En Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio and the Vespers

God's Blessings on all of you this morning,

We went to a national park last weekend called Manuel Antonio National Park. Is anyone aware of any national parks in the US named after a person? I know Davy Crockett is a national forest, but I had never heard of a national park named after a person. But whoever Manuel Antonio was, his park is gorgeous and the wildlife was a blast. The animals there are so used to humans they'll walk right up to you, and I even fed a monkey by hand.

But along with all the animals come tourists taking pictures. Okay I admit, I wasn't much different, but I tried to stay out of obviously touristy situations like this one

But onto what God did during the weekend and kind of the week before. We planned the Manuel Antonio trip expecting Allsion's boyfriend Amos and Kevin's mom to be joining us, but Kevin's brother had to have major surgery in the US. It went miraculously, but that left us without two of our companions, and when Allison fell sick when we got to the Hotel, we were all really discouraged. Amos, Esther and I spent a half day at the beach on Friday and that's all, but what God revealed to me was great.

Working overseas is awesome, and to see God's beauty in another place, with new faces, new wildlife and landscape where you work to better the lives of men is wonderful. But even in missions, it's easy to get the travel bug and that's exactly what hit us. As I was walking on the beach, I was struck by how purposeless this trip seemed to me. We were on a beach in Costa Rica, and didn't even care to stick around for the sun to set cause we had put in our hopes in something so fleeting. It was really convicting actually. In the midst of a short getaway, I wanted to be back in the office doing something productive, and here I was at the beach not to retreat with God but to 'vacation.' And I tell you, you'll go from one mission to the next, one 'vacation with a purpose' and never be fulfilled if you are not already filled by God's Spirit and His presence. When you go vacation, and do your mission trips, wait till God has something very special waiting for you when you get there. I certainly have found that in working with eMi, and thank the Lord that he works to cleanse me still from the sight-seeing-do-everything-possible chasing after the wind.

But things picked up. Saturday Allison jumped out of bed ready to go, and this is what we saw. We saw a bundle of monkeys jumping the trees and trying to snag a snack from an unaware tourist. I gotta admit, as slick as they are, they can't seem to get away from the cameras, which
really puts them at a

disadvantage. This guy came down twice from his tree to see if he could snag my granola from my bag. He was pretty ambitious, given the fact that I was standing within easy reach of it myself. We had a couple of swipe wars, and

afterward he ran away. He gave me an awesome picture though, and he took it really well, so he should be proud. We first ran into the perezosos though, which is both the spanish for lazy and sloth. But it's even more fitting because perezoso ends in oso, which is bear, and the sloth is kind of like a lazy bear.

While Amos and Allison rested on the beach, Esther and I took off on a trail called "El Mirador," which literally means "The Looker," but in Manuel Antonio, it means the lookout trail, and this is why

This was a short, 10 meter offshoot before the crowded official lookout. We saw the main lookout and came back here cause it was a lot quieter and much more peaceful.

There was a troop of these guys about 5 strong, and they all came out of the woodwork when I pulled out my croissant sandwich, which they all wanted. I had to deny them though cause I was hungry and it's not good to feed animals baked goods. This guy was grandaddy, about a half a meter long.

I had to stake these crabs out cause they'll go back into their holes if you get anywhere near them, or if you flinch. I sat very still for about 5 minutes about 4 feet away to get these guys on camera

Hermit crabs are always fun

I thought these rock formations were really cool

And the sunset finished the day. I told Esther how sunsets are all the same, but you still can't stop looking at them because they're such a display of God's awesome glory. And the clouds dress them so differently every time as well.

To make things even better, there was this awesome sailboat anchored in the perfect spot for the sunset.

A couple of things more then I'll say goodbye till next time. An awesome new bluegrass/folk group called the Vespers is about to release their second album on April 3rd and it's called "The Fourth Wall." They're new so they're definitely influenced by and sound like a mix of the Avett Brothers and Mumford and sons, but with female vocals, and a ukelele sound to it. They're super good and they also love Jesus. I've seen a couple of their shows and have even gotten to talk to them some, but they're for real. They told a bar audience that Jesus and spreading the gospel is the reason they play. It was pretty cool, so if you like bluegrass, you should definitely check them out and buy their current and up-coming album. Here's a bit more about their story.