September Newsletter

October 10^th!  It’s official!  We are moving to Costa Rica.  For those of you who have been following our blog, you know that since settling on a departure date for October, we have been busy. 

In August we traveled to Costa Rica to find a place to live and were blessed to find a great house to rent, available October 1^st.  So when we returned home we figured we needed to rent out our house as soon as possible.  That made the last weeks of August very busy.  We finished fixing up our house, packed up our stuff, rented out our home, and moved out.  We sold a car, Craigslisted bikes, a bbq, and a basketball hoop among other things, and said goodbye to our favorite places and wonderful friends in Seattle.

There have been several moments during the often stress-filled weeks when we have wondered, “What are we doing?”, and time and time again we have gone back to the reality that we know God has called us to go serve at the

Abraham Project.  Over the past several months people have asked the questions, “Why are you going to Costa Rica? What are you going to be doing?”  These are great questions, and since we sent out our first letter in March we have continued to pray, discuss, and refine what we feel we God is calling us into, while at the same time realizing that even the best laid plans can be changed.  We are going to serve at the Project to do the following: help raise the money needed to build  and run four new children’s homes,  assist in the management of the construction, teach English at the daycare, and be a connection point between individuals, families, churches, and other organizations who want to participate in short-term or long-terms missions.

All this being said, we are humbled and blessed to know that we have your support and that we are not doing this alone. 

Love,

Joe, Jennie, and Kate

PS.

The last several weeks have been marked by change, travel, and transition, and this will of course continue as we get settled in Costa Rica.  Since we moved out of our house on September 4th, we spent ten days living with friends in Seattle while we tied up loose ends and said our goodbyes.  Then we traveled to visit Jennie’s family in Asheville, NC, which was a much needed break in the midst of the whirlwind of moving.  Now, we are in Vancouver, WA spending time with my family until we depart for Costa Rica on October 10^th.

When we arrive in Costa Rica we will spend the first couple of weeks getting our house settled and then Kate will start attending the daycare at the Project three to four mornings a week while Jennie and I take Spanish classes.  Our goal for the first year is to improve our Spanish and acclimate to the culture, while helping where needed around the Project.  We are also excited to work with a few teams from our supporting churches that will be coming to serve, and we would welcome any of you who would like to come stay with us and see the Project!

Saying Goodbye

We have officially bid Seattle farewell.  We are actually in North Carolina visiting my mom right now and have wanted to write about our last couple of weeks earlier, but it’s been so crazy busy that we’re just now getting around to it.  Of course I thought the worst was over with moving out, and it was, but the exhaustion and pace of life didn’t slow down one bit.  And I will be honest – I’m still so tired that writing coherently is not coming easily.  But here’s a little recap of our last two weeks.

After we moved out, we were blessed to be able to stay with our good friends the Kylers.  We actually lived with them eight years ago right before we were going to Costa Rica to study Spanish.  So it was like deja-vu to live with them again, except the fact that we have kids now, and we had their entire basement to crash in and clutter up with all our junk.  (The last time we all shared a bathroom on the main floor). Living with people and out of a suitcase can be hard, but we knew it would be smooth with Katie and Ryan because of their incredible hospitality and because it worked before… It was great to wake up every morning, make breakfast for the kids with Katie and share coffee and conversation with her.  It made the transition of being temporarily homeless much easier.  Kate became BFFs with Molly, their two year-old daughter.  Well I guess they weren’t always BFFs – they each had their share of time-outs for pushing and not sharing.  “MY bowl.” “No MY bowl.” “NO, MY bowl.” Conversations between the two of them went a lot like this. Kate learned a lot over the ten days at their house! And Katie and I got to spend some super quality time together every single day. 

But with the exception of slow mornings, we were off and running around for ten days straight.  Every day we had to say goodbye to some place, something, or someone.  I knew saying goodbye would be difficult, but I didn’t anticipate how tiring and emotional it would be. We saw friends almost every single day and night and ran all over town.  I think pictures will do the best explaining so here they are with some captions. I put the captions ABOVE the pictures this time since they are a little longer.

