Long over due update

Time is flying by and it is hard to believe that it has been more than a month since I last updated you guys on what I am doing. Things have started to get really crazy with me looking to the end of my time here in Costa Rica. I have started passing off responsibility that I have to other people and training others to do tasks when I leave. Here is a run down of what I have done the past month or so since I last updated the blog.

First and most importantly my girlfriend Stephanie came to visit me. She came right after I went to porta viejo. She was here for a 13 days. During that we were able to go on a beautiful hike and build a Homes of Hope house. It was really cool for her to be here. Here are some picture from the hike:

 

Here are some pictures from the build. It was built in a place called ipis. It was a team from Canada. Super cool team!

A really cool random things that we were able to witness was a presidential election. April 5th was the day of voting and we were able to go to the victory rally in San Jose. They are changing political parties here and it is a really big deal. People were very excited.

 

This past week was holy week here in Costa Rica. From Wednesday to Sunday most of the country shut down and everyone got off work. I was invited to go to the beach with all the guys that I have lived with and some others from their high school. I have some crazy sunset pictures of some beautiful beaches in the province of Guanacaste. I spent my Birthday there and it was very fun! Two stupid tradition here in Costa Rica when it is someones birthday you crack eggs over there head and as the person blows out the candles of the birthday cake you shove their face into the cake. I have pictures of both of those.

So it has been a crazy past month. In the next couple of days I will update you guys on what I will be doing this summer. I have to set some things in stone but the summer will be an exciting time of opportunities for me. Thanks for your prayers!

 

Porta Viejo

Hey everyone things are going really well here in Costa Rica. I wanted to let you know what I have been up to. Monday to Wednesday of this week I went to the Carribean side of Costa Rica for the first time with someone people from my GAP class last year.

We stayed at a really cool hostel called Racking J’s. We slept in a huge room full of Hammocks!!

This was an awesome experience. We stayed there at night but Tuesday we rented bikes and rode 12km through a nation reserve that was absolutely perfect and beautiful! Here are some more pictures from the beach.

One that was very interesting during our stay at the hostel was the amount of “interesting” people we came in contact with. I am not trying to be stereotypical but there were a lot of hippies at the hostel and we quickly found ourselves at night swapping stories with them. One Lady as we were explaining that we were Christians and what we did the GAP year last year she got excited and said she was a Christian to. Interesting thing was though that as she was explaining what she believed it was not even close to a evangelistic sense of being a Christian at all and as we tried to “evangelize” it was very difficult because she really thought she was a Christian and didn’t really ever say anything about Jesus! For me this trip was accidentally a really big learning experience on how to share your faith with some people that have some very very interesting opinions and view on Life. Here are some more pictures of the hostel and beach.

Nicaragua

This past week I went to nicarugua. I am late getting this uploaded but I have been really busy since getting back ( which is a good thing). I went to Nicarugua last monday, stayed 3 days and came back Friday. I went with all the GAP students as we all need to renew our visa. For the three days in country we ran kids programs half the day and the other day we had personal reflection times and did a lot of swimming in the pool. The Camp we stayed on was owned by a Baptist missions Organization ( I didn’t get the name). IT was 160 acres with different full size sports fields along with a big pool. We had kids bused in and ran VBS’s with them, having game time, snack time, personal testimony time and then (most importantly) pool time. Tuesday we had 50 kids from Compassion international.  Wednesday we had 90 from another organization. Thursday we had 60 kids and 30 moms. Here are some pictures from the week.

This was a really cool week of relaxation and hangout with Kids and GAP

Orphanages

ok so I know I just wrote something about what I am doing but I went to the coolest orphanage today I have ever seen! This place (I have pictures) is about 20 minute drive from my house and I was hanging out with one of my friends who has a orphanage minstry down here in Costa Rica. We went to see if the church and his ministry could help out with anything and we were blown away at what we came to see. 

It houses 46 children ranging from a year or two to 21. They have 3 special needs kids also. I think the thing that blew me away the most was that the 21 year old is in university and is 3 semesters away from having a degree in being a chef! The thing is this isnt just an oprhanage is a home and a house for kids and young adults! The other crazy thing was this house was just given to them for free by a costa rican! This house in costa rica, with how big the property is (land is like $250,000 an acre in san jose) would be close to $300,000! And it was just given to them!!!

The way this orphanage is set up is sort of the same system as George Muller. If anyone doesnt know who he is he is famous for running a huge orphanage I think in England and never asking anyone for anything allowing God to provide for everything! The family that runs this house is tico and have never really asked for monthly supporters. They just always some how pay the bills. The other interesting thing about this home is they have workers but the lady that is the boss of everything gets called mom by all the kids (even the older teenagers!), this is such a cool element to how this place is run.

This was such a cool experience I am really looking forward to working with them in the future. And I saved the best for last! They have a legit tree house! Its probable the coolest thing I have seen in a while but here are some pics of that as well  

Life

I have just come to realize that I have not updated this blog for almost two weeks and I apologize. I am glad to say though, I have been super busy with Homes of Hope and church. For about a week straight Wednesday to Wednesday I was driving, translating,and building 3 houses in Coronado. I was asked to translate for the first time ever. They asked me to translate into English which was very difficult but I managed to barely pull it off. I don’t have any pictures yet I am still trying to get them from someone on from the teams that was caring around a camera the whole time. When I get those I will put them on here and explain  how the houses are built and everything.

