Costa Rica Missions Trip Day 6

June 25

Today was our day of rest!  We slept in a bit, I went for a longer run, Karen went out to the mermaid statue to SHAPE and Janis went for a walk. As we walked out of the door for breakfast we were met by a young couple who asked if they could have breakfast here.  We directed them toward Cecilia's and invited them to join us for breakfast.  Karrina & Will were from Florida, and we had a really good visit with our new friends!

See the mermaid statue?  This was 8am. 

See the mermaid statue?  4pm.  The tide is crazy!

About halfway through breakfast we realized that we had accidentally locked our keys in our apartment!  Luckily Cecilia is also our "landlord" so she let us back in.  By this time we were running a bit late for church, so we hopped in the car to drive down to the local Spanish/English church that Penny had suggested.  As we attempted to pull out of our little driveway, two geese were standing in the path & they would not move.  So Karen got out of the car and tried to shoo them away, only to have one of them nip at her!  She grabbed a bamboo branch to use as a makeshift sword and they finally got out of the way!

By the time we pulled up to the little church (or what we thought was the church but we'll get to that in a moment), it was about 10:15, & the service started at 10.  It was an open-air, kind of like everything else here, and someone had pulled their motorcycle right into the back of the church to park :).  There weren't a lot of people there so we easily found a seat and joined in the prayer time, although it was in Spanish.  Even though the leader was on a microphone praying, everyone was pretty much praying on their own as well - out loud for the most part!  So after the prayer ended they sang some worship songs in Spanish, and then the leader prayed over the offering and turned it over to the pastor.  At this point one of the singers came over to our row to welcome us quietly, and also told us there was a Spanish/English church just up the road a bit.  Yep, we had found the "wrong" church! But we were actually really enjoying it so we stayed.  After the service, every single person in there came up to welcome us and to talk, and it was really a cool experience.  As we were driving off (and actually drove by the other church!) I commented on how "noisy" it seemed to us when we first walked in and everyone was praying out loud on their own, but to God it was all clear.  He hears a crazy bunch of noise all at the same time but it just sounds like praise to Him and He hears everything perfectly clear. Wow.

Then it was laundry time!  The washing machine here is interesting...I'll leave it at that!  The loads run quick, and being that the sun was out and there was a bit of a breeze, everything dried pretty fast on the clotheslines.  I can't say our clothes are sparkling clean, but they sure smell a LOT better than they did.  Especially my running clothes - whew!

And then it was beach time!!  We picked up Brenda and headed down to the beach.  We walked along the sand and when we felt like it we stopped, played in the waves and then walked on some more.  It was a great couple of hours of just R&R.  When we returned we found an outdoor shower to rinse off some of the sand, and then we all showered and got ready for the regular Sunday night staff dinner hosted by Chris & Jamie, who work part-time as teachers for SOH and live just up the road from our place.

Supper was wonderful and their home is set way up on the hill. We enjoyed great conversation with new friends, and then Penny took time to share a situation that needed much prayer.  The Parrita clubhouse has strong Seeds and Roots of Hope programs, but two young men who have been doing great and even showed interest in being leaders have been heavily influenced by the drug culture in the high school, and have both become addicted to cocaine and are likely dealing. We spent a great deal of time praying for Diego and Amy, the clubhouse leaders, who were both there, and for the two teens, Michael and Tio.  We ended the evening by singing two worship songs (we were glad to be able to sing a few in English!).  It was pretty sobering, and even Hillary leaned over at one point and said, "mom, we are spoiled". Yes mi hija, we are.

As we were walking back to our place a storm started rolling in. In just a few short moments we had a full-blown thunderstorm!  We've had storms a lot - almost every day - but this one rivals a Kansas storm!  The breeze is definitely welcome.

Things I learned today...1) Running a longer distance means sweating for a MUCH longer period of time after I stop; 2) Dryers in Costa Rica are overrated; 3) Even when you rinse off in an outdoor shower after being at the beach, there's still a lot of sand in your bathing suit.