She is sleeping in her "park" in the livingroom and the boys are sleeping upstairs. My husband is organizing some stuff and finally I get to write about what has been in my heart and mind for the last 9 months...
Some of you know that I just delivered a beautiful baby girl about 10 days ago, it's actually funny cause it was planned that she would arrive on August 12th, but instead she decided she couldn't wait to meet us so I started having contractions on wednesday 6th, after a nice morning of swimming with my oldest son. As we walked home from the swimming pool I struggled to make it home with contractions every 10 minutes. Of course I had it before so I just went to bed to rest and they went away, I guess that's what I thought.
On Thursday morning life went as usual except I was quite unconfortable the whole day as I felt a lot of pressure on my lower belly. In the evening my husband went to have his last work meeting before going on "holidays" the next day to wait for our "baby-appoiment". At about 9.30 in the evening i had a little bit of stomach pain so I decided to go to bed until Henri came home at 11 o'clock, by then I was fine and came downstairs to talk to him for a while, after half an hour I went back to bed.
I had no idea I was going to be waken up at 1 o'clock at night with contractions every 20 minutes, but since I had it before I decided I was just going to "sleep through them again", and I did for a while, but by 3 am they came every 10 minutes got even stronger, so an hour later I decided to wake Henri up, to say that we should better go to the hospital to have a look if everything was fine to make it through the weekend, what we didn't know then was that our daughter had gone tired of being in Mama's belly and wanted to come out to "watch" together with Mom(that afternoon) the Opening of the Olympic games.
To make the rest short (if you want details you are going to have to come to the kraamfeest if you got a babycard ;-D) we arrived at the hospital at 5 am and she was born at 6.20 am!
Of course after the dissapoiment of she not being able to make it to her appoiment on the 12th( just kidding!) we were thrilled to hold her in our arms and finally getting the chance to admire her. What most of you don't know is that for the last 9 months I have lived torn between the joy of a new life growing inside me, and the fear of not being able to see her after she would come out of me.
Yeah, almost at the beginning of this pregnancy we were told by my gynecologist that the chance that I will bleed too much, like the last time at the birth of my second son (a year ago I lost about 1.5 liters of blood in about 10 minutes while giving birth) was high. As the pregnancy went on I seemed to be doing really good and everything was going good with the baby, it was a really healthy pregnancy which meant that my body was (maybe) making more bloodvains around my belly, exactly the ones that needed to be cut open to be able to get the baby out. There was no way to know if this was the case, we had to wait until the cesaerean was performed and then the gynecologist could see what was going to happen.
You can imagine, we were happy to know everything was going good, with every week that went by we were getting closer to the day we could cuddle our baby in our arms, but at the same time the closer that we got to that date it meant for us to start thinking serious and planning what decisions needed to be made in the operation room and what decision Henri had to make if something went wrong (this is not really how you imagine you will experience the last months and weeks of your pregnancy).
At times I tried not to think too much about that, and just tried to be joyfull with the fact that God had heared my prayer once more and had given us a new baby, but of course there were moments when I couldn't help thinking that maybe I was going to miss the rest of the life of my boys. Don't get me wrong I'm ready to go when my Father calls me home, but it's hard to think of leaving my boys behind when I have just started to enjoy them.
Anyway, by the end of the pregnancy we decided together with the gynecologist that the best we could do was to order blood to have it ready at the operation room and hope for the best. At home I started showing Henri where everything was( all the baby stuff he was going to need) and convince him that we needed to have the "what if..." conversation, so that he will be prepare to deal with all the practical issues while dealing with a newborn baby, and two little boys at home. It wasn't easy, we postponed that conversation as long as we could but just a week before the birth of the baby we layed in bed and talked, and cried and rested our lives in the hands of the One Who gave it to us, I know it wasn't easy for neither of us.
On August 8th, just a little bit before 6 o'clock as the gynecologist said the words:"Okay, we are going to start now", it hit me (between wednesday and that moment I was too distracted by the pain to think about it). I left the house without saying goodbye to my boys(we left at 4.45 am, I wasn't going to wake them up),I didn't tell my mother in-law how thankfull I had been for having her in my life as my mother here and didn't get to ask her to look after my boys in case I wouldn't make it, I didn't get the chance to call my Mom before going to the hospital to say goodbye.
