Progress at the Children's Home

House #1 at the Children's Home is comin' along nicely!

We've started laying block on the side walls, and we've finished pouring the concrete for probably 80% of the foundation. In the next few weeks, we're planning on having nothing but block-laying on our hands. It's tedious, but it's great that we're getting there . . .

Below you can see Bryan and Beth Tatum, our new house parents for House #1! The view behind them is what they'll see out of their back window. Not too shabby, huh?

Hanging out in Puerto Viejo

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to spend some relaxation days hanging out with the locals in Puerto Viejo. It was wonderful.

I went to school and helped teach English to 3, 4 and 5 year-olds, I bathed in a river surrounded by lush green trees and plants and hillsides, I played pick-up neighborhood soccer in a muddy cow pasture (yeah, you never wanted to know what you were slipping in) with a bunch of 20 and 30-something-year-old Ticos who put me in my place, and I played a version of Scattergories with some of my best friends up there, cheating through my use of both English and Spanish vocabulary words.

I'll just say, you haven't lived unless you've played soccer in a muddy cow pasture until the sun goes down (or until you've accepted Christ, but hey, either way . . .). By the end of the game, I think the final score was 11-10 (they only count who's up and by how much they're up), we couldn't see 15 feet in front of us. You'd pass the ball into darkness, hoping that your teammate was there to score the game-winning goal. The guys I played with looked like they had just gone swimming, due to the amount of sweat that clung to their bodies. I can't say the same about me, but that's just because I don't have to put nearly as much effort forward as they do in order to play well :-)

All-in-all, it was a marvelous set of days. 2, to be exact.

Post-VBS baseball

So I've determined something over the past couple of months: Costa Rican kids are good at baseball, even though seemingly no one in this country plays baseball.

Granted, when I say "Costa Rican kids," I'm talking about the numerous kids at VBS in the Sarapiqui / Puerto Viejo region who have knocked the ball out of the "park" in recent weeks. And, when speaking of Sarapiqui, especially the economically challenged areas of Sarapiqui, one must assume that many of the children are from Nicaragua, or at least have Nicaraguan parents.

And all the Nicaraguans around here talk about how good their homeland is at baseball. In order to test this fact, I went to the source of all knowledge in today's world: Wikipedia. It lists 9 Nicaraguans who have played in the MLB since 1976. That's not too great of a track record.

The two best players are pitchers Dennis Martinez (who definitely has some clout) and Vicente Padilla (who just got released by my hometown Texas Rangers). Good pitching does not answer why these kids know how to knock the crud out of a whiffle ball.

Anyways, all that to say that I've been really impressed with the skills of these little kids during our Post-VBS Home Run Derbies.

Progress at the Clinic

We've broken ground and made headway on the Methodist Medical Clinic!

Above you can see a picture of our Learning Resource Center container which will be relocated to the new slab of concrete next to it, as well as the first ditches for where the Clinic will be. The Learning Resource Center and the Clinic will reside next to one another, so our overall project encompasses both of these ministries.

While no more teams will be coming to the Puerto Viejo projects this year (the rest are all focusing on the Children's Home), we're hoping to hit the ground running at the beginning of 2010.

Below, you can find the funniest groundbreaking picture ever. Kim, our resident Clinic nurse, in full fashion.