June 26th-Day 18
Sunday we split the group up into 3 separate groups to go to different churches. One team went to Mateo church downtown, one to the Santa Ana church out where Marc Tindall is, and the team I was with went to Mololoa. Church went just as it usually does when I've been here and able to go. Afterwards each team went to separate places to eat. I got to hit up Pizza Hut with a few others and it was great. The pizza with the cheesy bites as the crust is pretty stinkin good. We then took the group to Mi Esperanza to buy some things and then went back to the mission for a bit before heading out for dinner. We went to the mall to eat and found the slowest restaurant in Teguc. We consisted of 70% of the people in TGIF and it still took an hour for some of the people to get their food. My table was done in an hour but the others had to wait forever for their food. After that we headed to the mission house for devo and then to bed. It was a pretty easy day which was great since I was sore from that house build on saturday.
June 27th-Day 19
Today was a ridiculously long day. I was again with the construction team who went out and split 30 people up to build 2 houses. The house sites were insane. We walked about 150 yards to the first site then STRAIGHT down about a quarter mile to our site. The lady that we built the house for was blind and literally lived in a shack made of sticks with mud to hold them together. She had one crippled son and another son who took care of them. So since we didn't have wood there when we got to the site, we went ahead and got it square. That's where the frustrating part started. I helped and watched and helped and watched for about 30 minutes as a few guys, who at the time thought I had no clue what I was doing but quickly had their minds changed, tried to square up the house. We didn't have wood so I gave them a good chance to get it right. When I finally told them to back up and let me do it, they were still about 30 inches out of square....YEA 30 INCHES, pretty terrible. Within 5 minutes I had it within a half-inch and they were like oh well that made sense doing it that way. So then we dug all the post and sat and waited on wood for a while. So at 12:30 we finally get wood and then have to carry it down this hill to the site. Since I was one of the team leaders I made other people carry the wood down after my first trip which was great. I put the post in and got the siding level so that when the others finished carrying the wood they could go straight to hammering. As I said in an earlier post, there are about 70 rookies on this trip. The people we built with today were pretty much the same people that built with us on Saturday. So we had a ton of people that had no clue to what they were doing but thought they did because they had helped Saturday. There were boards I had to knock off because they were wrong. Flooring that had to come back up. I told the guy on the roof to get down about half way through and I just finished it by myself. If there was a hard way and an easy way to do something, they always chose the hard way and you couldn't tell them any different. They tried to re-invent the wheel several times and I'd just have to let them try and then when they messed something up fix it. People were sitting around a lot, didn't want to listen to anything. This was the 27th house I've built down here and it was probably the house that I've put more effort into than all the others. Ok so I'm done complaining about that. The best part was that the lady had a house to go into tonight. When the rains came, she didn't have to dodge the leaks or have water run into her house through her walls. That's all that matters. So then we load the bus and head to the mission house. We were on the other side of the mountain from Villa Gracias, back on the back of the mountain in El Limon. We get about 5 minutes into the ride back and get stopped on a hill when a motorcycle pulls out in fron of us. When we start to go we just spin tires. After about 45 seconds we roll back, hear a loud noise like a tire going down, grinding like the transmission is exploding, see an orange glow out the window and then smoke/steam/something out from under the bus. Guillermo hit the air brakes and went to jump off the bus but we just rolled back. Thankfully he jumped right back on and hit the brakes but that's when the interns that were there quickly got everyone off the bus. The airbag system had gone out, botht right rear tires were flat, the air brake system went out and we think the rear end went out as well. So after an hour and a half wait with a bunch of irritated Hondurans who couldn't get home bc the bus was blocking the entire road, we made it back to the mission house.....around 8 or so. So it was an incredibly long day. I'm not sure that saying I'm wore out would come close expressing how tired I am. The frustration today and bus issues are all worth it knowing someone has a new house tonight. God is great. Tomorrow, I am going to pick the easiest thing on the schedule and go and do that, no matter what it is. But for now, just sleep. Oh great and glorious bed, here I come!
June 28th-Day 20
Today was a pretty good day. I was able to go to Mololoa to work with a team to move the mud from behind the church. I kept sneaking off as much as I could to go up to the daycare and see Bryan but we were still able to get 90% of the mud moved. We broke up the mudd, put it in a bucket, and tossed it over the edge of the hill. Very basic but evergy consuming task. There was also a team painting at the daycare and at the new bathrooms at the church. That was really all I did today. Hung out with Jenn some, played with kids. Oh, the new bathrooms need a sewage tank dug so we started that today too. A 5x5 hole 6 ft deep at the base of the hill in front of the church. That is not even close to being done but a good start was made. There are now plans that have materialized in the last day and a half to send a team to Choluteca to build houses for a few days. A lady that runs a farm there wants us to come build 25 to 30 houses for her this weekend to replace the terrible houseing she currently has for her workers.. She is going to pay transportation, hotels, food, and buy the wood for the houses so we won't have to pay for anything. We are sending 30 people down which is 3 crews with the hope of pumping out 2-3 houses per day per crew from Friday-Monday evening. Then we will come back Tuesday. As much as I like to build houses, I'm not so sure I want to do this yet. We will have to beast some houses like never before. A list of ppl interested is being put together and then 30 will be chosen to make the team. So this weekend might shape up to be an intense weekend. I'll be co-leading a house team tomorrow to sort of train some of the guys to work together and build a really good house fairly quickly as a sort of warm up for them for this weekend. I've got until tomorrow evening to decide if I want to go or not so we'll see what happens. So far it has rained everyday that this team has been here. The good thing is that it holds off until at least 3. Between 3 and 7 though, you can bet it'll start raining for a while. It has been fairly cool though, only in the mid 80's which has been nice. Hopefully this weather will last until the end of July. I hope everyone is doing great back home. Counting down the days until you guys will be down here.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Teguc at last!!!