For the next 20 minutes I held my breath and prayed in my heart that God will allow me to get to see my daughter at least before going Home, those were the longest 20 minutes of my life as I layed there with my husband by my side, seeing the smoke coming out behind the courtain(in a c-section you have a little courtain in front of you so you don't get shock by the view of your open belly) as they opened my belly with the laser; all I could think was: "I will know how bad it is by the facial espression of my gynecologist"(his reaction last time was pretty bad) so just kept my eyes on him. The stress got higher as he asked the anesthesist to have an injection with some kind of hormon to make my uterus contract fast to avoid the extra lost of blood, as soon as they could get her first shoulder out.
Then finally a few seconds later I heard her cry (like mad by the way as she came quite hungry to this world!)the warm tears rolling down my eyes; tears of joy and thankfullness for being able to hear her. I looked at the gynecologist,while the nurse took our daugther to be cleaned up, it only took one or two minutes for him to say it was not as bad as last time. Henri ,who usually leaves the room with the new born babies was still standing beside me and finally then he went to the next room to get our daughter so I could finally see her.Then I breathed at peace and waited for them to clean up the mess and close me up. Then Henri came back in the room proudly holding Sytske in his arms, and the tears fell down again as I streched my hand out and touched her face.
Today 10 days later, everything is behind. The struggle of not being able to talk to family and friends about how I felt during the pregnancy, for the fear of making it to real, for the fear of focusing too much in the possibility of dying instead of celebrating life, for the fear of worrying (maybe without need) those I loved. As I see her sleeping there in our living room my heart is overflown with joy, thankfullness and once more humbleness to my God who has my life and the lives of those I love in His Hands.
She made it... and I'm here to see it!!!
maandag 18 augustus 2008
dinsdag 19 februari 2008
The most important job...
Back in High School, I remember everybody getting all worked up because they needed to find out what career path they were going to follow. Some of my classmates were really stressed out because we were in our senior year and they still couldn't decide what they wanted to do for the rest of their life.
Honestly I didn't understand what was the whole thing about, life was so easy since I knew I was going to be a forensic doctor(which meant my clients would not be able to complain if I made a mistake),a police officer(so I could boss everybody around), a lawyer or work in marketing an publicity(which meant earning lots of money by lying to people),whatever I decided to follow I just know I was going to have lots of fun,be really famous and be able to give money to the poor missionaries in my church; so they could go instead of me(how I ended up being one of them is another story...)
I always thought the only way I was going to feel sucessfull was if I had achieved something big in life like going to University(which I did for 4 long years) and get a piece of paper that said I was somebody and could do something really important or at least I was the best in it. Well, I flew through primary school and through High School cause I wanted to get to University to get my diploma. But after 4 years of studying I ended up becoming a missionary (maybe I will write some day about this crazy change), now I'm a full time Mom of 2 beautiful kids and number three on the way. I also work part time in OM doing Personnel, which is a really interesting job as I deal with people that want to go to serve God as missionaries somewhere or want to come to serve in Belgium, but I believe I have the most important job anybody can have: I'm a Mom!!!!
Some of you are probably thinking: oh wow?! So why is that so important? Well, God the Creator of the Universe is my boss, and He has asked to raise these 2 almost 3 kids. That means God trusted me enough to put in my hands something so precious to Him, of course He trusts I will ask for His help all the time cause this is not a easy job.
Some day these kids might become a preacher, singer, pilot, the next prime minister of the country (since my kids are Dutch, that will mean in Holland) ,a husband, a father,etc. And the most exciting thing is I'm being part of the process that is going to help them to become what God has already planned they will become. So if you are a prime minister I'm sorry to tell you my job is more important than yours! You are known and famous and I'll never be, but I'm helping to shape another human being, what can be more important than that?
I once read something that stayed with me forever, it's about raising children...
