HOLA from Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica!
Month 7 of the race is officially in the books which seems pretty crazy to me!! Nicaragua was a month full of exciting things, adventures and time spent in different places! Nicaragua was a weird month because we had two different sites for ministry and the month wrapped up with 41 parents of O Squad serving with us for five days.
For the first two weeks of last month, we were on the beautiful island of Ometepe, where team 7th Heaven joined with another team to serve alongside CIRCIN. CIRCIN is an orphanage/safe house for the kids in the area. They also have a school on campus for kids up to 8th grade. Our ministry there was working in the plantain fields, digging holes preparing for new plantain trees. We also assisted in classrooms to prepare a short English lesson usually centered around simple vocab, such as numbers, colors, and body parts. I wish I could tell you that the two years of high school Spanish I took came flooding back to me, but it didn’t.
After two short weeks on the island, we headed to the historic city of Granada, Nicaragua. Our squad from there split into 2. Racers who had parents coming and racers who did not. We quickly dove into ministry in Granada through prayer walks, dump ministry and doing construction on the REAP Granada grounds. After two weeks there, our parents arrived for our much-anticipated PARENT VISION TRIP!
This was a wonderful week of changed perspectives through service, deeper intimacy with the Lord through worship and great fellowship through time in community. For ministry, we participated in prayer walks where my parents got to meet Jose. I’ll be doing a follow-up blog about Jose very soon! We also built Adirondack chairs together which went well considering my dad’s profession! I’ve asked my parents to write a blog about their experience in Nicaragua so you can look for that soon as well! I put together a vlog of our time here that you can watch here!
Adventure last month wasn’t lacking thanks to a day trip to San Juan del Sur, a well-known surf stop on the Pacific coast. When my parents were here, we went zip lining, and we visited an active volcano as well as a volcano that has been inactive for many years that people now use as a lagoon! I also got to celebrate my birthday at the beginning of Nicaragua which was really sweet and beautiful.
After PVT we headed to San Jose, Costa Rica for a one week debrief where we had team changes, nights of worship & teaching and opportunity for rest. We got our new teams halfway through the week, and I will link all their blogs at the end of this so you can see my new team! I put together a little vlog about our week in San Jose that you can watch on Facebook!
Thanks for reading another update about another month! I can’t believe this trip will be over before we know it! Thank you all for the continued prayers. I love and miss you all!!!
Praise Reports!
– a wonderful, safe and healthy week with our parents, pray God continues to work on the hearts of all 41 parents who came to visit us!!
– A restful, fun week in San Jose for debrief!
Prayer Request!
– Unity for our team as we finish the race!
– We have three different ministry sites this month; please pray for safe travel!
– Energy to continue serving well!
Love you all!
Ashley Collins
P.S. please reach out if you have any questions or have a prayer request!
Team blogs –
Amanda Warden, Eva DiDonato, Brynna Hilton, Sharon Mosley, Jenny Brown, Savannah London
