Monday, July 14, 2008

cuando no sientes mi cuerpo en tu cama, seguro que lloraras

it's just another salsa song, so don't read too much into it. anyway, at exactly 1:39 pm this afternoon, Feli recieved his luggage... belai (Bolivian (Santa Cruz) slang).

Saturday, July 12, 2008

A collection of short stories

  • The boys who were finishing electrical work at 25 de julio the other day treacherously crossed four lanes of traffic following a "friend" of someone there. They ran out to the middle, where she signaled them to stop and wait while all the cars whizzed by... When they finally reached Burger King, their lunch destination, Rich accidentally ordered two value meals. Of course, the employees were going to let him buy it until Jeff pointed out that it probably shouldn't cost him the equivalent of $14 to buy lunch there...
  • Also at 25 de julio, Alvaro's ADORABLE daughter Laura took Monica and I to the restroom next door. While Monica and Laura were waiting on me and making small talk, Monica told Laura that her dad was a "very nice lady."
  • Emily pointed to the chickens in someone's yard while we were walking the neighborhood passing out fliers for the kid's party and said, "pollos." In Spanish, there are separate words for cooked chicken that you eat, and for chickens that are alive. She decided it was probably the equivalent of pointing to pigs and calling them "bacons," and then laughed hysterically to herself.
  • The origin of "quesquelmente": Jason came to Monica one evening and told her that he thought he had gotten a word from the Lord, but it was in Spanish. He didn't know what it meant, but he wrote it down and showed it to her. The word was "quesquelmente." Monica trtied to hold back her laughter and told him that she had never heard it before, but they could lok it up. The closest thing they could find in the dictionary was cheese. It has now become a running joke, and the meaning of the word varies in usage. For example, when Jason almost fell down the hill from the church into the rainforest to his death, he caught himself and said he was almost quequelmente'd.
  • Monica taught Jason how to say, "Bad pirate, run, run!" because she was wearing a bandana and he wanted the kids to pretend she was a pirate. Instead of saying, "Pirata Mala, corre, corre!" he said, "Pata Mala, gorro gorro!" which means "Bad duck, hat hat!"
  • Jeff has begun trying to speak Spanish. He has been putting together strings of words that mostly don't make sense, and continues to say, "tengo hombre," instead of "tengo hambre" when he's hungry.

This is just a sampling of the happenings on this trip. Hopefully there will be more to follow, but I need to go change now, unfortunately. In real news, we went to Manrique's small group last night, which is all high school and middle schoolers. Mitch and Chris got to lead worship, and I got to teach, which went really well. It was great, God was really there because at the end when I called people up for prayer in ministry time, so many kids came up. It was great to feel like God had used me for something like that.

Hasta luego~

Steph

The Time of Our Lives

24 hours left in what has been the journey of a lifetime... its a journey that has changed the way our hearts beat and our minds think. A journey that has included sadness, joy, and an overwhelming sense of hope that is through Jesus alone. It has included a bond between the teammates and a bond to the communities that we have served that is cherished. The feeling is that we have known each other forever.

As we wrapped up our time at La Vina del Este it was on our hearts to go and pray once again for Maria Theresa. Monica, Rich, Phil, Catalina and I walked down to Maria Theresa's home and she was soooo excited to see us. Again, Maria Theresa is the old woman who is having cataract surgery and fears blindness. We also prayed for her son who is suffering from cancer. She then told us that her daughter, Olga, had bone problems and would soon be paralyzed. We prayed for her for a long time... she told us how she lays in bed crying every night because of the pain in her family. It was so heart breaking to hear her words... but at the same time very optomistic because Jesus was plastered everywhere in her little dwelling.

So that's all I really remember from the past three days... seeing as how I have been under the influence of some drugs (legal... I think).

In other news... here are some other highlights of the trip.

Conversation with Renee
J: Hey look that car is from Florida... that's a long drive! Maybe they shipped it.
R: Or they took the ferry
J: A ferry across the Gulf of Mexico?
R: (Realizes the dumb comment and laughs hysterically)

Rich orders 2 number 1's at Burger King thinking he ordered 1 number 1 large size

Cramming 15 people, 2 guitars, a tool box, 3 donkeys, a chicken, and a 3-legged goat into a small van... we looked like circus clowns

Mitch's dream to move to Costa Rica because a cougar danced with him

Corey whacking himself in the eye with wire strippers

Manuel (man old enough to live in the days of Moses) took us on a 3 hour tour.... a 3 hour tour... in that small van... yeah we got lost

Seeing the largest KFC of my life.... seriously... it was massive! But it smelled like monkey poo

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Millipedes can swim....

