Continuing Ministry in Guarari

With this last team - a group of 31 from Alberta Canada- we continuted to do Vacation Bible School (VBS) in the barrio of Guarari. More songs and Bible stories and crafts with the kids...

we had about 100 kids throughout the week!

This little baby was only 28 days old!

This little girl couldn´t wait to take me to her house and meet her mom and her new baby sister, just 3 days old!

Its great to always do these VBS programs for the kids, and it feels so great at the end of the day to know that you have put smiles on so many kids´ faces and really shared the love of Jesus with them. However, after the morning kids activities were done, I experienced a whole different side of Guarari that I never had before...

After our VBS program was over, the team did some work projects around the site, like rebuilding the fence, picking up trash, and mowing the lawn. One of the women named Rosa that regularly attends with her family told me about a water problem she was having at her home and asked if some of the people from the team could come and fix it. We walked with her 45 minutes downhill to her house (this is when we realized the uphill hike she had done every day with her children to come to VBS). We arrived to what is called here a ¨squatter camp¨ - basically a bunch of tin shacks built by the government for Nicaraguan immigrants (many illegal) to live in. This is the inside of Rosa´s house...

Rosa lives here with her 2 young daughters and her husband... the brown door between the couch and the tv leads to the bedroom - 2 twin beds and a dresser.

kitchen area

where the water was coming in... those sheets hanging are the walls of another family´s home.

the next day, the guys from the team came and fixed it! what a blessing!

Her mother, Marina, also had a problem with water, so they went in and fixed her mother´s as well. She had a little one room shack, about the size of my bedroom. There were holes and big gaps in her roof, and she said that rain water, cat urine, etc came in all time. Her baby was sick from everything being damp and moldy. They had a nice new mattress someone had donated for them, but they didnt want to put it on the dirt floor, because it was always wet and smelly (they had no bed frame). The only decorations on the walls of Marina´s home were a small paper picture frame made at the beginning of the week at VBS, a foam cross made at VBS with the last team, and a piece of paper with the Bible verse in Spanish ¨Nothing can separate us from the love of God¨ that my team gave her in March.

During my time there, the stories of these women´s lives unraveled and really hit me hard. First, these women are God-fearing Christians who regularly attended the VBS with their children. It seemed so unfair that this is how they have to live. I have seen terrible poverty before throughout Latin America, but this is the first time that I really met the people and knew the stories of those that were living in it.

Marina has 10 children - 7 boys, all living in Nicaragua, and 3 girls. Rosa (whose roof we also fixed), about 19, Marinita, 11, and Yipsy, 2 1/2 (who she still breastfeeds because of lack of food), are her daugters. Rosa has 2 children - Hunny, 2, and Hilary, 1. This means that Marina has a child AND a grandchild of the same age.

Yipsy (Marina´s daughter) is in the middle, Hunny (Marina´s granddaughter) is on the right.

What else is there for Marina? She can´t work because she is illegal. She doesn´t have a husband because he left her and has a family with another woman. The home she is staying in belongs to Yipsy´s father and she told us he could kick her out at any time. We were first at her house on a Friday to look at the leak, and by the time we came back on Monday, this man had come and taken the electrical cables from the home, leaving her without electricity. Seeing the desperate situation of this woman, I can only thank God that she has been saved by Jesus and has the hope of eternal life in Heaven... it´s hard to think of what else she has to live for. I´m also thankful that God sent me to minister to this family, and that I have had the blessing of being born in America and not in a situation like this.

I didn´t know anything about Marina´s situation and would have never expected it either... her and her daughter always showed up with a smile on their faces to VBS. I know we made a big difference in this family´s life by fixing the leaks and through that, showing God´s love to them in a very practical way. Gracias a Dios, Rosa and Marina´s smiles were even bigger after they told us that the repairs had worked and the leaking had stopped!

Rosa and Marina

Amazing Race - Costa Rica style

As a part of each team's training, we do something called the Amazing Prayer Race... Modeled off of the show "Amazing Race", each team gets a set of envelopes that they open one at a time and inside is a piece of paper telling them where to go and what to pray for at that location. They don't get a map of Heredia, so they have to ask people on the street as they go how to get to the places. I went as a translator for one of the teams and we had a fantastic time.

Our first location was city hall... we walked in and told them we were a group of Canadian missionaries and wanted to ask a few questions about the mayor and the city. Within a few minutes, we were in the mayor's office with his personal assistant as she apologized that the mayor himself couldn't be with us to talk with us (he was at a meeting). Wow. We felt very honored to hang out in the mayor's office, and his assistant answered all of our questions and gave us little booklets about Heredia so we could learn more.

Our next stop was the police station... we showed up and I started explaining about our group and one of the policemen was like, "Hey I know you!" haha, indeed.. I was there two weeks ago with the other group and had talked with that same man. He happily called the chief of police over to speak with us about problems that the Heredia police force faces- drugs, street crimes, and theft against foreigners (but he assured us that there wasn't too much to worry about...) He went on to ask us how we enjoyed Costa Rica, and he insisted that this country is what God had in mind when he created the garden of Eden, ha.

