Five days away viewing the sights of Costa Rica. Arenal, a beach in Guanacaste. Just long enough for 4 of the 5 of us to get sick. At least we rotated days. But we enjoyed most of the time away. Didn't get to see the top of Volcano Arenal due to clouds, but had a great view of Lake Arenal and heard some good rumbles. We stayed in the Observatory Lodge and were able to watch a seismograph measure stuff we couldn't feel. Roasted on the beach and some of us saw a great sunset. I saw the pictures. I'm the only one who's still sick. So we did get to see the tropical side of Costa Rica. Added a few birds to our collection including a toucan and I want to convince myself that the unknown one was in fact an umbrella bird. It is possible....

Now back at camp we are seeing the calendar tell us we have just a week left to pack. We're waiting for confirmation of the moving truck date. And we still hope to get to Panama to see the Canal. In any case, look for us to arrive in Stratford mid-September.

Hi Folks

Just to keep you up to date somewhat with where we are. We will be leaving camp August 27, will do a bit of travelling. We get to visit the Panama Canal! Sept. 13 (still to be confirmed, but the likely date) we will fly to Toronto and spend about 1 month in Stratford. We want to see you all! After that, it´s still anybody´s guess what we´ll do. We have run through a few ideas but so far haven´t settled on anything.

We may have to take the full 6 month furlough given us by LAM to decide. That decision boils down to whether we want to be reassigned through LAM to another mission assignment. We have a lot of praying to do and would love for you to help us in that.

In the meantime, we will enjoy the next few weeks here and are looking forward to Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire!

I'm reading a book called "Girl meets God" by Lauren Winner. In it I read a quote about God's love that reminded me of a friend. Once she reminded me of the nature of God's love. That God is love just as wood is wood. In this book Lauren Winner quotes from Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky;

"The whole concept of God taking on human shape, and all the liturgy and ritual around that, had simply never made any sense to me. That was because, I realized one wonderful day, it was so simple. For people with bodies, important things like love have to be emobodied. That's all. God had to be embodied, or else people with bodies would never in a trillion years understand about love."

Kind of neat, huh?

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 16:17:15 -0400

Dear friends of Simon and Laurel:

Thank you for standing by due to technical difficulties. Below (in the Aldridge Newsletters link) is a text only version of the letter from Dr. Garth Wilson in the event our previous attempts to send the letter either as an attachment or as part of the message resulted in only techno garble on your end.

Stephanie Obando, Office Administrator

Hi All, I´ve been trying to upload our latest letter from the Office but no go. For that matter, I´ve been trying to email it to everybody and it´s only being received by about half of you. Sorry!

The upshot--We are leaving Costa Rica this September. We will be on furlough for six months while we reassess and decide what to do next. Please continue to help us as you have been doing for the last two years either prayerfully or financially.

If I can make any headway with posting the original letter I will do so in our Aldridge Newsletters section.

Sorry for the mess of emails in your inboxes. And we will let you know as soon as we know what our definite plans are.

In the meantime, we are enjoying our surroundings. We have been able to run into a few friends that we had not anticipated seeing before we leave so that´s been fun. Packing is coming along and we´re still managing to get some schooling done. Today Bronwyn and I are in San Jose to get some dentist appointments taken care of. I received a fun email from a friend whose email I had lost. She had been reminded to write me due to running into a mutual acquaintance in Toronto! I love those kind of connections.

Have a fun day!

Thought I'd say a quick hi. It's been an eventful couple of weeks. If you haven't heard our latest NEWS please follow the link on the left to Aldridge Newsletters.

Meanwhile life here carries on. We've had two workgroups here this week. One doing general work--and man did they ever get lots done! New paths, potholes filled, framing of the recreation shed extension, painting a whole house. And they were only here for two days. And we had a gardening crew in who spruced the whole camp up. The chalet looks fabulous with much needed flowers and landscaping. Now the guests there can also enjoy the hummingbirds we are priveleged to watch each day.

Groups in most weekends. We've just had to say goodbye to the Young Life summer staff who were here for two months. We've loved having them and feeding them coffee and brownies. Oh yeah, they did lots of work too and learned lots about the camp and grew in amazing ways individually and as a group. Beautiful to witness. But the best part was the coffee and brownies.

It's good to be home and back at camp. Life is moving along. We've been here for 9 months already. Depending on how you look at it that can be a long or a short time.

I'm mentally re-organizing myself after my solo trip to the States. The kids for some reason aren't pushing me to get back into the school routine.... If I only had some bookshelves for the books I bought. I keep hoping my boys will turn their desire to learn woodworking into a bookshelf. But that will come in time. I've already used up all the bricks and lumber I can find. We try to school quasi year-round so that when situations like this come up when we miss a few days, or when family comes and we take time off, it doesn't matter in the long run. It seems to work for us.