Hey Little Sister

Hey Grace! This is for you :]
Um, also...I may have been a bit sleep deprived when I made this... Just a heads up

Hey Grace

verse 1

Hey Grace it’s your sister and it’s late at night  (or technically very early in the morning)

But I need to make sure that you’re all right    (that's the dad part I talked about)

I should have gone to bed an hour ago      (or 4)

But  after 3 cups of coffee here I go  (don't drink coffee Grace)

verse 2

I havent’ showered so I hope I don’t I smell  (this isn't true. I smell beautiful.)

Something tells me you aren’t doing so well

My roommates have gone off to bed

But you’re on my mind so I’m filming this Instead 

verse 3

I should be staying quiet but I’m writing a song

Cause interpretive dance and I just don’t get along (plus,  there's not enough room in this bathroom)

Sorry to admit that I’m not much of a mime

But for some reason half asleep I can rhyme (well, kinda)

chorus 1

I think that’s because when you’re far away

You’re all I think about each single day

I  hope that you know how much you mean to me

Though we live apart you’re still my family (Sounds a little cheesy, but you went through a High School Musical phase, so I figured you'd still appreciate it :])

verse 4

I bet all of facebook thinks I’m out of my mind (I was going to originally upload this on facebook but it took too long)

But I don’t care cause I’ve been lucky to find

Someone as incredible and genuine as you

You’re so adorable, don’t deny it’s true  :D

verse 5

You speak your mind and make me so proud (You have no idea how proud I am. I love telling all the girls in bible club that I have an amazing little sister their age)

And all I want to do is be with you now

You are so smart and sweet and such

I miss you and I love you so much

chorus 2

But it makes me sad that you’re upset

And I’m sorry I’m not in Billings yet

Just hang in there because I’ll see you soon

And know always  forever I’ll love you

I love you Grace Anne Schwarz!

Noche de Cultura

I forgot to add that we had a culture night! Natalie played Rebecca's violin and Nathan and I played "At Your Feet" by Casting Crowns, half in Spanish, half in English. It was kind of last minute, but it was a lot of fun :)

Last thing before I forget-The other week, after church, some of the guys were sitting on the couch messing around on the computer, recording themselves and watching video's on youtube. Daniel showed me one that they made. It starts off with Daniel singing "Hey Soul Sister" by Train. So the video is recording as Daniel sings exaggeratedly, then all of the sudden the music pauses and his face gets serious. You hear someone in the background say goodbye and Daniel responds with a causual "buenas noches." Then there's a slight pause as he watches the guy leave...and the music and lip syncing start again! It was sooo funny! It is now my goal to get him to send that video to me before I leave!

do, re, mi, donkey, nacho!

Sorry I haven't been very good at keeping up at this. There's a lot of little things and I don't have enough time or patience to sit down and write it all out, so I'm sorry but I'm being lazy and doing bullet points. Here we go:

-sand dollar races with Justine (they don't go very fast in case you were wondering)

-We had a VBS and had a great turnout! It was a lot of fun and we got to meet a lot new kids.  I love how easy it is to fall in love with these kids. Each day started with having two kids on each arm, one around my wait and 2 others on my legs. Hard to walk, yes, but that's not important :)
-Saturday we hung out with the team from Nevada.  I brought two guitars because one of the guys, Abraham, and I were going to play together. So we were in a restraunt eating dinner and the guitars were behind me.  A mariachi band came in, and I was very tempted to try and inconspicuously blend in and play with them.

-These are the days of creation according to Gabriel
day 1: burros
day 2: burros
day 3: burros
day 4: burros
day 5:burros
day 6: nachos
hmm...might need to work on this with him