Honestly I didn't understand what was the whole thing about, life was so easy since I knew I was going to be a forensic doctor(which meant my clients would not be able to complain if I made a mistake),a police officer(so I could boss everybody around), a lawyer or work in marketing an publicity(which meant earning lots of money by lying to people),whatever I decided to follow I just know I was going to have lots of fun,be really famous and be able to give money to the poor missionaries in my church; so they could go instead of me(how I ended up being one of them is another story...)
I always thought the only way I was going to feel sucessfull was if I had achieved something big in life like going to University(which I did for 4 long years) and get a piece of paper that said I was somebody and could do something really important or at least I was the best in it. Well, I flew through primary school and through High School cause I wanted to get to University to get my diploma. But after 4 years of studying I ended up becoming a missionary (maybe I will write some day about this crazy change), now I'm a full time Mom of 2 beautiful kids and number three on the way. I also work part time in OM doing Personnel, which is a really interesting job as I deal with people that want to go to serve God as missionaries somewhere or want to come to serve in Belgium, but I believe I have the most important job anybody can have: I'm a Mom!!!!
Some of you are probably thinking: oh wow?! So why is that so important? Well, God the Creator of the Universe is my boss, and He has asked to raise these 2 almost 3 kids. That means God trusted me enough to put in my hands something so precious to Him, of course He trusts I will ask for His help all the time cause this is not a easy job.
Some day these kids might become a preacher, singer, pilot, the next prime minister of the country (since my kids are Dutch, that will mean in Holland) ,a husband, a father,etc. And the most exciting thing is I'm being part of the process that is going to help them to become what God has already planned they will become. So if you are a prime minister I'm sorry to tell you my job is more important than yours! You are known and famous and I'll never be, but I'm helping to shape another human being, what can be more important than that?
I once read something that stayed with me forever, it's about raising children...
"To raise a child you need....
the wisdom of Solomon
the strength of Samson
the perseverance of Paul
the patience of Job
the leadership of Moses
the faith of Abraham
and the Love of Christ!"
Well, I don't think I remember all the names that were written in that poster, but after only 3 years of being a mother I can come up with quite a few more!
My mind is blown away everytime I think I'm responsable for forming and shaping another human being who some day will contribute to this world. To think that maybe I'm raising the future husband of that daughter you haven't gotten yet, the father of those cute grandchildren who will come to visit you on Sundays! The next evangelist who will bring many souls to Christ or maybe the garbage collector who will do his work with joy making sure your street is always clean. I don't need to know now what are my kids going to become, cause is all in God's perfect plan,but He chose me to give love to them and protect them, to pass onto them the knowledge of His word, to make sure they hear enough about Him until they are mature enough to recognise Him as their Saviour and Lord.
In the meantime I'm having a blessed time, I get better paid that anybody with all the kisses and hugs, all the "I love you"'s I get every day, all the smiles, laughs, and also all the opportunities to comfort them in their pain. Yes it's a hard job, yes it will never end even when they get married and get their own kids, then my job will just extend, I will never retire or go on holidays but when I think of the words of my 3 year old on Christmas morning (I was coming downstairs wearing a skirt,and he had never seem me wearing one) "Mommy you look like a princess!"Not fame or money in the world could replace the warm feeling in my heart at that moment.
So yes! I have the most important job in the world and I'm going to do it the best I can with no worries about my non existing pension plan!!!!
dinsdag 29 januari 2008
Life is full of surprises...
As long as I can remember, I always knew I was going to have kids; I remember I was never a little princess girl in pink, but more a tomboy climbing up trees. Even though, I knew I wanted to have kids some day. My sister is 15 years older than me so when she got her first baby at 21 and moved back with us, I was really happy cause finally I could practise being a Mom. Well, that was just the beginning of helping to raise my 3 nephews and 1 niece, along came a whole bunch of kids from friends and neighbours, plus church, sunday school,ect.I think I have been changing diapers and putting kids in bath since I was 7 or 8, and I 'm about to be 33; so just do the maths yourself.
Anyway, my love for children never went away, at some point in my tweenties, I remember telling my Mom that I wouldn't mind if God didn't give a husband, I was going to go for artificial insemination,that's how serious I was about having kids(of course coming from a traditional home my Mom freaked out!)
