Bruckner Year in Costa Rica

(This post was written June 22) We have nearly completed our time in Costa Rica.

The near daily rains have sprung forth green growth from the ground all around. The weedwackers and horses are out on the sidewalks trimming back the grass and the cows can’t keep up with all the fresh green shoots behind our house.

We are recovering from dengue fever (both Devin and Luke) and thankful our platelets are back up to normal. The fever left us both pretty wiped out, though Devin recovered quicker.

Just like that, we’re in the rounds of “last time doing this, last time going there, last time seeing them” in the midst of all the logistics of sort-of-moving. We leave Costa Rica June 30, and arrive home to Seattle July 1.

We are grateful for many special last dinners, lunches and gatherings with different sets of friends – and being prayed for at church before leaving. We feel very loved and grateful as we leave!

We are excited to go home to Seattle, even as we will treasure the people and places we have gotten to know over the past year. Ethan especially fell in love with Costa Rica and seems the most likely to return for an extended stay some day.

We are so grateful for the experiences of God’s creation in the tropics, for all the language learning we have done and all the people we’ve met and for this grand adventure as a family.

We will be praying for and listening to/looking for how God will us to use this time in each of our lives/futures and in our family.

Thanks for reading!

[Post Script: We arrived home July 1 as planned, and have had a wonderful, busy, exciting two weeks adjusting back to life in Seattle. We look forward to catching up with you!]

In April and May, we were blessed to have some visitors!

We have all progressed nicely in Spanish, and I think we all agree Cora has the best accent.

A lot of our time here has focused on improving our Spanish, and while at times that has felt frustrating, we are all a lot more comfortable now in the language, even as we still have so far to go! We are grateful for good teachers and friends to speak with.

Soccer is of course a big thing in Costa Rica and we were able to go with some local friends to a game between the two rivals in our town, Saprissa (Los morados) and la Liga (los manudos). Everyone in town tends to have a loyalty, unless they are from another part of Costa Rica. It was a really fun game! The teams are at a similar level to MLS soccer but with fewer teams. And obviously a much smaller country.

Luke and Cora podcast from April

The rains have returned for us here and while we miss as many blue skies, we have a few more hours a day of cool air, plus everything is more green. We are still in full on Mango season, with mangos everywhere! After almost a year in the tropics without air conditioning, most of us are ready to go back to a northern climate!

Luke was going to climb a mountain this week but he got dengue fever instead! Not fun.

We can’t believe our time here is winding down! We have a little less than a month left (we get back to Seattle July 1!). Our last months are a mix of working to be present where we are (including spend time local friends), looking ahead to life back in Seattle, and the busyness of day to day life (prepping to move, a new work project Devin started, volunteer work, parenting, and other forms of adulting that never end haha).

Overall we are feeling so grateful and have seen God’s hand at work in so many ways in our time here…it’s almost overwhelming. We are praying for God’s guidance, presence and wisdom as we finish our time in Costa Rica and look ahead to being back in the US.

Holy Week in Costa Rica was in early April, and is a much bigger cultural deal in Latin America than in the United States.

The community had a lot of events that we were sad to miss, as we were traveling until late on Good Friday. However we were happy to be in town for Saturday and Easter Sunday!

But first, a few highlights from our trip! (Our longest family trip in Costa Rica with just our immediate family). We went to the Osa Peninsula, one of the most remote parts of Costa Rica, closer to Panama, where many Costa Ricans haven’t visited. In fact, there were a lot of Germans in the town of Drake Bay where we stayed. We took a boat an hour through the mangroves to get there! Mangroves grow in salt water and have tons of ecological/ climate benefits.

The town was full of macaws, and our little cabin had a porch with a view and AC, which we sure appreciated on the coast! This is the hottest month of the year (with very high humidity) and warmer than usual.

This was as remote as we’re going to get here in Costa Rica and we loved seeing dolphins and tapirs, and sea turtles!

Drake Bay was both remote and small – and had a lot of foreign tourists. We were struck by how many more foreigners there seem to be on the coast (we stopped at a few different places along the way), and we are glad we live in Atenas.