Our third envelope took us to the Heredia high school. One of the administrators took us around and gave us a tour of the school. It is one of the best schools in the country and many important people in Costa Rica have passed through here as students and teachers, including an ex-president. We got to see several classrooms, the library, dining hall, auditorium, etc.

Our final stop was the Heredia soccer stadium. One of the workers took us on a tour of their trophy room, which included one from 1921, when Heredia won the first national championship. Then he continued on to show us around the grounds, including letting us into the field. Apparently the team would have been practicing when we were there, but it had just rained alot so it was too wet. They used to have a roof over the field, but the guy said a tornado tore it off.

Later we all got to go out on the field - it was so fun!

A week off...

Continuing with my week off between teams, I went with Shannon and our Costa Rican friend David on a mini-vacation to the province of Guanacaste in northwest Costa Rica. Our first stop was in La Fortuna, home of the Arenal volcano. I guess its pretty rare for there not to be clouds and to actually be able to see it, so we felt very lucky...

After dinner, we went for a nighttime tour of the volcano and got to see lava spewing out and running down the volcano - it was amazing!

(We couldn't actually get any of our pictures to turn out, so this is an online pic, but this is pretty much what we saw!)

The next day we left for beautiful Playa del Coco... here's an interesting fact about the beach-although in Spanish coco means 'coconut', there wasn't a coconut in sight, so I asked my tico (thats what they call Costa Ricans) friend why it's called that. He told me it's because the legend of Coco (the Latino version of the Boogie man) originated here. Interesting.

Anyway, the beach was beautiful, we were pretty much the only ones there, swimming in totally calm clear blue water, perfect. Shannon and I did a little exploring around the beach and found a pelican, many crabs, snails, pink seashells, and electric blue fish. It was wonderful and relaxing.

Tonight the next team arrives in Heredia, a group of 32 people from Canada... here we go again!

Bocas del Toro, Panama

This weekend I had the awesome opportunity to visit another YWAM base, in Bocas del Toro, Panama. It was quite an adventure... Shannon and I left with a Canadian couple from the base in Heredia at 4:45 am in order to catch the bus at 6am leaving from San Jose. When we arrived to buy our ticket, we were told ¨Standing room only¨ What?! The bus ride is 5 1/2 hours long! (That was my thinking process) So we bought our tickets ¨de pie¨(standing), and about 5 minutes later, I hear a ¨psst¨from the ticket booth... there was someone who wasn´t going who had already bought a ticket, so the teller switched it with mine. Eventually before we left, we all had similar situations, and ended up getting seats.

Once we arrived at the border, we had to get off the bus and go through immigration on both sides of the border. After going through the Costa Rican immigration, we walked across an interesting bridge to get to Panama...On the Panama side, we had to wait about 45 minutes before the line started moving because the officials were ¨out to lunch.¨ Latin America is funny like that. Following that border crossing we got into a rather beatup van which was our ¨taxi¨to the boat dock in Changuinola, Panama. However, when they went to shut the door, it fell off! So after re-attaching it to the car, we were on our way for a 1/2 hour to the boat dock. When we arrived though, there was a boat that was just leaving and they said the next one didn´t leave until 3:30, an hour and a half later, booo. But we ended up playing Uno with some of the locals, that got quite a kick out of the game (Our favorite was when they played the ¨Eskip¨ card, as they called it) We got on our boat later and headed down a river through the mangroves before we got into the open ocean. We arrived to the town of Bocas del Toro on Isla Colon, where we took a water taxi to Isla Bastimentos, where the YWAM base is. Overall, it was over 12 hours of traveling, but when we arrived, it was totally worth it...

Here´s a view from the porch of their house- gorgeous. After walking up about a hundred stairs, we got to their house, which is pretty much just carved out of the jungle. They are just starting out as a YWAM base, right now living there is just a couple, their 3 high school kids, and 3 of their friends. The island they live on is perfect and isolated, actually Michael Jordan just bought a house right down the water from them. Their house was built by a rich American and is solar powered and uses rain water in the plumbing system. Their transportation is a little motor boat with 4 benches, although all of the indigenous people around them still use dug out canoes and oars. Before we went to bed, we went down to the dock (on the way we saw a giant tarantula) and stuck our feet in the water. That´s when we realized another amazing thing about the island - the water glows!! Apparently there is this algae that glows when you irritate it (like kicking around in the water) and the water is sparkling, while everything else was pitch black - so cool.

