Week 1...done!

Sorry that it's taken so long to get pictures up on here from last week's group, folks! I've had some computer issues...and the internet doesn't always work so great...the joys of living and working in Costa Rica :)

Anyways, here we go. As I type, we have welcomed another 90 youth on our base. I can hardly believe how time flies here...days are full! I hope you enjoy these pictures, even though they are late!

Here we demonstrate what it looks like to fill a truck with the luggage of 80 youth...it's a rather fun task, a little bit like playing Tetris.

This is one of my favourite views...a chapel full of youth and leaders, coming together to worship...

Here are Gloria and Mark Chacon Epp. Mark is Canadian, and Gloria is Costa Rican, she is filling an interm Pastor role at the church "Gloria de Rey" where we brought the team last week - I really really enjoyed working with Gloria, partially because she is a fluent English speaker (!!), but also for her heart, and her organizational skills! She made it easy to work alongside the church.

Here we see what it looks like for a team to dismantle a ceiling (this was a weird moment for me, as the ceiling that they were dismantling was the very one I witnessed being put in place 5 years ago by the Willingdon team!!).

I love scaffolding in Costa Rica. We get away with things you would never see in Canada...notice the chair on the top rung.

This church is currently about 25 members, so when we added a team of 40, the place was full! Here the team performed a drama for the church on Sunday morning.

A highlight of the week for me was the "impromptu" moments. Rain washed away many of our plans, but in place, we took time to worship and to meet with the team. God did a lot of amazing things in the lives of these youth.

Here is another of the projects that we were doing - a mural for the elementary school. I have to admit that it was a fun project, but also a little difficult to complete when every 20 minutes the bell was ringing for recess...and we were swarmed with Costa Rica children.

Another fun project was ministry with the women in the community - the girls worked on making jewellry and then gave it out as free gifts in the park. The older ladies LOVED making jewellry.And of course, it wouldn't be a good Tico week without some soccer! We played a tournament: Gringos vs. Ticos - of course, the Ticos won.
And then we said good-bye to our team of 41 and enjoyed a day to ourselves! We first headed up to Volcan Irazu...a place that I had tried to visit about 4 years ago and never got to see...but on Saturday, I got to see it! Here is a hilarious picture of us, trying to look at the camera in the sun...the result? I look giddy.
After the volcano, we headed into Cartago, the old capital city of Costa Rica, mostly to see the Basilica - it is a very famous church here in Costa Rica. The legend has it that "La Negrita" a little doll was found 400 years ago in the forest where this church and city are now built. A little girl was gathering firewood, and found the doll on a rock. She brought it home and the next day went back into the forest. She found it again in the same spot...excited to have thought she found two of the same doll. When she got home, she discovered that the doll was no longer there, so she locked the one that she had just found in a box. The next morning when she checked it, it was gone. Again, she found it on the rock. She brought it to her priest, and eventually a church was built on that site upon the decision that La Negrita was a sign from the Virgin Mary. Today, this church is honestly a shrine for La Negrita - people from all over the world make pilgrimages to this church, and every year in August, they walk, some on their knees, to the church to ask La Negrita for healing. Below you can see one of the beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral displaying the story of La Negrita.

Below the cathedral we found a room of "offerings". There are display cases full of little ornaments like these, all of different body parts or representations of situtations. The idea is that prayer is offered on behalf of La Negrita, and when healing comes, people bring these objects to demonstrate that their prayers have been answered. The whole thing felt incredibly odd...and very unlike the Christian faith that we believe. It is a very skewed outlook...and really doesn't have anything to do with Christ and what He did for us!

After all that, we have had a few interesting days - full of leadership training and preparing for the teams that are now with us. It has been both refreshing and a blessing to be with such great staff, and to be learning together. I have learnt so much in such a short time....

And tomorrow, we do it all again! We leave for a church nearby the church from last week's outreach. I am pleased to be leading this team from Central Community church in Chilliwack BC!! This is our first Canadian team during the summer program ever, and I am excited to have a couple guys from CBC on the team as well...I am really looking forward to doing ministry with them here in Costa Rica...and to have my worlds collide a little bit!!