Hey everyone! This is officially my last blog from Costa Rica. On Thursday we will be flying out the Cambodia and beginning month 4 of the race! It’s crazy to think back to all the memories and how time flew by. This is also the end of my first college course while being out here. So let’s close off this chapter by finding the moral of the fable.
Stepping into Costa Rica I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew the culture, customs, language, and overall expectation. What I didn’t know was what I was going to learn from the first 3 months of the race.
In case you didn’t realize, my past few blogs have actually been a part of homework assignments for a course called, “Principles In Leadership” that I have been taking for a few weeks. This is my last assignment, so I’m going to share what this course taught me and how it relates to my time in Costa Rica.
I honestly thought that the principles and tools taught in this course would be for me to use. Instead, I realized that “leadership skills” are just skills that leaders encourage people to use in their personal lives. Most of these skills have to do with our goals and our reactions to adverse situations. During my first week in Costa Rica I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish here. I wrote it out, created smart steps, and worked on it. I like to make goals, lots of them. But if I’m being honest I don’t accomplish a good amount.
At the beginning of the last school year I sat in front of my mirror closet doors with three erasable markers. My mirror was no longer useful for its function when I was done. I made goals for different categories of my life. I made the school goals, work goals, dance goals, and creative goals. While I accomplished most of my goals that year, I completely neglected one section of my life. Creativity. I like to say I’m not a naturally artistic or creative person, although most of the people around me beg to differ. While I have creative ideas and concepts, I usually don’t know how to execute them.
I had written on my mirror “Work on ‘Las Manos Que Me Criaron.'” The idea for this project originated from a foggy dream that I kinda remember having. The big idea was to show through photographs and descriptions the mothers in my community that raised children and societies. My grandma’s hands are one of the most vibrant memories I have of her. The burns from cooking, the gorgeous nails, and the smooth caress that she would give me just when I needed it. Her hands told a story, and this project was to portray the story of women. I’ll be honest, I completely neglected this project for an entire year. My mom would mention it and I would remind her that I didn’t seem to have the time for it.
Well a few weeks back, mom reminded me again. If I’m being completely honest, I had entirely forgotten about this project. This was around the same time that I was learning about SMART goals in my class. It hit me, you could have the most achievable, concise goal but it’s worth nothing if you don’t have the motivation to do it.
Achieving my school goals brought scholarship opportunities and more college options. Achieving my work goals brought the ability to actually affect the kids that I tutored. Achieving my dance goals allowed me to showcase a dance that I had poured my heart into. But I couldn’t find the motivation for “Las Manos Que Me Criaron.” I unknowingly found that motivation the first day that I met Flower.
Flower is one of my ministry hosts, you’ll hear the rest of that story in my next blog. 
Costa Rica taught me what I value and why that’s important. I live in a house with a lot of people and with a lot of people come a lot of opinions and values. I’m an opinionated and passionate girl, most people know this. If specific topics come up, chances are that I’ll have an opinion and try to stand my ground. Or at least that’s how it was. During one of our first weeks in CR a political debate arose in our house. I barely engaged in it. Weird, I know. I took the opportunity to observe how different people “debated.” I wanted to know how certain behaviors and attitudes look like from the outside. This situation taught me a lot. In fact, it’s still teaching me a lot.
There are people in my life, family, and squad that believe things that I don’t agree with. But this squad has taught me that that doesn’t make them incapable of loving well. Our values are different, and it’s okay that equality is one of my top five values and they don’t value it as much.
Costa Rica also taught me how to say goodbye on short term missions. On Tuesday my team began our string of goodbyes at ministries, Friday we finished. We can’t lie and say we didn’t have a favorite ministry because we most definitely did. Our mornings spent in the slums with children who loved fiercely, played loudly, and tackled aggressively held a special place in our heart. The kids would run to hug us and say hi, much alike when I was younger and would run to the door of my house to say hi to my dad when he got home from work. I got so incredibly emotionally attached to the children at this ministry. They are like siblings to me. Saying goodbye on Thursday was extremely difficult. One little girl curled into a ball and cried when I told her we had to leave and it was our last time.
This isn’t the first time I say goodbye to kids who mean the world to me. Saying goodbye to my students at Firewall was absolutely heartbreaking. I said bye to them a few days before heading out for Costa Rica. I got home and sobbed because I care for them so much, some of my friends actually witnessed it. I didn’t expect that to be my second hardest goodbye. However, God knew I needed to experience this before the race.
One of the principles in the course was System 1 and System 2 thinking. Essentially, your immediate reaction to situations versus your alternate reaction and attitude. As we said goodbye to our friends in the slums I had to make a conscious decision to not succumb to my immediate reaction. While it would’ve been fine to cry during our goodbyes, God wanted to teach me a new perspective. I still loved these kids deeply, but I had to choose to focus on the silver lining. It’s not easy, but it helped create an attitude of thankfulness instead of sadness. I get to keep the coloring pages and notes they made for me, the pictures, and the memories. It doesn’t just end here.
As I learn leadership skills and habits, I also learn life and love skills. These skills help me with logistics, but also with intimate conversations. The things I learned in this class don’t end here, instead they evolve from here.
Costa Rica was a dream. It had unique challenges and unique beauty. So in the words of Alfredo, “Let’s roll out!”
