Greetings family, friends, and curious strangers! I hope you all are doing well and achieving many great things! I have to admit I’ve been avoiding writing this blog. I’ve been using my lack of wifi as an excuse to keep pushing it off. There are just so many things that have happened during my time here in Costa Rica that it’s hard to put them all into words. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to try!
As you can tell by the title of this blog, I live in the jungle! I don’t know what I did to deserve it but I’ve been blessed to live on a farm in the mountains of Costa Rica smack dab in the middle of the rain forest. The views are amazing to say the least. I’ll put a picture below to try and capture to the utter beauty but just know that no picture will do it justice (I guess you’ll have to come to Costa Rica to see it yourself (hah, see what I did there)).
Also, while living here I have seen many interesting creatures along the way. Monkeys, lizards, weird looking bugs, etc.
My ministry hosts, Tony and Rosita are way cool. They are so good at intertwining Jesus in everything they do. To them, everything is praiseworthy. With the work that we’re doing it definitely helps to have encouraging words to keep you going. God has laid it on both of their hearts to open a rehabilitation center for primarily for teenagers. When first reading about my ministry assignment in the states I assumed that the center was ready to go and I’d be working with the teens. However, to my surprise it turns out the rehab center isn’t finished yet. We walked into the middle of a 14 year long project. Our job for the month has been to help build the sanctuary in which, not only the teenagers in need of hope but, many community members will come to praise, fight with, or even find God. A girl on my team, Shania, wrote a blog going into a lot of detail of what building this sanctuary entails so I’m going to link that below if you’re interested. I highly suggest reading it to get more insight on the hard hard work we’ve been doing this month.
http://shaniamorse.theworldrace.org/post/i-will-never-look-at-palm-trees-the-same-way-again
Though the sanctuary takes up most of our time in terms of ministry, we only work on it 3 days a week. Here’s a quick little schedule of what our week looks like:
Monday~Wednesday- Sanctuary ministry
Thursday- Rest day
Friday- Adventure day
Saturday- Kid’s Club ministry/soccer
Sunday- Church day
Adventures days have been so legit. Basically they are days that we get to go explore the country. Our first adventure day consisted of us going to La Fortuna, visiting the worlds largest hot spring, and gazing at the volcano,Volcán Arenal, overlooks the city. The second adventure day our group went back to La Fortuna and split off. Some explored the city while the rest of us went zip-lining! It was so amazing and something I’ll never forget.
For this weeks adventure day we are in San Jose exploring the city and meeting up with other squad members. I’ve only been here for a few hours and I already love the city.
Also, something totally random we did was adopt/accidentally stole a kitten.. Okay I know what you’re thinking, “Maddy what the heck stealing is wrong why’d you do that.” When the cat stumbled upon Tony and Rosita’s house we thought she was cute and decided to keep her. Once we brought her back to the farm and got attached we realized that someone most likely owned her when we found her. We initially thought she was a he so we named her Steven. However when holding her I discovered that Steven is actually a girl. We still decided to keep the name because why not, you know?
I truly am so blessed to be able to be here in Costa Rica. It still seems so surreal that I’m on the World Race Gap Year! Life and God are so good and I can’t wait for the adventures that He’ll bring my team and I.
Things to pray for:
-Finish the Sanctuary
-Tony and Rosita for their big hearts and future plans
-My team as we finish our time here in Costa Rica and prepare for Nicaragua
-Funds (I’m down to needing around $5,300 to being fully funded! Woohoo!)
I love and miss you all and hope you’re living your life to the fullest each and every day. Talk to you soon!
Peace out Brussels Sprouts,
Maddy 🙂
