COSTA RICA AIRPORT

This morning we went ino Heredia and helped with the fund raiser they were doing to raise money to build a Recreation Center in that poor area. I think the Catholic Church was sponsoring the event, it was quite a big to-do, very organized with lots and lots of people volunteering. Our group went out along with a lot of other people to ask people for donations. I talked to a Costa Rican kid who was 19 and was with our group helping out today and he was telling me how the Costa Ricans don't like the Nicaraguans which 80% of the community we were fund raising for is Nicaraguan. He said if the people on the streets we were asking for donations from knew it was a fund raiser for Nicaraguans they wouldn't give. It's just interesting how no matter where you go there are persecuted minorities.
About 3 this afternoon we loaded up the van from the base and headed to the Airport. We stopped at McDonalds on the way and got that for our dinner. Now we are hanging out in the airport waiting to board our plane for our home away from home, Guatemala.  Then at 4:30 in the morning we will head out for our newest and I hope LAST GREAT ADVENTURE, a remote village in Northern Guatemala that will take 2 days to travel there. Many of the kids there suffer from a rare generic disorder that causes cancer if they go out in the sun.  This is the only known community in the world that has so many with this rare disorder which causes them to die young.
Two weeks from today, if God's plan for my life lines up with mine, I will be sitting in my house in Utah relaxing, HALLELUJAH!!!

GOOD BYE TO COSTA RICA

Thanksgiving is behind for this year but there is more adventure and excitement ahead for me before the year is over. Today we went to a migrant worker camp. The workers are Nicorauguans who pick the coffee beans. It was very intersting. They live in this really poor housing if you can even call it housing. The coffee beans don't all ripen at the same time so it takes about 3 months for them to go through 3 times to get all the ripe beans picked and then they move on.
We went in the morning and there weren't many people around because all the ones that were capable of picking including the older kids were out working. We left and came back after lunch and they were coming back to their small little shacks. We played with the kids, sang songs with them and played games, did a couple of dramas and a couple of testimonies and shared the gospel. The kids seemed to really enjoy it. Whenever we a program for the kids the parents are always right there watching and enjoying it also. It really is a blessing to go to these kinds of places and share the Love of God with people.
Tomorrow we are going to go help with a fund raiser they are doing to build a Rec Center in that area we went to last week that is a very bad, very poor, very crime ridden area that is mostly Nicorauguans     They said nobody goes into that neighborhood after 4 in the afternoon because it is just to scary.
Then we fly back to Guatemala tomorrow night. The following morning we are leaving to go to a remote village in Northern Guatemala for about 10 days.
After tomorrow I don't know when I will have Internet available but probably not until about the 10th of December when we get back to the base in Antigua. I will have to report on my travels once we get back to civilization.

BLUSTERY THANKSGIVING

Here it is Thanksgiving and it is a very blustery day in Costa Rica. It started raining last night and all through the night.  It is raining really hard and the wind is blowing now and it feels cold, not what I would expect for Thanksgiving in Costa Rica.  People here have been busy, busy preparing food for the big feast. Yesterday they baked apple, cherry, pecan, and pumpkin pies. This is suppose to be a real traditional dinner so I will soon find out if it is "just like home".
We did a Thanksgiving dinner at the base before we left for outreach thinking we would not have one while we were out so now we are having our second Thanksgiving.
Tuesday morning we made sandwiches and went out to a park in Heredia and feed homeless people. There was one kid there who was maybe 18 and he and his brother had been living on te streets for years. He was on drugs, depressed, hopeless and told one guy on our team he was planning on killing himself. So Terry, Bruce, and Reno were able to talk to him and then pray with him and he left feeling better.  In the afternoon we went to a different park and did ministry with our dramas and testimonies. It started to rain pretty food so we continued under a big gazebo in the park. It was good.
Yesterday we went out to the neighborhood we had been going door to door and giving out bibles and continued with that and then in the afternoon went to a park in San Rafael and did kids ministry in the park. That was good. Kalissa and I talked to a lady who was there who had 3 kids and a baby. She said she wished we were there every doing what we were doing, that it was very needed. We asked if we could pray with her and she asked for prayer for her husband who works about 16 hours a day providing for the family, health for her kids, and protection because she said it can be quite dangerous around there. It was a privilege to talk with and pray for her.
Besides that we continue with our almost daily meetings of intercession, worship, devotions, debrief, and whatever. I am really to the end of my patience of having someone dictate what I do 24/7. Other than that, life is good and God is Great!
Amen.

