¡Feliz Navidad, mis amigos! 😃
I hope this finds everyone in good spirits. If you’re struggling right now, I send you my love, and wish you newfound hope! 💗
As you can see, it doesn’t look like “Christmas time” here. It’s dry season now though, and we’ve had a lot of wind lately, helping to cool us down. It a real treat not to need the a/c all the time! The humidity has calmed down since rainy season ended, and it cools down a bit more at night now too. Ahhh!
These past couple weeks have been pretty intense, with different things coming up almost every day. Some fun, some not so much fun. One fun thing was that our family spent most of Sunday at the Bitcoin Farmers Market, with Tom being the market Santa, Ho-ho-ho-ing and passing out candy, while I helped the girls sell some craft items and baking.
With Christmas coming, the girls and I have been doing some fun little crafts like these beaded wire ornaments. We ended up with a lot of snowflakes. Sometimes we really miss the snow—especially now, during the festive season!
Last week we discovered termites or woodworms were destroying our bookshelves. There was sawdust on the floor and tiny holes in the sides of the wood. Tom went to a local store, asked what would kill them, and brought me some toxic paint to apply to the shelves. I spent about an hour trying not to breathe in the fumes, as I painted the poison into our beloved shelves. So, hopefully we’ve taken care of that problem for now.
Tom was mentioning to me lately how many things in our lives have led us to where we are now—living this crazy life in a tropical, developing country where we don’t speak the language super well. And where getting some “basic” things done can be pretty challenging sometimes—as Tom is finding with trying to get the water hooked up on our land right now!
Note: I have to give Tom credit for writing about half of this blog!! ¡Gracias, mi amor! ❤️
When Tom and I met 14 years ago, we had absolutely no idea where our lives would take us. But there were some mind-blowing similarities on our “bucket lists” that helped pull us together and lead us to where we are now.
I had recently broken up with someone who hadn’t treated me too well (yeah, I know—we’ve all had those!) and he didn’t seem to share my sense of adventure or dreams for the future. Tom was basically in the same boat, recently single, and hoping to eventually find someone who he could share his dreams and life with.
At the time, I was determined that I’d be happier remaining single…UNLESS I could somehow find someone who not only treated me much better, but wanted the same things from life as me. I grabbed my journal one day and made an extensive list of what I was looking for in a man…a man who in the back of my mind I doubted could even exist. But I wrote…and I wrote…
My list included:
caring and kind!
honest
loves God and others
humble
wants to learn Spanish
wants to travel around Latin America
By the time I was done, I had at least 30 things written down. “Yeah, right…I’ll never meet this guy…” I thought. But I knew I needed to put into words what it was I was looking for in a future husband…in order to have some idea of what sort of guy it was I was looking for to begin with.
When I met Tom, it wasn’t like we both knew right away that we were meant for each other. There were some sparks, but we started out as friends for a couple months, and did a lot of talking about our pasts and what we each wanted for the future. The more we talked, the more I could see the potential of doing life together. When Tom said that he’d always wanted to learn Spanish and travel to Latin America (before I’d even mentioned my hopes to do that), I was secretly stunned!
I’d spent a lot of my 20’s travelling the world with an organization called Youth With a Mission, in between working to save up for trips. My first job was at Tim Horton’s—who hasn’t worked in fast food?!—then as a waitress, and later I became a care aide, helping the elderly in a nursing home. Finally, I decided to do the training to be an LPN (licensed practical nurse).
All together I’d been on 5 big travel stints of about 6 months each, including time in India, England, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Australia, and finally Namibia. I worked there as a “school nurse” in a school for underprivileged and orphan kids for 7 months in 2007.
Each time I travelled, I’d come back to Canada and feel like, “This isn’t how most of the world lives. People here have ‘blinders’ on…it’s like we’re in denial, and feel entitled to this lifestyle with ALL of our things.”
I didn’t want to forget what I’d seen and how I’d felt. And I told myself, “When I have kids someday, I have to take them—they have to see how MOST of the world lives. I have to expose them to the developing world, and can’t let them live only seeing the comforts of life in Canada. I want to raise kids with empathy and compassion, who know what it means to live with less.”
Once we had our girls, Tom and I talked often about taking them travelling. We just didn’t know when, where, or how it would begin. But we envisioned it, and looked forward to it, telling them about all the places we’d been and would like to go. From a young age, they each seemed to have a spark for adventure, and asked us often, “When will we get to start travelling the world?”
Tom and I began to learn Spanish in 2011 before our August wedding, by signing up for a course called Rocket Spanish online. Then, after we tied the knot, we began to take virtual lessons with a couple based out of Antigua, Guatemala. We honeymooned in Belize (which is mostly English-speaking) and in early 2012 we went to Argentina and Uruguay for a month, where we finally got to use some of what we’d learned.
In late 2012, Tom decided to quit his job with the railway, where he’d been on-call 24 hours a day to drive trains. It wasn’t the kind of job he wanted as a husband and (someday) father. He wanted to go back to school to study finance and accounting. Little did we know how useful his ability to work remotely would become for us later!
We felt like we’d just barely started our travels, and wanted to see so much more of Latin America. So, we grabbed the opportunity to take a few months off before his first college semester began. We packed all of our things into storage, and planned a 7-week trip to Central America (as I detailed in this previous blog). It was pretty amazing to be travelling around on “chicken buses,” seeing so many different places and cultures…and speaking and learning more Spanish. We even got to meet our Spanish instructors and their kids in Guatemala!
