Costa Rica in a nutshell...

Last Friday, we left with 10 others from our church and headed to San Jose, Costa Rica. Our flight left at 6 something. Somehow, Chris and I ended up in first class. We've never flown first class before, but I could definitely get used to it. 21 was the movie playing on the way there. I was excited because I've wanted to see it for a while. We arrived four hours (or so) later in San Jose, only to discover that we were going to be staying in a hostel for the night. So... all 12 of us stayed in one room at this hostel. There was only 1 bathroom and there were about 20 others staying there too. It was a sleepless night, as many of the men snore very loudly.

Saturday morning, we packed up again and headed to our home for the week. We stayed at the Presbytery offices in San Pedro (a suburb of San Jose). The offices were located in an old house. There were 3 bedrooms (with bunk beds) and 4 bathrooms. Each bathroom had a toilet, sink and shower. HOWEVER... only 2 of the showers really worked. We unloaded our luggage (the group before us was still there), ate breakfast and headed out to Earth University. Earth teaches young people from mainly Central America how to farm in their communities. They grow organic foods (which are sold at Whole Foods). We toured the organic farm and the medicinal farm. For dinner, we were invited to Guido and Sarah's house. Guido was our liaison (so to speak) last year. We had a lovely visit with them and enjoyed pizza and time together.

Sunday, we headed to church at La Fatima. This was the church that we would be working with all week. The service was nice and they were happy to have us. They even let Tim (one of the guys with us) play the guitar with their band. We passed out goodies to the children after the service. They were all so thankful and friendly! Sunday afternoon, we headed to the open air market for some shopping, then we went to Stacey's church. Stacey was our guide/liaison this year. He is the pastor at an English speaking church. It was wonderful to worship in English and Stacey preached a good sermon.

Monday morning we headed to La Fatima. We worked there for 2 and half days. We finished earlier than we anticipated. We scraped the concrete walls (the paint was peeling from the humidity), then sanded the walls... then primed/sealed the walls... and finally painted. We painted the inside of the sanctuary, the walls of the courtyard, the bathroom and the doors of the sanctuary. The gutter was replaced and a step was poured (concrete) out of the kitchen. The bathroom door was fixed so that it would swing out rather than in and a new lock was placed on another bathroom. (I think that's all the work that was done, but I'm not sure).

Wednesday morning half of the team headed back to La Fatima to finish the work there. The other half (my half) stayed at the Presbytery to do some gardening in the courtyard there. Mainly I helped dig the flower beds, pulled some weeds and "tilled" the soil in the flower beds. I discovered grubs (not a gardener) and that they're icky! :P That afternoon, we headed to La Gaucima to visit the church we worked at last year. It was a wonderful visit with our old friends and amazing to see the work they have done over the last year. They raised the roof on their second building, and added rooms and rebuilt their kitchen. When we left there, we headed to the conference that the Presbytery was having... mainly to eat dinner but we also attended a lecture (which was in espanol... difficult to understand). At the lecture we were able to visit with the pastor from La Gaucima. She was overjoyed to see us. Such a wonderful and happy woman! It definitely brightened my day. This day was hard for me and I was ready to head home. I was extremely frustrated with some people in the group and had enough. In fact, I was so upset about it that I left my camera on the bus that we had used in the afternoon (only to find out it wasn't coming back to pick us up). Adella (our cook for the week) called immediately and helped to get my camera back. (I got it the next morning when the driver came to take us to the volcano). Needless to say, Wednesday was a rough day.

Thursday we headed to the volcano Irazu. On the way there, the bus had trouble (the radiator overheated) and we got out to walk a while. THEN, we waited at a school for a new one. The director was very kind and took us around the school (yes, the children were in school). They were getting ready for a holiday/festival on Friday which celebrated the annexation of a province from Nicaragua. Two classes shared their presentations. It was very cute. We went to Irazu (it was COLD). We had a YUMMY lunch at Sanchiri. Then we toured the oldest Catholic church in Costa Rica. Then headed to the Basilica. There's a pilgrimage to the Basilica every year around August 2 to celebrate a miracle of the stone. Basically (the short version), there was a statue of a woman that was found on a stone. The people would remove the statue but it would keep reappearing there. So, the people built a church around it. (Did I get a picture of the stone? no... long story).

Friday we headed to the canopy. Most of the people did the zipline. I chose to take the tram through the canopy and go on a hike. I wanted to get some pictures and new I wouldn't be able to on the zipline. Plus, I needed to get away from the individuals that were frustrating me. It was a beautiful tour and I actually learned quite a bit about the different plants and animals.

We arrived home last night around 11:30, after a 2 hour delay... and a fiasco in customs (ATL needs to come up with a better system... and some nicer people). I'm definitely thankful to get home!!!

That's the trip in a nutshell. Pictures are uploading now!