CCC Mission Trip
18 de Julio
The youth camp team from CCC headed back to Colorado this morning and after saying goodbye and sending them off to the airport around 5am, I have spent the rest of the day sleeping, eating, and lying on the couch watching TV here in Heredia with Luisa and Gaby and Faby (after they got out of school). It has been a much needed relaxing and restful day to start to catch up from the craziness and tiredness of the past 2+ weeks. The 10 members of the youth camp team and Pastor Hugo arrived here on Friday evening, June 30 and they all stayed the night in Heredia at ETC (Luisa’s school). On Saturday I took them for a visit to the local major coffee plantation, Café Britt, and they had a chance to stock up on coffee, chocolates and other gifts for family and friends. Around midday we all headed down to Limón – the group by way of a mini bus and I rode with Hugo in his rented car. The drive down gave us a couple of hours to talk a little bit about how things had been going, what I had been up to, and to briefly go through the schedule for the next 2+ weeks so I could get an idea of what we, and I, would be doing. Because there was another team from our church arriving into San Jose on Sunday who were headed to the jungle in Yorkin (where I visited my first few days in Costa Rica), and a couple other people who were coming and going from the country during the two weeks, Pastor Hugo was going to have to be going back and forth between San Jose, Limon, and Yorkin a lot. So that left me with a little bit more responsibility with the youth team than just translator and local guide. The first Sunday we went to First Baptist Church in the morning and then to a Spanish church - Getsemani Baptist at night. Monday through Friday was spent putting on basketball clinics at two different local churches during the day, and then helping to host an outreach/evangelism event for youth and families at Jerusalem Baptist Church every evening from Wednesday to Sunday. It was a busy week shuttling back and forth from our hotel to the different basketball camps, meals, back to the hotel, then the evangelistic meetings. Overall it was definitely a success and a blessing though, the number of kids at the basketball clinics grew each day and by the end there had been many relationships formed between members of our group and kids of Limon. God was at work at the evangelistic meetings as well, using different members of our group to share testimonies and musical talents, as well as Pastor Hugo sharing a message each evening. They also proved to be another mile marker for me in terms of my language development and comprehension as I realized that I followed along and understood each of Pastor’s messages without even thinking about the fact that they were in Spanish, let alone needing to translate in my head. On Saturday we had a bit of a day of rest as a group as we headed down south to Manzanillo with the hopes of spending the day playing at the beach. Only problem being that it pretty much rained the whole time we were there – not exactly great weather for enjoying the sand and surf. On Sunday we visited the Progressive Baptist Church in the morning and then in the evening half of us went the fifth and final evening of evangelistic meetings at Jerusalem Baptist while the other half attended the services at Getsemani Baptist Church. Monday morning was an early one as I headed out with Hugo around 4:30am to drive up to Heredia to do a few things before heading to the youth camp site to welcome all the campers and the rest of our team as they arrived on the buses around noon. Between 3 Limón area churches (First Baptist, Getsemani Baptist, and Progressive Baptist) and one church from way down south on the Pacific coast we had about 120 youth in attendance at the camp. Anyone who has been to, and especially those who have worked at, a summer camp knows what a fun, yet exhausting, week was awaiting us. All 11 of us from CCC joined with some of the leaders from the churches to be cabin and small group leaders to the kids. Our accommodations consisted of small rooms in an old dorm-like building, each room with 4 sets of bunk beds and one bathroom for 8 such rooms. That definitely made for interesting times in the bathroom with so many girls and only 4 showers. I couldn’t believe that all my girls wanted to shower in the morning so they wanted me to wake them up at 5am to miss the rush in the bathroom. Well, turns out all the girls thought the same so practically every girl in the camp was up at 5am even though we didn’t have anything scheduled until 7 or 7:30am. So add that to going to bed around 11 or later every night and sleeping on a one-inch thick mattress on an old metal bunk bed, plus all the daily activities of camp and you can imagine how much we were ready for the days of rest, relaxing, and debriefing after the camp, and before the team headed home. The youth camp was quite a success though and God was definitely at work in the lives of many youth, as well as all of us leaders and team members as well. Several leaders had the opportunity to lead some of the youth to Christ, and we all had the chance to pray with and for our kids as well. The camp concluded with a great time of worship on the last evening, and there was also an open-mic opportunity for kids to share what they had learned or how God had touched them during the week. It was awesome to see how the whole week came together and how many lives were touched through it all. I was pretty busy the whole week running around and doing a lot of