bucket list...check!

So there is un montón (spanish for " a lot") of adventure sports and activities in this country! Ever since I knew I was coming to Costa Rica, I made it a goal to go canyoning. For those who don't know, canyoning is rappelling down waterfalls! It's something I've always wanted to do! And this week, check!! I had the awesome opportunity to go! I am currently on a break from language school because we are between trimesters. So I traveled to Arenal/La Fortuna with Rachel, another intern, and her friend Kerri who was visiting from the Sates. And what a cool experience!! It was everything I thought it would be and more! You get soaked, which is fun, and get to spend the whole day outside in this beautiful country! It was such a fun gift! I also drank the only papaya juice I've ever liked (not a fan of that stuff and they LOVE it here). But it was technically papaya - pineapple juice so it doesn't really count...

Anyways, enjoying some more low key days and not having to cross the city for school every morning. It's been great to be closer/more available to kids and to be able to just drop by the school. I can't believe I only have a few more months left...trying to soak it up!

picture party!

Tonight was our first Club post Service Project and it was AWESOME!!! We took electronics from kids during the week, so leaders played photographer and then we made a photo disc for the them! So, this first Club post service project we shared a meal together, casted a vision for community for the coming year, and watched the slideshow of all the Service Project photos! It was great! So many new faces there - lots kids who went on Service Project but had never been to YL Club. When the evening was over one of our students who is an extremely talented guitar player, played for the group. It was fun to see him light up as he shared his passion and talent with his friends! (He also played for us during the trip, which was so fun!! He's one that had never been to YL before the trip.)

There is a lot of excitement for ministry here right now! Kids are excited, leaders are rejuvenated, and there have been several positive school administrative changes. The Lord is doing some BIG things here and I'm grateful to be a part of it! Thank you for making this week possible for myself and for so many of my high school friends! Some of your financial support of me here went towards Service Project scholarships so kids could experience the week. Your generosity also helped provide food and other Club supplies (like photo discs) so we can keep meeting and reaching kids in San José. THANK YOU for changing lives!

service project!!!

Last week, during Semana Santa, we went on SERVICE PROJECT!!!  It was the greatest!  Service Project is our version of Young Life camp, so naturally, it was the best week of their lives!  But really though, it was pretty sweet!

We traveled to Talamanca, Costa Rica.  It’s a poor indigenous community near the Costa Rican-Panamanian border.  It is the home of one of the last indigenous populations in the country.  We partnered with a local organization there, Pura Vida Missions, to build the foundation for a kitchen they are building on their property!

We did SO MUCH physical labor, but it was so worth it!  Our kids were all stars!  Not complaining about the “butt ton” of rocks (thanks Bronas Brothers program characters for the motivating phrase of a “butt ton”...) even once!

Take a look at what we did!

The start of our rock pile, to be kitchen, day one.  We’ve got a STRONG team!!

First we were led to the river, the place we would spend the majority of our time!  We carried boulders, papaya-sized, mango-sized, lemon-sized, stones, pebbles...all shapes and sizes, we carried!!  We brought them from the riverbank to the top of camp, where the kitchen was to be built.  They needed the whole area covered in rocks one meter high (because the area there is on a flood-plain).  And, the more rocks used as a base, the less concrete they had to use to fill in for the foundation and floor.

Sometimes, you find the PERFECT rock and it is worth
digging it out of the Earth to have in the kitchen!

Feeling strong, and showing how we really feel about carrying rocks!  Haha.

In addition to hauling rocks, we built the walls and mixed concrete by hand.
A few kids helped put new screens in some windows, and we added a few light posts
to illuminate the basketball court we built on Service Project last year!

The last work day we battled for the SPIRIT STICK (aka, plunger)!!  Wow did we have a fiercely competitive group!  Boys vs. Girls of course...encouraging the group to give it everything we had and to finish our project!!  Just one more day of rocks!

When we weren’t carrying rocks, we had a great time hanging out together and with several local kids on the property.  We learned that we have some EXTREMELY talented friends!!!  So grateful for them sharing their musical talent with us!  This is a picture of them just hanging out, but they graciously played for Club every night!  Spot-It is another game we love...so intense and so great!  New favorite game for sure!  Best $12 I’ve ever spent on Amazon...