As part of our road trip, we got to spend two nights in Esterillos and visit a Free Methodist church on the beach! And hang out with the awesome pastor and family. Ethan and Luke even got to surf, a big accomplishment for Luke, but Ethan could have used bigger waves.

Back in Atenas, we got to attend a few Easter services, including at our church Sunday evening, a Saturday night vigil, a special kids-focused Catholic mass, and a procession, common in Latin America, like a parade celebrating Jesus’ resurrection! The most elaborate ones are in Guatemala as we understand, but most of the town turns out here as well. There were twelve disciples dressed up and a Jesus figure carried along the parade. The services included singing, Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, holy water and incense. Ethan thought he was have a reaction to the incense, but then we found out the local volcano (Poas) was letting off steam and sulphur, so we think it was that:)

We invited our friends for egg painting and hunt between services. 🙂 Our church included a drama with black lights and familiar worship songs. All in all a very special, ecumenical and memorable Easter.

As we near the end of March, we wanted to give a little tour of our “day to day” activities. 

Both Devin and Luke are doing various (remote) consulting projects over the time in Costa Rica. Devin has been working with a foundation she has worked with on-and-off for many years, currently looking at organizations that help small farmers improve their income while also adapting to the changing climate (less predictability and more extreme weather), including ways of getting improved info on weather forecasts to small farmers and changes in farming practices. Luke has been doing finance work for a health clinic and has supported an entrepreneur looking to buy a new business. 

Devin has continued her role on the Board at Impact Latin America (which supports house church planting and discipleship across Latin America), where she is the Treasurer (and the volunteer US Financial Manager). Our time in Costa Rica isn’t directly related to this, but there are a lot of overlaps and it’s been great to see the connections! Devin was invited to speak at a recent church event, which was a great opportunity to practice giving a 10 minute talk in Spanish!

Devin’s aso been able to serve an interpreter occasionally at a health clinic in a lower income part of San Jose. We’re all finding ways to plug in at church — Devin has enjoyed joining the team that provides snacks to the kids on Sundays (serving 80+ kids each Sunday with a sit down snack and drink…strangely more complicated than it sounds). All four of us have been providing informal (and sometimes formal) English practice with friends. Cora has especially been having fun with a new structured English practice time she and Devin are doing with a friend and her mom. 

Ethan has been diving back into soccer (after a break to heal another hurt toe), on a local team and also with church and school friends. He often is the leading goal scorer and receives a lot of cheers and accolades! It’s been fun watching him. 

Each of us continues with twice a week 1:1 Spanish classes. It has been a blessing to each have individual classes right at our level. It’s also been a gift to get to know our teachers, and learn a lot culturally through the time together. We’re now almost finishing our 7th month (just 3 more to go) — and we’ve each seen a lot of progress in our Spanish. It’s been so interesting to see the changes and transformation over the months. (At the same time, we are each keenly aware of all there is to still learn). The kids get a lot of additional practice at school, where about half of their classes are in Spanish and half in English. Church (and church friendships and church activities) have been another good time for all of us to have additional Spanish practice. 

The kids now have two weeks off for Easter. We’ll take a trip to Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica for part of that time. After the kids’ school break, we’re excited to welcome numerous friends who are coming to Costa Rica over SPS Spring Break! They will each do a bit of traveling on their own, and spend time with us in Atenas. We are really looking forward to seeing them! 

Greetings from our abode in Costa Rica, it’s a cosa rica! (A beautiful thing).

We are now into the second half of our stay, but still quite in the middle of things. While the first months had a lot of settling in, and the last months will have some preparing to go home (July 1), now we are solidly in the swing of things.

We enjoy our neighbors and our classes. Two calves have just been born in our backyard!

The orange flowering trees have given way to the pink flowering trees! Grass fires have broken out here and there. The mangoes are ripening all over town. Plants are showing signs of thirst as we have about 6 more weeks of dry season, which began in December. It is exciting to be in a tropical place long enough to experience the changes in seasons, though in terms of temperature, the changes are subtle!