We got to spend an evening with our friends the Sanas who just moved back to Seattle after being on the east coast for 5 years. Go figure, now we're moving... We had a lovely picnic at a Seattle park overlooking the city (forgot camera), then went back to Marshall's parents' house on Queen Anne. This is their daughter Klara, who Kate had a blast playing with.

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This picture was actually taken the week of our move... It's of Kate and Josie, my good friend Dede's daughter. Dede and I had lunch without the kids one day after we moved and it was just what I needed. She has been a friend since college but we have really bonded over the past two years after she moved back to Seattle and we both had baby girls. I can vent to her about anything... how I'll miss our long talks in person. Dede, we'll just have to Skype!

  The Puyallup Fair! Okay, so I cannot lie, this was my FAVORITE day of all of our last ten days we spent in Seattle. I L-O-V-E the fair and couldn't wait to go. The best part was that we worked it out to go with friends Lindsey and Eric and their adorable son Ollie. Here they are petting, yes, mini-horses! I am obsessed with mini-horses and really want one! Maybe I'll get one of these in Costa Rica. The yard is big enough, and hey, Dawson our dog could always use a playmate!

The Cat Barn. Yes, there is a designated barn just for showing 4H cats off. The kids who "show" their cats get to decorate their cages. You know the cats just HATE it, but I love it. I love it so much that after all the other adults and kids were done looking and I had to go back in to make sure I didn't miss a single cage. It just cracks me up to see the different themes and decor kids choose. Such creativity! This guy doesn't know it, but he's actually swimming, "under the sea."

The GIANT SLIDE! Kate went down once with Joe, then once with me. We're in the middle.  Your stomach drops a lot more than you'd expect... Kate said, "More, more!"

Does it get any cuter? Kate and Ollie holding hands. Did I mention I LOVE the fair? We bought kettle corn as we entered, then ate BBQ for lunch, caramel apples for dessert, and then more kettle corn to take home with us... We'll miss American fairs. We'll just have to come back and visit during late summer!

We had dinner at the Millikans' house on Saturday night. Joe and Greg have been friends since college and Greg was Joe's boss at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue. They have three great kids, a beautiful backyard, and a trampoline to boot. Needless to say, Kate was in hog heaven.

Two of the Millikan kids (Anna and Sam) and Kate squashed in the middle.

On our last day in Seattle, I crammed in one more visit with a friend - Tina and her two boys (the same friends we spent a weekend in Cle Elum with). We met at the zoo, enjoyed one last carousel ride, and saw a few of our favorite animals. 

The incredible bears. Isaac, Asher, and Kate looking on.

 Kate and Molly reading a book together. One of their "love" moments in the midst of a "love-hate" relationship.

 Kate and Molly at the table ready to eat cake!

The Kylers! On their 9 year anniversary with their kids Sean and Molly. Thank you guys for opening your home up to us and being so gracious and hospitable! We will miss you!

In addition to seeing and doing all of the above, I was able to see some great "teaching" friends from my old school, go to one last dance class (more on that later), eat dinner with "Uncle" Jason (our wonderful, long-time friend), and go to our church one last time. Joe also met up with a few of his guy friends that I know he will miss. Now we are in North Carolina finally trying to relax... Don't really know how to end this post without being completely cliche. We will miss all of our Seattle friends - you all have made some serious impact on our lives and we are better people for knowing you! Can't wait to see you again when we visit in March and reconnect with people that we weren't able to see... We love you Seattle friends!

Moved Out!

Well we finally did it.  After a grueling couple of weeks, we finally got every last little thing packed up and moved out of our 10th Avenue house this Sunday.  It seemed like it would never end.  Moving is one of those things that you know is going to be a hassle, but you forget HOW difficult it is until you actually are in the last few days of it.  Even after a thousand boxes were packed and meticulously labeled, we kept opening up cabinets only to still find junk inside them.  Ugh… Then you are still trying to live in your house but your home has been reduced to a skeleton’s worth of necessities and at some point you are dying to just be done.  And it gets more and more emotionally difficult the longer you stay in a nearly empty house, sleep on the floor, and eat off of paper plates.  But we powered through it, cleaned every cabinet, cranny and cobweb, and handed over the keys at 5 pm on Sunday evening.  I cried as we drove off, seeing the three girls who are renting our house stand on our sunny porch, knowing we weren’t going to be living there anymore…  But we are moving forward and are excited for the adventure that God has called us into.  Here are some pictures of the house we loved and will miss:

The west-facing front yard.  The asters were just starting to bloom as we left.

