Pura Vida!

Day 2: January 10, 2010

When I was finally woken by an alarm and not a rooster, I got up and ate beans, rice, and eggs for breakfast (that's pretty much the staple breakfast that we ate about everyday, it's good, but I was getting a little sick of it by the last leg of our trip).  The roosters at this place I decided are very confused.  They don't wait till sunrise to do their cocka-doodle-doooo thing...they just kind of do it whenever, like they have to clear their throat all the time or something.  And I do believe this was the first time I'd ever heard a rooster in real life...they sound like dying creatures, and I think it's honestly one of the most awful sounds I've ever heard in my whole life...especially at 3 and 4 in the morning.  So yeah roosters and baby chicks were basically my soundtrack during my time at the hotel.

Anyway, so after breakfast and a quick devotional session with the team, we hopped in the van and drove the 20 minutes out to the neighborhood in Jicaral.  The neighborhood is called Ceibas, and it's a newer government housing neighborhood host to about 80 families.  The houses are little shoe boxes about the size of my family's TV room...and yet in that space they fit 2 bedrooms, a living and eating space, a small kitchen, and a bathroom and laundry area.  Because of the heat and lack of a/c or fans, doors and windows are almost always left open all the time (I don't want to think about the types of critters these people deal with in their homes all the time...) But the upside to this open door lifestyle is it makes for very friendly people.  When we pulled up in the van those who were outside and saw us were very intrigued.  Children on bicycles began to follow us on their bikes as we started rounding the neighborhood going door to door with invitations to the weeks events.  We split up into two teams each team with a spanish speaker to deliver the invitations to the neighborhood.  We were received with interest and smiles at every door.  Once we finished with that we made our way to the playground at the back of the neighborhood where we would be working from for the week...time to set up.  The children were already arriving, eager to meet the gringas (their word for white people).

I wish I spoke more of the language.  The children would try to say things and ask me things and I didn't understand them, and my heart sank.  But it's amazing how when you throw a soccer ball in front of them and suddenly the language barrier doesn't matter!   These children are beautiful and energetic just as you might suspect. 

Here are some of the children playing with our parachute on the first day, and you see Markos Grumbles, the missionary who we linked up with for this trip, his daughter Annie is a W&M student who was part of our team.

More games! La tierre, y el mar (the land and sea), currently they're on la tierre (the land).

After some games and introductions we began our story time.  Truly the purpose of our mission trip is to spread the gospel and to teach these people about Jesus, who he was and what his life and death means.  On this first day we told 3 stories, the story of creation, the story of the first humans and fall of man, and the story of Noah and the flood.  I told the story of Noah with Annie to translate. 

Me telling the story of Noah with Annie, the children seated on the parachute.

The children actually listened and were more attentive than I anticipated today.  (Granted, I'm used to little 3 year olds who can't sit still for the life of them).  But this could also just be because it was the first day we were working with them and so it was the newness factor.  I'm not really sure how effective my story-telling was...in reflection, I think I could have done a lot more to be more animated and make it more concrete for them, but I think it still went well and that overall, God is at work and He will get results.  In between stories we asked some comprehension questions and also did a few songs with them in spanish.  For our craft today Amy had come up with this really great Creation experiment, that we were able to do in small groups with the kids.  Using coffee filters, we placed a spot of black dye in the middle, then with a small dropper, the kids were able to drop water on the back side of the coffee filter where the spot was, and as the water seeps through the filter it spreads in multiple colors, showing how God created something beautiful out of nothing.  I think Amy and the team did a great job with this first craft and the kids thought it was neat.  We were able to ask them about what colors they were seeing, and I think they thought that was really cool all the different colors that came from black.  At the end of that we were able to communicate with them the significance of the experiment and the kids were able to take their coffee filters home.  Then it was on to snack time!  Some of the neighborhood moms came out to help us mix up some tang and pass out cookies (cailletas) to all the children.

Brother and sister enjoying tasty treats!

After our time with the kids in the morning, we said our hasta luego's (until later's) and went back to our hotel for lunch and some rest.  On the way back we did stop at a farm and buy some fresh pineapple and melon.  The afternoon was spent eating lunch (chicken, rice, beans, and salad), planning for the evening, and resting.  Around 5 we packed up to head back to Ceibas for our evening event for adults and family.  As soon as the van pulled up to the neighborhood, the children were running to the playground to greet us.  We set up chairs, a table for projector and movie equipment, and tarps for the kids to sit on.  A short children's film was projected onto the side wall of a house to keep the kids entertained while adults were arriving.  The flick was something akin to A Bug's Life, but with a moral lesson to it about lying, and how we should only speak the truth (this film we actually played in segments at the beginning of every evening).  While wrangling the kids we took some photos and found seats for the evening.  We told the same stories from the morning to the adults, and followed up with a film the represented the stories we had told, then one of the ticos (Costa Rican men) that was from a local church who had been helping us shared his testimony, and gave a short message about the importance of having Christ in your life and where all the answers can be found.  I must admit that even though I had already told the story of Noah once, I was still pretty nervous to tell it again to the adults of the community...it was just an audience I wasn't used to...but of course I had nothing to worry about, and everything was fine...why wouldn't it be when it's in God's hands?

Left to Right Keilor (I think anyway, can't really see his face) and Aaron (who actually spoke some English and was quite the little jokester).

Found our seats for the night! The evening went really well, and in the midst of all our "Hasta manana!"s (until tomorrow's) (I don't know how to get the little squiggly symbol over the first n, but it's supposed to be there) we were affirmed that we would definitely have a good crowd the following day.  Upon returning to the hotel we sliced up all that fresh pineapple and melon we'd bought earlier, and went to town on it while meeting to reflect on the day's events and plan for tomorrow, oh and to pass the shoe!

OK, here's the story with the shoe...I brought this little notepad in the shape of a shoe that I had planned to give away to one of the kids, but Jeffrey decided we would keep it and use it instead as a kind of motivator for us.  So basically every night when we come back together who ever is holding the shoe has to pick one person who they caught doing something good, inspiring, or motivating during the day, they write down on one of the pages who they saw doing what, and they pass the shoe to them.  The shoe gets passed three times in an evening and the third person that gets it is the holder of the shoe until the next meeting.  It was actually a great way to keep us motivated, and also to keep us aware of each other and how we were working as a team.  After we did this, we made more name tags to be better prepared for the children in the morning, and then it was definitely time to call it a night.

So for now, hasta manana!

Ciao!