DOMINGO Y LUNES

Yesterday, Sunday we were going to do something at a church but it didn't work out for some reason so they kindly have us the day off (only because they didn't have anything else for us to do).  Today we went out to a neighborhood and went door to door and gave people a Bible if they wanted one and asked if we could pray for them. It was an interesting area in that there were some pretty nice houses but also some small, not so nice ones mixed in.
I did enjoy the day off on Sunday even though there was nothing that we could go and do but I have no problem relaxing and amusing myself for the day. What's interesting though is here we are in "Wonderful Costa Rica" which is suppose to be so beautiful and famous for Eco tourism and beautiful rain Forrest's and I don't think we will see anything to do with nature while we are here. Such is the life of a YWAMer.

SOMETHING NEW

Yesterday when I wrote I was starting to sound rather boring, doing more or less the same thing 2 days in a row but today was something new. Last night the DTS from here that had been gone since we got here came back and that was different with about 16 new and different people around. My room downstairs that I was so happy about, I has to leave.  But I am still enjoying the goodness of God in that I got to move into a smaller room that one other girl is in. I have the bottom bunk, there is a door on the room, it is on the main floor and it is right across the hall from a bathroom. I have no complaints. All the other girls in my group are up on the top floor (or attic) on triple bunks that are horrible, half of them are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, you can hardly move around up there and the bathroom is downstairs.
Terry, the director of the base that we all know from his teaching one week during our classroom phase has been gone with the group from here so he is back also which is really nice. He knows what is going on, where before he got back we for the most part were just left to figure things out on our own for three days.
So for ministry today we went down to Heredia to a "slum" area where he said 80% of the people there were Nicaraguans. They use to all live in these tin shanty's but now a lot of those are gone and the government has built some housing. Anyway as always in these places there is lots of crime and drugs but a local lady has started a ministry for kids there and has been working with them for the past 8 years. They have had teams come in the last 4 years and have built a building for the ministry. On Saturday which is today the kids come and they feed them lunch. Some of the mothers come with their kids. They have really sown the gospel and the love of Jesus to the kids and I thought it really made a difference. Some of the kids who has been going for a few years were now there helping out with the younger kids and with things that needed to be done.
We did a couple of dramas, played games, sang songs, and then did face painting with them. Then they all had lunch. It was a good day.
The place was by a mall so after we all got to go to the mall which was nice for a change. I went with Bruce, Kalissa, and Terry and got coffee and a pastry. The coffee was good.
Now we are back at the base and had a really lousy dinner but I am enjoying time alone in my room. My roommate left early this morning for the beach and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon.
We have to meet in 15 minutes for some kind meeting as usual.

ANOTHER DAY

Another day of cleaning the goat stalls, ministry in the park, and rice & beans.  Life is good.  At least I don't feel as exhausted today.  The weather has been nice, it didn't rain yesterday or today, maybe the rainy season really is coming to an end. It gets like maybe low 70's in the day but at night here it gets quite cool like down in the 50's. 

They are planning on having a big Thanksgiving dinner here for about 40 people so because of the cost they have been cutting back on the quality of the meals they are preparing so we have been having more rice and beans then they usually have. We had lots of rice and beans in San Jose,

they really seemed to have a tight food budget there. I think I have eaten more rice and beans since I have been in this DTS than I have in my life all combined together before I came and that is no exaggeration. 

We are going to be having a meeting here in a few minutes and I think I have been to more meetings since I have been in the DTS than in my whole life combined also.  It will be a blessing when I can have my own agenda again. 

ROOM WITH A VIEW

My room really doesn't have a view but it is wonderful. My own room with a regular bed, it's awesome, I really praise The Lord for this room. 

We got here Tuesday and as usual there was no time for rest. We went out Wednesday morning and learned how to so the farm chores. We took out the goats and cleaned their stalls, watered and fed the chickens, took care of the dogs and puppies, let the horses out so they could graze. It was a lot of work but lots of us to do it all. 

After lunch we wet to town, to a park to evangelize but before we for going it started to rain and continued for quite a while so we finally went under a pavilion and did a couple of dramas and testimonies. We had a captive audience under the pavilion because of the rain but the weren't the most receptive but it was good all the same. 

Today same routine, farm chores in the morning then we took a bus to town and broke up into groups and talked to people, went in businesses, asked if we could pray for them. It was pretty interesting. Then in the evenings after dinner we get together to have devotions and discuss the day along with other things some days. 

I am just getting really exhausted from constantly going and doing. They think id we have any kind of quiet restful time it is too much, but all the going is what I find to be "too much".

Tonight they said tomorrow is the same routine. They have a DTS going on here at the base but the students have been gone to another place since we have been here and they get back tomorrow. Things will be different then because there will be a whole lot more people around then. It has been nice and peaceful because there has just been our group here.