Break Dancing and Unicycles

January 18- We just got back from youth group (it’s about 10:30). A while back Eddy asked me if I danced and I tried to explain no, but I’ve taken some lessons with a friend for swing dancing. He got that mixed up with break dancing (which now that I think of it is way cooler, I totally should have rolled with that). Tonight at youth group, Daniel asked me if I danced. I just told him no. He genuinely seemed incredulous that I didn’t know how to break dance. Apparently it’s pretty popular with the teenagers. Daniel, Denise and one other boy put on some Grits and P.O.D. (I know right?) and started break dancing on the patio. They were actually really good haha. They kept trying to get me to join in. I was going to show them up some awesome moves like, you know, the lawn mower or the shopping cart, but I didn’t want to make them feel bad ;]


I’m super excited about just how great youth group over all is going. I got to do worship with Pastor Phil and I keep surprising myself that it goes so well. I’m not trying to say I’m really awesome at it because that’s definitely not the case. From my little experience, it’s a bit difficult to have two people playing guitar, especially when they haven’t played together before. Pastor Phil and I did a few chords of 2 of the songs, but when we were actually doing worship we did 5. And it all worked. This is new for me ha ha things don’t usually go this well. Then there was the lesson and then I taught the kids a new game. It’s one we use to play at my old youth group, called “train wreck.” Pretty much there are two rows of chairs and each chair has a number and one person calls out some of the numbers and if you are one of the numbers you have to find a new chair. If you call out “train wreck” or “choques de tren” in this case, everyone has to get up and switch chairs and there’s always one person left standing. The girls (who don’t like to interact much) even played and seemed to have a lot of fun. We played the game for over an hour! And towards the end it was getting pretty crazy- kids and chairs were flying everywhere. At one point, some of them started putting rocks on the chairs because everyone was just getting wild and I was going to say something but then I looked over and Rebecca (Pastor Phil’s wife) who was trying to be sneaky and put rocks on her chair before the numbers are called ha ha. She just looked over and said, “Soy loca” and smiled. So worship and the game went really well and I now know how to explain two games in Spanish. But what’s even better is that I really got to hang out with the kids and connect with them. It was a lot of fun, and I’m really going to miss them



February 20-When we were at the beach, I saw these two guys and a woman who were obviously body builders (we see them running on the beach a lot) running down the beach. I was going to try to start inconspicuously running next to them and try to blend in…I mean, no one would be able to tell the difference. I am 108 pounds of sheer muscle!

It’s funny the things we’ve seen in Tamarindo. This last Saturday, I was running on the beach and I was looking at the waves (I’m not trying to rub it in. Promise.) and thinking about how great and awesome God is, then I looked the other way and randomly saw some guy unicycling backwards next to me…

Anyways, we are now half done with our time here. I thik we finally have the routine down (though now it’s all going to change now that kids club starts tomorrow). But this Sunday was a lot of fun. I did worship with Kristi and Daniel, then right after that had to run to the nursery and watch the kids with Sarah, then Daniel comes running in a while later to grab me for the last two songs so we had to try to sneak up while Pastor Phil was praying. Then we played the songs, and then I had to run back to the nursery then go back to the stage for take down. It’s been really awesome to have the opportunity to play on Sundays for church and for youth group Friday’s. I learned following my brother, so I know how to, but it’s still difficult. Not just because all of the words are in Spanish, but also because I’ve never heard the majority of them. So I have to pay close attention to the beat and rhythm of each song. And we never actually go through each song so I have no idea what she is going to do and where the build ups and endings are. But it just makes things interesting. Blessed are the flexible, right Pastor Steve? :)
Oh right, one more thing that’s really awesome. So we played some songs Sunday and then Santiago and his wife were going to do a song. So Pastor Phil asked me if Santiago could just use my guitar and, of course, I agreed not thinking much about it. So Santiago and his wife get up there and I hand him my guitar and sit to the side. First of all, he is a lot bigger than I am (because you can’t have a puny guy with an awesome name like Santiago). So he just put the strap on (which was way to small) so the guitar is really high up. It didn’t seem to bother him though, he didn’t adjust it at all. Most of you have probably seen my guitar. It’s black and just a little bit smaller than the average guitar and has a NOTW sticker that’s pretty girly on it. So here’s this grown man playing a song with a tiny girly guitar up high in an awkward position… ha ha he totally pulled it off though :)