i’ve gotten a lot of requests to share photos from costa! so here’s what i experienced from beginning to end!!
me about to die dragging my 50 lb. pack around the airport + Delaney!
some pretty islands we flew over 🙂
STORYTIME: So my team’s room on the base was outside, and a few days into arriving we kept hearing this beeping. Loud, constant beeping that really had no explanation. We were the only ones it was bothering, and no one was really rushing to figure it out, so kaylin and I took it into our own hands. We followed the sounds to a covered up staircase just on the other side of our wall, and went up. I see this yellow bag that the beeping is coming from, and every time I move or shift it, the beeping changes. It was eight smoke detectors all simultaneously going off! We took out all the batteries, and were honestly just impressed with ourself that we actually were able to stop the noise. The end.
Ben, samson, chloe and myself on the risky base swings 🙂
One of the many reactions in a pass the pigs game. There are two small rubber pigs that you roll like dice and get points depending on the way they land. Some ways are rare, and get reactions like these. It’s hype. One of the most wild games i’ve ever played.
walking home from hangin with layna jean + a pretty sunset!
me + kaylin hanging by the gate while we wait to leave for ministry!
the view from our backyard!
the view from our backyard at night! Pictures really can’t capture how beautiful it is.
Align + Hailey after squad church! Sundays are really just the best ya know?
Our living room! Featuring Carter on the couch!
Another story! Our team was talking with one of our base staff members, Corrie, one night during ministry training. We mentioned how Delaney’s name means “daughter of darkness,” and Corrie flipped it to mean dark challenger. Meaning that she challenges the dark to flee and creates light in its place. The next day, Corrie gives each of my team members one of these notes with our names on it, all with the meaning of our names, how they ring true to us, and how we can go about ministry and our lives with those words. It was so so sweet. And then we came to find that all the notes aligned to form one picture! It’s a way for us to remember that our team name, align, is not just a name but a way that we live and carry each other, and that the Lord has a lot to reveal to us with our team name and our own names. We love Corrie a lot :’)
Here’s one of my many views from spending time with the Lord! I loved our base a lot a lot.
Here’s the outside of our room + our cute little porch! Another view from spending time with the Lord :))
One of the many beautiful Costa Rican views on our way home from ministry training!
me and one of my faves, jen:) i love this girl a whole lot
One of the ministries we do is dance ministry! This picture is from the night we were invited to go to a dance battle, which wow that was cool. There were a bunch of professional hip hop dancers that we got to watch!
So one night there was a cockroach in our room. It got between the floor and baseboards, in this tiny crack that nothing to smash it with could fit in. So, I took it upon myself to scotch tape a knife to a stick so I could shove it in the crack to kill it. And it worked.
one of the many times we went grocery shopping for the team! Rotisserie chicken!
we do a lot of walking! this was one of our weekend walks to get wifi!
our living room again! sometimes a bunch of us all sleep in there together
roasting marshmallows with knives on the gas stove! you really had to work with what you had there
business club! led by charlie, who gives business advice through a kingdom mindset! and he also makes greatttt chipotle salsa
uno with kaylin! on days where our ministry was in the evening, we have long mornings to hang out!
trash exploded while everyone else was asleep one morning :/
there’s a little mexican place right outside our ministry building! we had lunch/dinner there many times, it was so so good
crocodile bridge! on the way to the beach, there’s a bridge with a lot of crocodiles underneath!
align went to the beach! had snow cones, explored some caves, and saw lots of wildlife!
wild monkeys!!
Valentine’s Day! we found the cutest little bakery to spend the morning, and call our families!
v-day was all about the father’s love! getting to live with and love all these girls like the father loves them is such a beautiful life!
hailey + chloe! a pretty sunset right outside our ministry center!
carti got this photo of a monkey eating a lizard at the beach, and it’s too good not to share
manuel antonio! this is a stunning national park in Costa Rica with beaches, hikes, and a lot of wildlife! we saw lots of iguanas and monkeys, some of which stole our stuff :/
carter groves! one of our squad leaders! not only does he lead us so well, but i get to call him a friend! he always speaks with authority and truth that leads me back to the father every time.
sandcastles!
Brent + Delaney! exploring china town on an adventure day!
the girls led a women’s retreat for a couple weekends! Madison, becca and I were in charge of lunch and hospitality, but in the church we were at, there were zero kitchen facilities, so we worked with what we had. Here’s Madison heating up packets of spaghetti sauce with hot water in a coffee pot!
