It’s time to catch you guys up on what I have been up to! Ministry over the past couple of weeks has taken a few different forms, so bear with the fragmented nature of this two-part post.
For starters, we have been doing lots of work at the Edge (the nickname for our ministry base). In order to clear space for further development, we have been clearing tons of plants and trees off of the property. Trust me when I say this is much more easily said than done. Attacking stony ground with a shovel in the Costa Rican sun can prove quite the challenge. And while most of our work consisted of smaller plants and palm trees (easy peasy right?), there was one particularly tall tree that proved more . . . stubborn. With no chain saw, poor Bryce had to climb the tree with a hand saw and attack individual branches while those of us on the ground ferried up tools and used rope to steer falling branches away from power lines and electric fences. (Cassidy and I pulled so hard on one of these ropes that we snapped it – twice. Our muscles are just too much.) But fear not plant lovers! We have replanted many of these at Invu park as we continue to our project to beautify that space. (Waste not.)
Speaking of Invu, we have also been working on a mural there. (Spoiler alert: we just finished it yesterday and it looks FAB.) It has been really great to work here because it is overflowing with kids who love to come up and help us paint. There is nothing like handing a paintbrush to a kid and watching them light up as they notice how the wall takes shape and how they have been a part of that evolution.
In other news, we have continued to volunteer at Horizon church. For instance, Horizon has been hosting a conference on the importance of emotional health in the Christian life every Wednesday evening with two classes taking place simultaneously: one in Spanish and one in English. For this we help with set-up, clean-up, and childcare. It can get pretty interesting when you have some kids who only speak English and some who only speak Spanish because then you have to rely on five-year-old bilinguals to mediate. (By the way, it is better to google how to say a certain word in Spanish than to rely on a devious child for accurate translation. Ask me how I know.) We also had an event at Central park where the youth from Horizon all came to help us in wrapping up the mural there. Again, the joy in these young people’s faces as they joined in something larger than themselves was beautiful to witness.
(Part two to follow. At some point soon. I think.)