June 22nd/23rd-Day 14/15
So the bus ride wasn't the most fun thing in the world. It was about 10 1/2 hours, lots of getting on and off the bus, switched buses, just not a very fun start to the day. We made it to Teguc about 2ish and had lunch downtown near the airport. Then went to the warehouse to start sorting boxes of supplies so that they'll be ready when the team comes in on Friday. We were sorting things for about 2 or 3 hours and made made a ton of progress. We then came up to the mission house, unloaded our luggage and got settled into our rooms. We went out to dinner, a large number of us went to the mall to eat and see the USA-Panama game but when we walked in the front door we saw highlights of the only goal scored. So it was a bummer we didn't get to see it but at least we won. We then came back to the mission house and I went straight to bed and the others had devo and stuff. I went on to bed because about halfway through the bus ride I started getting a headache. After we left the warehouse it had started getting worse and I started almost shivering I was so cold. Then at the mall, as I was in long pants and a jacket and still cold while everyone else was in shorts, my head felt like it was going to explode. From my neck down I was freezing but my head was on fire. I had a pretty bad fever and vision was a little blurry at times and they said that my face was really red too. But the good news is that I took some meds, went to bed and felt like a million bucks when I got up this morning. So first-a scorpion, second-electric shock, and third-terrible and mysterious headache and fever.
Today we started getting up around 8 to leave for the warehouse by 9:30. I designated myself to be the person to bring up the rear so I got up about 9:15 but I was sick last night so I had an excuse. We were at the warehouse all day breaking down the stuff even further than we did yesterday. Loaded up medical stuff on the bus to bring back to the mission house and I'm now sitting here just waiting for dinner. Not a whole lot of excitement. Today was a lot of lifting and grunt work and tomorrow the larger group comes in. Tomorrow we will have to crank up the intensity quite a bit. So far nothing out of the blue has happened to me yet but we are waiting. I have a guy on scorpion watch, one that checks the shower before I go in and a nurse following me around...Not really but I'd feel a little more safe if I could get them to do that. Hopefully today will break this trend
June 24th/25th-Day 16/17
I just want to start off by saying yesterday was great. Nothing terrible happened, just a nice normal day. So I have realized that everything that happened, happened in Nicaragua and I got sick on the way out of Nicaragua....I'm not sure I'd feel safe going back.
Friday was an incredibly busy day. We were up early to start prepping for the group to come in. We had skits to plan to act out the rules sheet such as what happens if you flush the toilet paper or what happens if you drink the water....It was great and I've got video to prove how great it was, I just have to figure out how to post pics and videos on here first. Then we loaded up the buses with boxes of food to go on a "gatorade blitz" where we rush off the bus and give food and gatorade to the street workers who earn less than $5 a day. So we went to the store and they didn't have enough gatorade so Capri Sun was a good substitute so I guess you could say it was a Capri Sun blitz. We then took the bus around the city passing the food and drinks out until we realized we were supposed to be at the airport 30 minutes ago. So then we hurried to the airport and waited just a little while for the first group to land and the fun began. 5 interns were assigned to each bus of 40 people. We took them to lunch and to the grocery store and then back to the mission house for orientation. Things went really smooth but it was a fast paced day. We then just chilled at the mission house till dinner, had devo, orientation with the skits and then off to bed.
Today we really started working. One team went to the hospital, one to the market downtown, one to the warehouse to sort more clothes, one group stayed at the mission house to make food bags to hand out and hygiene kits. one group went to didasko orphanage to get ready for the medical clinic the first 3 days of next week. And then 3 teams went out to build houses so I finally got to build my first house this year. just over 70 people out of the 122 are new this year so there are a lot of new house builders this year. About 3/4 of the ppl on the build crews today were new and they were all great. It did take us till nearly dark to finish but we took our time with 11 ppl per crew and ended the day with 3 great houses. The only real issue we had other than the rain showers was chainsaws. Our team had the guys in the house to cut out the door and window once we had boarded up the last wall. So as they are completely boarded in, they go to start the chainsaws to cut. The first one runs out of gas. They start the second one and get about 3/4 of the way done with the window and it runs out of gas. So we look for our gas can and it had apparently walked off somewhere. So another guy went with me to one of the other build sites about half a mile away, to get some gas. When we get there we see 4 people outside and the house completely boarded up. They had just started to cut out their window and their first chainsaw ran out of gas and when they tried to start the second one they pulled the pull cord out of it so it wouldn't start either. So they had sent guys to our site and the other site to get another chainsaw. So after it was all said and done, we got our gas, they got another chainsaw and we made it back to the mission house about 7:15. But other than that little issue, it was a great day. I'm sunburnt, wore out and about to head to bed so peace out. Oh and Tasha, as painful as this is for me to say, you were right, there are capybara's here. Another guy here saw one this morning.
So the bus ride wasn't the most fun thing in the world. It was about 10 1/2 hours, lots of getting on and off the bus, switched buses, just not a very fun start to the day. We made it to Teguc about 2ish and had lunch downtown near the airport. Then went to the warehouse to start sorting boxes of supplies so that they'll be ready when the team comes in on Friday. We were sorting things for about 2 or 3 hours and made made a ton of progress. We then came up to the mission house, unloaded our luggage and got settled into our rooms. We went out to dinner, a large number of us went to the mall to eat and see the USA-Panama game but when we walked in the front door we saw highlights of the only goal scored. So it was a bummer we didn't get to see it but at least we won. We then came back to the mission house and I went straight to bed and the others had devo and stuff. I went on to bed because about halfway through the bus ride I started getting a headache. After we left the warehouse it had started getting worse and I started almost shivering I was so cold. Then at the mall, as I was in long pants and a jacket and still cold while everyone else was in shorts, my head felt like it was going to explode. From my neck down I was freezing but my head was on fire. I had a pretty bad fever and vision was a little blurry at times and they said that my face was really red too. But the good news is that I took some meds, went to bed and felt like a million bucks when I got up this morning. So first-a scorpion, second-electric shock, and third-terrible and mysterious headache and fever.
