San Jose, Costa Rica

We have arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica.  After almost two years preparing to serve with ReachGlobal, we are beginning our time in Latin America.  We will spend one year in San Jose studying Spanish at The Spanish Language Institute. The picture is the outside of our apartment complex.  We have found it easy to give directions to our apartment because it is the only "blanco" or white building on our street.  We don't have a street address, we just give directions based upon nearby landmarks.

God was kind to us in our travels to Costa Rica.  We fly standby, and that can be quite stressful.  You never know when a seat will be available.  We arrived at the airport in Huntsville, AL at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday (Jan. 2) with 10 pieces of luggage.  It took Hope, JD, Jim, and me to get it all to the check-in counter.  We were advised to bring everything with us and pay extra baggage fees as it is the cheapest way to get freight to Costa Rica.  We thought we might have to pay as much as $800 to get all 10 bags here.  The first blessing was that we only had to pay $250 for extra bags and overweight bags.  Wow!  Next, we were able to get seats on all our flights with no trouble, hand-wringing, or waiting.  We are so blessed!

We were met at the airport in Costa Rica by a gracious friend, and she hauled us and ALL of our luggage to our apartment.  That brings us to another blessing.  The ReachGlobal communications director for Latin America had secured an apartment for us.  When we arrived, we were delighted with the apartment.  It is clean and bright, and some of the furniture is better than what we have had in our home the past few years.  It all matches! The pictures are all of our apartment.

The communications director tooks us to HiperMas (Wal-Mart in Latin America), and Pequeno Mundo (Big Lots) to buy household items.  Wal-Mart must be the anti-christ as they are taking over the world.  I didn't even get lost because the HiperMas was laid out just like the Wal-Mart in Jacksonville. 


Jim was able to communicate in Spanish to get our internet/cable ordered.  We should be online sometime next week.  Once we have internet, you can contact us via Skype.  We will have our Skype active when we are at home.  You can call us from your phone @ 256-850-0525.  This is a U.S. number, so there will be no international charges.  If you have a Skype account, our Skype names are jim.wilson.efca and melanie.e.wilson.


The first language boo-boo has been made.  I should know better because Jim did this one when he was learning Spanish.  We were in a restaurant talking with the waiter.  I was trying to tell the gentleman that I would be able to speak some Spanish in one year.  Instead of one "year," I said one "an_s."  Uh-oh!!!!  Shouldn't talk about body parts like that!!!


We ask that you pray for us as we begin our language studies.