Changing Gears

I am sorry I have not been as faithful to posting this blog here in Costa Rica. It is definitely a different trip then Honduras. In many ways we have a lot more free time, fellowship time; however we have longer days (We leave around 7:30 and do not arrive back till 9:00-10:00) and only have internet back at the hotel. So today I am going to play a little catch up and I will tell you about Wednesday and Thursday

Each day we have followed the same schedule. I did switch it up slightly on Wednesday because I decided to go door knocking instead of to the VBS. Wednesday was an amazing day Cristian filled the baptistry because he had faith that we would need it. Although we did not use it that day we have had a women with interest, I am continuing to pray for God to break her heart and give her life over to God.

In devo today Diane talked about Women's Role in the church. She used adult coloring pages in her lesson. As she spoke and discussed things we all were coloring these pages. At the end of the lesson she said this: "When you began there were only lines, these lines are the men, they are the structure. The frame around the picture is God he keeps everything together. Finally you added the color to the picture, women are the color the are creative and add life.

Door knocking in the rain.

 Delicious bread!

Thursday was our final day at the Purral church. It was a hard thing to say goodbye to these people that everyone has grown so close to.

Diane had planned a wonderful thing for the women's class Thursday. I started the class out by leading the song "Make Me A Servant" and Diane discussed the verse Matthew 20:26-28.

26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and 27 whoever wants to be first must be your slave- 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. 

With all of that in mind and all the serving that the women of the church in Purral had done for us we wanted to take some time to serve them, so we gave them a Spa Day. This by far is one of my favorite things that we do on trips like this.

In our stations we had the following things:

• Brown Sugar Foot Scrub
• Rince/Massage Foot Gel
• Hand/Neck/Back Massages
• Manicure/Pedicure 

To end we had this poem read:

 My Costa Rican parents.

Louise and Maria

I was going to write about Friday as well but the internet is not cooperating. I will update more hopefully tonight or in the morning. 

A Day Less

The days in Costa Rica are very similar. Each day we have the same basic activities. Here is my basic schedule:

5:30 - Breakfast at Dennys

I stole this picture from Patty's blog, this is one of the choices we have for our breakfast each morning. 

Two parrots sitting outside yesterday morning. 

7:30 - Load the buses to leave for the church

8:30 - Devo at church

9:00-11:30 - Women's Bible Study (the men also meet at this time)

12:00 - Lunch

The food here is great and then we also have a great amount of servants who do the dishes after we eat!

12:45-4:00 - We break off into three groups

• VBS group at the local orphanage 
• Painting crew at the local orphanage
• Door Knocking crew

 Practicing for the VBS skits

Getting the juice bags ready for VBS

5:00 - Dinner

6:30-8:00 - Gospel meeting 

Tim and Chase are an excellent speaking team. They swap back and forth between who is doing the Spanish and English, which is very difficult to do!

9:00 - Arrive back at the hotel and goto bed

I wish I had more pictures to share with you but sadly we are not able to take pictures of the kids at the orphanage because it is not safe for the kids pictures to be posted. I titled my blog today a day less because each day Christian, a member of the church here, reminds us that when the day ends it is a day less that we all have to serve Him. We are a day closer each day to going home and we are a day less to have an opportunity to bring more people to Christ. Don't waste any of the time that you are given. 

Shift in Work

Costa Rica is a very different trip then Honduras. We have a lot less "free" time so I don't promise a post every night but I will do my best to keep you all up to date. We are staying in the Best Western Irazu, which is totally different than when we were in Honduras. Here is Costa Rica we are going to be doing a lot more work with the church. We are having a gospel meeting each night, will be doing a lot of door knocking, and VBS. 

Church Service

Door Knocking

Climbing this hill is slightly easier then climbing the hills in Mololoa.

I will update more if I can later but right now I don't really have time. 

Satan Is Defeated!

The time had to come eventually that the Honduras portion of the trip would end and we would head off to our work in Costa Rica. I am very excited and ready for the work in Costa Rica but my heart will always be in Honduras, it is never easy leaving. Knowing I was going to Costa Rica made it slightly more bearable then in past years though! I am super tired so I am simply going to post some pictures with captions for this post, would love to hear from all of you!

We put up a sign at the schools we had build. 

The sign says the future starts here. 

My nieces and I. 

Scott and I

Tricky and I

After going to put the sign up we went back to the Jesus statue for the afternoon. The team broke off into groups of 7-10 people and we had some reflection time to really think about the things that have been seen, been done, etc throughout the last two weeks. 