Today we started getting up around 8 to leave for the warehouse by 9:30. I designated myself to be the person to bring up the rear so I got up about 9:15 but I was sick last night so I had an excuse. We were at the warehouse all day breaking down the stuff even further than we did yesterday. Loaded up medical stuff on the bus to bring back to the mission house and I'm now sitting here just waiting for dinner. Not a whole lot of excitement. Today was a lot of lifting and grunt work and tomorrow the larger group comes in. Tomorrow we will have to crank up the intensity quite a bit. So far nothing out of the blue has happened to me yet but we are waiting. I have a guy on scorpion watch, one that checks the shower before I go in and a nurse following me around...Not really but I'd feel a little more safe if I could get them to do that. Hopefully today will break this trend
June 24th/25th-Day 16/17
I just want to start off by saying yesterday was great. Nothing terrible happened, just a nice normal day. So I have realized that everything that happened, happened in Nicaragua and I got sick on the way out of Nicaragua....I'm not sure I'd feel safe going back.
Friday was an incredibly busy day. We were up early to start prepping for the group to come in. We had skits to plan to act out the rules sheet such as what happens if you flush the toilet paper or what happens if you drink the water....It was great and I've got video to prove how great it was, I just have to figure out how to post pics and videos on here first. Then we loaded up the buses with boxes of food to go on a "gatorade blitz" where we rush off the bus and give food and gatorade to the street workers who earn less than $5 a day. So we went to the store and they didn't have enough gatorade so Capri Sun was a good substitute so I guess you could say it was a Capri Sun blitz. We then took the bus around the city passing the food and drinks out until we realized we were supposed to be at the airport 30 minutes ago. So then we hurried to the airport and waited just a little while for the first group to land and the fun began. 5 interns were assigned to each bus of 40 people. We took them to lunch and to the grocery store and then back to the mission house for orientation. Things went really smooth but it was a fast paced day. We then just chilled at the mission house till dinner, had devo, orientation with the skits and then off to bed.
Today we really started working. One team went to the hospital, one to the market downtown, one to the warehouse to sort more clothes, one group stayed at the mission house to make food bags to hand out and hygiene kits. one group went to didasko orphanage to get ready for the medical clinic the first 3 days of next week. And then 3 teams went out to build houses so I finally got to build my first house this year. just over 70 people out of the 122 are new this year so there are a lot of new house builders this year. About 3/4 of the ppl on the build crews today were new and they were all great. It did take us till nearly dark to finish but we took our time with 11 ppl per crew and ended the day with 3 great houses. The only real issue we had other than the rain showers was chainsaws. Our team had the guys in the house to cut out the door and window once we had boarded up the last wall. So as they are completely boarded in, they go to start the chainsaws to cut. The first one runs out of gas. They start the second one and get about 3/4 of the way done with the window and it runs out of gas. So we look for our gas can and it had apparently walked off somewhere. So another guy went with me to one of the other build sites about half a mile away, to get some gas. When we get there we see 4 people outside and the house completely boarded up. They had just started to cut out their window and their first chainsaw ran out of gas and when they tried to start the second one they pulled the pull cord out of it so it wouldn't start either. So they had sent guys to our site and the other site to get another chainsaw. So after it was all said and done, we got our gas, they got another chainsaw and we made it back to the mission house about 7:15. But other than that little issue, it was a great day. I'm sunburnt, wore out and about to head to bed so peace out. Oh and Tasha, as painful as this is for me to say, you were right, there are capybara's here. Another guy here saw one this morning.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The first leg of our journey
When I started my senior year of high school, if you would have told me that in only 5 years I would be spending 2 months doing mission work in three Central American countries, I would have told you that it sounded cool but that it would never happen. If you'd have said that it would be my eigth trip to Central America, I'd have said you were crazy. And if you'd said that I'd be spending a lot of the time with people I didn't know too well and with none of my family with me I would have called you ridiculous. But here I am and what a great few years it's been. So far on this trip we've gotten to do a few vbs, a gospel meeting, visit 2 volcanoes, and a lot more. I know some of you have been asking what I've been doing down here so I figured that a blog would be the easiest way to let everyone know what we are up to. I didn't start typing anything until after the first week so I'll remember as much as I can.
June 9th-Day 1
So the first day of the trip was a very long day. We had a drive to Atlanta, flight to Miami then a flight down to San Jose, Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose about 11:30 local time, as of right now they aren't recognizing daylights savings so it's actually 2 hours behind eastern time. We ate lunch at the mall and then loaded up for a supposedly 4 hr bus ride to Buenos Aires, which is in the southern part of the country not too far from Panama. So at around 2 we headed out of San Jose to conquer the Cerro de la Muerte or Mountain of death. One bus lost a cylinder on the way up so going uphill quickly became a slow process. After all was said and done it took us about 7 hours to reach Buenos Aires. I pretty much headed to bed as soon as we got to the hotel. One thing that surprised me though was that there weren't any school buses at all. They use buses that are more like a church bus or tour buss kind of thing. I had a great surprise too when we got done eating lunch and came back to the buses and Ernie and Denis Ulmer had just arrived in San Jose. I didn' know they were part of this group but it was great to see them.
