12/28/10
[Surfeadores Cristianos property where we lived]
As part of our ministry in Jaco, we opened up the skate ramp for the street kids to come in to hang out and skate. Luis was the first skater guy that came to the property when we opened it up. He is able to understand simple English since he works in a tourist town-everything he knows is just from what he has picked up from working and going out to bars. He is currently a bar tender at a popular night club in town, working the late shift from 8pm-4am. He’s 20 years old and his mom and siblings live in Nicaragua. His dad lives somewhat close to Jaco, but he is remarried and they have a lot of kids living in a very small house. Luis can’t stand being at his dad’s house so he moved in with his friend Tingy’s family.
Luis has a great heart and loves people. Every time I was walking through town with him people would call his name and wave to him. He knows everyone and they all love him, but his life is stuck in the cycle of drinking and partying. As Christmas was approaching, he became very upset that he couldn’t be in Nicaragua with his family. I saw him one night on his way to work and he was completely wasted to numb the pain of being alone for the holidays.
It killed me seeing him so down about everything and I decided I wanted to get something for him for Christmas. He had told me that he loves to draw and a lady he knows wants to put some of his drawings in her office to sell but he doesn’t have any more charcoal pencils to use. I looked all over town and couldn’t find any good art supplies so my next option was a new skateboard. The wheels on his skateboard were messed up and it was throwing him off when he tried to skate on the ramp. He kept falling and ended up hurting his arm pretty badly one night.
[Christmas dinner with Luis]
Allan and I walked all over town one day for a few hours looking in every skate shop to find the perfect skateboard for Luis. I was so excited when we found it and couldn’t wait to give it to him. We ended up taking him out for dinner the day after Christmas and gave him the skateboard-he LOVED it!! ☺ We were walking down the street the next day and he was carrying it so proudly. Some guy came over and asked about it-something about the wheels-and he was smiling ear to ear as he explained it.
[Luis with his new skateboard]
I was able to talk to Luis a few times one-on-one and had some pretty good conversations with him about life. He wants to move back to Nicaragua to be with his family and go back to school for general engineering or to be an architect. He said he always has been a hard-worker-he is very driven and persistent in everything he does and it definitely shows in his skateboarding. He comes day after day to the property to practice and I saw huge improvements in his skating while he was there. At first, he could only go back and forth on the ramp. Then, he mastered the turn. Once he got that down, he started practicing stalls. Finally, he got brave enough to drop in.
[Luis gave me his favorite hat]
It was cool to see his progress on the skate ramp and how quickly he was able to pick things up. Now if only he could grasp the concept of having a relationship with God-he could be so incredibly effective. He believes there is a God but he hasn’t quite come to terms with the fact that we can have a personal relationship. I really just think he doesn’t understand practically what it looks like or if he’s ready to give up his life to live fully for God.
[our last morning with Luis]