Then I began to live every girl's dream; I found my prince and we got married. Even before getting married we talked about having kids, and picked possible names. We decided we were going to wait a year before kids will come. After coming back from our honey-moon, we thought even though I was taking precautions that we were going to be surprised with a baby, just 9 months after we got married. But after a few weeks we find out that it was a false alarm; that made us think that we didn't want to wait and that's when everything started...
After almost a year of trying and going to the doctor, hearing everybody say how normal it is that it takes between 6 months to a 1 year to get pregnant, having abnormal periods/cycles though I had always being "normal", something in my heart started feeling that there was something wrong with me.
I remember being afraid, horrified by the thought that maybe I could never have kids.I also remember feeling terrible for bringing "this" into my husband's life, who was also dreaming of having kids.
We were sent by our doctor to a specialist in Gasthuisberg. Then I had 3 months of test, some of them very painful, but most of them just made me feel ashamed cause something was wrong with me. By then a year had gone by since we decided to have kids; a whole year of crying, of not knowing wat was wrong, of negative pregnancy test every month, of not knowing how to react to the help my husband often offered me, of wondering what was God doing?, of why me? of why some people can have children so easy? sometimes even people who I thought were not ready for kids, or didn't deserve to have kids.
Some of you may think.. So what's the big deal? adopt? Or: no kids means no problems...
But to me, it meant the biggest dream of my life not becoming true. I had found the one person God had for me and we loved each other so much and there were not going to be kids coming out that love?!.
After the 3 months we went back to the hospital to be told that I had something rare called P.C.O.S( Policistic Ovarian Syndrome). A desease that affects 10% of world wide female population but only 5% actually knows that they have it. Something so new, it has been found in the last 10 or15 years, that the doctor could not really explain how it's possible that I have it.
Some theories say that it's genetical, others think it has to do with the enviroment where you live, or what you eat,etc. Well, at least in my case they could not really explain how I got it, or if I always had it and it just became "alive" when moved to Belgium, and my life and eating habbits changed.
Basically, my body makes too much insuline, so the extra insuline makes sure I have more male hormons than normal and too few female hormons, which are required to ovulate and be able to get pregnant. Some of the symptoms are: in some cases overweight( though there are women who are really thin and still have PCOS), extra growth of the facial hear, changing of voice,etc.I was told by my gynecologist we had 50% chance of ever having children, and in case of a pregnancy 40% more chance than a normal woman to have a miscarriage.
I could start a treatment right away, that included losing about20 kilos,excercising, taking medicine meant for diabetic patients(which by the way I have to take for the rest of my life) to try to regulate my insuline.That we were going to try for 6 months going every month twice to the hospital for a blood test to check my hormon levels and a ultrasound to see if there were any possible eggs growing.
When we went home, after the shock I felt relief. Relief, cause I finally knew what was wrong with me, then of course sad, upset, angry, depressed, alone and in the next few moths, all the possible emotions that you can imagine.
It was october 13th, the day I felt my life was falling apart and there was not much I could do. I also felt I was draging my husband with me.
I went from a stage of rebellion against God for what He was doing to me, to a stage of anger and bitterness, of course in between I had these tiny moments when I wanted to believe everything was going to be fine, God was going to do a miracle and cure me or do something, then after a few days of just holding it together I will collapse especially cause that year; everybody around me seemed to be getting pregnant. These stages repeated over and over again for the following months. Then at some point I started reading in my Bible the story of Hanna; Samuel's mother, and I guess because of my situation I identified myself with her. Then I started believing that God was going to answer my husband and mine, we were going to have a baby, I just didn't know how long it was going to take. Well, it only took 3 months after I started my treatment, I lost 15 kilos and went in for 3 months check, when the doctor told me to come back the week after for a pregnancy test at the hospital, of course after doing so many test at home I didn't want to have too many expectations to just be dissapointed one more time, but I went.
When the nurse told me the test was positive I could not believe, I actually asked her if she was sure that it was my test,funny eh; all these months believing God was going to do something and when He finally did, I asked the nurse if she was mistaken.