June 10th-Day 2
The Church in Buenos Aires has a house that they rent about 100 yards from the church where they allow people to stay who are having a rough time and use for other church purposes. The ladies of the church used this house to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for us each night. So they wanted us up between 6 and 6:15 a.m to get ready so we could load the buses by 6:45 and be over at the house for breakfast. And yes I did stay in the bed until about 6:35 and then got up to go. So after breakfast we had morning devo at the church then left for the school, Vera Cruz, to have a VBS for the kids. There were about 90 kids and we had snacks, games, crafts, and the VBS skits. We had a ton of fun and the kids seemed to have loved it. After that we went to the park where the local radio station came out so that the group could sing over the radio. So in the middle of the park the group sang and a few of the preachers that were in town for the gospel meetings talked over the radio for a while. It was pretty cool to be a part of that. After that we kind of had a slow afternoon of just preparing other things to get ready for the gospel meeting. We had dinner and devo and went practiced one of the skits that night back at the hotel. All in all the first day on the ground went really well
June 11th-Day 3
We had breakfast at 8 a.m this morning because we were going to a wedding at the church building at
10:30 that morning. The wedding was pretty cool. The guy, Charlie, has been living here in Costa Rica for the past 30 years. He moved down here when his parents did 30 years ago and he hasn't been back to the states since. They had the wedding outside under a tent. After the wedding both Charlie and Betsy, his new wife, wanted to be baptized so at 3 that afternoon they were both baptized. In between the wedding and baptism, we went out in the city to go doorknocking. This was really my first time doing anything like that and it was nice. We had a blast going out and goofing off but also inviting people to come to the gospel meeting which started later on that evening. We also went back out and covered a little more of the area after the baptisms. We then had dinner right before the gospel meeting got underway. Rafael, a preacher at a congretation around Freed-Hardemann and native Costa Rican, opened up the gospel meeting with a great sermon. I love how he is so passionate about what he is saying. We had one guy, Issac, decide after Rafael spoke that he wanted to be baptized. So on the first day of the gospel meeting we had 3 baptisms. It was a pretty awesome day.
June 12th-Day 4
Sunday morning started out like the other morning had with breakfast at the house and then heading over to the church. One thing I've always liked is worshipping with a congregation here. It's cool to be a part of it. So we had church and then lunch. The mens and womens classes started at 2 everyday and the vbs team was supposed to have a vbs for the kids that were supposed to be at the church, the only problem was that there was only like 5 kids at the church. So we did what I think the church should do more of. Instead of finding something else to do we went out and met the kids in the streets throughout the city and had the vbs there. We went and bought balloons so that as we walked down the street announcing what we were doing we could give the kids balloons and they would follow us to the end of the road where we would perform our skits. We did the skits in full costume at few places and had an incredible turnout. Even with it being pretty stinkin hot we were able to have great success. While we were out doing the skits we had an older man, probably in his 80's, at the mens class at the church decide he wanted to be baptized. We then had the gospel meeting that night, dinner and the went back to the hotel. Up until day 4 we didn't have any rain at all but that was about to change. The great thing was that the rain really cooled it down for the rest of our time in Buenos Aires and it didn't really hinder us at all.
June 13th-Day 5
Today after morning devo the vbs team had a little time to prep before we went out to another school, Santa Cruz. So we could practice a little before heading out later on that morning. When we got to the school there were no kids in the area but very soon after we arrived the teachers started letting them out of class and bringing them over. After about 5 minutes I realized that we had more kids that we did at the first school. After about 10 minutes I realized that we had doubled the number of kids at the first school. After 15 minutes I wondered if every kid in a 10 mile radius was going to come. I think we had 252 kids total. Since on this trip I'm a part of VBS for the first time, 250 kids is a lot to me. It was a little crazy at times but overall it was great. The kids all seemed to love the skits, snacks, games, and crafts we had for them. The skit went really well and we all had a blast doing it. After the VBS, we went back out doorknocking. This is when the rain began to make it's presence known. About 25 minutes in, it started drizzling/sprinkling but it wasn't enough to make us stop. Right as we were finishing though the bottom fell out of the clouds and it rained just about all day after that. After that we had dinner and then the meeting for the night. Rafael spoke again and it was great once again. We had our devo and then went back to the hotel for the evening.
June 14th/15th-Day 6/7
Days started running together at this by day 6. I know that we went out and did some a lot of doorknocking. It rained/drizzled all day but that just made it more fun. The gospel meeting continued that night and we prepared for we went to prepare for our last day in Buenos Aires. On day 7 we had the chance to go to an Indian reservation about 45 minutes from Buenos Aires. They had a new classroom at their school that they wanted painted and they wanted us to do a VBS for the kids. After we started painting we realized that it was going to take all day to finish and the kids were let out of school early so we scratched the VBS. We were literally up in the clouds on the mountain at this place and of all things we had a thunderstorm roll in. It was pretty awesome being in the clouds during a thunderstorm. We never really saw lightning but the thunder was pretty intense. Once we got pretty close to finishing painting the building, one of the men on the reservation's council (I like to think of it as like a Jedi council) wanted to take us into their town so we could visit their museum. We went and saw their hand crafted masks, they were pretty neat. This reservation was also the site where the first Jurassic Park was filmed so you can imagine what the scenery was like, awesome. We then headed back to the church and had the final meeting of the gospel meetings. Terry spoke and had a great lesson. We then wrapped up the meetings and began to say goodbye to all the great friends we had met throughout the week. Daniel Chavez, who is the preacher at the congregation and his family are just incredible people. I wish we could have spent a lot more time here because the people of Buenos Aires are so amazing and are thirsting for someone to show that they care about them. The gospel meeting was a such a great thing for the town. We covered 80%% of the town by doorknocking. Had radio campaigns and tv campaigns. A total of 4 baptisms and many more that responded throughout the week. For me, it was a trip of firsts. It was my first time doorknocking, my first time experiencing a gospel meeting like this, my first time involved in VBS and my first time spending time with this group of interns that I'll be with for the next few weeks. Everybit of it has been incredibly awesome and I've enjoyed every second of it. The intern team that Terry has put together couldn't be any better. We've been together for a week and it feels like we've known each other forever. The first leg of our trip has just been incredible. We now slow down for a few days before heading to Nicaragua.
June 16th-Day 8
Thursday we loaded up the buses at the hotel and went to breakfast at the house then to the church for devo. We had devo and had another quick goodbye with the people of Buenos Aires before loading up the buses to head back to San Jose. We made it back to San Jose in about 7 hours (again, supposed to be a 4 hour trip but the naptime was GREAT). We had lunch about halfway there and were able to stop at a few shops in San Jose and then headed to the hotel for the night.