administrative things and helping out Pastor Hugo with preparing and running the PowerPoint presentations every night so I didn’t get as much time to just hang out with the kids, but I did have a small group of girls and was able to build relationships within that group, as well as with some other girls at the camp. Another great thing that came from the week for me was that I had the opportunity to spend time and get to know each of the pastors from the Limón churches. Up until this point I had only been involved with First Baptist, so it was great to be able to start to build relationships with the other churches and pastors and I hope to be able to continue to build and grow those relationships during the rest of my time in Limón. As a church, CCC and Pastor Hugo are committing to 10 years of involvement within the youth and churches of Limón, so I am hoping and praying that God might be able to use me as a bit of a frontrunner in establishing the relationship of CCC in this community and being able to get an inside and in-depth assessment of what the needs are and how we can best support them and be involved in the ministry here in the next 10 years. On Friday morning we said good-bye to the campers, leaders and pastors as they all headed back to their homes and the Yorkin construction team (who had come down from the jungle to join us for our last night of camp on Thursday) and our youth camp team headed off for a mini-vacation at Volcano Arenal. Pastor Hugo had truly set us up with the perfect place to rest and relax – a fabulous hotel, resort, and spa complete with big, comfortable rooms with real beds (no more bunk beds) and pools, water slides, and even a “hot pool” that was just the treat we needed. Unfortunately it was cloudy and foggy around the volcano so we weren’t able to see it in the daylight, but the night we were there we did have the special privilege of watching a bit of lava flow from the top and tumble down the mountain. In the pitch black sky it looked like random little sparks of flames floating through the sky, pretty cool indeed. We had a really nice dinner at the hotel with both teams and just enjoyed our 5-star environment. Saturday we headed back to Heredia after lunch and arrived at ETC in the evening. Both teams and Luisa and family enjoyed a great “last supper” together at one of Hugo’s favorite restaurants – the same place I had gone on my first day here for my first taste of Costa Rica. Sunday morning the Yorkin team headed out to the airport around 4:30am and the youth team, Pastor Hugo, Luisa’s girls, and I headed out around 5:30am for the beach at Tamarindo. We arrived to a gorgeous, hot, sunny day at the beach around 11:30am and the team spent the day between lying on the beach, playing in the water, napping, and just kicking back. A group of us made it back to the beach for sunset, and what an amazing sight it was. You’ll have to check out my pictures. We just could not believe the colors of the sky…all of our pictures turned out so great and we just kept commenting that they were so gorgeous they looked fake! Pastor Hugo picked out a cute little spot near our hotel for dinner that was called The Coconut. It was an Italian restaurant and proved to be probably one of our best meals of the trip. We celebrated (a day or two early) the birthday of one of our group members by finishing off the night with desert at this fabulous homemade Italian ice cream shop next door. Monday morning several of us were up early enough to enjoy some great time on the beach and breakfast at our hotel before heading out around 10am. We should have been able to get into Heredia and ETC around 3-4pm, including stopping for lunch, but there was so much rain the entire way home, plus some sort of taxi protest (about 100+ taxis all parading very slowly down the road) that really slowed us down so that we didn’t arrive until about 6:30 or 7pm. So unfortunately it turned out to be a long day in the bus and kind of interrupted our plans for a last group dinner. About half the group ended up going to the mall to pick up some remaining souvenirs they had wanted (mostly Costa Rican soccer jerseys) and therefore dinner was food court style. Sad that their last few hours in Costa Rica were spent in a mall and eating Pizza Hut for dinner! So last night I stayed at ETC with the group and enjoyed my last bit of time with my new friends before saying goodbye to them at 5:00am this morning. Before their arrival in Costa Rica, I only knew 1 person (beside Pastor Hugo of course) out of both teams and that was my friend Colleen. It was so amazingly wonderful to spend 2+ weeks with Colleen and just having a friend who knew me. But I also had the chance to get to know everyone else in the group as well over the course of the trip and now I have several more new friends. The Lord definitely used this time to not only teach me a lot and grow me in new ways, but also just to renew and encourage me with the friendship and support of peers and folks from home. In a way it was kind of hard because it reminded me how much I miss that kind of friendship and support and how really ‘alone’ I am here in a lot of ways. But really, it was just a blessing and got me excited about the rest of my time here. In fact, I was really glad to be staying. I was happy that it was not me packing up to go back to the States. I was very thankful that I have a lot more time here. So I guess that really is the best possible scenario – to enjoy the time with my CCC folks, make new friends, but not be wishing that I was heading back with them.