We started off in Mexico, enjoyed some beach life in Belize, explored the colourful culture and beautiful countryside of Guatemala for a month, saw a bit of Honduras, and the beach here in El Salvador. We hiked volcanoes, went zip-lining and volcano-boarding in Nicaragua, and finally ran out of time and flew out of Costa Rica without getting to explore it. Thankfully we had time to explore it with our girls while Tom’s sister and her husband were here earlier this year (see this blog).
I guess you could say, I don’t mind living a bit rustically. For some of my life, including two years in high school, I didn’t have flush toilets (a long story for another day!) Travelling in India and Russia, we had squatty-potties aka, a hole in the floor you have to squat over and often no running water in the washrooms.
In Africa, India, the Philippines, and Latin America, I’d quickly learned to always bring toilet paper and sanitizer whenever I went out. If there were taps with running water, we considered it not too rustic! Toilet paper and soap are often luxury items in developing countries. Even in El Salvador, I always carry some toilet paper with me, and never regret it, especially with kids, and going to some of the more rustic places we go.
Why am I saying all this…?
Tom and I have realized lately that our journeys up to this point have prepared us to be here, doing what we’re doing. God had a plan, and gave us the desire to learn Spanish and travel in Latin America. We’re not afraid of challenges and we want to embrace the adventures that come. We know life could be safer—think crazy drivers and windy, narrow roads! And we certainly could be more comfortable in many other places. But our goal is not to live a life of comfort.
We don’t always have to know all the why’s of what we’re doing, but we do have to have faith that everything happens for a reason. Our desires and dreams were given to us by God, and today’s circumstances are making us who we need to be for the things we will face in the future. God is working things out for a purpose, and we’re being prepared for things that we could never predict. We have to trust that He has a plan for our lives and has put the desires and dreams in our hearts for a reason. In hindsight, it’s awesome to see how much of what Tom and I talked about while dating has come to pass now.
If you feel it is time to make a change in your life, you have to have some level of faith that things will work out—even if you don’t know how. It’s never easy to embrace a new life. But someday we’ll see it more clearly. Tom and I are amazed at how many dreams and visions we had 10-15 years ago that have prepared us for all that’s happened in the last couple years.
Another thing: I truly believe that if you’re where God wants you, He will help you and provide for you what you need, if you move forward in faith and are willing to work hard. Sometimes that means stepping out on a limb, but don’t be afraid. We have friends here who took undesirable, low-paying online jobs in order to get out of Canada and pay their rent here. Now they have something better, because opportunities arose in time. It was the same for us. We left Canada on a hope and a prayer, without any income for the first little while.
Twenty years ago when I was spending a lot of my time working in developing countries, I had no idea it was preparing me for my future life, LIVING in a place like El Salvador. I often wondered what all my travels and adventures would amount to in the bigger picture. Now I can see it so much more clearly.
Tom also sees that even though he quit his good-paying job at the railway to be a poor student for awhile, his education made a way for him to have the flexibility to provide for our family from abroad. At the time, some of our friends and even some family members thought he was crazy to give up his job when we were just about to start a family.
God even had a plan for us when I was fired from my job two years ago and our government said we’d soon be unable to leave Canada. Those things gave us the “push” we needed to leave. By doing so, we didn’t even realize till later that we were finally able to fulfill our long-awaited dream of travelling as a family. We are so thankful that we didn’t allow fears of the unknown and attachment to our “stuff” to keep us from taking that plunge.
I’m thankful for it all now. All the challenges, like sleeping on hard floors in the Philippines with roosters nearby keeping our team awake for half the night—my heart breaking, listening to crying kids in the village who were too hungry to sleep.
As you can imagine, that absolutely tore me apart. We helped them with the little that we had, but that experience sealed in me the NEED to expose my kids to the developing world.
Now we finally are. And now we are immersed in this culture—speaking Spanish daily, Latino music playing outside, roosters crowing at 5 am, stray dogs and cats to feed, and coconuts and mangoes for sale on the roadside.
Our girls are blossoming because of living here. And we love so many aspects of life here. To think it all started with dreams that God put in Tom and me: to learn Spanish and travel to Latin America all those years ago. I’m so thankful for those hopes and dreams. At the time, they were just tiny seeds. Now we can see that those dreams helped to shaped our lives, and bring us to this beautiful, amazing place. A place where we still have so much to discover!
Feliz Navidad, amigos ❤️ ✨🎄
I pray you embrace life with renewed vigour and hope in 2024 🙏
Thanks for reading! 😊
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¡Muchas gracias y nos vemos pronto!
Wow. Thoroughly enjoyed reading that! The back story, I always like the back stories. ;) Amazing how the threads in our lives intertwine. Purpose indeed. And speaking of YWAM, I have a YWAM story for you sometime..
Holding back the happy tears after reading your piece... thinking about how my own life has also helped prepare me for where I am now. It’s so nice to connect with others doing similar things. Receiving videos and Christmas wishes from those back in Canada, where their lives haven’t really changed very much (if at all), sometimes gives me melancholy... so your lovely writing has pulled me up a bit more today...
I know we’re all just trying to do our best, but when I see others who like myself, have stepped completely out of the comfort zone, I really get a great feeling... I think the (almost) tears are those of pride and a little more hope for the future...
gracias