In February, aside from classes and work, we had an lovely, adventurous visit with Fran and Darren, Devin’s stepmom and her husband. We went rafting and horseback riding, a first for most of us, at least in past 20+ years! Driving through the mountains in the fog also proved an adventure!

We are slowly learning more about where we are and enjoy the small town connections. We’ve stopped saying as much “we live by Apartamentos de Atenas” and more “we live at Don Eugenio’s house,” since long time community members mostly all know each other.

A fun Costa Rican slang we’ve learned is “taco,” to mean scared or uncertain, as in tengo taco or me da taco. Our friend Eva explained it’s a “taco de temor” (a taco of fear).

As we settle into our second half, we are also trying to be intentional with rhythms and relationships — including prioritizing plans with friends, inviting people over, and continuing to lean into activities and friendships at church and school. We are also trying to maintain (and enjoy) an overall slower family rhythm than we had in the US, including weekly (when possible) family bible studies and home movie nights.

We are grateful daily for the time we have here!

Hello dear reader – we now present to you a brief tour of the kids winter/summer vacation over the past two months. The school year in Costa Rica begins in February and ends in early December, with most of December and January off for summer break. Here they just call it vacation. It’s the equivalent to summer break in the US. This is considered summer in Costa Rica, I think because of the sunny weather.

Since our last post, there has not been school, and we had over a month’s worth of visitors, as well as eyelid surgery for Luke to remove a skin cancer growth (it has now healed well). We are now preparing for the start of a new school year (Ethan and Cora will leave after the first semester in Costa Rica for another summer break back in the US).

After three months living “out of town” down a winding dirt road, Devin found an awesome new house for us to rent closer to town and in a sort of family compound with a Costa Rican multigenerational family! (There are cows right behind the house, many fruit trees, wonderful neighbors, kids for Cora to play with, and a lot of green space, all which we are grateful for daily.) It’s a great place to be and we are thankful for the change. It is very close to the kids’ school.

We moved just in time to begin hosting visitors! Our visitors included Devin’s cousin, our friends the Kniffins, Devin’s mom, and then Luke’s parents! Fun adventures were had by all.

We visited Arenal and Guanacaste, amongst some car worries and awaiting Luke’s operation (we’ll spare you the pictures).

We enjoyed Christmas with Devin’s mom and with our church! We all enjoyed learning some Spanish Christmas songs, like El burrito sabanero, a rollicking vision of a child shepherd(ish) excitedly following the star to Bethlehem. I think it uniquely captures a spirit of joy and anticipation to see Jesus in whatever humble circumstances of our journey we find ourselves. It feels like an invitation to come and see and follow and be of good cheer. We’ve been watching “The Chosen” as a family, which captures some of same sense of the excitement of following Jesus – what might happen next?

We had a break from Spanish classes as well over the break, but we’ve been fortunate to have some continued though less intense and frequent Spanish exposure. In between visitors, we’ve sought to connect with our local friends and new community, and build on those relationships as we are able. It’s been fun to see the kids’ friendships (as well as Spanish) growing – and we are grateful that continued during their break.

With Luke’s parents, we visited Monteverde and Cartago/ Orosi, seeing some old churches, from the relatively limited number of buildings that remain from Costa Rica’s colonial past.

There are new trees blooming (especially the orange Poro trees) and the mangos are in their green stage! We have some in our yard, and they are delicious. It is fun to get to experience the subtle (compared to up north) seasons here. The coffee harvest is about done (the coffee harvest corresponds to the school vacation months, an agricultural driven school calendar that is a “sticky” custom, similar to in the US).

With half our time to go (we just crossed the 5 month mark, and have 5 months remaining), we are grateful to be here and excited for what the second half will bring, with some traction established. And we find ourselves also grateful to return to the US after our time here, enriched by the adventure and growth as a family.

We learned a little over a month ago now that Devin’s grandma (Mimi), had passed away. She was a firecracker (she played tennis into her 80s), and smart as a whip and sharp as a tack, qualities that haven’t fallen far from the tree in subsequent generations of women!