June 17th-Day 9
We had breakfast and devo then loaded up the buses to head to the Arenal Volcano to spend the night. We took a 4 hour bus ride (this one actually was only 4 hrs) to a place at the foot of the volcano that had a lot of hotsprings. They had water slides, waterfalls, about 15 different pools ranging from 90 to 152 degrees. The 152 pool would burned my feet in about 3 seconds so only my feet made it in, although we had a few that temporarily lost their minds and dove in only to run out pretty quickly. We spent most of the day at the hot springs before leaving and going to the hotel for the evening. The volcano was incredible though. A perfect cone shaped volcano with smoke constantly rising out of the top. I didn't get the lava show I was hoping for (probably a good thing) but it was still incredible to see. We had our final devo with the most of the team, a few left Thursday and 4 more left tonight. Now that this trip is winding down our time as a 42 man team has ended.
June 18th-Day 10
We loaded the buses early again to head back to San Jose. Another "4 hour ride" and we were back in San Jose at the hotel to spend our final hours before we headed out. We loaded up the bus later on that night and left at midnight to be at the bus station for our ride to Nicaragua. 21 of us are making the trip and the others flew back to the states as their 2011 trip had ended. The Costa Rica trip was great. We had an incredibly smooth trip, rains never really altered our plans and we had great success in everything we did. It is such a beautiful place with all the natural beauty and wildlife. The country didn't look as bad off as Honduras, it was quite a bit more advanced than Hondo. There were still some places where they lived in small wooden houses like the TORCH houses but they were larger, had electricity and a lot of the people had vehicles. I'm sure that there are places in Costa Rica like Mololoa and Nueve Oriental, Los Pinos and other places around Teguc but if you're going to find those areas in San Jose then you're really going to have to look for them. They aren't as noticeable or as widespread as they are in Teguc. There is still a great physical need here but even though it may not be as great as the physical need in Honduras, there is still a great spiritual need and that is the reason we come on these trips. It's great to build houses, give out food and clothes, but if we aren't bringing people to know God, to believe in Christ then what we are doing has no greater purpose than just getting someone by for a few weeks. The need for Christ to be brought into people's lives is just as great in Costa Rica as it is in Honduras and in every other part of the world. I hope and believe that TORCH has been able to lay a good foundation to be able to come back and expand their mission efforts in Costa Rica just as they have in Honduras.
June 19th-Day 11
We had the 9 hour bus ride from San Jose to Masaya, Nicaragua Sunday morning. We arrived in Masaya about 11 a.m. The bus doesn't have a normal stopping point in Masaya so the driver just randomly stopped along the major highway and let us out on the sidewalk. I have to say that with 21 people and 40+ bags of luggage, it was a little interesting just standing on the sidewalk waiting on our bus to come pick us up. What we didn't know at the time, and didn't realize for about 20 minutes, was that the hotel we were staying at was only about 100 yards up the road. So we grabbed our bags, crossed the road and we at our hotel that we'd be at for the next few days. We then went to church at the local congregation who had put off services until 3 so that we could be there. A really small congregation of about 15 people met at a local school because there building wasn't large enough to hold them and us. We had church with them and then had a pretty relaxed rest of the day. Practiced our VBS skits, went to a local artists house and went to bed. Oh and there was this little restaurante in town that we ate lunch at that had the best chicken I've ever had. Like 4 grilled chicken fillets, tons of fries and a pepsi for under $5, it was great.
So now I have caught up with everything. I'm sure I've left something out but now I'll hopefully be able to keep up with the things we are doing and type it up before I forget anything.
June 20th-Day 12
Today we were up fairly early to eat breakfast at 7 so that we could be at the bus by 7:30 to go see the Masaya Volcano about 30 minutes away. The volcano wasn't a cone shape like the Arenal Volcano was, this one had collapsed so we could go up to the edge and look down in it. It was pretty spectacular. It had 3 major craters and one has been pretty active the last few weeks. They've only allowed people to start going back to the rim of the volcano in the past week because it's been so active. It was pretty warm, smelled of sulfur and was just incredible to see. Every few minutes a massive puff of smoke would come pouring out of it. We had nothing else planned for the morning so after we left the volcano we had nothing to do until our 1:30 VBS at a local cultural center. Once we got to the center, I picked my hands up off the top of the seat in front of me, put one hand on the window and felt something like a massive thorn in my index finger. So I pulled my hand back and shook it quickly and saw something fall to the floor. I jumped up, pulled back the seat on the bus and a scorpion a little smaller than the size of my hand took off toward the back of the bus. He got up into a part near the wheel well and disappeared after that. I had a couple of swollen spots on my finger but so far I haven't died so I think I'll be ok. It looks like he got me with his pinchers and not his stinger so I feel pretty lucky. The VBS didn't look like it was going to be a huge success to start off with. There were about 15 kids in the center so we started with songs for the kids. Some of us were putting on costumes in another room where they were getting the snacks ready. They poured 20 cups full of juice and Brandy came in and said we now had 25 kids, so they poured some more juice. She came back and said there were 37 kids, then 44, then 50+. We ended up having 98 kids and 22 adults total so it was a huge success. It seemed like the more songs that they were singing, the more people on the street passed by and decided to come in. We had games and coloring books and it was great. After that we went back to the hotel for the and just chilled for the rest of the afternoon. It seems like every time we have some down time all we want to do is sleep. We practiced our 3rd skit for VBS tomorrow, which I'm not in so I went on to bed early.
June 21st-Day 13
So i'ts 3:45 a.m and I'm on the second level of a double decker bus which is pretty cool. Today we finished up our short stop in Nicaragua. We had an easy morning with really nothing to do. The ones in the VBS skit practiced that and I just chilled on my bed with my eyes closed and dead to the world. Then at 1 we left to go to the local park to have another VBS. We were able to use a stage in the park which mad it great, since we were outside we actually had room to move around as opposed to the small room we were in yesterday. We had 95 kids today so it was another big turnout. The King Agrippa skit was a ton of fun and the games and crafts seemed to be a big hit with the kids. After the VBS we went back to the hotel for dinner, devo and to start packing to leave for the bus station. We came to Masaya with the hope of having a great turnout for our VBS and I would say that it was mission accomplished. The first two stops in our trip have been excellent and couldn't have really gone any better. But now we are on a bus headed to Teguc. We are tired now but as Terry said earlier tonight, we haven't experienced tired yet. We will hit the ground running in Teguc. A team of 122 arrive in a few days and we have to get everything ready for them so that when they get here they can jump right into working. Sorting things at the warehouse is the biggest of those tasks which we will start on literally when we get off the bus in about 9 hours or so. The part of Nicaragua we stayed in was much more like what you'd see in Honduras. The poverty seemed to be a little worse than Costa Rica but not as bad as places we've been in Hondo. But we've only seen a very small portion of Nicaragua so I would bet the poverty is worse in other places. The preacher at the Church in Masaya is great though. A really awesome guy and I wish him nothing but the best as he continues to establish his congregation just outside of Masaya in Nidiri.
