Estamos Muy Cansada! (Friday, April 10)

Whew...we had a very long but AMAZING day today! When people start to fall asleep at the dinner table, you know it was a jammed packed adventure :) Below are some pictures of some of our adventures today. Its hard to believe that our journey in Costa Rica has come to an end.

As we prepare to go home, we realize that we are not the same people who stepped off the plane a week ago. We have experienced far too many things in this short week to not have been changed in some way. It is our prayer that the seeds we have planted in this country will continue to grow and flourish, and that every single person we touched will always remember our servant leadership. It is also our prayer that when we return to the hustle and bustle of american life, we will stop and reflect on all the experiences we had in Costa Rica. While it was our goal to impact lives, there is no doubt that ours have been impacted as well.

Thanks again for all the prayers and support. We couldnt have do any of this without you! See ya soon :)

What A Day! (Thursday, April 9)

A hike down to a huge waterfall in La Fortuna and then off to soak and rest in the natural hot springs. Too much fun to let words desribe...so we will let the pictures do the talking! More awesome stuff tomorrow, a 20 mile bike ride at 4am (for some of us), then off to ziplining through the rainforest!

La Ciudad de los Ninos (Wednesday, April 8th)

What a great day we had today! Due to the fact we have to wake up at 3:15am to start our trek towards La Fortuna & Arenal, this will once again be a short post but with plenty of fun pics :)

We headed to La Ciudad de los Ninos (The City of the Children) in Cartaga, which is a boys home for troubled teens run by the Catholic Church. They currently serve 375 teens, and most have some background of abuse that they have experienced (physical, sexual, treated like a slave to work in the fields, etc.). While some still have contact/visits from their parents, others either don't have relationships and/or parental involvement. Once they arrive at the "city," they live with host parents and other teens in a house on the grounds for one year. There, they learn the rules of the "city" and what is required of them. After a year, they then move into the dormitory where they will finish out there stay.

At the boys home, they are all required to be awake and working by 5am. After finishing their morning chores, they go to school from 7am-4:30pm. While they have typical studies, they also learn trade skills (carpenty/wood working, auto mechanic skills, etc.) that will help them once they leave the home.

While we painted different buildings most of the day, we still had time to chat and interact with the students. They were very eager to practice their English and were thankful that we had come all the way from the US to help improve their home. The experience we shared with the teens made us all appreciative of our families and the numerous blessings that we have in our lives.

Along with the great visit to The City of the Boys, here are some more highlights of our day:

-An awesome authentic Costa Rican meal overlooking the city of Cartaga

-A trip to La Bascillica de Cartaga, the most famous church in Costa Rica (and where locals say the Virgin Mary appeared in the 1600's)

-Experiencing a morning mass at the City of the Boys

-having a new team member for a day, Alexandra, a volunteer from Holland working at the City for 2 months

-Continued bonding and fellowship among our group

-An extremely safe yet fun night hike through the river

As we venture to another part of Costa Rica, were not quite sure if we will have internet...but we will do our best to update you on the rest of our life-changing trip!

PURA VIDA!

Trip to the San Jose YMCA! (Tuesday, April 7th)

As we are heading to our last dance party with our Costa Rican friends, this post will be short and sweet!

Our day took us to the San Jose YMCA. This Y, known as the ACJ YMCA, is the only one in the country of Costa Rica. To give you a little history-they have an awesome partnership with Campamente Oikuomene (where we are staying). The camp is kind of like a Co-Op, and they host different groups throughout the year. The YMCA serves the inner city children of San Jose, and takes numerous trips to the camp in an effort to be intentional with impacting thier lives.

Our trip into the big city of San Jose was once again a time to sit back and reflect on all the amazing things we have experienced thus far. We even had a chance to see some kids sledding down a hill. Of course, there was no snow and/or sleds, but the torn card board boxes they were using looked like fun!

For those of us who had made this trip before, it was neat to see the changes & updgrades done to the YMCA by our very own college trip. It was once again great to see familiar faces, as we not only reconnected with the Y counselors from the weekend camp but also some of the Y staff from last year. The only downside was that all the children are on Easter break, so there was no chance to play with the pre-school children as we had done in the past. But, with the building relatively empty, we got TONS of work done! We wont bore you with too many details, but we painted, applied wood treatment, and painted some more.

