Settling Into Pura Vida Life

It’s our day off of work, and I’m sitting on a hammock looking out at this:

My team is in northern Costa Rica outside a town called Los Chiles. You have to travel a few miles down a dirt road to get to the farm where we are staying. There’s no wifi which I actually think is a blessing (pronounced: ees a blessing), and when it rains you may have to ditch the car and walk a little bit because the 4-wheel drive doesn’t cut it.

There’s not a lot of people out here. Just the occasional neighbor who rides by on a horse and tells you that he will come back next week so you can ride it. (That actually just happened).

It sounds like there are a dozen pigs being slaughtered in the distance, (that’s what I thought when I woke up to it the other day), but it’s really just the howler monkeys off in the woods.

For this month in Costa Rica, we’re working with an organization called Fundacion Resplandecer. Our ministry partners are Tony and Rosita. They’ve been such welcoming hosts to us!

Our weeks here basically look like this:

Monday through Wednesday we do manual labor on the farm. It’s basically a property that Tony and Rosita are hoping to develop for educational programs. They have plans to build a forty bed facility where students can come live and receive training in different micro-entrepreneur projects. (One of my favorite aspects of their vision is the idea of having a butterfly house where the kids can have a role in cultivating and taking care of the butterflies).

This week we spent the majority of our work days digging holes for a new fence at the front of the property. It felt like the movie Holes. It was fun working in the rain with our team plus Mauricio (I can’t wait to share more stories about Mau), and I got to enjoy some fresh coconut water.

About to head out for work with Kendra, Maria, Chelsea and Emanuel

 

Some of the amazing members of Team Powers

 

Getting ready for Church at Tony and Rosita’s house

 

On the weekends we help with kids clubs a few towns away. We’ve run some of those clubs the past couple of Saturdays. Picture lots of songs, chants, and soccer…(I’m working real hard on improving those skills. We got beat pretty bad today.)

Last Sunday at church I got to translate for our team leader Dan as he gave his testimony. There was a guy in the crowd named Luis Enrique, and it was his first time at this church. Dan’s story resonated with him, and he prayed to receive Christ at the end of the service. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and we were floored that we got to be a part of that moment.

Because of the connections Luis made in church, he ended up coming up to the farm the next day with our friend Mauricio, and now he’s working alongside us and the Ticos (Costa Ricans). He is being poured into by Rosita and Tony as well as the other Ticos that are here. It’s so clear they want to see him leave behind his destructive past, and they are willing to intentionally invest in him to help him get to that point.

 

This first week or so has been so surreal. I have to keep reminding myself that this is actually happening. I’m on the race. I’m a RACER. I’m not going home in a week, and this is just the beginning of the wild ride. I just keep settling into the general feel of it all…and I can’t believe I’m really here!

I think my team and I have already seen how much the Lord is in this through some of the things that have happened (like Luis’ story) as well as how the Lord has been moving within our own team. The way he has brought up verses. The way he has spoken to us and through us. The way we made it home tonight in the microbus even though there were moments when we had to pray we would just make it up the next hill because of the rain.

It’s making me want more…more intimacy with him. More of his love. More of this adventure. It’s making me want to see God work in the details every single day. He is speaking and moving in the intricate details, and it’s so exciting to see that early on. He’s knitting things together for our team and within our team, and I can’t even fathom what will come next.

The hardest part has been not having wifi very much to connect with y’all back at home. When we do have wifi it’s barely enough to send an email sometimes, so it makes communication frustrating. That being said, I love you guys, and hopefully I can catch up with you soon! EMAIL ME!! I MISS YOU!