The light drenched front room, before we had packed a thing, about two weeks ago.

We could eat dinner with the sun streaming in - that is when the sun was shining at least.

Kate helping me clean.  We spent 2 hours one day spraying off walls, floorboards, cabinets, and more.  She was totally into it.

Front steps with Fernando napping.  He had found several favorite outside napping spots in the recent stretch of good weather - one being burrowed underneath a small lilac in the backyard.

Our front room about 1.5 weeks ago - we had to patch a huge hole in the ceiling (it had been there for 4 years!) and paint the entire ceiling too.  Fun.

Dawson in the midst of the chaos.

The gorgeous night sky seen from our windows.

Craigslist Crazy!

So I think I forget to mention that we actually have plane tickets for Costa Rica now.  After we knew we had rented our house out (last post), had secured the house we wanted in C.R., and were going to start paying rent on October 1^st, we quickly realized that we better get our travel plans in order.  I think I also forgot to mention the actual date we have to be out of our house here: September 4^th.  Then we will go stay with friends here in Seattle for about a week and a half, and then say goodbye to Seattle on the 16^th – yes folks, that’s only 3 weeks away! – and then we drive down to Vancouver.  Needless to say, this timeline is a lot faster than we had anticipated, but it’s all good, and we are finally on our way.  No more what-if’s or when-will-it-all-happen conversations…  And so that brings us to our current phase: crazy packing and crazy Craigslisting!

Joe and I have never really used Craigslist before.  We always just take stuff to the Goodwill and the things that are too expensive to donate we’ve held on to – for way too long.  But now is the time to not only donate our junk but to sell it too and make some cash! It’s crazy how people come out of the woodwork to get a good deal… Here is a list of items we’ve sold:

·      Kate’s basketball hoop - $15

·      Wooden lacing beads - $5

·      Tricycle - $40

·      Clothing rack - $25

·      Ikea chair and ottoman - $25

·      Plastic folding tables - $60 plus something special (ask us in person)

·      My bike - $160

·      Joe’s road bike - $700 (sold to a 20 year old kid who wanted it so bad that he had tears in his eyes when Joe refused his offer of $650 – the asking price was $775… “It’s beautiful,” he said about the bike)

·      Old Target desk I’ve used since college - $20

·      Nikon zoom lens - $75

We also have a window a.c., a PSP (video game thingy), our dirty grill, and a file cabinet still listed and have high hopes of selling those as well.  I mean, I'm sure someone must want them, right? The Craigslist cash will go towards stocking up on a few things before we leave as well as furnishing our house in Costa Rica.

So YEA for Craigslist!!  You are brilliant Craig, whoever you are.  (Was it really started by a guy named Craig?  I have no clue!).

Next on the agenda: make plans with all of our Seattle friends over the next three weeks so we can have one last hoorah and say our goodbyes! September 16th is coming too soon!!!

Bad Day to Glad Day

 Have you been in that situation where you have such an overwhelming amount of things to do that you are just paralyzed by it?  You don’t even know where to begin?  It’s like a heavy fog has descended and you can’t see 5 feet in front of you for where to even take the next step.  That’s how coming back from Costa Rica was for both Joe and me.  We got back at 1 a.m. on a Thursday night and the gist of things is that the lack of sleep from long flights and the overwhelming amount of things to do drove us both over the edge last Saturday.  Anxiety and stress got the best of us and at one point I ended up on my closet floor curled up in a ball, crying.  Clearly, emotions were running high at the Westfall house.  The lovely thing about these kind of breakdowns is that typically you don’t remember exactly how you got to that state of emotions in the first place, and so as I recall these events from a week ago I truthfully don’t remember much. But the essence of my meltdown was that Joe brought up the idea of trying to rent our house out by September 1st and that “it was more important to get renters” than whatever my agenda was, blah, blah, blah…  And at that moment in time, I just wasn’t ready for that conversation. It was too soon, too fast, and too crazy! Our move-out date was supposed to be October 1st, not September!! I was SO tired I just couldn’t think straight, and I ended up being a wreck for the rest of the day.  Hence, the Bad Day.