While there was no official childcare today, many people in the community were out and about after lunch. The YMCA here is truly community driven, and thier front white top area was filled w/ parents, children, teens and young adults. This gave us a tremendous opportunity to interact with the locals. We did this through many avenues, including soccer, baskteball, and even skateboarding! While this was somewhat of "unstructured" time, we enjoyed the fact that we were able to connect with the community on many different levels.

After some tough goodbyes, we headed back to camp for our familiar meal of rice and beans :) Now...off to the Dance Party!

Trabajamos Mucho! (Monday, April 6th )

For those of you out there who prayed for warmer weather at night, it worked! It wasnt nearly as cold last night as the previous night. Today was an awesome chance to be servant leaders, which we did not take lightly. Everyone in the group worked extremely hard, which will lead to a great night of sleep tonight! For the work projects, we split up into two groups. Some people in the first group sanded down some picnic tables & painted them w/ primer. We all felt a bit like the Karate Kid, and expect our biceps to be ginormous in the morning! The second part of that group painted the fence posts with recycled oil. The second group went up into the forrest to tidy up a bit, raking leaves, and picking up trash. After lunch, the groups swtiched so that everyone could experience each work project. The work lasted us all day long, and the groups even came back together at the end to continue cleaning the forrest. You should have seen the pile of leaves when we were finished!

A river hike for some and a good dinner concluded our day of hard work. Being such a tough day, there was only really one thing left to do to finish off the night...DANCE PARTY! Some of the camp staff came over to teach us some moves. The Salsa, Marange, and Cubmia we just some of latin dances we learned. Of course, we were able to show them some moves as well (Cupid Shuffle, 2 Step, Walk It Out, etc.)

We have been very blessed to have an AWESOME group! Coming in to this trip, only roughly half the group knew each other. However, we feel as if we have know each other forever! The group dymanic is phenomenal, and everyone fits right in. Some of the best times we have had thus far is just laughing with each and enjoying each others company.

Tomorrow is a big day! We will go into the big city of San Jose where we will work at the only YMCA in the country. This is very exciting, as it gives us yet more insight and experience working in the different parts of Costa Rica.

Hasta Luego!

Mud Bath, Anyone!? (Sunday, April 5th)

What a cold night! We still cant figure out how it can be 85-90 degrees during the day, only to be absolutely freezing at nightime. I guess the fact that we cant take warm showers to help our body temperature doesnt help either :) Despite the chilliness, we were excited to join the kids for a quick game of futbol and volleyball before breakfast. As we told you in the last post, they have some skillz! It was a refreshing way to start the day, and another avenue to try and impact the childrens lives for the short time we would spend with them.

Quick side note for everyone...

One of the great parts about this trip is the leadership displayed by our high school participants. Thus far, they have been true diplomats for the not only the YMCA, but also the USA. Not only have they been tremendous examples, but have taken initiative and ownership in planning and implementing ALL of the camp activities here with the children. It is a very spe

cial thing to see these next generation leaders in thier element!

So...after breakfast (yup, rice & beans) we headed to the amphitheatre for a morning assembly of a skit, songs, and games. Elizabeth, Sydney, DC, Marissa and Dana did the classic YMCA bean skit (sometimes referred to as the Emotions skit), aka the frijoles skit in Español. They even did the entire thing in Spanish, which really had the children in hysterics! After some camper challenges and songs led by the other students, it was time to start the day. With it still being a little tough to communicate due to language barriers, we choose games that would illicit fun interactions (Jump rope, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, whiffle ball, etc.). Whiffle ball was a great experience, as many of the children had never really played before and didnt know the rules. This gave us a chance to teach some skill development as well as introduce them to new experiences. We were also amazed with some of the artistic talent these young children had while playing sidewalk chalk. Despite not having tons of schooling, there handwriting and drawings were amazing! The Lord has truly blessed them with many talents that will help them succeed now as well as later in life.

Lunchtime (rice and beans? of course!) consisted of more fellowship with us and the children. We were all becoming more confident in our Spanish speaking abilities, which made communication flow a bit better. With that being said, we were all a little confused when one of the camp counselors told us about our afternoon activities. We all understood it was going to be water activities, but one of the games threw us off a bit. This is what they told us: "You will go to the muddy hole in the ground, find a friend, give them a hug, and roll around in the mud. Then, the tree will spit water at you and you have to catch it in your mouth." WHAT?! We repeated back what we heard and they confirmed we had heard them correctly. So two by two, we joined the campers in this water activity. The first few people came away with a few muddy spots, but as you can imagine, it started to get a bit out of control...MUD FIGHT! No need to expound any more on that, as the pictures do it more justice than words ever could!

