As I say goodbye to Costa Rica this week, I was thinking about how I could sum up my time in one blog post, and I’m honestly not sure I could. Costa Rica has been everything from refining and redeeming, to hard and unexpected, to hilariously joyful. So instead of trying to put all those memories into a well-written blog, I decided to write the following list, of memories, lessons, and one sentence testimonies, in attempt to invite you into what my life has looked like the past two and a half months. So here I go 🙂
- Sitting on the upstairs porch reading my Bible before breakfast, with the smell of gallo pinto wafting from the kitchen through the floorboards
- Holding my breath as the shower water hits my skin, because it’s too cold to have any other reaction
- Picking up a shirt, smelling it, spraying it with febreeze, and calling it clean on day five of wearing it between washes
- Giving the lizards that live in our ceiling feedback, because they keep pooping on the end of my bed
- Having the words “Tu Palabra” play over and over in my head because it’s the first words to my squad’s favorite Spanish church song
- Waking up at 5:45am to the sound of country music playing in the kitchen right below my bed, because it’s the girls from the south’s turn to cook breakfast that day
- Celebrating with a teammate when we realize that we showered that day and we have clean clothes to put on (truly more of a victory than you might realize)
- Trying to figure out who has a crying baby in the kitchen, only to learn that it is in fact a parrot, and that it was given as a thank you gift to one of the base staff, who helped at church
- Laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a while, sitting around a table with my team at the ceviche stand down the road, as I eat coconut ice cream out of a bag
- Dancing in the kitchen as we press and fill empanadas for everyone’s favorite dinner
- Laughing with the children as I lose yet another soccer game to them
- Smiling through drops of sweat as we successfully put up the first wall at the house we’re building in the jungle
- Somehow letting it become normal to see and kill a three step snake (they’re called three step snakes because after you get bit by one, you have three steps before you drop dead. and yes, they live in our backyard, and I have killed three with a machete)
- Scrubbing all the sticky dough off my hands after spending an hour pressing and molding arepas in the kitchen, to prepare for another one of the squad’s favorite dinners
- Passing a microphone around the bus, as we belt out the lyrics to “I thank God” on our way to and from ministry each day
- Setting an alarm for 2:45am, so that I can wake up and pray, during my allotted hour in the 12 hour prayer nights we get to have twice a month
- Sliding my shorts over my one piece swimsuit and putting on sunscreen, all in preparation to go to the river with a local church community
- Writing my testimony in bullet points on my notes app, so that I’m prepared to share whenever our host gives us an opportunity, whether it’s at a skate park, at church, or for kids at the soccer field
- Picking up my journal and choosing to ignore the mold that has started to grow on my the pouch I use to carry my pens
- Leaving my watercolors outside, because the humidity is so high that it has taken a full month for them to dry
- Sitting down for team time with a bag of turbo flakes, the cereal that has become a staple for team fervent’s time together
- Learning how to turn conversations that start with me being invited to do drugs, into an opportunity to get to know a person, and me inviting them to be a part of Christ’s kingdom
- Picking up a rake for the third day in a row, and attempting to hold it in a way that doesn’t rub on the blisters that formed yesterday and the day before
- Praising the Lord with the biggest smile as I listen to a new friend, and hear how drastically her life has changed in the past few months, since meeting Jesus in October
- Finding the best wifi in town, and becoming friends with the barista, since we return to that same coffee shop every week
- Exchanging stories and making new memories through nightly Spanglish conversations with the base staff as we drink tea together
- Voice recording our Monday morning worship hour, so that five years from now, I can still listen to the harmony of missionary voices, and praise the Lord for how much He’s done
And seriously, praise the Lord for how much He’s done here! These 27 moments are ones that have pushed me to grow, ones that have led me into rejoicing, moments that I continue to learn from, and memories that I want to hold onto forever. Thanks God for allowing Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, to be a place of life abundant 🙂
