Preparing for Costa Rica

Welcome to my blog!!

I want to send out updates about this coming semester and this hopefully will be a great way to do it. Chris just helped me set this up recently to blog all about Costa Rica. I am going to be studying in San Jose, Costa Rica for the entire spring semester. I leave January 8th and fly back home April 24th. I am getting very nervous, but I'm also very excited!! This is a once in a life time opportunity and I know that I am going to learn a lot, but it is still hard to leave all my loved ones and friends. It is going to be 3 1/2 months of the unknown, I don't know a single person in Costa Rica, but within a week it will be my home. tonight I have started to pack a little and have been making lists of what I need to do before leaving. I still can't believe that I will be in Costa Rica within a week.

I don't know much about what I will be experiencing, but I do know a few things. I will be living with a host family in Costa Rica, all hosts are required to have at least one child at home. The family will be a Christian family (either protestant of Catholic). I will be taking classes, they will all be in Spanish. I am doing this program through Asbury, so I will get 16 hours of credit. I will also be traveling around a lot, I'm not sure where I will go, there are a few options. I may spend time in Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala, and I heard a rumor that Cuba is an option.

I am going to try to blog about once a week. I won't always have access to the internet, but hopefully I will be able to keep you informed with what I am doing. I think that I will be able to put pictures on here, so that will be fun as long as I can figure out how.

There are a couple things I want to ask of you all as I leave for the semester. First of all I want to ask for your prayer. My biggest concern is my emotional health, I haven't ever been away from home for this long and it is going to be really hard. My family hopefully will be able to visit during Robert's spring break, it would be great to see some of them. I am also going to miss my friends, and more than anyone else I will miss Chris. I'm not upset about leaving, because I know that it is what God wants me to do, but I know it is going to be really hard at times. The other thing is that Spanish has been really hard for me recently and I think it is going to be really hard to communicate for the first few weeks, hopefully I will catch on quickly. Throughout the semester I will update this and let you know what prayer requests I have, because I'm sure I will need a lot of prayer.

I will have a mailing address in Costa Rica and I would love to receive some mail from you all. It would be great to get a note just to let me know that you have been praying for me. I think it will cost about $1.50 to mail a letter to Costa Rica, so it isn't that much. I can easily receive mail that is up to 4lbs.

My mailing address is:

Carol Fogler
Latin American Studies Program
Apdo. 54-2070
Sabanilla, Montes de Oca
San Jose, COSTA RICA


Feel free to reply to the post, e-mail me, or send me a note. I also have SKYPE which I will be using while in Costa Rica. I've heard that there are several SKYPE cafes in the city. If you have SKYPE just search for Carol Fogler and add me to your contacts. I would love to hear from all of you while I am gone. Remember to check back here whenever you get a chance.

Carol