Same day, here’s becca using a long, serrated knife to stir tea! The whole situation was just strange, but the food ended up not being as bad as we thought it would be, and that’s ministry.
we briefly got to sit in this beautiful catholic church!
kacie + jezie! these two were G42 interns, which is another AIM program, and they stayed with us for the first two months! these two brought me some of the best wisdom I’ve ever received, and have had a big role in growing my relationship with the Lord! The day they left us was a hard one, but the goodbye party was pretty great 😉
jen + i had to take everything out of, clean, and reorganize an entire paint closet one afternoon, but whatever liquid this was busted and would literally spew liquid if we tried to move it. so after over an hour of figuring out what to do, and going through the whole chain of command, we cleaned out a soda bottle and refilled it all with this stuff. Honestly a pretty fun time.
no mop at ministry, so, improvised mop!
finished product of the closet we cleaned, featuring the soda bottle in the corner that we put the spilled liquid in!
the girls took a weekend to go camping on edgar’s farm, a local pastor we work with! yes, this is how we packed for a day and a half.
this is part of edgar’s garden! we spent the weekend working on his garden and doing little maintenance projects on the property!
tent sunset 🙂 even though it got really cold in the mountains and sleeping that night was rough
we spent a lot of the next day digging holes on the side of the road to fill wheelbarrows with dirt, to be sifted through for soil! spending the weekend doing gardening ministry was actually really relaxing.
back at the ministry center, kaylin + i spent an entire day stripping all the wood on a shelf, with this green stuff that burned at the touch. really had no idea what we were getting into.
jewel! another one of our squad leaders! after long hard conversations with each other, we always take a picture. this was after we talked about the future and life after the race.
this was the building we did ministry in every day! the ministry we worked with is called Til He Returns!
this was one of our last days of ministry, with some of the people we worked with the entire time! there’s Rachel, Quique, Jose (and his dog Nola) and Pablo! Just a few of the awesome people we got to build relationships with.
team align had breakfast with Rachel! she does a lot of behind the scenes stuff at Til He Returns! Definitely someone I’ll never forget.
last day of ministry! there wasn’t much planned for the day, so instead we went into town! Quique got us into the national theatre, which was beautiful! we also got churros, and went shopping for ministry clothes for the dominican!
also on the last day of ministry! this place makes the BEST empanadas!
jewel + i went on a little date to a butterfly garden! there were butterflies literally everywhere, and it was beautiful! the bests ones were the huge blue butterflies that costa rica is known for!
jewel, i love you more than words can say <3
one last beach trip to jaco! this is a huge surfing beach, and the waves really took me out
one of our last days on the base 🙁 saying goodbye to this place we called home for three months wasn’t easy
like I’ve mentioned before, here’s Quique! he always did evangelism with us as a translator, and we witnessed God do some awesome things with him, including a salvation and a healing! also lots of prayer over locals and hearing their stories!
just another picture of some of these people i get to call my family 🙂
our squad is the last squad to stay at this base because it’s being sold :/ so we had to take apart all our beds! we really loved our room and there’s a lot of stories that happened in this place <3
as a result of taking all the beds apart, here’s all the mattresses stacked in the living room! i don’t wanna be dramatic but there were a lot of near death experiences
then this happened
finally leaving 🙁 here’s the bus that took us to debrief in the mountains!
lovely banana spider, the bugs at debrief were on a different level
we did a high ropes course! pretty easy, can’t say the same for everyone though
movie night in Madison + Libby’s room!
we took a hike down to a little waterfall and swimming hole!
we also saw this place called “sitio santo,” which means “holy site.” this is a place where a lot of people have come to the Lord! these three trees that have come together are representations of the father, son, and Holy Spirit.
bungee jumping!!! 250 feet up, jumping into the costa rican jungle was absolutely incredible! it took lots of prayers and trust in the Lord
late night worship on a bridge!
right after worship, those of us that were still there took a bunch of random, completely normal pictures
definitely completely normal pictures
for our adventure day, we went to volcan arenal! there were a lot of cool hikes, old lava flows, and wildlife!
one of the hikes! it was strange to be walking into what looked like really tall grass instead of trees
arbol ceiba! this tree was 90 feet high and 400 years old!
me + our third phenomenal squad leader, nicole, at the volcano!
then that was it! the next day, we got up at 4 am to head to the airport!
Costa Rica was absolutely amazing. It led me back to the Lord in every aspect. I met people and built relationships that I’ll never forget and will hold on to forever, and I was able to witness Him at work in crazy and unique ways. Thank you God for handpicking me for this life. I can’t wait to see what you do in the DR!