But things got much better, in a matter hours.  Okay, it was 72 hours, but still, it’s amazing how quickly things can turn around.  I had time to think about our “timeline” and Joe’s proposal and started realizing that Joe really was on to something. We had found a house in Costa Rica that, if we got, we’d start paying rent on October 1st. And we wanted to spend a good amount of time with both of our families before we left the country.  And really, I was ready to start packing and it’s a whole lot easier to pack when you know you’re moving soon and don’t have to deal with empty walls or shelves for too long. So I came around and our compromise was that September 15th was ideal, but I could swing a September 5th move out date.  That was the EARLIEST I was willing to do things, because it gave us an extra weekend.

So we posted our house on Craigslist and received a couple of emails showing interest within the first day.  But one couple decided against it due to location and the other email was from “4 responsible adults” – that sounded too ambiguous to me.  Craigslist can be so random, and I really wanted to narrow our search down. After a couple of technical glitches, I was finally able to post our ad on our church’s message board (Bethany Community Church), but I had little hope of anything coming out of that because it doesn’t seem to be widely used.  Lo and behold, I received an email from a Bethany attender and SPU grad (that’s the local Christian college here) within a couple hours of posting.  That was Monday.  Long story short, she and her friends came over on Tuesday night, wrote us a check, and it was pretty much a done deal.  You know how you just get a feeling with people?  We obviously don’t ‘know’ them, but you can just tell they are AWESOME girls – cute, fun, responsible - and they go to our church. They are paying less than we were asking, but they will sign a two year lease, do all the yard work, and maybe even use some of our furniture so we don’t have to move or store it. We feel excited and blessed.

Then, a couple hours after that happened, we found out that we got the house in Costa Rica that we wanted to rent.  For a pretty darn good price.  So Bad turns to Glad, and we sure are glad to have both of those HUGE things off of our plate.

Time is going fast though: only two weeks until we move out!  So our plate is still pretty full… but I know we can do it.  Now we're off to pack...

A Great Week in CR

           The trip was great.  Very fruitful.  After catching up on sleep on Sunday after my red-eye flight (I was lucky enough to have a whole ROW to myself on the flight from Houston to San Jose – a little gift!), we were off and running around for the rest of the week.  Jonathan and Amy (one of the couples serving at the Project) graciously drove us to the appointment with the ob-gyn doc on Monday morning.  It was an informative, if a little intense, visit.  The Dr. was very informative and I felt really good about the type of care I’d receive in Costa Rica.  It did bring up some questions about how my ectopic pregnancy was treated here in the states, but getting a second opinion is always good, and I can tell he has a passion for his patients and giving them the BEST care possible.  My appointment lasted 30-45 minutes – that says a LOT.

            The rest of the day and week consisted mainly of us being chauffeured around everywhere by Steve looking for houses and at stores, pricing things out for setting up our home. (Steve is the original missionary that helped launch the Project 13 years ago, along with his wife Georgiana and the local pastor Jorge.  We met Steve and Georgiana 7 years ago when were traveling/studying in CR).  I wrote down a zillion prices of things we will have to buy: everything from dishes, to coffee makers, to beds and sofas.  Things are NOT cheap in Costa Rica. I saw my Covergirl mascara going for $24 in Walmart!           

