But anyway, a year and a half ago John, Stevie, and I went to Grand Rapids/Grandville Michigan to attend Isn’t She Beautiful at Mars Hill. We went looking for the nearby restaurant where the Sunday Nooma was filmed. We found it. And this below is very much like the opening shot of that very video! This is at the Rainbow Grill in Grandville, MI. Snow was all around!

When we asked the servers there at the restaurant which booth he’d actually sat in when doing the video shoot, not a one of them had a clue what in the world we were talking about.

Stevie, who was videoing, is getting married this weekend in Gulfport. I think I’m going.

But to compare morning and night running is like comparing, well, night and day. A morning run is WORK. A night run is enjoyable. I never really ran much in high school. Never had a reason. While working at Camp Lake Stephens one summer I ran a little now and then to try to impress a girl. [It must have worked; she married me] The next semester at school she calls to inform me that she signed me up for the Crescent City Classic. I had no idea what that was. But turns out it is the massive 10K race in New Orleans. So I figured i should train for it.

I did. And to this day, my first ever 10K race has been my best time ever. And I guarantee that there’s no threat of breaking it anytime soon. But a night run is the best. Or a run in the rain on a summer afternoon. Sometimes it’s quite nice to go running with a friend. But other times the solitude of a solo run is needed. It’s fun to run in Costa Rica too! [Emily does it in Columbia.]

I don’t know that I’ve ever regretted a run either. But there are plenty of times I’ve thought of running, didn’t, then regretted it later. Sorta like spending time with Jesus. Sometimes I know I should. And I know how beneficial it would be. But I keep saying I’ll get to it soon.

Anywho…running. Do you do it? Do you like it? When is the best time for you to run? And what have your best runs been? Please..do tell!

• Bottletree Bakery:  Just off The Square. (map) A really eclectic, snazzy bakery with good breakfast and lunch. It was actually featured on The Food Network and Oprah because of their pies.
• San Francisco Bread Company: Jackson Avenue (map)
• Pak Mail: Jackson Ave (map)
• McAllisters: University Avenue (map) The restaurant that is pretty much like all the other McAllisters, yet this one was the first one.
• High Point Coffee: North Lamar by The Square.
• Purple Haze: North Lamar (map) Nice little shop with culture and groovy tunes.
• Puddin Place Bed & Breakfast: University Avenue (map)
• Kroger: University Ave (map)
• Comfort Inn:  Jackson Ave (map)
• Days Inn: Jackson Ave (map)
• Proud Larry’s: South Lamar (map). You may have to ask them for access, but they’re cool about it.

Now please double check me on these. Sometimes I’ve found a signal, but then turns out you have to pay to surf (like McDonalds).  But I may have missed some or have been mistaken about a couple. If there is a correction or addition that needs to be made, leave a comment!

Just after I posted the last time I called The Wife from just outside of the internet cafe. She said her dad left the hospital to go Hospice, but he wanted to go home for the “last days”. She felt the end was pretty soon.  And I get a call the next morning from Mississippi saying my father in law had died in the early morning.

So I had that weight of the entire situation on me at that point. Wow…it was heavy. But I knew I needed to go home to be with my family. So after spending WAY too long in airports all day Wednesday, I finally get back to my own bed in my own house just before 1AM. It’s a long story, but I had to deal with ticketing hoops to jump through, naps in airports, immigration (which is much more thorough coming into the US than into Costa Rica), head aches, flight delays, and total plane switches.

But visitation was last night, and the funeral was today. I was able to see some old friends  and spend some time in conversation and visiting with them. It was really good. And lots and lots of family too.  It was a bitter sweet funeral. So sad to see him go so early (only 61 years old), but he’d been through a whole lot recently and it was wearing him out til his body was just spent.

I’m still in Tupelo right now. We’ll trek back to Clinton tomorrow sometime. But please keep praying for the fam. Especially my mother in law. She’s been such a trooper and saint. But I think that once the dust settles that things will start to fully sink in. She’s an amazing lady. But be in prayer for her.

And still be praying for my team down in Costa Rica. I keep looking at my watch imagining what they’re doing and where they are and everything. I’ve had people ask me if I was going to go back down there. While it would be quite nice, I just don’t see it happening. But be in prayer for them as they continue to build church buildings, build relationships, and build the Kingdom of God.