We then followed the children down to the river to wash off. For many of us, this was our first official shower and boy did it feel good! However, the mood sombered a bit, as all of us knew the children were getting ready to leave. After some more cleansing, we met back up with the children to say our goodbyes. Some tears were shed, and they all told us how much they loved us. Right before they left, we were able to pray Gods blessings over them and thier families. While the translation from English to Spanish may not have been perfect, we know that our prayers were heard and that God will continue to intercede on thier lives.

As we processed the day with our group, there were many heavy hearts. Although we only knew these chidren for roughly 24 hours, we felt as if we had grown very close the them. While we may never see them again, we have faith that we did our best to impact thier lives in the short time we had with them.

Tomorrow, we will serve in a different capacity, through manual labor. Elizabeth challenged us in our devotion tonight to "change the world with your own two hands." With that being said, off to sleep so we can work with enthusiasm all day long!

We Are Here! (Saturday, April 4th)

Buenas Dias! We have made it safely to Costa Rica and are already having a fantastic time!

After engaging in great fellowship on the plane, we stepped out into the 85 degree weather eager to go and meet the children. Rolando, our guide for later in the week, met us as the airport to say hello and to make sure our transportation had arrived. He gave us some details for later in the week and told us to be ready for all the awesome things he has in store for us. Then, we loaded the bus and were on our way to Campamento Oikuomene.


Alvaro, one of the camp staff, came to pick us up. For the members of the group who had made this trip last year, it was great to see a familiar face and re-connect. We reminisced about last years trips, as well as heard some funny stories from the recent college trip. We had a great time communicating...Alvaro was working on his English while we were trying to perfect our Spanish. As we ventured through the busy streets of San Jose, many of us took time to sit and "take in" all that was happening around us. Some of the group members had never been out of the US, so this was a big culture shock to them. With the windows down, the smell of burning trash combined with exhuast fumes from the cars filled the air. The "hustle and bustle" of the city was truly felt, from the sounds of the car horns to the street vendors soliciting business.

As soon as we arrived at camp, we dropped off our bags and got to work. The children had been eagerly awaiting our arrival, which was evident by the immediate hugs and show of affection when we greeted them. They were in the middle of a fun game so we hopped right in. It was kind of like the "we got spirit, yes we do" game, only with a mix of "so you think you can dance?!" thrown in. After that, we did some icebreakers and split into 3 teams to practice for a talent show later in the night. We then headed to the futbol slab (you read that right...not a field, but a nice big concrete slab!" for a quick game before dinner. There was a lot of energy and excitement, and the "Ticos," or Costa Ricans, made the Gringos look a little foolish at times :)

Dinner consisted of (you guessed it), rice and beans! It was an awesome time of fellowship and we really had a chance to chat with the children. None of them really speak English except for a word here or there, so it was fun testing our Spanish. We learned that more than half of the children here this weeked are immigrants from Nicauragua. Their parents come to Costa Rica to find work and to establish a better life for their families. After dinner, we immediately started to dance. While there is a laid back atmosphere here, we have already learned one thing....down time = dance time! We boogeyed down for a good while, and then the camp staff had a few funny skits they wanted to perform. After that, the Talent Show began and the 3 teams of campers (with our group members mixed in) performed some funny dances. As we began to wind down for the evening, the camp staff faciliated a teambuilding game/devotion. While it would take way too long to explain, lets just say it was a blindfolded journey that ended with us learning of the love God has for all of his children. Very powerful stuff!

We concluded our evening with the children by roasting marshmellows, making Smores, and singing songs by the campfire. We headed back to our cabin to process the day a bit. We all agreed that these children were very special and had a pure innocence about them. They were extremely respectful, fun loving, and yearning for any type of affection from us. With so many uncertainties coming into this trip, it was our first day truly remarkable.

Well, off to bed now, as it is about 1am our time (3am your time-which are bodies are still on!), and we have been invited to play a quick soccer game before breakfast. Showers are still up in the air, as the only water that comes out is FREEZING COLD!

Hasta Manana!