Well, the rest of the story is pretty nice. I had a normal pregnancy, besides having to take my medicine for the first 12 weeks.
On December 7th, 2004, our beautiful, big and healthy boy was born. First through a normal birth and then finally with a cesaerean (cause he was to big).We called him Sean "Gracious gift of God".
Then after another 27 months of crying, praying, and these time even having to take hormons cause my PCOS had gone worse, our second son: Sjoerd "Protector of the Victory" peed on the hands of the gynecologist that got him out mom's belly by cesaerean cause he also was too big for his Mom).
And now 10 months and 2 weeks later I'm carrying their 11 weeks old brother or sister inside me.
So God did something, He didn't cure me, which I actually don't mind since I never asked Him to do it, He gave breaks in the midst of my sickness so I could fullfil my dream of being a Mom( that rocks!!!!)
I will live with PCOS until the day I die, that means everyday I have to excercise, I have to take medicine, and I have to check what I eat. I feel like a patient all the time, I have bad days (when I wonder if I'm ever going to borrow my husband razor for my beard) and good days, but God has given me a great supporting husband who deals with my condition as if it were his, 2 almost 3 beatiful healthy children to raise and enjoy, a loving family that supports me a big bunch of nuts friends who understand me and sometimes just accept me.
So just life is full of surprises, but I must say it's good to know God has walked with me hand by hand every step of this last 4 years, cause He has been able to deal with them when I couldn't.
Anyway, my love for children never went away, at some point in my tweenties, I remember telling my Mom that I wouldn't mind if God didn't give a husband, I was going to go for artificial insemination,that's how serious I was about having kids(of course coming from a traditional home my Mom freaked out!)
Then I began to live every girl's dream; I found my prince and we got married. Even before getting married we talked about having kids, and picked possible names. We decided we were going to wait a year before kids will come. After coming back from our honey-moon, we thought even though I was taking precautions that we were going to be surprised with a baby, just 9 months after we got married. But after a few weeks we find out that it was a false alarm; that made us think that we didn't want to wait and that's when everything started...
After almost a year of trying and going to the doctor, hearing everybody say how normal it is that it takes between 6 months to a 1 year to get pregnant, having abnormal periods/cycles though I had always being "normal", something in my heart started feeling that there was something wrong with me.
I remember being afraid, horrified by the thought that maybe I could never have kids.I also remember feeling terrible for bringing "this" into my husband's life, who was also dreaming of having kids.
We were sent by our doctor to a specialist in Gasthuisberg. Then I had 3 months of test, some of them very painful, but most of them just made me feel ashamed cause something was wrong with me. By then a year had gone by since we decided to have kids; a whole year of crying, of not knowing wat was wrong, of negative pregnancy test every month, of not knowing how to react to the help my husband often offered me, of wondering what was God doing?, of why me? of why some people can have children so easy? sometimes even people who I thought were not ready for kids, or didn't deserve to have kids.
Some of you may think.. So what's the big deal? adopt? Or: no kids means no problems...
But to me, it meant the biggest dream of my life not becoming true. I had found the one person God had for me and we loved each other so much and there were not going to be kids coming out that love?!.
After the 3 months we went back to the hospital to be told that I had something rare called P.C.O.S( Policistic Ovarian Syndrome). A desease that affects 10% of world wide female population but only 5% actually knows that they have it. Something so new, it has been found in the last 10 or15 years, that the doctor could not really explain how it's possible that I have it.
Some theories say that it's genetical, others think it has to do with the enviroment where you live, or what you eat,etc. Well, at least in my case they could not really explain how I got it, or if I always had it and it just became "alive" when moved to Belgium, and my life and eating habbits changed.
Basically, my body makes too much insuline, so the extra insuline makes sure I have more male hormons than normal and too few female hormons, which are required to ovulate and be able to get pregnant. Some of the symptoms are: in some cases overweight( though there are women who are really thin and still have PCOS), extra growth of the facial hear, changing of voice,etc.I was told by my gynecologist we had 50% chance of ever having children, and in case of a pregnancy 40% more chance than a normal woman to have a miscarriage.