Then Utah said, “That guy is looking at you, Whitten.” Sure enough, he was. He kept looking at Whitten like he was a dummy. We were laughing. But then the guy says in perfect English, “We´re from California. We understand everything you are saying…”

Suffice to say we felt a little stupid. But we make up for it by talking to them for a while. They are just here on vacation. Been here for a month and a half already. Leaving Thursday. That sounds pretty awesome.

But now I´m kicking myself for us not actually getting a picture taken with them…

Today I did a lot of paiting…again. Yesterday was w/ a roller. I can handle that okay. But today was the tedious stuff. But I found a cd that was a Spanish version of the United We Stand cd by Hillsong United. Good stuff. Then we listened to DC*B and RelientK some. It did make the day go a little faster.

It rained a lot of the afternoon, but I was painting under a porch, so that wasn´t a good excuse to quit painting. In the church, there is a lot of progress being made I think. But there is LOTS more to be done with it as well. It is quite amazing what all has been done on it since we were here last year. And also what we´ve been able to do the last 2 days.

When the first trip from our Clinton church happened about 9 years ago, I think our mission team outnumbered the people at the church service. And last Sunday night there was around 200 there. So things have grown a lot. But a lot of those people were outside. With this new place, there will be room for a whole heck of a lot of people. It´s exciting.

I slept well, but never as long as I´d like. Such is life. But the day started with us waiting on some supplies to work in the new church. OR…we could start painting the pastor´s house. I usually don´t like paiting, but I´m okay with a roller. So a few of us went to paint. We painted the whole house with two coats of paint. And tomorrow we´ll start on the trim.

That´s basically the day in a nut shell. But it´s so very good to be able to talk with and connect to both old and new friends here. I was talking with Utah tonight about could he ever see himself living here. We both agreed that on one hand, yes because we think we could fit in fine with the culture. But not so sure on the other hand because… …of the lack of friendships on the front end. And the initial language barrier would create some difficulties to begin with.

But tomorrow looks to be more painting. The crews in the church building are working on flooring, scoring, drywall, sheetrock sort of stuff. There are some Costa Rican welders and stuff with us too.

We hit up the milkshake place again. I´m in need of a shower and probably some reading tonight. Maybe play a game or two of cards. And again, please be in prayer for The Wife´s dad. It looks like I might have to return home early if things worsen any.

Some pictures follow:

2am: IHOP for some eggs and hash browns. We had one long table. It was quite obvious that all of these people were not going to be getting any sleep before getting on the plane. I think a few people might have tried to get some rest before meeting at IHOP, but I don’t think it worked.

3:15am: Leave IHOP. Supposed to meet at the church at 4. I think I need a flash light, so I decide to go to WalMart before going to the church. I try to play a little tennis on the XBOX 360 in the store but it would reset way too quickly. How frustrating. I get my flashlight and go to the church.

4am: People are gathering. Luggage is loading. Heads are counted. We leave the church around 4:30 to head to JAN Airport. It’s dark. I’m not really tired yet. I’m pretty expectant.

5am: At the airport. Pretty much the one part of the trip I never like. Just a lot of standing and waiting and more of both of those.

6am: We load and lift off. I’m sitting by some lady I don’t know. She’s reading a People magazine w/ all the latest gossip. I seem to have the worst case of restless leg syndrome. I want to scream. I try to sleep but nothing works.Then we get to Atlanta. It’s way to early to be thinking of spending $ on a meal. So I spend $ on an ESPN Magazine. I’ll probably have it in the mail when I get home. I want to rest, but can’t get any, so I talk to people and keep them from resting.We finally board.

I’m sitting w/ 2 empty seats to my right. So Utah and Becca sit there. And then the people come to sit there so they sit in seats ahead, then that messes things up. so we all move. But once we reach 10K feet we get permission to move to the Exit Row. She tries to tell us we won’t have much room, but we have room galore. I can stretch out my legs or actually lean over and rest on the trey w/o being overly cramped. So I manage to get some sleep as Premonition plays on the video screen (HORRIBLE movie)

12 Noon: We land in Costa Rica. Years past I’m oogling the window looking at where we’re going. This time I’m bundled in two airline blankets trying to avoid being talked to or bothered. But it’s time to get off and we make it through customs and load the bus. Pastor Carlos is waiting on us. Good times. It’s good to be back.

