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.

The Value of VBS

Every week, mission teams come to Costa Rica to work on construction projects from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. Every week, it's the progress on the construction site that motivates teams to sweat for the Lord. Every week, the hope of completing a Children's Home, a church, a clinic, a classroom, etc., gets people excited about the mission of the Methodist Church.

But it's what the team does from 4:00 until 5:30 that has eternal implications. At 4:00 in the afternoon, three times a week, the mission team leads local churches in Vacation Bible School. Sometimes we have 100 children. Sometimes we have 4.

Teams love VBS. It's their chance to love children. It's their chance to "let the little children come to Me," and to see unspeakable joy in the faces of beautiful Costa Ricans. And there's something else: it's their chance to teach children about the truth of Jesus.

But children don't understand Jesus, you may say. Children can't grasp the intricacies of the Bible, you may think. Well I beg to differ. Jesus told the disciples to "let the little children come to Me" because it is them to whom the Kingdom of God belongs. They are the ones with pure, innocent faith.

Yet I say all of this not to preach, but to tell you of a story that has motivated me day in and day out during our VBS madness:

Back in the day, say 50 years ago, missionaries used to cross the country of Costa Rica on horseback, on raft, and on foot, in order to bring the message of Jesus to Costa Rican children. They used to host VBS in the "boonies" of Costa Rica, in the small mountain towns, in the little villages along the river.

And one of those days, some missionaries came to the town where a little 13-year-old boy lived. That 13-year-old boy attended VBS that day, and was touched by the Holy Spirit to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

That boy is now Pastor Fernando Abarca, arguably the most influential pastor in the Evangelical Methodist Church of Costa Rica. Pastor Fernando is the head of Agape Church, the church which will worship in the new community center that we're building, the church that has started a GED program for the local Puerto Viejo community, and the church where our medical clinic will be housed. The man has been touched by Jesus to revamp Puerto Viejo, one soul at a time.

So, when we talk of mission teams coming down to Costa Rica to help us build, we also talk of mission teams coming down to Costa Rica to help lead Vacation Bible School and change the country forever. One child, one life, one powerful ministry for God.

Workin' at Monteverde

Here's Susan, the daughter of one of our construction workers, Roberto. Susan and her older brother Kendal have been hanging out at our work site for the past week, and will be there with us for the upcoming week as well.

At this church in Monteverde / Rio Frio, we are building 3 classrooms, which will be used for Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, church workshops, school tutoring and much more. We started this project a year ago, but haven't had the manpower to continue working there. Finally, the time has come.

Our goal is to finish the cinder block walls this week, along with all of the concrete floors, so that we can start working on the columns and roof in the upcoming months. Please pray for us and for the congregation at Monteverde.

Last Saturday night, the current mission team of youth and leaders went to the church at Monteverde and held their own worship service, with English praise songs and all. The church was very receptive to our presence, and some of the church members even stuck around to hear the interns give their testimonies (in English, as well). It was a fun way for the youth from our mission team to interact with a local congregation in a non-Sunday setting.

1 block down, 40,000 to go!

So we've now laid the first block at the Methodist Children's Home!

Our goal is to finish this first house by next summer. Who besides God knows how many more blocks it will take to finish this house (and the other 4 houses, and the multi-purpose building, and the open-air chapel, and the picnic pavilion, etc.), but I figured 40,000 gives you a rough idea of how much farther we have to go.

A team from many different churches around Clarksville, Tennessee had the blessing of being present for the laying of the first block. Kim, our new nurse and full-time missionary in Costa Rica, was the overseer of the site. It was funny because Ray and Lidia were in the States, Will and Ella Faircloth were unavailable, and I was in the States.

Clearly, this project is God's, and no one else's.

We have at least 6 more teams coming to work on the Children's Home this year, and we're hoping to continue work on the house throughout the year, using local Tico help.

It's so refreshing to finally see some structural evidence of all the work we have put into the Children's Home. Our prayer is that God will continue to bless the project and will lead us as we start the process of accepting children into our care.

Gold medals

Campeones.

Today the Metodista Wildcats shut down the Arizona Wildcats (straight from the US of A) in the Ecobasket Costa Rica Championship, an elementary school basketball battle.

While I couldn't tell you the final score (due to the lack of a scoreboard), I know that we were up 15-4 at one point in the first half, and we were up by 20 heading into the fourth quarter.

Our full-court press and defense wore down the opposition, making up for our poor shooting percentage. I'm confident that we can learn to become more effective offensively, but for now I'm happy with our defensive mindset.

I initially thought I'd be the head coach for the championship, but our coach, Byron Villalobos, was able to make a last-second appearance at the game. Also helping to coach (though not pictured): my dear friend Wesley Wu. It was so great to have him at the game with me.

Costa Rica not only beats the US in soccer, they also beat them in basketball.