There have been lots of changes for me over these past few weeks. First off, we left Asia and entered into Central America, and our last ten weeks of the World Race. Second, we had team changes during our last few days in Nepal, and I was able to know the who will be my teammates that I’ll finish the World Race with.
We arrived to Costa Rica jet lagged, and beyond exhausted (we stopped at a total of four airports in order to reach Nepal, and that includes a 20 hour layover in New York City). Our hosts, Beth and Bryan picked us up at the airport along with their Colombian ministry partners. I don’t remember much about that first day, except to say that our hosts welcomed us into their home, offering us fresh salad and a couch to fall asleep to Netflix on.
The next day we began to partnering with the ministry Conexion, an outreach program that extends to children (ages four to teens), and the homeless community through partnering with surrounding schools and churches and offering medical care.
During the first week and a half, my team and I entered into full force ministry, mainly focusing on children. Costa Rica has been celebrating El dia de los ninos (the day of the child), so we left our host’s home around 6am to go to nearby schools and lead a total of nine games for the children to play. This is a way for the ministry to open a door to reach out to school children, and ultimately make a great impact in the community.
It’s definitely been a challenge for someone who is not fluent in Spanish to attempt to explain to 20 plus children the rules of certain games. At the same time, you also have kids coming up to left and right speaking to you so fast in Spanish you only catch a couple of words. I’ve had many laughs of my failures, for example, when I mean to say “Escojan un amigo” (choose a friend) and I said “Tucan an amigo”, or when I meant to say something sounded like a monkey (mono) but I said it sounded like a hand (mano). But I will say that I think I’ve mastered saying, “yo no hablo español.”
The ministry we are partnering with this month plays a crucial role in the community and acts as a gateway into introducing people to a side of Jesus that they may not have encountered growing up. Costa Rica is a highly Catholic country and the people often put Mary above Jesus and pray to her and the saints rather than only praying to God the Father through the Holy Spirit. An interesting fact is that when our team asked our host (who had grown up Catholic herself) if she remembered ever being taught that Mary loved her, her answer was “no”. Conexion on the other hand, emphasizes that Jesus Christ loves each person individually and desires a growing relationship with them.