First I'd like to say that the giant millipede that Jason flushed down our toilet returned 2 days later. It was a nice surprise. None of us knew millipedes could swim.... now we know.

Next, I'd like to share that Costarican children are a ball of fun. It has been such a great blessing to teach and play with the little ninos. In the toddler class today we only had 2 boys, around the ages of 3 and 4. We ran out of ideas to entertain them, bubbles, balloons, and facepainting got boring real quick. We brought them upstairs to play tag. One of our boys, Daniel, was hysterical. He was so animated. We brought him upstairs to play and then he saw a bunch of older children running toward him and Daniel bolted to the other end of the church and ran out the door. It was so funny. All we saw next was his mom pick him up and bring him back in, haha.

We had the kids party yesterday at the church. Cory was the balloon master. He spent hours making balloon animals for the 160 children that showed up. We had a nail painting/facepainting station, bracelette making, and sports.

And yes, we almost died in the car today. (Steph's blog below)

A couple days ago we went to Jaco beach. Oh my goodness. Words cannot describe how beautiful it is. Mountains on one side and beach on the other. Jenny and I spent 2 straight hours attacking waves. We're fighters.

I'll leave the rest of our recent adventures to the other folks on the team.
Buenos Noches everyone!! :) Cant wait to see everyone when I get home. Miss you all!

Renee

¡Quesqualmente drivers!

I would just like to share the story of how we got to tour the back roads of San Jose today. But first, I just want to share that Renee was meowed at by a Costa Rican man at breakfast this morning. She sort of cut in line to get coffee and he was standing by the toaster waiting, and after she said "excuse me," he started meowing... It was every bit as creepy as it sounds.

Michael couldn't drive us today for some reason, so he sent Manuel (another driver) to get us this morning. We had mixed feelings about Manuel already, but little did we know he was possibly going to be our end. Not intentionally, but with his terrible, terrible driving.

We knew we might be in trouble when we saw the van that pulled up - a 14-seater at most. We then found out that Alvaro wasn't going to be able to come pick up the guys who were going to finish the electrical work at 25 de julio, which meant they were going to have to ride with us (which makes 15 people), with their huge rubbermaid container of tools and the suitcase of clothes we were bringing to Alvaro to give to a family who needs them. So, we sucked it up and piled in - Mitch sat on top of the rubbermaid container, and we made to boys sit up front with Manuel because the girls are all a little creeped out by him. (They call old men like that viejos verdes here - meowing man is another good example.)

We got to 25 de julio alright, but things took a different turn when he left a different way that Michael normally does. Not that big a deal, he probably knows where he's going, right? Except he then turned down a road that dead ends at the highway, where you are apparently allowed (and expected) to just make a right turn onto the highway where all the other cars are going like 55 mph. From there, we got to a roundabout that we went the entire way around to turn back onto the highway going the other direction. Okay, we thought, he just chose to turn around a different and much more complicated way...

We proceeded to turn down like 4 streets on the left that were never the right street, and always led to us having to make a big U of left turns back to the highway. Once, he tried to turn right into a dead end. There are signs that warn you about that kind of thing here, too... When we finally did get back to the highway, he chose to make a left across four lanes of traffic where the sign clearly stated that was not allowed. Emily turned to me and said, "This is it." And for sure, we all thought she was right. And yet, the large bus coming straight for us stopped for no apparent reason to let us make our illegal turn. By the grace of God!

Eventually we got to the east side of the city which was the general area where we needed to be, and after a confusing conversation with a man at a bus stop, we made it to the church. I guess we can't expect too much from a country where stop signs and red lights are optional. There are fewer accidents than you would think though.

Hasta luego
estefani

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

How to Make a Costa Rican girl dance with you (ojitos lindos)

Mitch, our ladies man/electrician/worship leader/surfer/... merengue dancer?

"What's the difference between merengue and salsa?" he asks. Seven words from Mitch was all it took to get on the dance floor with our 24-year-old law-school graduate leading lady.
"It's all in the hips."
"What do you mean?" he innocently replies.
"I'll show you."

At the beach, it only took a surfboard in hand. At the worship conference, it may have been the guitar. We'll never know. But at the fruit stand in rural Costa Rica, unbeknownst to us all, Mitch's cute little eyes were working their magic over Melissa as he ordered his breakfast - casado con huevos y jamon.

