Seriously. It’s so cold I can see Christy’s breath as she’s talking to me. I’m sitting in my only warm clothes: big sweatpants and my Bama sweatshirt inside my sleeping bag listening to Christmas music and drinking my 4th cup of coffee…at 11 am. We’re staying with a family from South Carolina–huge Bama fans, Roll Tide–6,000 feet up on Volcano Irazu near Cartago near San Jose if you have any idea of Costa Rican geography ha. From our race route, I assumed everywhere we would be going would be hot. False. It is so cold here and if you know me, I am a huge baby about cold weather. I have worn my only warm clothes everyday since I’ve been here and I hop around the house in my sleeping bag. I also sleep with two sleeping bags and a blanket. Kind of dramatic, I know. But we are livin’ the good life on the race in a real house, with a real family, a dog that wears a sweatshirt, a washer and dryer with DOWNY, hot showers…life doesn’t get much better! Not only do I love Courtenay and Jacob because of their obsession with Alabama football, but they are also huge hot sauce lovers. Again, if you don’t know me, I put hot sauce on EVERYTHING. So, obviously, one of the highlights of my week was making my own hot sauce for the first time. Jacob makes his own that he named “Salsa de Lava” and he was awesome enough to share his recipe with me. It might be my favorite hot sauce I’ve tried and I have a little bottle to take with me when we leave tomorrow…which probably won’t make it past three days. Dad, you’re gonna love this stuff! Another highlight was a restaurant we went to the other day that’s very popular around here. The Folks are renting a house on a farm from a man named Jorge who has a giant fishing pond and cute little restaurant. You catch your fish from the pond and bring it to Jorge and his wife who cook it for you along with salad, plantains, rice, potatoes with possibly some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten. He handed us a wooden bed post looking thing that was the rod with fishing line attached to it. My bait: a fish eyeball. It brought me back to my childhood when I was dared to eat one…I know better than that now, Dad and Adam. Meals just taste better when you catch it yourself, and it was even tastier when Jorge gave us everything for free since we’ve been helping him in the garden! It was a great time and fun memory with my team and the Folk’s. While we have had a lot of down time, Courtenay reminded us that just being here is our ministry. They don’t know any other gringos in the area so I imagine it gets pretty lonely at times. We’ve had a lot of time to spend with each other as a team and hanging out with Courtenay and Jacob and playing with their kids. Courtenay is also sick so she hasn’t been able to go with Jacob to do bible studies. Instead, she does ministry through taking great care of teams like us, cooking and just talking to us sharing her wisdom. They usually have short term teams come in and go, go, go all week long leaving them with too much on their hands when people leave and just exhausted. So it’s been a nice slow change of pace for my team and for the Folks. Tomorrow we leave for Jaco Beach for our surfing ministry. Jaco is a pretty big tourist place and huge surfer town, so I’m really pumped for a little change of pace and scenery. We’ll be there until the 28th of December when we’ll meet up with S-Squad again in San Jose for a few days before flying to LAX and then to Asia on January 1st! Ah, I can’t believe we’ll be in the Philippines in a few short weeks, time is flying! I’ll update yall from the beach, soon! Mucho Amor!
Family Christmas Card haha
But if we’re going to have cold weather somewhere I’m glad we got it when we did because it’s actually felt like Christmas! They have a cute Christmas tree, lights, and Courtenay (the momma) is cooking an awesome Christmas lunch/dinner for us. Christy and I even managed to make our own version of “puppy chow” and eat so much of it we felt sick…yep, it’s definitely Christmas time! My favorite thing to do at Christmas is decorating cookies, so I did that with their three curly headed kids this morning. We have been spoiled by Courtenay’s cooking and have been bundled up getting fat from her delicious food over the past week and a half right before we have to be on the beach tomorrow. Thank Jesus for warm weather though, I can’t wait to be sweating again.
Trout pond…nom nom
Fishy Kissy
We have had a pretty relaxing week and a half. Our time here has given me a new outlook on what ministry looks like. It doesn’t always mean doing planned “things” all the time, it’s about how you live your life and the conversations you have day to day with the people around you. We have helped Jacob out some with his bible studies which is more like discipling 1-2 people, played soccer with some ninos down the street, visited an orphanage, homeschooled Courtenay’s kids, and helped plant vegetables in the garden with Jorge.
