Day 4 - Church Work and Fútbol

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, then drove an hour up the road to Limon. On our drive, Brenden led his devotion on “Love is not Rude” (More to come tomorrow morning on this devo and the previous two - phone is still broken).

Once we got to Limon we met Señora Harrison’s niece, Irma, and her husband, Arnoldo, at the paint store to pick up some supplies for painting another church and installing barbed wire. While I (Clausen) was in the store purchasing the paint with them, I found it fascinating that Arnoldo just invited everyone at the checkout to come join us at church. While we are all called to share our faith, I don’t know that I have the gift of evangelism, and seeing this man invite and preach to everyone in his path was definitely inspiring to me.

We then drove another 30 or so minutes to get to the church. It was off a few dirt roads and up a huge hill and Irma said that most of the congregation walks that whole way to get to church! That was kind of unbelievable for us because it was a long journey in the bus! We unloaded and split into three teams. Four girls painted the front door and the front fence, the guys installed and fixed the barbed wire around the church, and the other four girls were the MVP team - they raked for HOURS! The rake team barely took a break and made a huge difference in what the place looked like! As our students were working the neighborhood kids started coming from all over to see what they were up to and ended up jumping in and helping too! The funniest comment we heard all day was when one kid said to Cooper, “Is it true that you’ll eat me? My mom told me not to come up here because gringos take/eat little kids”. Cooper’s response…”That’s true…” followed by a lot of laughter. Another little girl saw us walking out and asked if we were going to be leading the sports clinic later in the day - she said “I’m going home to get ready RIGHT NOW!” We laughed about that because the clinic was hours away, but you could tell she so excited and she came out wearing her best look!

While our students were working Arnoldo asked them if they wanted to take a break and drink some coconut water, so he knocked coconuts out of the palm trees and sliced them open right there for all of us to drink! So refreshing!

After a few more hours of work mixed in with a little bit more play time with the neighborhood kids, we went back to the city center of Limon to get food. Most chose to eat at Subway, but Hannah, Riley, and Cooper chose to stick with Ronny and Señora Harrison and get Costa Rican food for lunch across the street.

Following lunch we drove back through Limon and arrived at a very nice soccer facility to play with the kids some more! It was a really great facility, one of the nicest I’ve seen, with turf, photos of professional players, and netting all around. It was only $12 to rent the facility for all of us for two hours! We asked how such a nice facility was built in this kind of neighborhood and were informed by Señora’s family that this was a project by the cartel to launder money. They said it is such a hard thing because what the cartel is doing is bad, but their projects also improve the community and provide safe spaces for kids to play, so it’s kind of a Catch 22. Our prayer is just that the churches that are being planted by Señora’s sisters and niece will provide opportunities for safe fun and will keep them on the right path.

Once again, as soon as we arrived, our students were ready to play. They split into three teams and rotated through the soccer game. Two hours of non-stop running, laughing, and stiff competition later, our kids walked off the field dripping sweat after having a great time playing soccer. Some of the highlights were Grant’s incredible secret soccer skills. Apparently he played club soccer for 8 years and none of us knew about it?!? He was amazing! Also, Kate gets a special shout out for being a ridiculously good goalie! Granted, her wingspan covered half the goal, but everything that was in arms distance - Kate caught! One more shout out goes to Andre - he (and his mom) had the brilliant idea of bringing pop its and toys and hair ties and candy and it was a HIT with the kids. They were SO excited about these small gifts and it truly made their day! Even the parents were so excited for them and were taking photos.

We came back to the hotel, spent an hour swimming and showering, then right before we were going to head to dinner the power went out! This definitely didn’t seem unusual because the hotel receptionist said it happens all the time. We left and drove back to the downtown area of Puerto Viejo for dinner and spent hours hanging out and talking. We heard that several students tried 5 kinds of fish and octopus!