The following evening, only after having shown Michael (our driver) the incriminating photo of the aforementioned merengue incident, it was revealed to us that Melissa had in fact given Michael her number to give to the one with the "ojitos lindos."

One would expect to have a language barrier when traveling in a foreign country. However, the language of love transcends the vast expanse between our two languages and between the Americas. Yet beneath the scraps of paper with countless phone numbers and emails and birthdays lies the infatuation with the idea of civil law mixed with salsa dancing.

Hips don't lie.

Written by Steph with help from Chris (gmail bffs)

Sunday, July 6, 2008

How Great is Our God

Ladies and gentlemen, we serve an awesome God.

I have to share with you all a praise story that happened last night at the conference. The past two nights has been amazing. The Holy Spirit showed up during ministry time. People were on the ground weeping and others were shaking and others were laughing. Jose Pablo talked about worshipping God with all your 5 senses, that when you worship (with your life) it's all or nothing. He was giving a talk on how Jesus was using his senses on the cross at Calvary. It was really interesting, I had never thought about it before. He used Luke 23 to describe it. Afterward he told everyone to close their eyes and open their hands. Then he called people forward who were getting sensations in their hands. As well as other altar calls. I wasn't feeling anything, but I saw Steph up there. So I went to pray for her. She has vertigo and it spawns from her inner left ear. She said she felt like the Lord was telling her to ask me to pray for that. So I laid my hand on her ear and immediately my arm and hand began to tremble and shake and heat sensations kept going up and down my arm. I couldnt stop it. It was incredible. She felt like she had heat in her inner ear. Then a guy came up behind her and laid hands on her, he was shaking, and weeping and laughing. Then God told me to tell her that she was healed. I have never experienced anything like that before in my life. God used me to heal someone. The whole time I was just standing there thinking "Is this really happening?" Tonight is our last night at the conference. I have no doubt in my mind that God will show up just as much, if not stronger than the previous 2 evenings.

Everyone split up into four groups and went up and down the hill to different homes to pass out supplies. Some of the homes we visited were so desolate. I would describe some of them as living in a garage, but instead of cement walls, they're tin sheets.
At our first house, Aslim, Emily, Monica and I went a visited a woman named Marta. She was with her grandson. She showed us albums of her family. It was so sweet. We had the oppurtunity to pray for her. Her father has cancer and her daughter-in-law is pregnant. Aslim translated for us, as we prayed for her she began to cry. It was such a blessing to be in her home. She was incredibly thankful and so were we.

I feel like there is so much more to say but not enough time. God is pretty much amazing.

Last night when we got home was interesting. We had a cucuracha massacre. I personally think that the giant millipede was the sergeant. They're starting a revolution. Their death rate is some where near 1000. I'm not sure who's winning though....

Until tomorrow, buenos dias!

Renee

Million Dollar Smiles

Yesterday was another day in which the Lord moved more powerfully than the day before. I experienced two more events that I shall never forget... two great events in which the Lord moved so powerfully. It had nothing to do with getting hit in the face by Rich's shoe as he attempted to kill a cucaracha... it had nothing to do with the millipede that visited the girls.... and it had nothing to do with me winning Slap (again I say... boo yeah!).

Abby Jarvis, Monica, Rich and I delivered supplies to two homes in the La Vina Este community. The first dwelling that we went to was the home of Maria Theresa. An old woman who had a million dollar smile even with the absence of teeth. She just kept smiling and I thought to myself, "how"? Look around you... how can you smile!! Then the Holy Spirit came... and it was clear that for her it wasn't about possessions... she was responding to the love of Christ that she felt in that room through Monica... through Rich... through Abby. We were able to pray for her because she was frightened. She is having cataract surgery on July 13 and is afraid she will go blind. She is also fearful for her son's life... the sone that has been diagnosed with cancer.

The second home we went to was a family that had a sick baby. Abby and I sat on the bed of this precious 10 month old child and began to pray. As we did so the baby Eileen opened her eyes... beautiful big brown eyes... and just stared... then she reached out her hand. When I took it, she smiled. I don't think I have ever experienced Jesus more powerfully in a moment than that. From a near cry to a smile... my heart never melted in an instant as it did in that moment.

