I bet you thought it would be a few weeks till I blogged again... Surprised? Thought so.

I think that I have been experiencing the beginnings of culture shock here in Costa Rica. I love it here, I love the people, I love the climate, I even love the beauty of the language, but I have found myself getting stressed and frustrated over the last couple of days, which I have come to learn from precious experiences that this is often how I deal with culture shock. For those of you who don't have any idea what I'm talking about, culture shock is the discomfort you go through when living in place different from your place of origin. In other words, there's nothing wrong with where the person who's experiencing C.S. is, it's just a stage in "getting settled."

One of the great things about culture shock though is that it causes you to look seriously at your life's objectives, values and goals. This is definitely the case for me. I have been spending some time in prayer and thought over the last couple of days and I think I can sum up my "examination" of values and objectives by saying: "At the end of my life, I want to be able to say that I passionately gave everything I had to my family, to my friends and to all those I came in contact with. But most of all I want to say that I gave everything I had to the one who gave it all to me."

I want to be able to give. I feel as though I have been the recipient of so much from my family, friends, people I don't even know. I want to be sure that I am taking the opportunities I have to "give back" per se. But most of all, God has just blessed my life in such awesome ways and I ask those of you reading this to pray that my eyes would be open to the chances I have to be a blessing to others.

Well, that's my sermon for now. On a lighter note, I had a test in Conversation today and think I did pretty darn good :). Also, Dena and I are just about to leave to go to Rodrigo's (see February 4 posting) house for supper. Should be a good cultural experience.