2pm. After getting our stuff in the rooms we all split up to go to lunch. Split up is not the right word. We all walk in huge clumps through the streets of Liberia towards a couple of eating places. Our appearance screams TOURIST! But that’s okay for the first day. From now on it still might shout that, but not in such a huge group maybe. Pizza Hut is good. We got the Meat Lovers. As we leave I notice that they now have free wifi at Pizza Hut. Who knew?

4:30pm. Time for rest. It’s quite warm, but I can do the hot, sweaty sleep. Rumor has it that there will be AC in the night. I can wait to see. I rest for a while and wake up all wet w/ sweat. But it was good rest. I get up in time for church at 6pm.

6pm. Church. Always something new. But it lasted til about 8:30. I have to think that it wouldn’t last so long if we weren’t’ needing it translated. But we sing, they dance, and sing and dance, then shout a little. Then we have scripture and a sermon and then a skit, and then another sermon and then much, much more singing and dancing. Two and a half hours worth. I’m so glad I got that nap in.

9pm: I get to call The Wife. She was visiting family. Her dad isn’t doing the best right now. Please pray for him. But I wish she were here with me. I wish Addie was too. She would enjoy the trip. Then we head to the Ice Cream shop and internet cafe.

10pm: Back at the church grounds. We play some cards, and then watch some video from last year. Good times. I’ll still need to edit LAST year’s video together to make a good video. I’ve got lots of great footage. I shall do it again!

But now it’s 12:30. I should be quite tired, but I’m not. But I’m going to lay down, pray, maybe read a little. Then fall asleep listening to something in my headphones. Tomorrow we start work. Not sure exactly the nature of the work we’ll be doing. But I’ll have pictures and video to show at some point. Oh, and as I turn this off, yes, we do have a little AC. It’s more of something to knock the heat/humidity out of the air rather than making it cold. But it’s VERY nice.

But I´ll be able to do some good updating since I brought the computer. Plenty of pictures aready. I´ll get them all organized tonight and ready for an entry tomorrow. So please be praying for us.

Last year The Wife was able to make the trip too. Now that was AMAZING. Being able to share so much of it with her without having to explain things with words that didn’t do the experience justice.

So as I prepare to go back, it’s bittersweet. The Wife will not be making the trip this time. But I’ll aim to make very frequent posts here on the blog, and intend to have some video posted (just like all the video I did from BigStuf…how’d you like all of those? heh heh)

But as we travel and work and love, I ask for your prayers. The people there of the Methodist church in Liberia are amazing people. I would love to be able to go for more than a week and a half…maybe for much longer. And maybe one day in my family’s life we might be able to do something like that.

God is so much bigger than the box it seems we try to put Him in so often.

So now everyone is back from Costa Rica and the kids are back in school. It feels weird to think that just earlier this week we were down in Central America working, sweating, painting, mixing concrete, and dancing to a rap group from Honduras.

I think about a third of our group got sick down there. Most of those even got shots. I’d have to be pretty bad off to get a shot down there I think. But I thought some were maybe over reacting. But after not feeling bad while down there, I come home and start feeling puny. I ran a fever one night (had chills and everything) and a cough that didn’t want me to talk. Now I’m good except for a runny nose.

It was awesome to have The Wife down there w/ me. She’d heard a lot about C.Rica from me, but wanted to be able to experience it herself. She misses it now. Wants to go back…and I mean before next summer. Sure, it’s a cool place. And it’s beautiful and breathtaking some of the things you get to see. But it’s the people themselves you really fall in love with. To be able to go to church w/ them, eat w/ them, work and sweat along side of them, and see the genuine care and love in their eyes when they talk with you (whether you understand them or not). You really want to take some of them home with you…or go live with them!

Bomitada Fest happened again. When I get all the pictures from it I’ll give a more detailed description. But it was Utah, Becca, and me again this year and we more than doubled our fund raising from last year! And there was some more drama and excitement w/ the contest as well. More to come later (I promise!)