Again it just goes to show you that the work of Jesus Christ is more than printed words... its more than just spoken words... Jesus Christ can be shared in a touch... a smile through anyone at anytime as Chris Traut shared. I prayed for baby Eileen, but she ministered to me.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

A memorable 4th of July

Last night our group went to the worship conference (read Jason's blog below), and it was so powerful. The Holy Spirit moved in so many different ways, but what I found most incredible was that God touches people in the same way in Costa Rica as he does where I've seen Him move in the U.S. That's how it's undoubtable that it is the same God because people are affected with the same gifts and are touched in biblical ways all around the world. I've never been to a worship conference outside of the United States, it was amazing. As I was worshiping the gift of tongues just poured out of my mouth. I couldnt stop it, I couldnt control it, I didn't know what I was saying, all I knew was that I could embrace it and know that God was in me. I've never had it as powerful as this before. There was a girl that does artwork as her form of worship. Before the conference started she had a blank canvas and during the songs she painted, it was so pretty.

Vina del Este (where we had the conference) is breathtaking. It's on a mountain and looks over the rainforest. An hour before the conference we all stood looking over the ledge and listened to the birds and the different sounds, as well as did O H I O with our bodies... it was definitely necessary.

That's all for this morning! Buenos Dias!

Renee

p.s. the food is still amazing.
and our cockroach death rate is some where around 25.

Escuchamos

Just a quick blog on last night... if you have never experienced an amazing and powerful worship... you must do so immediately! Seriously go... we will wait for you to get back to finish reading this..............................................................................................................................

Ok welcome back! Wow I hope you had an experience like we had last night. We went to the opening for the youth conference last night at Vina del Este... whether you are a fan of worship music or not, you couldn't help but feel the Holy Spirit all over that room. If you don't speak spanish, no worries... you feel the words and they roll off your tongue. There were also two old dudes... they won grammies apparently... but I have NEVER seen a violin performance like that... ever. So rockin'.

Chris Traut opened the night with the message. The message was so applicable to all of us. I was more engaged in that message than any in recent memory. He spoke about how you can meet God anywhere at anytime... no matter where you are in life. You can meet the Lord in good times, in pain, in complete and utter brokenness. At the end, Chris did an alter call. I have never experienced an alter call like this before. People laying on the ground and just weeping. Even the hardest of hearts would have been moved by such a scene.

Praise Jesus... he is on the move in Costa Rica!

Friday, July 4, 2008

Female Electricians?

We are about to embark on our last day working on the community center. It has been such a great experience to take part in preparing this center for the local people. I feel blessed to have worked with Alvaro and Eladio, they are both amazing men of God and bring such encouragement to my life, and I'm sure to the lives of our team.

Yesterday was great, we got a lot accomplished. Monica, Juanita, Emily and I are official electricians. We wired over 3 outlets, just the four of us. We're pretty much awesome. The team all together also finished every room with painting. Hooray!

I lost my bible and journal for a period of time. Last night I went to the front desk to see if they had found it. I said "Buscas mi bible", which translates to "you look my bible". haha! And then the desk clerk said, "Did you lose your bible?" I felt so embaressed, I didnt know he spoke english! He hadn't seen it. I went back to the room and checked my handy dandy spanish-english book and found that "to find" was encantrar. So this morning I asked the ladies in the kitchen (nicely this time) if they had found my bible. They had it on top of their fridge, I was so thankful.

This evening we have the worship conference. Please keep the event in your prayers. I know God will do amazing things tonight, He always does.

So What Has Jesus Done Lately?

Last night was probably the night that I saw Jesus more clearly than any other since arriving in Costa Rica. Alvaro, one of the Funda Vida leaders, asked a few of us to attend a funeral. Alvaro leads a high school small group and the mother of one of the girls in his small group had passed away. She was 30 years old, had 4 children, and was one of 12 children herself. I have personally been to maybe two funerals in my life that I can remember, so needless to say, this was a stretch for me.

A couple of nights ago, I think maybe the first night that I was here, I vividly had a dream of a man crying... if you would have asked me Monday night, I probably could have described the vision of this man to a tee. When I walked into the funeral home, this man that I had dreamed about was the widow of the woman who had died.... I just froze in my feet and it was as if my tongue and thoughts froze to that moment in time. I was a little scared... a little freaked out.

We gathered near the coffin with about 50 family members and friends of the woman. The widow asked us to pray as we all joined hands. Monica had never prayed before in Spanish, but the Lord blessed her and she was amazing. Chris followed with the closing prayer and he also did an incredible job.

The widow shook each of our hands and thanked us for coming. I still had no words...I shook his hand and touched his shoulder and simply said in my heart, "Jesus". Although language was a barrier, the love of Christ is not. What cannot be communicated verbally, certainly can through our Savior. I think this is one of the most important lessons I have learned thus far... that love comes from the heart.. respect comes from the heart.. service comes from the heart... words are just secondary.