More importantly, however, was we found a house to live in - we think. We have three options and have not signed anything yet, as we’re waiting to hear back from the landlady of our first option.  The house is a little farther away from the Project than we’d like (15 min. in traffic), but has a HUGE yard and lots of space where we could host visitors.  We had been praying for a house with at least some green space – a rarity in CR unless you live in a mansion practically – and this surpassed all our expectations.  It’s a little out of our price range though so we offered $200 less than the owner was asking and are waiting to hear from her.  She lives out of the country, but was coming back into town this weekend and wanted to meet us… Alas, we are back in Seattle already.  But the real estate agent suggested that they go visit the Project together to see what we’ll be doing/who we’ll be working with, and so we are hoping and praying that she accepts our offer.  She visits the Abraham Project on Tuesday.  Cross your fingers!!

If that doesn’t work out, we have two other condos that would work fine and they are a lot closer to the project, just with far less yard (like 12x6 feet).

Besides all that, we were not only blessed by Steve’s amazing chauffeuring skills, but also by all the legwork and phone calls both Steve and Georgiana made for us regarding housing.  In addition, their hospitality and gourmet cooking was incredible.  Seriously, they are amazing cooks and we were treated to some truly delicious meals.  We couldn’t make this huge step in our lives without their help, or the other families that are serving at the Project.  Muchas gracias amigos!  And thanks to all of you who were praying for us.  Kate did great with Joe’s padres, and we felt His peace and presence throughout the week while we were away.  Here are some pictures of our trip.

El Jardin (the garden) in house option #1

The back of the house.

Trash on the street - typical in lots of places.

A really cool, upscale store called Cemaco.  It was like a Costa Rican Anthropolgie.  I got in trouble for taking pictures!

A very nice home, but notice the razor wire.  Very typical and necessary.

Just down the hill is the Abraham Project.  This is a typical Tico (Costa Rican) neighborhood.

Deck: D.O.N.E… and I’m off to Costa Rica!

           I’m leaving for Costa Rica about three hours.  And it’s 9:30 p.m.  Which means I’ll be getting into Houston at 4 a.m. my time.  Not real excited about that.  But what I am excited about – drum roll please – is that our 450 sq. ft. deck is DONE.  Can I just tell you that the deck kept growing in size every time I stepped foot on it?  I swear, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and the project seemed like it would never end. But end it did and boy am I thankful to have that project behind us.

            I couldn’t have done it without the help of my mom, who came out this week while Joe was leading the team down in Costa Rica.  On Monday and Tuesday mornings, she took Kate to the park so I could paint the ‘gaps’.  Each gap had to be painted by hand with a foam brush (without paint in the gaps, you could see the different shades of wood).  Then we had to paint all the railings, and let me tell you, that’s a lot of surface area even though it doesn’t seem like it.  There are all these crevices that you really gotta dig the brush into to get the paint to cover it.  Hence, the picture of the seen-better-days brush below.  So while Kate was napping, my mom and I went to town on all those surfaces and crevices.  Finally, on day SEVEN of working on the deck (two last week, five in a row this week), we completed the task, and I let out a loud “Yes!” when the final coat was applied last night.

           My mom also went crazy on painting/staining other surfaces: the front steps, the gaps in the siding on the steps, the side steps, and of course was super helpful in the kitchen and with Kate and just all around – all week long.  And when Kate went to our babysitter on Friday so we could finish our projects, my mom paid for it.  Thank you mom for your incredible generosity and helpfulness. 

            Now I’m off to Costa Rica and we have some big plans.  Not really, just a final scouting trip to 1) Catch up on sleep from the red eye flight (Sunday)  2) Meet the doctor and tour the hospital (Monday)  3) Look at houses to rent (all week)  4) See where Kate could go swimming, do gymnastics, take ballet, etc. 5)Find furniture/bed/pet food stores  6) Hang out with the amazing missionary team already living there… 7) Meet some of the new/current children living in the homes (a two-month old just arrived last week)… Please pray for safe travel, for open doors, for guidance, wisdom, and most of all PEACE.  Also you can pray for Kate while we are away – Joe’s amazing parents are taking care of her this week at our house. Thank you for your prayers!  As my uncle, a long-time missionary always says, we’re all in this together. 

            P.S. I hope to be able to write from CR but if not, I’ll post pics and do an update as soon as I can when we return (late Thursday).  Pictures of Deck below!