Church is going very well. We are having great attendance and we now have apologetic classes every Monday night. John announced that he will be moving back to the states in march 15th so everything is going through a transition from John to Sebastian. Sebas is starting to preach the majority of the time, my responsibilities are changing a little bit but not much, and we are now translating from Spanish to English. The interesting thing is that with a tico as the main preaching pastor now different ticos are stepping up with set-up, leading small groups and getting involved.  Super cool and exciting!

The next coming weeks are going to be good. This week with Homes of Hope we are building two concrete floors for the team that is coming the second of march. Also I am hopefully going to be helping an orphanage ministry with some paperwork and different office tasked. Next week I will be going to Nicaragua! This is for renewing my passport and we will be doing some missions work also. I am super excited for this trip! Right after that John and Beka leave and then my girlfriend is coming to visit (super excited for that) along with students from my GAP year. That is sort of the rough schedule for March.

God is doing some amazing things through me and around me here in Costa Rica and now that I can begin to see the end of my time here I am trying very hard to stay present minded here and work on building the church and the  ministries I am apart of. Please pray for me as I start to make future plan decisions and finished up my time here. Thanks!!

Home of Hope (Coronado)

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I went out with Homes of Hope to Coronado where we put in a concrete floor for a house that will be built near the end of the next week by a Christian High school from Chicago. It was one of the hardest work days I have ever done. We got it done in one day and it is ready for the team. I wasnt able to get a picture with the floor complete because it was dark when we finished. Fun stuff!!! I will be with them almost every day the next two weeks! I cant wait!

 

 

 

Homes of hope

So I got a really cool update about me working with a YWAM’s ministry called Homes of Hope. I have talked about Techo a organization building houses and Homes of Hope is just about the same but the coolest part is that Homes of Hope is Christian. This means that after we build a house for a family we get to tell them why we are doing this, witness to them, and if they want connect them with a church in their area. It is a super powerful ministry because you just built a house for them and some are very confused on why.

So what I am going to be doing with Homes of Hope is something YWAM calls “Missions Builders”. This is where people come into a YWAM ministry and help the missionary of that certain ministry. I will be a missions builder for Homes of Hope until I leave Costa Rica this summer.

This afternoon I had a meeting with the bosses of Homes of Hope and am now going to go help them tomorrow, Thursday and Friday of this week!!

How they build their houses it quite interesting. They have mission teams from the states who buy the houses and depending on how much budget they have HH (Homes of Hope) adds electricity or plumbing or funiture. The week before the team get down to CR the staff of HH go to the site and lay the footers and floor for the house… Then the team gets in and we instructed them, over a two day period, how to build the house….. It is a super effective way to build a house.

I am really excited to help in this ministry. We will build 3 houses in February, 6 in March and 4+ in April.

VBS

About a week ago I went with a GAP student to a VBS with Metro Ministry through YWAM that I helped with a lot last semester. I did that Tuesday and Wednesday and it was really cool because it was all about Salvation and how to get to Heaven. Many of the kids had no idea how all that worked and some truly believed it was about good works and going to church. So it was really cool to see through dorkie plays and skits them explaining to the kids that trusting and believing Christ came lived a perfect life, die for us, took all our sins to the cross and rose again 3 days later and that’s the only way you get to heaven was really cool. They did this all week I was only a part of it for the first two days. I will be going into this community for the rest of my time here on Tuesdays for a discipleship group and also sometimes on Saturdays with the Gap students for the kids program there.

Bike!!!

I bought a bike! I got some pictures on here and it is awesome! Last semester the family I live with had one but it broke and so if I wanted to go somewhere I had to pay a taxi, ride the bus, or walk all three options being either expensive or not very quick. Now that I have a Bike I will be able to go father and quicker making my ministry here more effective. I am super excited about this!

What a crazy week

I know I said I was going to be updating you guys a lot and I have failed with that. Last week was a little different because I got sick at the end of the week and Beka (John’s wife) was suppose to have a Baby Monday of last week and ended up not have the baby until this Sunday night. Needless to say the whole week was in limbo waiting for the Baby. It was also difficult because I was in bed some of Thursday and all day Friday.

Well Beka had her baby Sunday night. 20 in. 7 lb. His name is Judah. Fun stuff.

I have been getting back into the routine of everything then go sick and had to start over again. The church is changing really quick. John is trying to hand off most of the preaching to Sebas and that is taking some work. Sebas is apart of CRU at the moment and is trying to switch his role in the Organization from employee to staff, which would allow him half his work week to be focused on GGP stuff which could be super valuable. Sebas also over my Christmas break got engaged to his Girlfriend Carolina, and that’s super cool!

Tonight we have a church meeting with the core 20 or so people to talk about the switch to sebas and also different things that are changing but also maybe need to change. It will be an interesting gathering. There are several people that, like in any church, do not like several things in the church that might cause a stink tonight but I am not too worried.

All in all I am still trying to get everything figured out for the next 4 months of my time here but I am looking forward to it, once it all gets fine tuned.

prayer request.

1. For me to spend quality time, in devotions, with God everyday

2. The church would seek God’s will in going forward

3. For me to do everything for Christ and with a Christ like attitude

4. That I would do God’s will and impact Costa Rica for him.