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!

 

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.