The youth camp team from CCC headed back to Colorado this morning and after saying goodbye and sending them off to the airport around 5am, I have spent the rest of the day sleeping, eating, and lying on the couch watching TV here in Heredia with Luisa and Gaby and Faby (after they got out of school). It has been a much needed relaxing and restful day to start to catch up from the craziness and tiredness of the past 2+ weeks. The 10 members of the youth camp team and Pastor Hugo arrived here on Friday evening, June 30 and they all stayed the night in Heredia at ETC (Luisa’s school). On Saturday I took them for a visit to the local major coffee plantation, Café Britt, and they had a chance to stock up on coffee, chocolates and other gifts for family and friends. Around midday we all headed down to Limón – the group by way of a mini bus and I rode with Hugo in his rented car. The drive down gave us a couple of hours to talk a little bit about how things had been going, what I had been up to, and to briefly go through the schedule for the next 2+ weeks so I could get an idea of what we, and I, would be doing. Because there was another team from our church arriving into San Jose on Sunday who were headed to the jungle in Yorkin (where I visited my first few days in Costa Rica), and a couple other people who were coming and going from the country during the two weeks, Pastor Hugo was going to have to be going back and forth between San Jose, Limon, and Yorkin a lot. So that left me with a little bit more responsibility with the youth team than just translator and local guide. The first Sunday we went to First Baptist Church in the morning and then to a Spanish church - Getsemani Baptist at night. Monday through Friday was spent putting on basketball clinics at two different local churches during the day, and then helping to host an outreach/evangelism event for youth and families at Jerusalem Baptist Church every evening from Wednesday to Sunday. It was a busy week shuttling back and forth from our hotel to the different basketball camps, meals, back to the hotel, then the evangelistic meetings. Overall it was definitely a success and a blessing though, the number of kids at the basketball clinics grew each day and by the end there had been many relationships formed between members of our group and kids of Limon. God was at work at the evangelistic meetings as well, using different members of our group to share testimonies and musical talents, as well as Pastor Hugo sharing a message each evening. They also proved to be another mile marker for me in terms of my language development and comprehension as I realized that I followed along and understood each of Pastor’s messages without even thinking about the fact that they were in Spanish, let alone needing to translate in my head. On Saturday we had a bit of a day of rest as a group as we headed down south to Manzanillo with the hopes of spending the day playing at the beach. Only problem being that it pretty much rained the whole time we were there – not exactly great weather for enjoying the sand and surf. On Sunday we visited the Progressive Baptist Church in the morning and then in the evening half of us went the fifth and final evening of evangelistic meetings at Jerusalem Baptist while the other half attended the services at Getsemani Baptist Church. Monday morning was an early one as I headed out with Hugo around 4:30am to drive up to Heredia to do a few things before heading to the youth camp site to welcome all the campers and the rest of our team as they arrived on the buses around noon. Between 3 Limón area churches (First Baptist, Getsemani Baptist, and Progressive Baptist) and one church from way down south on the Pacific coast we had about 120 youth in attendance at the camp. Anyone who has been to, and especially those who have worked at, a summer camp knows what a fun, yet exhausting, week was awaiting us. All 11 of us from CCC joined with some of the leaders from the churches to be cabin and small group leaders to the kids. Our accommodations consisted of small rooms in an old dorm-like building, each room with 4 sets of bunk beds and one bathroom for 8 such rooms. That definitely made for interesting times in the bathroom with so many girls and only 4 showers. I couldn’t believe that all my girls wanted to shower in the morning so they wanted me to wake them up at 5am to miss the rush in the bathroom. Well, turns out all the girls thought the same so practically every girl in the camp was up at 5am even though we didn’t have anything scheduled until 7 or 7:30am. So add that to going to bed around 11 or later every night and sleeping on a one-inch thick mattress on an old metal bunk bed, plus all the daily activities of camp and you can imagine how much we were ready for the days of rest, relaxing, and debriefing after the camp, and before the team headed home. The youth camp was quite a success though and God was definitely at work in the lives of many youth, as well as all of us leaders and team members as well. Several leaders had the opportunity to lead some of the youth to Christ, and we all had the chance to pray with and for our kids as well. The camp concluded with a great time of worship on the last evening, and there was also an open-mic opportunity for kids to share what they had learned or how God had touched them during the week. It was awesome to see how the whole week came together and how many lives were touched through it all. I was pretty busy the whole week running around and doing a lot of administrative things and helping out Pastor Hugo with preparing and running