So I have another scorpion like story for today. After we had gotten done eating dinner and had devo, I decided to go take a shower. First off, I just want to say that I've always thought that the shower heads that they use down here (the water heaters with wires going everywhere where the shower head would be in the states would be) are safe and caused no problem. That all changed in about 2 minutes tonight. So I'm washing my hair and I smelled smoke. It wasn't unusual because I had been smelling it since we had been in the hotel so I just went back to washing my hair. So about 30 seconds later I realized that the smoke was filling up the room so I turned around and looked up and saw one of the wires just glowing orange and smoke pouring off of it. So my first reaction was to turn off the water, so i grabbed the handle and you know that feeling you get when you wake up at night and you've been laying on your arm wrong and it is all tingling and going numb? Well when I grabbed that handle that's the feeling I got all the way up to my shoulder. So I jerked my hand back and still standing in the water, looked up and thought, I've either got to grab that handle again to turn the water off or watch this building burn. So I looked back at the handle and I won't lie, I had to contemplate for a few seconds whether I wanted to grab that thing again. But I did and it shocked the mess out of me again but the shower head turned off and the wire stopped glowing and the smoke was slowly starting to stop pouring off the wires. So for about an hour my hand was tingling. So yesterday was a scorpion and today was a shower, I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds. But for now, it is sleep time.
June 9th-Day 1
So the first day of the trip was a very long day. We had a drive to Atlanta, flight to Miami then a flight down to San Jose, Costa Rica. We arrived in San Jose about 11:30 local time, as of right now they aren't recognizing daylights savings so it's actually 2 hours behind eastern time. We ate lunch at the mall and then loaded up for a supposedly 4 hr bus ride to Buenos Aires, which is in the southern part of the country not too far from Panama. So at around 2 we headed out of San Jose to conquer the Cerro de la Muerte or Mountain of death. One bus lost a cylinder on the way up so going uphill quickly became a slow process. After all was said and done it took us about 7 hours to reach Buenos Aires. I pretty much headed to bed as soon as we got to the hotel. One thing that surprised me though was that there weren't any school buses at all. They use buses that are more like a church bus or tour buss kind of thing. I had a great surprise too when we got done eating lunch and came back to the buses and Ernie and Denis Ulmer had just arrived in San Jose. I didn' know they were part of this group but it was great to see them.
June 10th-Day 2
The Church in Buenos Aires has a house that they rent about 100 yards from the church where they allow people to stay who are having a rough time and use for other church purposes. The ladies of the church used this house to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for us each night. So they wanted us up between 6 and 6:15 a.m to get ready so we could load the buses by 6:45 and be over at the house for breakfast. And yes I did stay in the bed until about 6:35 and then got up to go. So after breakfast we had morning devo at the church then left for the school, Vera Cruz, to have a VBS for the kids. There were about 90 kids and we had snacks, games, crafts, and the VBS skits. We had a ton of fun and the kids seemed to have loved it. After that we went to the park where the local radio station came out so that the group could sing over the radio. So in the middle of the park the group sang and a few of the preachers that were in town for the gospel meetings talked over the radio for a while. It was pretty cool to be a part of that. After that we kind of had a slow afternoon of just preparing other things to get ready for the gospel meeting. We had dinner and devo and went practiced one of the skits that night back at the hotel. All in all the first day on the ground went really well
June 11th-Day 3
We had breakfast at 8 a.m this morning because we were going to a wedding at the church building at
10:30 that morning. The wedding was pretty cool. The guy, Charlie, has been living here in Costa Rica for the past 30 years. He moved down here when his parents did 30 years ago and he hasn't been back to the states since. They had the wedding outside under a tent. After the wedding both Charlie and Betsy, his new wife, wanted to be baptized so at 3 that afternoon they were both baptized. In between the wedding and baptism, we went out in the city to go doorknocking. This was really my first time doing anything like that and it was nice. We had a blast going out and goofing off but also inviting people to come to the gospel meeting which started later on that evening. We also went back out and covered a little more of the area after the baptisms. We then had dinner right before the gospel meeting got underway. Rafael, a preacher at a congretation around Freed-Hardemann and native Costa Rican, opened up the gospel meeting with a great sermon. I love how he is so passionate about what he is saying. We had one guy, Issac, decide after Rafael spoke that he wanted to be baptized. So on the first day of the gospel meeting we had 3 baptisms. It was a pretty awesome day.
June 12th-Day 4
Sunday morning started out like the other morning had with breakfast at the house and then heading over to the church. One thing I've always liked is worshipping with a congregation here. It's cool to be a part of it. So we had church and then lunch. The mens and womens classes started at 2 everyday and the vbs team was supposed to have a vbs for the kids that were supposed to be at the church, the only problem was that there was only like 5 kids at the church. So we did what I think the church should do more of. Instead of finding something else to do we went out and met the kids in the streets throughout the city and had the vbs there. We went and bought balloons so that as we walked down the street announcing what we were doing we could give the kids balloons and they would follow us to the end of the road where we would perform our skits. We did the skits in full costume at few places and had an incredible turnout. Even with it being pretty stinkin hot we were able to have great success. While we were out doing the skits we had an older man, probably in his 80's, at the mens class at the church decide he wanted to be baptized. We then had the gospel meeting that night, dinner and the went back to the hotel. Up until day 4 we didn't have any rain at all but that was about to change. The great thing was that the rain really cooled it down for the rest of our time in Buenos Aires and it didn't really hinder us at all.