I could start a treatment right away, that included losing about20 kilos,excercising, taking medicine meant for diabetic patients(which by the way I have to take for the rest of my life) to try to regulate my insuline.That we were going to try for 6 months going every month twice to the hospital for a blood test to check my hormon levels and a ultrasound to see if there were any possible eggs growing.
When we went home, after the shock I felt relief. Relief, cause I finally knew what was wrong with me, then of course sad, upset, angry, depressed, alone and in the next few moths, all the possible emotions that you can imagine.
It was october 13th, the day I felt my life was falling apart and there was not much I could do. I also felt I was draging my husband with me.
I went from a stage of rebellion against God for what He was doing to me, to a stage of anger and bitterness, of course in between I had these tiny moments when I wanted to believe everything was going to be fine, God was going to do a miracle and cure me or do something, then after a few days of just holding it together I will collapse especially cause that year; everybody around me seemed to be getting pregnant. These stages repeated over and over again for the following months. Then at some point I started reading in my Bible the story of Hanna; Samuel's mother, and I guess because of my situation I identified myself with her. Then I started believing that God was going to answer my husband and mine, we were going to have a baby, I just didn't know how long it was going to take. Well, it only took 3 months after I started my treatment, I lost 15 kilos and went in for 3 months check, when the doctor told me to come back the week after for a pregnancy test at the hospital, of course after doing so many test at home I didn't want to have too many expectations to just be dissapointed one more time, but I went.
When the nurse told me the test was positive I could not believe, I actually asked her if she was sure that it was my test,funny eh; all these months believing God was going to do something and when He finally did, I asked the nurse if she was mistaken.
Well, the rest of the story is pretty nice. I had a normal pregnancy, besides having to take my medicine for the first 12 weeks.
On December 7th, 2004, our beautiful, big and healthy boy was born. First through a normal birth and then finally with a cesaerean (cause he was to big).We called him Sean "Gracious gift of God".
Then after another 27 months of crying, praying, and these time even having to take hormons cause my PCOS had gone worse, our second son: Sjoerd "Protector of the Victory" peed on the hands of the gynecologist that got him out mom's belly by cesaerean cause he also was too big for his Mom).
And now 10 months and 2 weeks later I'm carrying their 11 weeks old brother or sister inside me.
So God did something, He didn't cure me, which I actually don't mind since I never asked Him to do it, He gave breaks in the midst of my sickness so I could fullfil my dream of being a Mom( that rocks!!!!)
I will live with PCOS until the day I die, that means everyday I have to excercise, I have to take medicine, and I have to check what I eat. I feel like a patient all the time, I have bad days (when I wonder if I'm ever going to borrow my husband razor for my beard) and good days, but God has given me a great supporting husband who deals with my condition as if it were his, 2 almost 3 beatiful healthy children to raise and enjoy, a loving family that supports me a big bunch of nuts friends who understand me and sometimes just accept me.
So just life is full of surprises, but I must say it's good to know God has walked with me hand by hand every step of this last 4 years, cause He has been able to deal with them when I couldn't.
maandag 28 januari 2008
This is me....
My name is Leda Menheere. Well, it is now, it used to be Leda Argentina Rojas Guadamuz.
Pretty long eh?! Well for those who don't know me and are maybe interested in knowing, I come from Costa Rica, a beautiful (if you want to have a idea how beautiful, just watch "Jurassic Parc"), small (actually a bit bigger than Belgium) country in Central America. My country is known by its bananas (Chiquita banana) and Coffee (we are number 2 in World wide Coffee production) but another really peculiar thing is we are the only country in Latin America (and maybe in world, I'm not really sure about it) that doesn't have an army.
Every time I mentioned this the next question is how is that possible? Don't you guys have enemies? or problems with other countries? Well yes we do but Costarricans are peaceful people, we always try to solve our problems by talking, we avoid fights or discussions, we are farmers, who don't have much and are mostly content with what we have. We enjoy life, we work to live instead of living to work. Family and friends come first, even before possesions.
We love to gather together to eat, dance and tell jokes and for that any excuse will be valid; birthdays, Christmas, easter, graduations, mother or father day, just because we feel like being with family,or because we are bored....