In fun news....

1) Felipe has befriended a cucarcha and has created a cage for him. La cucharacha se llama es Pedro.

2) No attack from the muchachos yesterday. We were imprisoned to the Funda Vida building and they circled, but no attacks.

3) Mitch and I have created "Operation Skittles" and the operation starts very soon

4) Renee ate raw chicken for dinner last night and Mitch ate octopus... both equally gross

5) It has rained every day since we arrived

6) Guanabanana is the most delicious ice cream in the world.

7) I saw for the first time a car alarm that lasted 45 minutes

8) There is a bird outside our window that sounds like the theme from Psycho

9) Rats like to worship

10 Ask Monica about her drug commercial plans.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

When Kids Attack...(part 1)

Yesterday started the same as Monday. The team got up, ate some breakfast - scrambled eggs with hotdogs and cheese and beans a rice with fresh pineapple (deeee-licious) - then we headed to the abandoned building which we are working to convert to a community center for the local kids. We got quite a bit of work done on Monday, so yesterday we just had some painting to do and some electrical wiring to take care of. Needless to say I am no electrician so my choices were painting or going out into the community to play with the kids. I chose the latter. This first encounter went over smoothly. We entered the park with a football (that's a soccer ball for you gringos) and played a pick-up game with the local kids. Team U.S. pulled out a stunning victory with the score of 8 to 7. Careful not to give us too much credit, they were between the ages of 8 and 10, so mostly we were just bullies. We proceeded to go back to the community center for some lunch and then it was back to the pitch (the field) for round two. Unfortunately round two would not end so well.

The game was going along smoothly - there were about five kids playing - and then a boy of about 12 showed up and things quickly went awry. When we attempted to leave the boys would have none of it and tried to steal our basketball and soccer ball. I took the soccer ball and headed back towards the community center holding it like the precious cargo that it was. When the boys realized that they could not pry the ball from my hand they proceeded to jump on my back and one of them stole my hat. Meanwhile Phil, who was not holding a ball, was attacked and the boys were going after Monica because she held the basketball. Finally we arrived back at the community center, I took my hat back from the kid, and we entered the building thinking we had arrived at a safe point. Little did we know that it was only the beginning....

Tune in for part 2, hopefully later tonight, but realistically whenever I have time.

I Heart La Cucharachas!

Before we embark on day 3... I wanted to update you all on day 1 and day 2. The one thing I was looking forward to was real authentic Costa Rican food. I immediately got my wish! We went to this place that looked just like Wal Mart and they had a food cafeteria. My first meal of choice in this great country was Pizza Hut.... wow... Supreme Pizza tasted so delicious that we even decided to have it for dinner! ARIBA!!! Seriously though, I do have my fears... I didn't realize that hot dogs were made to go into scrambled eggs. Weird.

There have been many great and funny stories so far. Rich getting attacked by the muchachos... the girls getting attacked by the la cucharachas, etc, but this trip has provided sooo much more almost immediately.

The enemy certainly did attack and he attacked from the beginning with canceled flights, delayed flights, luggage not showing up for days, and attacks from the muchachos. But in those tough moments, the Lord has also provided some incredible moments. I was blessed with being able to share a quick version of my testimony. I shared about my grandma, school, and salvation. I spoke the times I wanted to quit... how I kept God at a far distance. Afterwards, a kid name Tino came to me with a translator. He said that the Lord had spoken to him through my words. He also was raised by his grandma and felt a deep connection to what I had to say. Only Tino's story was much different. Tino was beaten by his grandma because of his faith. He was kicked out and left homeless. Time after time the Lord had rescued him from the tragedies of life. At the end he kept hugging me and saying thank you. My story was nothing if not boring compared to his... it was Jesus who spoke to him.

Our mission is to serve Christ, it is the application part of that mission that I have found to be so difficult. Walking through this slum, I couldn't help but be overcome with a sense of hopelessness. You look at their faces and want to cry... you see that they wake up each day just to survive. Jesus said that wherever two or three of us gather, so there is he. So what seems hopeless is certainly not. Jesus is present... so there is hope. Pray that this hope goes to each person that feels no hope in this country.

Bless you all,

Jason

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Romans 12.11

Hola Amigos y familia!