Back at Villa Gracia we ended our trip in the most amazing way! Angela, Parker, Kassidy, and Molly made the decision to dedicate their lives to God. It was the perfect way to end this chapter of the trip and I could not be more excited for them to start their new Christian walk with God. Satan was surely defeated this day!

 Goodbye Honduras:

Being that it is the 4th of July we paid tribute by singing on the bus to the airport. 

I somehow managed to be one of the lucky ones that was upgraded to first class. 

I was given this very tasty "snack" as they called it. It is a crape filled with chicken and ricotta cheese. It was very good! I may have to start flying first class more often, haha!

Welcome to Costa Rica!

Roommates! 

I will be rooming with Cassidy and Sarah while in Costa Rica.

We are staying a a Best Western hotel.

We found this wonderful little place to eat just down the road from the hotel. 

It is great eating with my adopted mom and dad down here. We don't often get

to have family meals. :)

No Internet Yesterday Means a Double Post Today

Sorry for the late post. The internet was not working yesterday morning so I was not able to post. 

Wednesday was probably my favorite day so far this trip. We broke of into many teams; we had a painting team at Diamante, a medical team at Didasko, and a house build at Mololoa. I was obviously on the house build.

The house build was up the mountain, and I finally had to make the climb up. It was nice climbing the mountain because we still were spoiled and had the tools and our backpacks taken up in the truck.

The build site was a wonderful site, it had soft dirt, and we had a wonderful team! After we got the first 3 walls and the floor up two of my kiddos came up. I was able to play and hang out with Angel and David for about an hour as they finished the house (When it gets to the last wall they really only need 5-6 people.).

Some of the kids on the site.

Tricky taught me how to do the window today.

I also finally was brave enough to use a chainsaw, it only took 12 years. 

Angel is such a hard worker on the build sties. 

I love these boys!

Even Angel and David were working hard on the build.

During the house dedication you could see the joy in Mercedes. She had so much joy she broke into tears and thanked us constantly while praising God. I am so happy that God was able to bless her with a house through this team.

She was so happy and constantly praised God.

She didn't even want us to sweep out her house, she told us we did too much work.

When we were all finished we had to make the hike back down the mountain, which is much much easier. At the bottom of the mountain we had about an hour to hang out with the locals in Molola. Some people played soccer, others went to the Daycare, and a few hung out over by the pulp aria.

Yesterday was our last real working day, which is really sad for me. I know I will be continuing in Costa Rica but I will surely miss Honduras. We used our last working day very well. We had a medical team, a house build, a painting crew, and a VBS/Daughters of the King team. 

Brandy and I were in charge of the VBS/Daughters of the king group. We were able to do the Adam and Eve puppet show again because it was in  Diamante this time. The kids really seemed to enjoy making the tree crafts after the puppet show, they also did a fantastic job answering my chopped up Spanish questions (We did not have a translator). 

Taylor worked hard today, we needed an apple core and he was happy to make that happen.

 The master hair washer.

When VBS ended we began getting set up for the Daughters of the King. This is a wonderful work that we do for the girls in Honduras. We take the time to do something special for them because often times they are not treated in this way. We start by washing their hair, then we comb it, braid it, wash their feet, and paint their nails. This is one of Tayors favorite things to do in Honduras and he always give up his house build to come to daughters of the king. 

Estevan and I met last year. He found me this year and decided to help me with the girls hair.

While we were doing daughters of the king the other two groups were working very hard in the community center doing the medical clinic and just down the road painting the school houses we had build earlier in the trip. 

A few years ago we met this man at the airport. One of our members Erica began talking to him and telling him about our group and the work that we do. She told him about a medical clinic and how we did not have a doctor for them, he quickly agreed to join us for the clinics and we have had a relationship with him now for the last 4 years. 

When daughters of the king ended I went off to help the painting crew. In total our medical clinic saw 226 people, truly an amazing work that they did! It can get very hot cooped up in a building all day sorting meds, trying to figure out when people are saying in spanish, etc but they worked through it all. Our work day ended up being from about 9am-5pm, a wonderful last work day!

Sometimes you just have to take a break.

We are almost done painting all three! I believe a small team is going out to finish them today.

I can not express how proud I am of this girl. Hannah has done such an amazing job on this trip and has had a servant heart the entire time. I have not heard her complain a single time and she has never argued about when she needed to do. She has done a lot of things behind the scenes that some people may not notice but I surely did, she volunteered to do dishes just about everyday that we have been down here, she washed the wall of a house when we were on a muddy house build, and she has been willing to be the person to go where some people did not want to go. I am so happy that I was able to be on this trip with her and share something that is so important to me with her.