-The kids just got down my name (kinda...as well as you can say "michaela" in spanish) and then they saw how my name is spelled when I wore a nametag for vbs. Now when they call me by name, it sounds like Mitchell because they shorten it and use "ch" instead of a "K" sound lol!
-Kristi is in the States and Alex has been out of town so Reiner has been playing keyboard. He didn't have any sheet music, only a list of songs and the key they were in. Except here sometimes (or maybe all the time, I guess this is the first time I've played with a Tico) instead of a scale from A-G, they use Do, Ti, Mi, La, Re etc. So he just would tell me "do" then "fa" etc. I tried to explain that that means absolutely nothing to me, but he just kept on going. Then the songs that I pulled from Pastor Phil's binder were all in a different key from what he was using so I'm trying to figure out what Reiner say is saying (he only speaks to me in Spanish now. I don't know, I guess he figured 4 months is plenty of time to become fluent in a foreign language?), while he's playing the songs, while trying to transpose in my head! I better be really stinkin good at guitar by the time I leave here! ;)

That's all I have for now, and I'll try to get pictures up soon :)

Surprises, Scary Movies and Surfing

Ok, so it’s been a busy past couple days so here we go:


-We are all staying at Matt and Brooke’s, and so far Justine hasn’t broken anything (ha ha love you McClains).  It's been difficult, but I've constrained her from jumping on the furniture ;). But yes, Brooke, thigns are going well here...still even have both of your dogs! (ha ha ha) It's a little easier hanging out in a house that a family lives in. Last Sunday we invited Corey and Eddy over for dinner, but we had to go in between the 3 aparments (Corey moved into the third one, so we were all right in a row) trying to find enough cups, silverware and a plate :)

Thursday at Bible club I was sitting on the couch with Dayana and Gabriella. There are some things that I’ve been trying to talk to specifically these two about, and I had my Spanish Bible with me, so I asked for their help in critiquing my Spanish, then went through the gospel with them. Hopefully it wasn’t painfully obvious, but I tried to emphasize how you can’t find the joy and peace you are looking for in the world, but in God alone. Please pray for what was said to take root in their hearts!
That night we had a lot of fun with Gabriel. He kept following me around so I ended up giving him a piggyback ride and running around with him. It was so much fun!

love his face in this picture :)

Afterwards, when all the kids were gone and we were waiting for his mom, he played “maestro” (teacher) with us. Corey, Natalie and I were sitting on the couch and Gabi and Sofia stood in front of us and would “Como se dice _____ en Ingles” and we had to raise our hands (he emphasized this a lot and wouldn’t take our answer unless our hand was raised! :]). It was actually really good practice for us and working on our Spanish!

Cute kid, right? Love Dennis :) ha ha

And Natalie, that night, informed everyone who would listen that my birthday was the next day. I tried to be sooo careful so that no one would find out! I even took it off facebook. Probably a week or two after I got to Costa Rica, I think I was talking about how Natalie was 6 years older than I am to Matt. He asked how old I was, then when my birthday was. I ONLY told him because I KNEW that they would be gone for the States by then, and he’s a guy he’ll forget. Well he didn’t. (Matt I don’t understand how in the world you remembered!!!!). Anyways, Don Victor told me he was coming with eggs on Friday and laughed when he saw my face. Yes. I know what you do with them. And no, it’s not going to happen.

Friday night Corey and Eddy came over and we were standing outside. They started singing happy birthday so I made a dash for the door to hide inside. Natalie blocked me and then shut the door, thus locking us out. We remembered that the McClain’s had said to get a screw driver, pop off the screen, and slide the glass panes (there’s about a dozen, 3x15”) out and slip in. So we got the screw driver from Juan and since Matt had said that they opened up Ethan’s window, we did that one (plus it was dark and hard to see any other windows). So Corey took out all the screws, but we could only get the first two glass panes off. Plus, there was a printer on the other side of the window, so it was a weird angle. I volunteered to crawl through anyways, though while Corey was getting the screen off we were talking about horror movies and now I was about to try and crawl through a small window into a dark house. Sounds like the beginning of a scary movie, right? They always kill off the minorities first… ;) ha ha. Anyways, barely made it in, landed gracefully (and by gracefully, I mean I fell over the printer) inside and unlocked the door without running into a masked psychopath with a machete. Yay! ….

