Sorry I am behind on blogging! Will try to get caught up soon! Enjoy!
Costa Rica. What a month. I can honestly say this has been one of the best months so far on my Race. Our ministry was so in depth with the community and the relationships formed with the people in Los Guidos will forever be in my heart. We got to Costa Rica at the beginning of March. We were told we would be living in a slum called Los Guidos, and coming from Haiti, the poorest nation on earth, certainly colored my perspective of what this would look like. Coming into Los Guidos, to your right and left, there seemed to be houses stacked on top of each other in the hills. Metal shacks and concrete homes lined the streets, as well as various stores, panderias (bread shops), ferretarias (mechanic shops), and pulperrias (the local convenient stores in Central America).
We arrived that evening to a property that is affectionately known by the locals as “la finca,” which literally means “the farm.” Our hosts, Mark and Meg Kuzdas, were very welcoming and immediately jumped into the details of what our month would look like at Christian Light Foundation. We wouldn’t begin ministry until two days later, though.
Our team was spread across three different ministry opportunities. The first and foremost was the feeding center. Every single day from 11-1 the finca would open its gates to the hungry, impoverished children of the slum to come for lunch. Anywhere between 50 and 200 kids would show up every day to receive their portion of rice and beans, and sometimes meat depending on the day. As long as the kids clean their bowl, they are allowed to go back for more as many times as they want. This was a ministry we were a part of almost every single day without fail, however we never served in the kitchen. Instead, our ministry at this time was to love on and play with the kids that came into the center. This was pretty special because under normal circumstances the kids cannot stay to play because there is no one there to facilitate games. When World Race teams come, however, they get the chance to have as much fun as they can for at least a few hours a day. There were a special few whom I played jump rope with pretty often. They were a trio that always seemed to be together: R, T, and MJ (names not provided to protect their identities). There was also a baby girl named J who I got to hold most any time she was there. Feeding center ministry is definitely the ministry where I got to get completely immersed in the community.
The second ministry we were most involved in was teaching at the local Christian school. I mostly worked with a teacher named L and got to spend most of my time with first and second graders. We would leave every morning for the school at 7 AM and get back to the feeding center by 11. Thursdays we also went back in the afternoons to help out with classes. One of my best memories from the school involved me ringing the bell that signaled recess. I have pictures and video to prove it. At the school we didn’t just work with and build relationships with the kids, but we also invested in the teachers. S was the other teacher that David, Savannah, and Trish typically worked with. We got to invite them over for dinner one night our last week there. Our time teaching was spent teaching English, which was a little difficult, but incredibly fun and worth it.
The third and final ministry we were heavily invested in was the youth at Iglesia Nueva Vida. On Mondays we would attend discipleship classes with the youth and just spend time with them and help them out. On Tuesdays we would attend the English class that Mark hosts at the church and we were each assigned one or two students to practice English with. Church was every Sunday and prayer meetings were every Tuesday after English class. We hosted some youth events during our time here including a volleyball day and a Wii dance party night, which was so much fun. We also had a few of the youth for dinner and listened to their testimonies, which was really powerful. Every Saturday there was a youth event as well that the whole community was invited to where they set up a giant makeshift slip n’ slide and had games during the event.
We also did some discipleship ministry in La Carpia, the most dangerous slum in Costa Rica. It is a place where Nicaraguan refugees typically settle and it is populated by gangs. There is a church there that is starting a feeding ministry much like the one Mark and Meg established. Outside of ministry we typically just hung out, went to get wifi and to the mall. We went to San Jose by ourselves for just a day and a half and got froyo, which made it all worth it. We went white water rafting and zip lining in the rainforest. One of our last outings involved going to the skating rink with some of the youth from the church. Overall it was a pretty awesome month, and it will be pretty tough to beat.