We’ll miss you Mimi! Until we meet again. We will be coming to Seattle briefly for her memorial service which is Thanksgiving week.

With our schedules less busy with work and friends than in Seattle (though work projects and friendships both have picked up a bit recently), we have been incorporating some new practices in our life at home, namely no screen Mondays (we’ve been playing cards most of these evenings), all Spanish Thursdays (mostly), and family Bible studies (we take turns leading). We’ve also been watching the Chosen as a family on the weekend. We’ve enjoyed these new rhythms!

We have some new transitions the next few weeks as we go briefly to Washington, move in to our new house, and then kids’ school year ends in early December (the Costa Rican school year is from February to December). The kids then have two months off school – then start a new school year in February! We will have a number of visitors (both friends and family) and do some traveling in during their time off school.

(As an aside, when we tell people in Costa Rica we are from Washington, most people think of Washington DC, but most people have heard of Seattle, or at least Canada and California!)

We have enjoyed getting to know some people better, including some people interested in God. We hope and pray that we can be little conduits of connection to our God that gives us life, joy and purpose! It is interesting to us that as we experience some loneliness at times being in a new place, that there are people who have lived here a long time who are longing for deeper connection and greater purpose in their lives. (Probably true everywhere.)

We miss our community in Seattle and remain grateful for the chance to be here!

We got away for a one night camp out by the beach – it was an adventure but one night was enough for this time, without our sleeping pads, and with the muggy nighttime temperature, we were all excited to get back to our beds and go to church the next day!

In Sweden, there is a time honored tradition of taking a nice coffee break with a treat in the mid afternoon, to chat with colleagues and friends. It has a special name: fika. Of course many cultures have a similar tradition – there’s British tea time, and if things aren’t too busy, this happens in a lot of places. But what makes it notable is the degree of adherence to the norm.

Well, it turns out Costa Rica has a similar tradition! We aren’t going to an office or construction site here, so we wouldn’t otherwise know, but we’ve been fortunate to be invited to some afternoon Sunday fikas, and our friends let us know the daily fika is pretty ubiquitous. We are big supporters, except we can’t handle our caffeine past about 1pm..

Another fun thing that seems to be common here is backyard hangouts in a “terraza,” a covered, nice hosting area behind a house.

Our time lately has been made busier with a decision to move closer to town (we will move Dec. 1). We have two more weeks in our current house — in the small gated community next to coffee farms and cow fields. The views and pool have been wonderful, and we’ll soak them in our last few weeks here.

Our new house will have more space and be a 10 minute walk from the kids’ school instead of a 20 minute drive. Devin especially won’t miss the windy dark road late at night (sometimes sports practices get out fairly late, but even 6pm can feel late when it’s dark out)! The new house also should be a wee bit cooler as it’s about 500 ft higher in elevation, though it doesn’t have air conditioning. It’s also next to Costa Rican multigenerational neighbors, which we look forward to. (We will be renting from a Costa Rican family who moved to Panama for work, and their parents and grandparents live on the larger property, and they keep their cows right behind the house we are renting). We are looking forward to the move closer to town, but will also miss our current neighbors too, especially Sophia, a Costa Rican girl Cora’s age who has become a friend.

Sports for the kids is a pretty big part of our daily life here. Cora is doing a great job on the school volleyball team. They’ve had a couple tournaments and they play a cool modified version of the game that helps develop their skills. Our town of Atenas has a great volleyball tradition with some hometown heros 🙂

Ethan got to play his first soccer game in a cool stadium and the coach has been really encouraging of his talent.

In addition to these things, we continue to keep busy and develop more relationships and rhythms in our daily routines, including church activities and connections (Ethan is especially active with the “jovenes” group….our church’s youth group), never ending school activities (including an entrepreneurship fair and a school-wide robotics competition), twice-a-week Spanish classes….. and keeping up with seemingly endless WhatsApp messages coordinating it all!

