Hey all! Here is an update on what our month in Costa Rica looked like. This month it was just our team, staying at a church in a poor neighborhood called Rio Azul. All 6 of us slept on the floor of the sanctuary and shared limited space. It felt more limited due to the fact that the neighborhood was dangerous, so we were locked in most of the time. We didn’t feel unsafe most of the time, however when we would tell Ticos (Costa Ricans) where we were living, they would get pretty wigged out. Taxi’s wont even go there after dark…apparently. Ministry was a lot of projects around the church. Neala and Andie painted the ceiling beams, which required them to be up on scaffolding for days on end. Nicky and Kourtney set up computers and did countless other little projects. The whole team helped take on the task of mudding walls in the basement, but Daniel and I did most of the actual mudding. I never thought I would be learning a trade while on the race, but hey it happened. I remember the first day, the pastor, Gilbert was teaching us how to do it. Let’s just say, “Epic Fail” doesn’t quite sum up that day. We would mix up concrete in a wheel barrow and, using a trow, throw the cement on the wall. We had to do several layers at different consistencies and using different techniques. Gilbert made this look easy. He was like a machine, doing a whole section of a wall in like 30 minutes. The first day it took me half the day for the first coat, on one section. I would use the trow to throw the cement, it would hit the wall, and just fall of. I can’t even tell you how many times Gilbert stopped me and corrected my technique in very fast Spanish. That was super frustrating for me because I am usually pretty good at picking up things like that. It got to the point where I just stopped using the trow and started using just my hands to literally throw cement on the walls. After 2 days of that other projects came up for us to do, but they still wanted people working down there, so Daniel and I played “Rock,Paper Scissors,” To see who would have to “Go back down to work in the dungeon.” I lost. It became very apparent that this would be a month long project. The vision of the church was to eventually sell food out of a window in the basement, which is why we needed to reenforce the walls and make them look nice. So, Day after day I was in the basement mudding the walls from 8am-5pm. Daniel spent a couple days doing other projects but he ended up back down there with me. None of us liked mudding at first but I must admit, by the end, it didn’t bother me much. I eventually gave using the trow another try and got really good at the whole process. By the time we got to the finishing coat, my walls looked just like Gilbert’s. That was awesome. I like manual labor ministry, because for me, it feels like I am tangibly building the Kingdom. I learned a lot through that ministry. Not just how to mud walls but also the difference between failing and learning. The first few days of mudding I felt like I was failing. I would get more and more frustrated as I would try to throw mud on the wall and watched as more and more fell off. I felt like I was failing, but through patience, persistence, encouragement, all from The Lord, I realized that I wasn’t failing. I was learning. Sometimes learning feels like failing, but if you look at it that way then you will fail. When I treated it like I was learning, I had more confidence, rose up to the challenge, and did better. It gave me the strength and desire to press on, not be afraid to make mistakes, and not give up. This concept poured over into me team leading when things got rough towards the end of the month. It’s funny, I don’t realize just what God is teaching me when it’s happening but then out of nowhere I just get it. I’m sure He isn’t done growing me in this area, but I wonder what He will teach me next month. I’m excited to see. All and all it was a good month. It was A LOT of hard work, but definitely worth it. This next month will be great as well. Till then, keep an eye out for my next post. God Bless!