June 13th-Day 5
Today after morning devo the vbs team had a little time to prep before we went out to another school, Santa Cruz. So we could practice a little before heading out later on that morning. When we got to the school there were no kids in the area but very soon after we arrived the teachers started letting them out of class and bringing them over. After about 5 minutes I realized that we had more kids that we did at the first school. After about 10 minutes I realized that we had doubled the number of kids at the first school. After 15 minutes I wondered if every kid in a 10 mile radius was going to come. I think we had 252 kids total. Since on this trip I'm a part of VBS for the first time, 250 kids is a lot to me. It was a little crazy at times but overall it was great. The kids all seemed to love the skits, snacks, games, and crafts we had for them. The skit went really well and we all had a blast doing it. After the VBS, we went back out doorknocking. This is when the rain began to make it's presence known. About 25 minutes in, it started drizzling/sprinkling but it wasn't enough to make us stop. Right as we were finishing though the bottom fell out of the clouds and it rained just about all day after that. After that we had dinner and then the meeting for the night. Rafael spoke again and it was great once again. We had our devo and then went back to the hotel for the evening.
June 14th/15th-Day 6/7
Days started running together at this by day 6. I know that we went out and did some a lot of doorknocking. It rained/drizzled all day but that just made it more fun. The gospel meeting continued that night and we prepared for we went to prepare for our last day in Buenos Aires. On day 7 we had the chance to go to an Indian reservation about 45 minutes from Buenos Aires. They had a new classroom at their school that they wanted painted and they wanted us to do a VBS for the kids. After we started painting we realized that it was going to take all day to finish and the kids were let out of school early so we scratched the VBS. We were literally up in the clouds on the mountain at this place and of all things we had a thunderstorm roll in. It was pretty awesome being in the clouds during a thunderstorm. We never really saw lightning but the thunder was pretty intense. Once we got pretty close to finishing painting the building, one of the men on the reservation's council (I like to think of it as like a Jedi council) wanted to take us into their town so we could visit their museum. We went and saw their hand crafted masks, they were pretty neat. This reservation was also the site where the first Jurassic Park was filmed so you can imagine what the scenery was like, awesome. We then headed back to the church and had the final meeting of the gospel meetings. Terry spoke and had a great lesson. We then wrapped up the meetings and began to say goodbye to all the great friends we had met throughout the week. Daniel Chavez, who is the preacher at the congregation and his family are just incredible people. I wish we could have spent a lot more time here because the people of Buenos Aires are so amazing and are thirsting for someone to show that they care about them. The gospel meeting was a such a great thing for the town. We covered 80%% of the town by doorknocking. Had radio campaigns and tv campaigns. A total of 4 baptisms and many more that responded throughout the week. For me, it was a trip of firsts. It was my first time doorknocking, my first time experiencing a gospel meeting like this, my first time involved in VBS and my first time spending time with this group of interns that I'll be with for the next few weeks. Everybit of it has been incredibly awesome and I've enjoyed every second of it. The intern team that Terry has put together couldn't be any better. We've been together for a week and it feels like we've known each other forever. The first leg of our trip has just been incredible. We now slow down for a few days before heading to Nicaragua.
June 16th-Day 8
Thursday we loaded up the buses at the hotel and went to breakfast at the house then to the church for devo. We had devo and had another quick goodbye with the people of Buenos Aires before loading up the buses to head back to San Jose. We made it back to San Jose in about 7 hours (again, supposed to be a 4 hour trip but the naptime was GREAT). We had lunch about halfway there and were able to stop at a few shops in San Jose and then headed to the hotel for the night.
June 17th-Day 9
We had breakfast and devo then loaded up the buses to head to the Arenal Volcano to spend the night. We took a 4 hour bus ride (this one actually was only 4 hrs) to a place at the foot of the volcano that had a lot of hotsprings. They had water slides, waterfalls, about 15 different pools ranging from 90 to 152 degrees. The 152 pool would burned my feet in about 3 seconds so only my feet made it in, although we had a few that temporarily lost their minds and dove in only to run out pretty quickly. We spent most of the day at the hot springs before leaving and going to the hotel for the evening. The volcano was incredible though. A perfect cone shaped volcano with smoke constantly rising out of the top. I didn't get the lava show I was hoping for (probably a good thing) but it was still incredible to see. We had our final devo with the most of the team, a few left Thursday and 4 more left tonight. Now that this trip is winding down our time as a 42 man team has ended.
June 18th-Day 10
We loaded the buses early again to head back to San Jose. Another "4 hour ride" and we were back in San Jose at the hotel to spend our final hours before we headed out. We loaded up the bus later on that night and left at midnight to be at the bus station for our ride to Nicaragua. 21 of us are making the trip and the others flew back to the states as their 2011 trip had ended. The Costa Rica trip was great. We had an incredibly smooth trip, rains never really altered our plans and we had great success in everything we did. It is such a beautiful place with all the natural beauty and wildlife. The country didn't look as bad off as Honduras, it was quite a bit more advanced than Hondo. There were still some places where they lived in small wooden houses like the TORCH houses but they were larger, had electricity and a lot of the people had vehicles. I'm sure that there are places in Costa Rica like Mololoa and Nueve Oriental, Los Pinos and other places around Teguc but if you're going to find those areas in San Jose then you're really going to have to look for them. They aren't as noticeable or as widespread as they are in Teguc. There is still a great physical need here but even though it may not be as great as the physical need in Honduras, there is still a great spiritual need and that is the reason we come on these trips. It's great to build houses, give out food and clothes, but if we aren't bringing people to know God, to believe in Christ then what we are doing has no greater purpose than just getting someone by for a few weeks. The need for Christ to be brought into people's lives is just as great in Costa Rica as it is in Honduras and in every other part of the world. I hope and believe that TORCH has been able to lay a good foundation to be able to come back and expand their mission efforts in Costa Rica just as they have in Honduras.