the PowerPoint presentations every night so I didn’t get as much time to just hang out with the kids, but I did have a small group of girls and was able to build relationships within that group, as well as with some other girls at the camp. Another great thing that came from the week for me was that I had the opportunity to spend time and get to know each of the pastors from the Limón churches. Up until this point I had only been involved with First Baptist, so it was great to be able to start to build relationships with the other churches and pastors and I hope to be able to continue to build and grow those relationships during the rest of my time in Limón. As a church, CCC and Pastor Hugo are committing to 10 years of involvement within the youth and churches of Limón, so I am hoping and praying that God might be able to use me as a bit of a frontrunner in establishing the relationship of CCC in this community and being able to get an inside and in-depth assessment of what the needs are and how we can best support them and be involved in the ministry here in the next 10 years. On Friday morning we said good-bye to the campers, leaders and pastors as they all headed back to their homes and the Yorkin construction team (who had come down from the jungle to join us for our last night of camp on Thursday) and our youth camp team headed off for a mini-vacation at Volcano Arenal. Pastor Hugo had truly set us up with the perfect place to rest and relax – a fabulous hotel, resort, and spa complete with big, comfortable rooms with real beds (no more bunk beds) and pools, water slides, and even a “hot pool” that was just the treat we needed. Unfortunately it was cloudy and foggy around the volcano so we weren’t able to see it in the daylight, but the night we were there we did have the special privilege of watching a bit of lava flow from the top and tumble down the mountain. In the pitch black sky it looked like random little sparks of flames floating through the sky, pretty cool indeed. We had a really nice dinner at the hotel with both teams and just enjoyed our 5-star environment. Saturday we headed back to Heredia after lunch and arrived at ETC in the evening. Both teams and Luisa and family enjoyed a great “last supper” together at one of Hugo’s favorite restaurants – the same place I had gone on my first day here for my first taste of Costa Rica. Sunday morning the Yorkin team headed out to the airport around 4:30am and the youth team, Pastor Hugo, Luisa’s girls, and I headed out around 5:30am for the beach at Tamarindo. We arrived to a gorgeous, hot, sunny day at the beach around 11:30am and the team spent the day between lying on the beach, playing in the water, napping, and just kicking back. A group of us made it back to the beach for sunset, and what an amazing sight it was. You’ll have to check out my pictures. We just could not believe the colors of the sky…all of our pictures turned out so great and we just kept commenting that they were so gorgeous they looked fake! Pastor Hugo picked out a cute little spot near our hotel for dinner that was called The Coconut. It was an Italian restaurant and proved to be probably one of our best meals of the trip. We celebrated (a day or two early) the birthday of one of our group members by finishing off the night with desert at this fabulous homemade Italian ice cream shop next door. Monday morning several of us were up early enough to enjoy some great time on the beach and breakfast at our hotel before heading out around 10am. We should have been able to get into Heredia and ETC around 3-4pm, including stopping for lunch, but there was so much rain the entire way home, plus some sort of taxi protest (about 100+ taxis all parading very slowly down the road) that really slowed us down so that we didn’t arrive until about 6:30 or 7pm. So unfortunately it turned out to be a long day in the bus and kind of interrupted our plans for a last group dinner. About half the group ended up going to the mall to pick up some remaining souvenirs they had wanted (mostly Costa Rican soccer jerseys) and therefore dinner was food court style. Sad that their last few hours in Costa Rica were spent in a mall and eating Pizza Hut for dinner! So last night I stayed at ETC with the group and enjoyed my last bit of time with my new friends before saying goodbye to them at 5:00am this morning. Before their arrival in Costa Rica, I only knew 1 person (beside Pastor Hugo of course) out of both teams and that was my friend Colleen. It was so amazingly wonderful to spend 2+ weeks with Colleen and just having a friend who knew me. But I also had the chance to get to know everyone else in the group as well over the course of the trip and now I have several more new friends. The Lord definitely used this time to not only teach me a lot and grow me in new ways, but also just to renew and encourage me with the friendship and support of peers and folks from home. In a way it was kind of hard because it reminded me how much I miss that kind of friendship and support and how really ‘alone’ I am here in a lot of ways. But really, it was just a blessing and got me excited about the rest of my time here. In fact, I was really glad to be staying. I was happy that it was not me packing up to go back to the States. I was very thankful that I have a lot more time here. So I guess that really is the best possible scenario – to enjoy the time with my CCC folks, make new friends, but not be wishing that I was heading back with them.
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10:43 AM
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