We were supposed to be conserving water,
but these kids couldn’t resist a good water fight!

It wouldn’t be a Young Life trip without Club!  Joe-Joe and Nick-Nick, aka the Bronas Brothers, were hilarious and led us through fun games, songs, and Broga moments (yoga for bros) every night!  Such a fun time!!  Our speaker, Kevin, and his wife Becka (Kevin is wearing red shirt in top left picture below, and wife Becka is to the left of him in the green) flew down from Washington state to share the Gospel with our kids!  What a gift they were!!  They served alongside us all week, hauling rocks, getting dirty, playing soccer with the locals.  Kevin was an amazing speaker and we were so blessed to have him!  I am so grateful for the way the committed to the week and really invested in our kids.  They took every opportunity to get to know our unique third-culture kids and share life and Truth with them.

We took 24 kids with us on Service Project from 5 different schools in the San Jose area.  Over half of them had never been to Young Life and were on the trip solely to earn service hours (service hours are a HUGE deal for our kids).  But it was SO cool to see Jesus work!!  It was truly outreach!  Most of these kids had no idea that they would be hearing about Jesus during the week, and for several of them, it truly was the first time ever they had heard the Gospel!   Jesus did some amazing things in the lives of our students over the week!  Such a gift to be a part of what He’s doing in this country!  So excited to go home with these kids and continue building on the relationships formed over Service Project!

Top L:  Cheering on the champion in blind-folded, dancing, musical chairs!
Top R:  Bronas Brothers leading our daily Broga moment
Middle:  Girls fearing the Broga handshake...it spits...literally!
Bottom L:  Classic YL pick-up lines game...he was a champ!
Bottom R:  Clearly a group of kids playing name that tune!  Haha.
Fighting for the plunger to “ring” the buzzer (aka saucepan) the student in the front
is guarding by sitting on!  This was the most hilarious game ever!

Well, it was a lot of work but WE FINISHED!!!  We were able to pour the concrete floor over half of the kitchen and the other side is ready to go!  (They’re just waiting for the one side to cure completely). Job well done by all!!

Finished project!!  Just needs to cure so they can pour the concrete on the other half!
Hard to believe we carried ALL THOSE ROCKS!!!  They’re under the concrete, too!

The group celebrating on our finished work!

The last day we ate breakfast, handed out our sweet tshirts, and headed home!  We made a pit-stop for lunch and a quick swim at the beach (Cahuita).

Top L:  Fearless leaders!
Top Mid:  Me and one of my sweet girls, Naja.
Top R:  Waiting to enter Cahuita National Park (beach)
Bottom L:  One of the best pics to sum-up the trip...love these girls!  Made those faces every day!
Bottom R:  Me and my cabin of girls!  LOVE THEM!!!

Top L:  Kevin, speaker, letting kids share what happened in their lives over the week.  Such a sweet time!
Top Mid:  My cabin pooled our lunch money so we could get this nutella-banana
pizza for dessert...just one of the many reasons I love my girls!
Top R:  Perfect day and perfect water for a quick swim!
Bottom:  Beautiful beach of Cahuita

So grateful for this fearless team!!  It’s such a gift to lead alongside them every day!  It was such a fantastic week with kids and we had a blast together, too!!  

THE TEAM!!! L to R:  Becka and Kevin (speaker and his wife),
Jason (volunteer leader), Bradyn (volunteer leader), Jessie (Area Director), Me,
Rachel (intern), Bonnie (intern), Alex (Staff Associate)

easter brunch!

