It is now filled with a butterfly garden and stories of what life was like years ago.

Standing where generals and presidents have stood before to address people below.

The 2011 Cincel students and teachers

Need a mug? This was a neat cafe where we stopped to grab coffee after the trip to the museum.

Once a month we have an English service where all of the local missionaries as well as the students gather for an evening of praise, worship and preaching in our native language.

Our chapel services on Wednesday are always in Spanish. As part of our preaching class, both Corey and I had to take a Wednesday and preach in Spanish - quite nerve-wracking, but we both survived!

Alex went through a bit of a transformation

~Tona