After our trip to the Caribbean at the beginning of Ethan and Cora’s school break, we sent Devin off to Columbia for the Impact Latin America conference in Medellin! (She is the treasurer)

It was an inspiring time of hearing from leaders of leaders from different Latin American countries in this quickly growing house church planting movement. God is reaching a lot of unchurched people through this work.

With Devin in Colombia, Luke and the kids went to Manuel Antonio National Park, along with (allegedly) getting our car repaired in Parrita.

With Devin safely back home, the kids returned to school and Ethan joined a volleyball club. Cora joined a soccer club with our neighbor girl.

We celebrated Devin’s birthday and a family from church invited us to their home for lunch and even got a birthday cake!

Ethan joined a soccer team and we have a library card now and people are starting to recognize us more around town, and all these things big and small are helping us feel more settled. A lady in a store asked me (Luke) “?es de aquí, no?” which made my day.

We are counting the cost of our commute to our house as we pile on the in town activities. So we are considering moving at some point to be closer to the action, but we shall see.

Devin and I have been attending various church events including a “marriage safari” event which gave us a lot of laughs:)

We are all learning a lot and mostly enjoying the process! Spanish has its ups and downs, but we are all progressing in our own way and continuing to have tutoring twice a week and (more or less) maintaining a “Spanish Tuesday” at home in the family.

We miss Seattle at times, but are grateful for this big adventure!

Ethan and Cora’s school is on the Costa Rican calendar, where the school year begins in February and ends in early December. Consequently, they are still in their previous grades and will move up in February (though this doesn’t mean much as far as content, as the main goal right now is to become accustomed to Spanish and the new setting).

This week, after just two weeks of school (for them), the kids have 8 days off! This break is a sort of mid- semester break, and it happens to correspond with the timing of Devin’s conference in Colombia with Impact Latin America. (Check out their wonderful work making disciples of Jesus). However we did have a long weekend together before Devin headed to the conference, and in accordance with the green turtle nesting season, and the fairly dry Caribbean weather this time of year (their rainy season is somewhat opposite of ours further west) we decided to head to Tortuguero National Park!

To reach this park requires a boat ride on a winding river of about an hour in a maneuverable flat bottomed river boat.

We passed through a lot of flat land full of Dole banana plantations on the way to and fro to this little ecotourism town, Tortuguero, in a narrow strip of beach jungle between Caribbean sea full of bull sharks and rip tides, and natural canals and rivers. Foreign owned fruit plantations and the labor and politics around them have played a notorious and important role in the history of Central America, which we are slowly learning more about, but in Costa Rica, plantation workers in the past were able to help enact labor protections key to its social democracy.

There were many boats going up and down carrying passengers and narrowly passing one another as the engines fought through the mud at times and other times seemed about to quit. Our pilot pulled over once to change the prop out.

We were blessed to see turtle eggs being laid at night (no photos allowed), as well as baby turtles and mama turtle. A boat and hike tour brought us near many other amazing creatures. (Ethan had a 24 hour bug and we were thankful it passed.)

One thing we learned is that the jaguar population has been growing nicely with all the turtles to eat (they ate over 400 this year in this area according to the conservation group’s count), as well as the pets in the village, including our guide’s dog …

A number of people here have impressed upon us a big cultural change over the past generation of conservation values. Longer ago, it was more common to cut down trees and hunt monkeys without a second thought. But through a concerted educational effort, today’s young people in Costa Rica take it for granted that their ecological treasures are fragile and important. An interesting illustration of how what is noticed and valued (or disregarded and degraded) in life and in society can vary dramatically and change dramatically. The tourist dollars enabled by the monkeys and turtles also help make turtle soup and monkey kebabs less necessary for survival.

The conservationists and scientists are a major presence and trained tour guides well organized. We noticed a lot of conservation volunteers and workers from around the world. Costa Rica seems proud of its laws and their enforcement – often we see rules posted citing the number of the law passed creating the rule.

We walked around San Jose a bit on our way home and turned around the next day to send Devin off to Medellin!

Ethan and Luke recorded a bit more about our trip and this past week during our usual light afternoon thunderstorms :

https://spotify.link/ZzePOOp8qDb