It's a nice, little peace of heaven where you can enjoy beaches with black sand, rain forest, white sand beaches, mountains, but at the same time the voices of those selling fruit and vegetables in the streets of the capital where I come from.
I come from a small town called Tibas, about 10 minutes drive from San Jose (the capital) a nice valley, surrounded by big mountains that provide the perfect weather; never too cold never too warm. Just 2 seasons: winter and summer, that makes life pretty easy when it comes to clothing since we get to use the same clothes, we only change from sandals to boots, to protect our feet from the rain. Oh, and we might need a thin coat for the cooling 12)C breeze of the evenings.
Now, I could go on and on about this little piece of heaven I came from but by now you are all wondering why on earth would I come to live in Belgium with the terrible weather we can get here some times...
Well, it's actually an easy answer... God and Love!
Almost 8 years ago I met the craziest Dutch man that ever put a foot on this earth,while I was serving on the Logos II (how and why is a very long story to write down...) Just as God brought him to my life He also brought Belgium to my life or I must say He brought me to Belgium.,which meant leaving a great loving family:Dad,Mom,2 brothers,1 sister,a whole bunch of nephews,nices,cousins,aunts,uncles,grandmother,etc....back in my country.
In the last 8 years many things have happen in my life, some of them nicer than others, but I have learned from all of them. I'll be sharing some of them and maybe somebody will learn something out of my experiences and others may just have a good laugh, either way I believe nothing happens in our lives by coincidence, nothing happens to God's children that has not been pampered by His tender blanklet of love.
Pretty long eh?! Well for those who don't know me and are maybe interested in knowing, I come from Costa Rica, a beautiful (if you want to have a idea how beautiful, just watch "Jurassic Parc"), small (actually a bit bigger than Belgium) country in Central America. My country is known by its bananas (Chiquita banana) and Coffee (we are number 2 in World wide Coffee production) but another really peculiar thing is we are the only country in Latin America (and maybe in world, I'm not really sure about it) that doesn't have an army.
Every time I mentioned this the next question is how is that possible? Don't you guys have enemies? or problems with other countries? Well yes we do but Costarricans are peaceful people, we always try to solve our problems by talking, we avoid fights or discussions, we are farmers, who don't have much and are mostly content with what we have. We enjoy life, we work to live instead of living to work. Family and friends come first, even before possesions.
We love to gather together to eat, dance and tell jokes and for that any excuse will be valid; birthdays, Christmas, easter, graduations, mother or father day, just because we feel like being with family,or because we are bored....
It's a nice, little peace of heaven where you can enjoy beaches with black sand, rain forest, white sand beaches, mountains, but at the same time the voices of those selling fruit and vegetables in the streets of the capital where I come from.
I come from a small town called Tibas, about 10 minutes drive from San Jose (the capital) a nice valley, surrounded by big mountains that provide the perfect weather; never too cold never too warm. Just 2 seasons: winter and summer, that makes life pretty easy when it comes to clothing since we get to use the same clothes, we only change from sandals to boots, to protect our feet from the rain. Oh, and we might need a thin coat for the cooling 12)C breeze of the evenings.
Now, I could go on and on about this little piece of heaven I came from but by now you are all wondering why on earth would I come to live in Belgium with the terrible weather we can get here some times...
Well, it's actually an easy answer... God and Love!
Almost 8 years ago I met the craziest Dutch man that ever put a foot on this earth,while I was serving on the Logos II (how and why is a very long story to write down...) Just as God brought him to my life He also brought Belgium to my life or I must say He brought me to Belgium.,which meant leaving a great loving family:Dad,Mom,2 brothers,1 sister,a whole bunch of nephews,nices,cousins,aunts,uncles,grandmother,etc....back in my country.
In the last 8 years many things have happen in my life, some of them nicer than others, but I have learned from all of them. I'll be sharing some of them and maybe somebody will learn something out of my experiences and others may just have a good laugh, either way I believe nothing happens in our lives by coincidence, nothing happens to God's children that has not been pampered by His tender blanklet of love.
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