So, it has been a little while since I last blogged. I haven’t had the time or access to
internet. But I will do my best to
update y’all on what is going on here.
So, we left Guatemala City and drove for five hours to El
Salvador. We spent the night in a
hostel then rode on a bus for 12 hours to arrive in Nicaragua. We spent the night in another hostel,
then we rode on a bus for 10 hours to arrive in Costa Rica. We met our contacts, Kellie and
Orlando. We stayed with them the
first night that we arrived in Costa Rica. They opened up their home to us and were most generous. They kind of gave us a bit of an
introduction to this month and what it might look like for us.
The next day we took 3 different buses to get to Carpio,
which is the name of the town we are living in for this month. That morning was quite hilarious
because we had to carry all of our luggage with us and get on and off buses
without injuring ourselves or anyone around us. It would have been awesome to have a video of us all trying
to get through crowds and not drop all out stuff that we were carrying. It made for a good memory.
So, the town we are in this month is called Carpio. It is about 30 minutes, depending on
traffic, from the large city San Jose. It is basically right next to a trash dump. We are partnering with an organization called Christ for the
City. They do a lot of different
ministries all throughout Latin America. The name of the specific ministry we are living at is called New
Horizons. It is a place for the kids
in the community to come and hangout, play soccer, and just have a safe place
to be and have fun at as an alternative to being out on the streets. There are about three fields for soccer
and other sports. There are also
some different classes offered here.
The entire area is fenced in and locked at all times. We are staying in their office
buildings. We just set up our
tents inside. We have been
incredibly blessed this month in our living arrangements. We have a shower (only freezing cold
water), a washing machine, a stove, microwave and a refrigerator. We could not be more excited. We are cooking all of our own meals this month.
The town in itself is pretty poor. The streets are usually lined with trash, and are really
dirty. The further away from San
Jose and the larger city, the more run down things get. The homes go from being fairly decent
to being made out of tin or even cardboard. While the conditions are fairly poor here, the people are
absolutely beautiful. The people
have been mostly friendly towards us. The kids who come to New Horizons are very open and wanting to get to
know us and hang out with us.
This is just kind of a general overview of where we are at
this month. I will blog some more
about what a typical day here looks like.
