Well, here we are. After many months of preparation, training camp, selling all types of belongings, fundraisers, letters, emails, phone calls, lunch dates, and many farewell dinners, my team and I have made it to Jaco, Costa Rica, where we will spend the rest of January doing ministry.
Jaco is a beach town located on along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is HOT here! It's pretty much anywhere from 97-100 degrees each day. I'll try not to complain too much, though, as it is somewhere around 20 degrees w/ ice and snow back home. My team and I are staying at a ministry site called, "La Ola," which translates to "The Wave" and working with a lady named April, who has been here for about 3 and a half years working with the local children. The property manager at the place we are staying left about a year ago and April is currently waiting for the new one to get to town. (He was supposed to be here 4 weeks ago) Therefore, a lot of our ministry is just taking care of the property and helping out April so that she can have some extra time to spend with the local kids and minister to them. Our schedule kind of varies as we try to remain as open and as available for anything that April or any other local ministries may need. Every Wednesday – Saturday we host a kids club at the nearby park in the local neighborhood. As we walk through the neighborhood to the park the kids see us and follow us there. We play soccer with them, push them on the swings, tag, and just focus on spending time with them and showing them love. A lot of these kids come from broken homes and several do not have fathers. They don't even care that we can't speak their language very well, they just want someone to hang out with them. Every Tuesday – Friday we open up the skate ramp that is located inside our ministry site from 3-5 and let the local kids come and skate. They have a great time and some of these kids are really good skaters. Every Thursday night there is a bible study that the "Jaco Christian Surfers" host at our site. They bring snacks, go through a few bible teachings, and watch surf videos. It is very interesting. We also team up with them on Friday nights to feed and pray for the homeless at Central Park.
It is so humbling to see how happy these kids are with how little they have. I haven't had a lot of time to actually process all of the things that are going on here, and that are going on in me, but God is definitely working in me and showing me how thankful I need to be for the things that He has blessed me with, because not everyone is as fortunate as we are. This is actually the first time I have had to myself to sit down and attempt to process all of the stuff that has taken place here so far. Once I have a little more time to do that, there will be more, deeper blogs to come. As for now, I miss you all, pray for our team, and I love you. God bless.
P.S. I am still about $4,800 away from my next deadline. If you would like to donate, just click on the "Support Me!" tab on the left-hand side of this page. Thank you all so much for all that you do!