• Went to the airport with no sleep at all. Slept probably about 15 minutes on the plane once. The Wife beside me slept a lot. I was pinned in and couldn’t try to get comfortable for my own rest. But I sacrifice my rest for her any day.
• We arrive and quickly load up on a bus. Everyone has their stuff except Bob, the pastor. Turns out his luggage went to Utah. He had a firefighter´s luggage. How funny.
• It´s hot and there´s no AC. I kinda like it, but don´t want it always.
• We are going to put the trusses up on the top of the church. But we gotta paint a whole lot of metal. And then flip it and paint some more.
• I hate to paint.
• So we paint more and more and more.
• We sleep a little, then paint more, and then sweat.
• No, that´s wrong. We sweat no matter what we do unless we´re in the internet cafe.

That´s the life here so far. Eat, sleep, paint, play w/ Costa Rican kids, go to extra long church services in HOT rooms w/ lots of people and no AC.

I´ll try to give a more precise update tomorrow. Bomitada Fest should happen in the next couple of days. Here are a few pics to tide you over.

I feel sick. Like I need to puke. We had an ice cream eating contest tonight. Me, Becca, and Utah. Here´s the setup:
1. Eat 8 ice cream bars from the cooler. Rotate different types. Eat them all together. You can´t go on to the next one til everyone is ready.
2. Then run about 3/4 of a mile. Again, not a race. Run it together.
3. Eat 7 more bars.
4. Walk half a mile, then actually race back. This is the only part that is an actual race.
5. If you hurl, you´re out.

Yesterday Becca was talking about how much she likes ice cream. I suggested an ice cream eating contest since I liked it a lot too. Utah said he was in. So we went to the store and bought white shirts to make our own commerative shirts. Bomitada Fest. Means Puke Fest or Vomit Fest

At lunch today we were all thinking it was going to be harder than we expected. But pride was already making us talk big game. We started and hit a mini wall at around 6 bars. But kept on going no problem. It was quite funny. I figured there´d be 6 or 8 people who would watch us. But there were dozens upon dozens..all with cameras and the like. Felt like we were having the paparazzi shower us with attention…seriously…crazy.

Then the run. We had people running with us, people on bikes, people in cars going along side of us. We felt like we were running the last mile of an olympic marathon with everyone cheering. But the run was no problem. Actually made us all feel better.

Then the next 7. Figured these would be harder. They were. At around 11 or 12 it was a bite by bite thing. Tough. Very hard to swallow. But we did it. Becca and Utah were feeling it pretty hard. I didn´t feel it as soon as they did, but it hit me hard too. Each bite was a chore. At #14 Hannah tried to help Utah and poked his bar in his mouth and he pukes. Then pukes again. Thankfully there was a trash can right beside him. He´d been close arleady. Sorta stinks that Hannah caused him to bow out though.

Number 15 was the hardest. It was one of those cones wrapped in a cone. We both eat the cream and then work on the cone. Very slowly. Veeeeeeeeeery slowly. We didn´t want to stand up for the race in fear of losing it. Our stomachs felt so heavy and tight.

But we walk the first leg. A crew still around us but not quite as large. Then we hit the garbage can and start the trek back. Starts as a walk. Becca asks if she starts running would I run too. The van is beside us so I run around the back to the other side. She thinks I´m sprinting so she starts to run. I see her and she slows. But then starts to run again. I run slowly thinking she´ll slow down..but she doesn´t. So I have to sprint to hope to catch her.

I finally catch her and we talk as we sprint. We both agree we feel like blowing chum everywhere. I expect her to win at this point because I had to catch up. But I slowly pull away and make it back to the tree to touch. At this point neither of us have puked any. But we both are feeling quite distended in the abdomen area.

But the cool thing is that it was a fundraiser for the church down here. We will have raised a little over $345 when all is said and done I believe. Then you subtract $25 for the ice cream bill. Many pictures were taken. So I will post some when I get back

But hats off to both Becca and Utah. I would have quite way before if not for them. It was good fun with good people and I hope to never do it again any time soon.