I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!
-Psalm 27:13-14
Nothing like the Lord to give us the strength to work and be blessed in the midst of anything He has chosen!! How wonderful to believe we will see the goodness of the Lord and even to see it fulfilled!!! Waiting on the Lord should produce that strengthening!
We have now been in Costa Rica just shy of three full weeks. We have had lots of rain, which is understandable, given that it is the rainy season. It has been quite hot for me, not as much these past three days, a couple of days ago it was perfect... Although I am told this is the cold time! Today, it is beautiful and sunny and feels great in front of the fan! :) The heat will come as the dry season starts, beginning at the end of November or so.
Regardless of the future weather changes, I have learned to appreciate more than I had anticipated my rain jacket and pants! They have been invaluable, particularly since we walk everywhere!
I am starting to get the hang of things and get into a routine to work and do things according to our schedule. There are some things that I am figuring out, like how long it takes me to wash a couple of shirts and underwear or how to dry them fastest, since we wash by hand.
For the “Manos del Alfarero” (Potter’s Field Kids or PFK), which is Monday – Wednesday, Emily and I teach English on Monday. Last week, we were using “Simon dice” (Simon says), to teach them body part names and motions in English. During PFK, I help out with homework or studying for tests with the kids on Tuesdays and I help out Don Victor with making the meals on Wednesday. The first time I was helping them study, I felt unqualified. I hadn’t read the material beforehand (not that I had the material to read ahead of time), so I was scrambling to read it and make it useful to them as we reviewed. Sophia, one of the girls in the group I was helping study, was telling me she had no idea and I felt like I didn’t really do much to help her. This was in the photo on the previous blog. Several days later, she came up to me to give me a huge hug and thank me for helping her study because she got 100 on her test!!! I was so blessed and touched!!!!
I have started teaching the Bible class on Thursday's Bible Club. This is the day that all kids come and registration is not required. I end up teaching the same passage for 30 minutes with variations for 3 different classes of different ages in a row, so by the end, I am a bit overwhelmed, but so blessed! It's awesome to see kids learn of the Lord and get excited about something new. I have started asking them for prayer requests and it is so sweet to hear the things that have been burdening their hearts and praying for them.
We have several packets of letters from people from the US to the kids. Most of these are in English and we need to translate them, so Sydnie and I have been working slowly on translating them. We will then share them with the kids and get letters from them in Spanish. Those will also need to be translated to English to send back the States. It feels strange to read other people’s correspondence, but it is sweet to know that the kids will be blessed with the letters. Some kids have quite a few, but others don’t have any, and that is sad to us.
One of the things that are part of our job that I seem to enjoy the most is kid’s visits. I have a list of names and phone numbers of all the parent’s kids. I call the parents and after a complicated set of conversations to figure out where they live and when we can go, we set out to go see them. The calls are complicated because there are no addresses and everything is X meters in Y direction (N, S, E or W) from a specific landmark. As we don’t know the area well yet, the landmarks are not that useful to us. I have gone on a couple “exploratory” walks with Corey, Emily and Sydnie to find out where the kids live. What makes the visit special is that we meet the parents, learn of their family and their lives. It is more personal than the group time we get with the kids at PFK or Club.
I so love taking pictures and I was given the job to take profile pictures for some of the kids … of course, I am enjoying it and having fun calling them aside to get the shot!
The Bible Club (or “Kloob” as pronounced in Spanish) is so fun, particularly because we get to do songs with the kids! After Sydnie, Emily and I had been singing “Armor or the Spirit” (thanks Pastor Donathan) to Pastor Phil and Rebecca’s kids, and it was such a hit, I took to translating it to Spanish and it works! Last Thursday we tried it out at Club and sang it both in English and Spanish with the kids. It was a complete hit and the kids kept asking to sing it again! We will have to do it again and get a video!
This photo is from another occasion at Club:
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| Singing during Club |
There has been some heartache too. Some of the letters that we have for translation are for kids that are no longer in the program for a variety of reasons. It is sad to have these letters to kids that we don’t have there. Additionally, the PFK program Monday-Wednesday has a lot of specialized and prepared materials that the kids register for, so if children are not registered, they are invited to come Thursday and register in January for the next session. This is hard for me, as I would just love to invite them all in, but I understand that we aren’t able to.
Another aspect that has been bittersweet is the departure of Matt & Brooke McClain and their kids, Ethan, Isabelle and Audrey. Of course, we knew the McClains, who have been heading up the program here, would be departing, but it was interesting and bittersweet to be part of the departure process. We were just getting to know them and it was a blessing to hang out with them and learn different responsibilities from them, but we also witnessed how the people in the church and the kids in the program were deeply moved and hurting by their departure. They had impacted so many people in the Spirit of the Lord and the love of Jesus as we would hope we all do. We shall see them again in Montana when we return in April and that is exciting!
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| Left to Right: Betty, Sydnie, Brooke, Matt, Emily and I |
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| At Restaurant in Tamarindo with the McClains |
The same day that the McClain’s left, Betty also left to Montana and eventually home, so now our Costa Rica team is down to the 3 of us. She is greatly missed!
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| Full Costa Rica Team before Betty left |
Last week Monday, we came across our first scorpion!! We were cleaning at the church under the sink and Sydnie grabbed one of the cinder blocks and there it was!!! Inside the block!! Corey killed it for us, but it was enough to scare a bit!
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| Our first scorpion at the church. About 4 inches long. |
The next evening, Tuesday Oct 23, after PFK, we had our first earthquake of 6.3! That night I kept feeling aftershocks when I was about to fall asleep, so I had a very hard time falling asleep. Wednesday morning, we had early devotions at the beach. It was very sweet, although we had them at a restaurant, because it was raining, actually started pouring the moment we got to the beach!
We have gone to the beach a couple of times, so here are a couple of shots of how much fun we were having!
Today, I was privileged to play the guitar for the Sunday morning worship service at church. The Ladies’ Choir from the church sang, Eddie (one of the brother’s from the church that also works with PFK) played the guitar, Sydnie played the djembe (pronounced “jim bay”), Daniel (another brother from the church) played the cajon.
Tonight, I hung out with the kids in the kid’s room during service and I made a new friend: Matías. Isn’t he adorable?
One of the kids that have stolen our heart is Gustavo. I was told he is 8 years old (he looks about 8), although he says he's 10. He tries to get into the class with the older kids thinking it will bring him some different lesson or advantage. He is super smart and quite mischievous. He just makes me laugh every time, although sometimes it takes all of me to keep a straight face to ask him to come or sit down. There is a horse that comes to the outside of the fence at the church, where we have PFK and Gustavo claims it is his, so it takes all of our effort to get him to come to class when the horse is there. He, like many of the kids, lives really close to the church, so we get to see them when we walk to church, the “pulpería” (little grocery store), or around the neighborhood. I completely loved when one day as we were cleaning at the church, he was riding his bike by the church and shouted "What time is it?" (in English), so, I responded in English too and he said “Thank you!” in the sweetest English, as he rode off.
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| Gustavo!!!! |
It is relationships like this that make my time here worth it all. Any eternal impact we may have on the lives of these children is priceless.
More photos at the Costa Rica 2012 Album
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