One week done...

well... it's been one week. i'm starting to understand what the next couple of months will be looking like for me. my house is an incredible blessing and is reminding me of the value of a simple lifestyle. however, it takes a lot of time to maintain a clean house. i can only cook one thing at a time, i don't have a dishwasher or washer/dryer machines. therefore, i anticipate roughly 20 hours a week just to maintain my house and feed myself. this is more than i expected, but praise the lord a work opportunity came up that is truly an answer to prayer. i will probably be teaching english two days a week and drama one day a week to elementary school students (all in english) and it is sort of a tutoring program so the parents will pay me directly. essentially, i will be making $500 a month for 12 hours of work... what a deal, huh? the school that i will probably be working at is called lighthouse.

i told you more about my involvement at theos in my previous email, so i will tell you a little bit about my past week. on saturday i went up to poas with dylia, gloriana, dona debbie and some students from unidos por cristo. this is where the earthquake hit. we were planning on just helping with food distribution, but they had plenty of volunteers and a system that wasn't very organized. so... dona debbie began looking for other opportunities and we ended up going into a restricted access area. this was in san rafael, one of the most hard hit areas and it was considered very dangerous, so even relief workers weren't allowed. however, we went with the intention of finding families who had experienced damage to their house and asking them what their needs were. essentially, the govt. has gone in to see what happened, but they haven't really told the people what to do or tried to find out how to help. so we had surveys that would be able to clearly convey what the people needed... in many cases it was a place to live.

one man that we met was in a house when the earthquake happened. he was thrown to the floor immediately and was tossed from one side of the house to the other throughout (40 seconds!) and had absolutely no control over himself. we saw one house... more like a pile of sticks, that had fallen off a cliff as the whole cliff gave out in a landslide. there was a man and a little girl inside the house. somehow... they both survived. this is a picture of what used to be their house:

i find it strange to think that this terrible catastrophe is just part of what the earth does. its so terrible and many people lost their lives or their homes or the majority of their belongings. praise the lord that this situation has caused many people to be generous with their time and resources in order to benefit those who are in need. there is an abundance of workers and of food for those impacted and it is incredible to see how a country without an army has supported itself through this difficult time. i'm learning a lot. thanks for your prayers. i miss you all, but i am having a blast... i really do miss you.