Saturday, we went to the beach with the guys, and Corey bought a long board which are 9 feet long. Eddy said these were easier to learn how to surf on, so he instructed us what to do and we set out. I went first. The first two times that I caught a wave I didn’t stand up, but the third one I did and rode it all the way to shore. Maybe I should start a “Christian Surfers” Montana! Yeah! …Great idea…

That night the girls through a surprise party and the McKays and the guys came over (once again) for dinner, cake and a movie. I am very blessed :)

6/28 English Class

The McClain family left yesterday for the States for a month. It's going to be so different not having them here, and we're really going to miss them!


Don Victory praying over the McClains at Las Manos Del Alfarero



Natalie and I are now teaching the English class. I had done the class without Matt before, but I was a little nervous about planning what the kids were going to do and how well they would do.  But, by the grace of God, it was a great day.  We started off with a song, then Daniel and I explained to them how to play bingo.  We gave them little game boards that I made that had different body parts on it.  Then we had them draw a little card that had a picture of the parts of the body and they had to say it in English and find it on their boards. We had gone over body parts in the song, and they guessed a lot. But by the second Bingo game, the kids were all into it and kept wanting to play it. After a few games, Daniel decided that using Dennis works better then the little cards, so if the word was leg, he lifted poor Daniel up and had the kids say what it was. It was so funny! The second game we did I stole from AWANA's.  I remember when I was still helping out at AWANA's, they played this game where the leader would shout north or south and the kids would have to run to that wall, and the last one had to sit out.  I had the kids stand in a line facing me, and asked them which was the left side and the right side. Then I called out left or right and the kids would go running.  It was really fun mixing it up, like calling the other side before they all reached one so that they're constantly running.  It reminded me of gym class in high school... But the kids loved it! They kept wanting to play it over and over (these kids LOVE to run!). I don't think I've laughed so hard since I've been here watching the kids.  At one point, Gustavo (the little ball of fire) was running then stopped and laid down in the rocks. I feel accomplished ;)

"eyes and ears and mouth and nose, head shoulders knees and toes, knees and toes!"

Ivan and Edy

Left! Right! Left! Right!

Hokey Pokey

Witnessing in Tamarindo

This Saturday, Justine and I went out with Corrie and Eddy in Tamarindo.  We went to the beach then walked around looking for a surfboard for Corrie. At one shop, he got to talking with a man named Pablo. The conversation went from surfboards to Pablo advising Corrie how to pick up girls. But Corrie explained that he was a missionary and loves Jesus and doesn’t sleep aroudn with women. Then the man right away started talking about religion, how God is everywhere, and that if you are good you will go to heaven etc. I almost started laughing about how God turned that conversation around and provided an open door. Corrie and I jumped right in. We probably talked to him for a good half hour before he seemed to want to leave. But it was interesting the things that he said. He was talking about his ancestors preformed human sacrifices and how that was ok. After explaining that that was murder, he defended it saying that was the culture, and you can’t just go in and try to change the culture. I looked behind me and made eye contact with Justine at that point- here is a chance to live out practically something we specifically learned at the Ranch. After another 10 minutes or so, the conversation ended but Corrie told the man that he would take him out to lunch sometime and go surfing together. But it was encouraging to see the Holy Spirit work. I have the hardest time memorizing Scripture (which is no excuse for anyone), but as we talked to this man, it all came back. With each thing that he said, a verse (or at least something to say) would come to mind.  That was definitely God.
So please pray for Pablo and an open door for Corrie to speak into his life!God is so good!

I Threw My Husband Away in a Speghetti Strainer

I've been really bad about keeping up with this since I've been sick, but here's a quick recap.  The McClain's are leaving for the States ( :[ ) so the three of us will be staying in their house. We're still going to do PFK, but it's going to be a little different.  Natalie and I are going to be teaching the English class now.  I've done it once by myself before and it went really well, so I'm excited. 

This is a video Justine took during one of the storms.  This is what happens in our freetime

all wet after my umbrella broke and we had to run to the church :)

kickball at the plaza!



Emerson, Julian, Elias, Rodrigo, Daniel, Gabriel and Correy

Add caption

My "prince" (justine's words not mine) who came and attacked my pillow while I was sleeping

Anways, a few prayer requests:

-Justine and I have been sick

-teaching next week

-learning Spanish