Easter, surprisingly, is not widely celebrated here. Holy Week is a huge deal, but the actual day of Easter is not celebrated the same way that it is celebrated in the States. There's not even a Spanish word for Easter. They use "Pascua" which actually means "Passover". Anyways, we decided to celebrate as a team! One of our girls got baptized during the morning church service, and after, we cooked brunch together. It was great! All my favorite things! Homemade granola (although the yogurt to go with is a little different here), quiche Lorraine (makes me think of some great times in 414...my apartment in RVA), and cinnamon rolls!! It was my first time making cinnamon rolls from scratch but they were delicious! My Tico dad, Marcos, LOVED them and insisted that I make another batch! He even  sneakily voice recorded me saying when I was going to make them so he could hold me accountable haha. He's a character! But it really was great to celebrate the Easter holiday together as a team and as a family. I am so grateful for my community here, and I was reminded of that today.

gettin ready

So Rach and I headed to Walmart today to get some last minute items for Service Project.  Bus snacks, cabin snacks, and other random items to make the upcoming week memorable and significant for our high school friends.

We both also needed to find some knee-length shorts.  We will be working in a poor indigenous community in Talamanca, Costa Rica near the Panamanian border.  The community is extremely conservative and so we have asked all students and leaders to respect their cultural traditions by wearing modest clothing (tshirts and minimum knee-length shorts) while on the worksite.

I didn’t realize that I had forgotten to bring my scrub pants back with me after Christmas break until about a week before the trip (classic).  So, after failing to find modest clothing in the woman’s department of Walmart, we hit up the mens!  Haha.  We may have had too much fun finding a pair of shorts to trash during the week...

We found these awesome neon man capris that we think would make sweet program outfits!  Might actually have to go back and buy them for our program closet because they were just too great!  They were lined, yes, like 90s windsuit-pants lined, so we decided against them for a week of working in the jungle...but they were pretty awesome!

Rach and I having way too much fun in the mens section of Walmart.

So excited about Service Project!!!  We leave tomorrow with 24 of our high school friends representing 5 different schools around the city!  I’ve been texting with a couple of my girls tonight as they pack, they’re so excited!!

open mic night!

So CDS, one of the schools we’re in, hosted an Open Mic Night for students.  It was the first one, and didn’t seem to gather a lot of hype so I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect.  But it was AWESOME!!!  The kids are seriously SO incredibly talented and it was fun to see them have a space to perform in front of their peers.  Some of our kids who we know play instruments/sing but kept their talent hidden performed.  It was so fun to see the joy and the smiles on their faces.

We also learned that a few kids who are going on Service Project have some mad guitar skills!!  Since we lack, severely lack, in that department leader-wise, we’re excited to invite them to lead their friends and share their talent with us during Club over Service Project!

panama!

It was time to renew our visas again and this time we headed to Panama!  Bocas del Toro (“mouths of the bull) to be exact.  It’s a chain of islands on the Caribbean Side of Panama and it is BEATIFUL!!  Absolutely stunning!  The travel was easy...well, as easy as you’d expect.  First we took a 5 hour bus to the border.  After getting our exit stamps we walked across the bridge that serves as the Costa Rican/Panamanian border.

Once we were in Panama, we paid our taxes, got our entrance stamps, and took an hour taxi ride to the port town of Almirante.  From there, you take water taxis to the islands!  So cool!!

We spent our first night on Isla Bastimentos.  It’s the largest island of the chain and the majority of it is a protected national park.  Red Frog Beach is a beautiful white sand beach on the northeast side, and we spent the afternoon there.

The next two nights we spent on Isla Colon.  It’s the island with the “town” of Bocas.  We rented bikes to explore the island and see the beaches.  So fun!

Our last day in Bocas, we booked a deep boarding tour.  Yes, we paid to get drug behind a boat.  Haha.  Deep boarding is super popular in the area.  You hang on to a plexiglass board that is connected by rope to a boat.  By tilting your wrists up, down, left, and right, you can steer the board underwater.  It’s a fun way to see all the coral reefs!

Included in the deep boarding tour was snorkeling (where we saw a huge spotted manta ray!) and an afternoon on the most beautiful island I’ve ever seen, Isla Zapatilla!  It was absolutely unreal how clear and aqua the water was!  I’ve never seen anything like it!  Definitely a piece of paradise.

It was such a gift to explore and relax.  This semester has been great but it has been BUSY.  And we have Service Project coming up over Easter.  So it was great timing to be able to get away and get some rest before the “end” of the year kicks into gear!