June 19th-Day 11
We had the 9 hour bus ride from San Jose to Masaya, Nicaragua Sunday morning. We arrived in Masaya about 11 a.m. The bus doesn't have a normal stopping point in Masaya so the driver just randomly stopped along the major highway and let us out on the sidewalk. I have to say that with 21 people and 40+ bags of luggage, it was a little interesting just standing on the sidewalk waiting on our bus to come pick us up. What we didn't know at the time, and didn't realize for about 20 minutes, was that the hotel we were staying at was only about 100 yards up the road. So we grabbed our bags, crossed the road and we at our hotel that we'd be at for the next few days. We then went to church at the local congregation who had put off services until 3 so that we could be there. A really small congregation of about 15 people met at a local school because there building wasn't large enough to hold them and us. We had church with them and then had a pretty relaxed rest of the day. Practiced our VBS skits, went to a local artists house and went to bed. Oh and there was this little restaurante in town that we ate lunch at that had the best chicken I've ever had. Like 4 grilled chicken fillets, tons of fries and a pepsi for under $5, it was great.
So now I have caught up with everything. I'm sure I've left something out but now I'll hopefully be able to keep up with the things we are doing and type it up before I forget anything.
June 20th-Day 12
Today we were up fairly early to eat breakfast at 7 so that we could be at the bus by 7:30 to go see the Masaya Volcano about 30 minutes away. The volcano wasn't a cone shape like the Arenal Volcano was, this one had collapsed so we could go up to the edge and look down in it. It was pretty spectacular. It had 3 major craters and one has been pretty active the last few weeks. They've only allowed people to start going back to the rim of the volcano in the past week because it's been so active. It was pretty warm, smelled of sulfur and was just incredible to see. Every few minutes a massive puff of smoke would come pouring out of it. We had nothing else planned for the morning so after we left the volcano we had nothing to do until our 1:30 VBS at a local cultural center. Once we got to the center, I picked my hands up off the top of the seat in front of me, put one hand on the window and felt something like a massive thorn in my index finger. So I pulled my hand back and shook it quickly and saw something fall to the floor. I jumped up, pulled back the seat on the bus and a scorpion a little smaller than the size of my hand took off toward the back of the bus. He got up into a part near the wheel well and disappeared after that. I had a couple of swollen spots on my finger but so far I haven't died so I think I'll be ok. It looks like he got me with his pinchers and not his stinger so I feel pretty lucky. The VBS didn't look like it was going to be a huge success to start off with. There were about 15 kids in the center so we started with songs for the kids. Some of us were putting on costumes in another room where they were getting the snacks ready. They poured 20 cups full of juice and Brandy came in and said we now had 25 kids, so they poured some more juice. She came back and said there were 37 kids, then 44, then 50+. We ended up having 98 kids and 22 adults total so it was a huge success. It seemed like the more songs that they were singing, the more people on the street passed by and decided to come in. We had games and coloring books and it was great. After that we went back to the hotel for the and just chilled for the rest of the afternoon. It seems like every time we have some down time all we want to do is sleep. We practiced our 3rd skit for VBS tomorrow, which I'm not in so I went on to bed early.
June 21st-Day 13
So i'ts 3:45 a.m and I'm on the second level of a double decker bus which is pretty cool. Today we finished up our short stop in Nicaragua. We had an easy morning with really nothing to do. The ones in the VBS skit practiced that and I just chilled on my bed with my eyes closed and dead to the world. Then at 1 we left to go to the local park to have another VBS. We were able to use a stage in the park which mad it great, since we were outside we actually had room to move around as opposed to the small room we were in yesterday. We had 95 kids today so it was another big turnout. The King Agrippa skit was a ton of fun and the games and crafts seemed to be a big hit with the kids. After the VBS we went back to the hotel for dinner, devo and to start packing to leave for the bus station. We came to Masaya with the hope of having a great turnout for our VBS and I would say that it was mission accomplished. The first two stops in our trip have been excellent and couldn't have really gone any better. But now we are on a bus headed to Teguc. We are tired now but as Terry said earlier tonight, we haven't experienced tired yet. We will hit the ground running in Teguc. A team of 122 arrive in a few days and we have to get everything ready for them so that when they get here they can jump right into working. Sorting things at the warehouse is the biggest of those tasks which we will start on literally when we get off the bus in about 9 hours or so. The part of Nicaragua we stayed in was much more like what you'd see in Honduras. The poverty seemed to be a little worse than Costa Rica but not as bad as places we've been in Hondo. But we've only seen a very small portion of Nicaragua so I would bet the poverty is worse in other places. The preacher at the Church in Masaya is great though. A really awesome guy and I wish him nothing but the best as he continues to establish his congregation just outside of Masaya in Nidiri.
So I have another scorpion like story for today. After we had gotten done eating dinner and had devo, I decided to go take a shower. First off, I just want to say that I've always thought that the shower heads that they use down here (the water heaters with wires going everywhere where the shower head would be in the states would be) are safe and caused no problem. That all changed in about 2 minutes tonight. So I'm washing my hair and I smelled smoke. It wasn't unusual because I had been smelling it since we had been in the hotel so I just went back to washing my hair. So about 30 seconds later I realized that the smoke was filling up the room so I turned around and looked up and saw one of the wires just glowing orange and smoke pouring off of it. So my first reaction was to turn off the water, so i grabbed the handle and you know that feeling you get when you wake up at night and you've been laying on your arm wrong and it is all tingling and going numb? Well when I grabbed that handle that's the feeling I got all the way up to my shoulder. So I jerked my hand back and still standing in the water, looked up and thought, I've either got to grab that handle again to turn the water off or watch this building burn. So I looked back at the handle and I won't lie, I had to contemplate for a few seconds whether I wanted to grab that thing again. But I did and it shocked the mess out of me again but the shower head turned off and the wire stopped glowing and the smoke was slowly starting to stop pouring off the wires. So for about an hour my hand was tingling. So yesterday was a scorpion and today was a shower, I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds. But for now, it is sleep time.
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