The next morning was Sunday, and we went to Isla Cristobal, where another missionary couple holds a church service for the indigenous people in the area. They have a little hut with boards resting on tree trunks were we all sat. All of the indigenous people speak Spanish as well as their indigenous language of Ndombe. We sang some songs in Spanish and then went to pray, but the indigenous people said that they didn´t know how. They had one of the men read the Lord´s prayer out of the book of Matthew as an example (that is what Jesus used to teach his disciples how to pray.) After that they put in a movie (they have electricity and running water by where the missionaries live) for them to watch because the Americans there don´t speak much spanish and can´t really preach to them. After the service, several other boats of ´gringos ´ showed up from the area and they had a Bible study with them. During this time, Shannon and I played with 4 indigenous children that had lingered after the church service was over. We colored with them, and let them write in my journal. They know how to read and write in spanish, but they don´t have pens or paper there, just at school, so they were really excited. The kids took a real interest in us, and talking to them really made some cultural differences very apparent. First, I was wearing a bracelet with different color beads, all representing different parts of the Gospel message. One of the girls asked me what it was, so I was explaining to her... Gold is heaven, Black is sin, Red is Jesus´blood... them we got to white, and I said ¨White represents forgiveness because the Bible tells us that when we accept Jesus into our hearts He takes away our sins and washes us as white as snow¨ Silly Susie, of course they don´t know what SNOW is!! I described it as rain that´s white that falls down when its cold, and left it at that. Later we played some games with the kids and had similar experiences: with Duck Duck Goose, they didn´t know what a Goose was, and Red Light Green Light just turned into Red Green because they obviously dont know what stop lights are and I had to explain to them the association between red/stop and green/go.

After a while, the kids got into their canoe and rowed back to their village and we rejoined the other gringos. After lunch, Shannon and I put on these rainboots and took a hike through the jungle... this looked pretty amusing, considering we were wearing skirts from church with these giant rainboats meandering our way through palm trees and mud. Before we left, we saw lots of sea creatures from the dock, including a sting ray, an octopus, some sea urchins and lots of fish. We went back to our house around 3 and changed into our bathing suits and went to the beach. When we docked our boat a little bit down the island, we landed in the mangroves and you could see jellyfish everywhere in the water. After paying $2 to enter this national reserve, we hiked about 10 minutes to the other side of the island where we were the only ones on the beach...

We swam in the waves, laid on the beach, and had a dinner picnic before we left. There were wooden swings hanging from the trees, soft sand between our toes, and clear blue water to swim in - beautiful. We left before it got dark and spent the rest of the evening talking with the family about their ministry and life there. They have many medical teams that come down to offer medical and dental care to the indigenous people. They also teach english to some of the local children. This family from Ohio faces a lot of challenges - not speaking Spanish, having only one boat to go places with gas at $4/gallon, and gaining the trust of the indigenous populations - but they are trusting God and being faithful to complete the work God has given them to do.

This morning, we left the island at 7, took a boat back to the main land at 8:30, taxi, border crossing, bus, taxi...we got back to the base at 4pm. What an adventure! There are no teams coming to the base this week so I will be traveling around northwest Costa Rica with Shannon. I can´t wait!

Ziplining through the Jungle!

After a long week of minstry, the Canada team had a free day - yeay! We were able to accompany them to Sarapiqui, about 2 and 1/2 hours north of Heredia. There, we got to go on a canopy tour and go ziplining through the jungle! It was amazing! 11 cables over dense rainforest, with the last one soaring over a raging river.

Guarari ministry

Guarari is the name of the barrio that we have been doing our ministry in this past week. This is by far the poorest neighborhood in Heredia. Each day we arrive in Guarari and set up for Vacation Bible School in their community center - a one room cement building in the middle of the barrio.

Each day we would arrive and the kids would be eagerly awaiting us. This past week was part of their 15 dayt summer break from school, so there were always lots of kids to entertain. Every day they would be waiting for us to arrive, and start clapping and cheering when they saw our big white bus pull up.

Amongst all this poverty and sadness, we had the amazing opportunity to show love and offer hope to kids in this neighborhood. Seeing what kind of home situations the children come from, it was such a blessing to be able to sing songs and make crafts with them, which brought smiles to their faces and filled them with joy.

Too much fun for this little boy, Jefferson

It was very sad to leave on the last day, but luckily I am staying here for a while still and will have an opportunity to return in the coming weeks with the next team.

New Team from Canada

After a nice 3 days of rest, 30 students and leaders arrived from Red Deer, Canada. They filled up the doors with all their stuff and high school energies. The average age of the students is about 15, so the group is a lot more dynamic (meaning loud). For Tuesday-Thursday, we had training for the students. This included a prayer walk around the town of Heredia, a team building ropes course, and sessions about social justice and cultural information. When it was finally time to start outreach on Friday, we were all really ready to go! Friday morning we headed to one of the poorest neighborhoods in Heredia, called Guarari. We held a Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the about 75 of the neighborhood kids. In the afternoon the team returned to the house that the past team build last week and finished up with some construction and painting. It was nice to get to go back and talk with the woman about her house, she's so excited about being able to move in soon. This morning we went back to Guarari and did VBS again, it's really nice to be able to return to see the same kids each day and really get to know them. This afternoon we went to a local youth group. Some of the kids from Canada know how to break dance so they did a short presentation for all the youth and they really liked it. Tonight a local pastor came to the base and preached to the team and I got to translate, which was exciting. I'll try to get some pictures of everything up soon. There is alot of work with this team of 30 and not much time to write. Hasta luego!