When we got back to the hotel, we heard a devo on “Love is not Proud” from Grant. Grant shared Romans 12:16 - “Live in harmony with one another, do not be haughty but associate with the lowly, never be wise in your own sight” and Proverbs 16:18 - “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”. Grant shared that pride comes before the fall and leads to other sins such as Selfishness and envy. He mentioned that we shouldn’t act better than everyone else because our gifts came from God. We shouldn’t take pride in what we own - we should be more like Christ - who was humble. When asked who they knew in their lives that were not proud many of our students mentioned Kate and Cara Braun and I loved Hannah’s answer - she looks up to her Mom as someone who is not prideful. She is super talented, was an incredible sales person, and incredible cook, and an incredible teacher, but she humbled herself and is a stay at home mom pouring into her kids and her family. Grant was also mentioned as someone who is humble - especially in basketball and soccer…only fitting since he led this devo. I asked if pride really does come before the fall because it seems like some people get away with being prideful, Cooper mentioned - the fall is coming. Carolyn mentioned we will all be humbled because one day “Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Debrief thoughts:

Kalei - Pointed out that the kids were extremely joyful. She mentioned that at home kids their ages would have taken her phone and been so obsessed with it, but these kids handed it right back and just wanted to play. She also thought the Coconut water was awesome.
Kate - Towards the end of our time playing soccer, the girls started playing a hand clapping game, and one girl in the circle was trying to learn English and was teaching everyone the game. It was so fun to watch the girls try to communicate and learn a game together despite a language barrier.
Keira - She loved seeing how excited the kids were about such small toys - we seem to take these little things for granted, but these kids will probably have that memory for the rest of their childhood.
Jose - He loved when the guys were asking him how to say “pass the ball” in English. He was able to translate for them and then kept hearing them say “Pass it! Pass it!” He also enjoyed seeing all the kids come out to help out at the work project - they sprinted over to help!
Riley - Every time we’ve been somewhere there are kids outside playing - we don’t see that a lot where we’re from and Riley said she kind of wishes she had that when she grew up. We talked about why we don’t see that as much at home - is it a Safety issue? Temperature? Tech Culture?
Alena - What stood out is when we were raking everything up the little girl with pigtails jumped in to help out.
Korah - She thought it was fun that all the kids know what pictures are and were prepared to take them. We also found out the kids are very aware of Tik tok dances and were ready to do that too! She thought it was funny that the girl who was teaching us the clapping game said she was 18, then Kate said she was 16 and the girl was in shock. She said she is verrrrry tall!
Cooper - He was tasked with gathering the coconuts after they were knocked out of the tree. He loved that the kids ran after him and helped him pick them up. We also thought it was funny when the kid asked Cooper if Gringos eat people or take them home.
Carolyn - Loved seeing all the kids hug you even though they don’t know you - she likes that Costa Rica has a touchy feely/hugging culture. She also loved seeing all of the nature on every drive - so much green! Today they also saw a stick bug and drank water out of coconut, how cool!
Dylan - He loved seeing how grateful the kids were - he gave an old pair of his sunglasses to one of the boys for a tik tok and it make the kid so happy! Dylan let him keep them.
Andre - Loved seeing how patient the kids are. He said, “My Spanish is rough, but they’re patient with me!”
Hannah - Loves seeing how much they respect the elderly here. She mentioned she is honestly scared to grow old because it seems like younger people in our culture disregard you and see you as useless, when really you’re a book full of so many stories and wisdom. Today she saw a mom and son walking up huge hill walking up and down hill - he was taking care of her. She loved that!
Bryan - Every time we come here he is just fascinated by the driving situation - it’s just different than you’re used to. Even though it’s crazy, how many accidents has he seen? 3 years 2 accidents. Not many and they’re cleaned up pretty quickly - it’s just fascinating.
Brenden - Loved that the kids enjoy the simple things the most. Things like running up and down a hill or watching a paraglider in the sky.
Grant - Loved playing soccer today because he hadn’t played in a while.
Clausen - I just mentioned that once again I am really proud of this group. While our trip is different than other Engage trips that kids from VC are on, our kids are doing exactly the mission that they set out to do. They are engaging with the local kids using sports as a platform. We talked about the purpose of short term missions and one of them is just building up the local church. The reality is that we don’t make a HUGE difference in just a week, but when we encourage the local pastors like Senora’s family, when we support the mission that they are already doing, when we get these kids excited about coming to church because they have a safe and fun place to play, it makes a HUGE difference in the long run!

Tomorrow we are heading back to the city and along the way we will be participating in our waterfall repelling/zip lining adventure. Many of us are both excited and scared for this!

Praises:

The power came back on at our hotel.
We have been safe and healthy so far.
Praise for all that the Lord is doing through Senora’s family down in Limon. It is truly amazing what an impact this family is making and how many churches they are involved in and have planted!

Prayer Requests:

Pray for our students to see God in a new way tomorrow through his creation. They are going to be in the rainforest and it is just such a magical place to see God’s glory on full display.