Today was very productive. Emily, Jason, and I painted/primed most of the walls that we could get to today. It was good exercise and good conversation. God showed me a scripture before our work today in Romans, it says "Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiasitically." (Romans 12.11)
We took a break to play with los ninos again. This time there were three girls playing together. They loved getting their picture taken. One of the mothers came over to visit and brought her 12 day old son. He was so precious.

Tonight we had worship together in one of the outdoor dining areas. God showed up. We shared words that He gave us during our time. It was such a blessing to be in the open and sing praises to our God.

As far as weather goes, it's beautiful in the day and then usually rains and cools off at night. This is technically Costa Rica's winter. Strange. I know.

That's all for now. Tomorrow will be working on the community center again and then meeting up with Chris and the high schoolers to have small group.

Buenos Noches!!

Renee


p.s. the food here is AMAZING!!!

MP3 players and crazy kids

Can I just say how impressed I am with everyone else{s posts? i can{t figure out how to ype any of the things i want to type. they do have an ñ key, which is cool though. but i cannot figure out the apostrophes for anything! Even if I can{t type it, turns out I can speak it okay! Well enough to get more towels for our room and to tell our driver we{re sorry about his flat llanta (tire).

Anyway, I wanted to add that Juanita, Jenny and I spent about 6 hours today going through boxes and boxes (cajas y mas cajas, if you will) of mp3 players that had apparently been returned to some manufacturer (digimax) and then re gifted to Funda Vida for their use. We hd to go through and try to find ones that were still usable. And it seriously took us like 6 hours, sitting it a hot, dusty room sifting through dirty dusty boxes to find maybe 50 that worked out of 500. Its all for Jesus though! Really, they needed someone to do it, and it was way better than being attacked by punk kids. It wouldn{t have been so bad if there had been running water anywhere...

¿ñ (my new enemies on this keyboard)
Steph

2nd dia

Hello all. This is Mitch, just updating the blog right now. Its raining quite hard right now here in beautiful Costa Rica. So much stuff has happened in the two days that we've been here. Things from Skittles in the shower to Rich getting attacked by kids. Phil had a run in w the ground here and there. There is so much to tell but so little time.

Our projects for this first week have been pretty construction oriented although many people play with the local kids. We have been working on this abandoned building to turn it into a community center for the kids. Jeff, Chris, Corey, and I have been running new electrical wires in this building and others have been painting and cleaning up. Jesus has really shown himself in many of the children, but He has also shown us how blessed we are when we walk through these communities where these people live. The small houses, iron bars over everything, and trash in the street all remind us of how good we really have it in the US of A. It was definitely a sobering experience.

We haven't had too many problems so far although we had a couple flat tires that delayed our departure from various places. Last night we went to la Viña este for small group. It was AMAZING. We were all packed in a room with alot of young people and it was so fun to interact with them. The best part for me was definitely the worship. It was so refreshing and warming to see and hear people from all walks of life and different languages singing out to their creator that loves us no matter what. It was such a powerful night. Jason and Steph both shared testimonies in front of the group and they were so impactful for all of us.

We are about to go worship with our group right now. I'll try to upload more pictures soon.

Mitch


Also: The cockroach count is now up to 16 killed and 27 MIA.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Hello everyone!

It has been an exciting first day. This afternoon we worked at 25 de Julio (which in spanish translates to July 25th). It's an abandoned building that Vine del Este has prayed for. It will be made into a communitty center for everyone in and around the area. The hope is to have people come and take dance lessons, learn computer skills, receive counseling, and things of the like. In the midst of it all they will be taught the gospel and hear hope for their lives.
Today we did some minor repairs on the building. The rest of our time was spent at a basketball court where los ninos play. We brought a soccer ball and soon after many families were out with their children. It was a great experience to be able to talk with them and play with these kids. I got to talk to a few mothers with infants and toddlers. They all seem weary, but at the same time hopeful. Please pray for these mothers and their babies.
I met two boys, Dillan and Joshua, they kicked my butt at soccer. To be expected.

Renee

Costa Rica here we are!







Hello everyone! After a very long day of travel and some cancelled flights, we've finally arrived. Its 8 AM here in beautiful San Jose, Costa Rica. We've just eaten breakfast and are just sitting around right now. we have a long day of working on a community center today and its already starting to warm up. Its pretty nice out, although the pool was a bit chilly. Anyways, I have alot of fun stories and photos to post later on. They range from lost luggage to a mix up w vitamin water to a broken sandal. Here are a few fun ones:






The Cucaracha kill count is 10 in the first halfhour. I'll keep you posted as events progress.






Mitch