Day 3 - Church, Painting, Soccer, and Food!

(More photos to come tomorrow)

Today we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. Most of the students had granola and yogurt (American Breakfast), but a couple brave souls ventured out to get Costa Rican Breakfast (Gallo Pinto, Cheese, and Bread). After breakfast we hopped on the bus to head back up to Limon for a church service at Señora Harrison’s sister Loretta’s church. The church is a more charismatic church, so it was new experience for many of our students! Only three of our kids had seen people using scarves/flags in worship before, only three had sat under a female pastor’s teaching before, and only two had seen people slain in the spirit. While the service was in Spanish, many people on our team caught the gist of what we were talking about and understood some of the worship songs - specifically when we were singing about the names of God, being in the arms of God, and of course, when they sung part of Waymaker in English. After church, they invited us upstairs for refreshments and we got to talk about the service a bit! 

After church we walked across the street to the hardware store to grab paint, then drove to McDonalds for lunch. Most kids stuck with normal McDonald’s meals, but a couple tried Fried Chicken and the Kit Kat McFlurry. Riley is not a McDonald’s fan, so we had to document the trip. :) Jose was challenged by BT to go 30 minutes without talking, he won the challenge!

After lunch we drove up the road to a church that Señora Harrison’s sister, Irma, had planted. It was a smaller church and our goal was to paint the inside and the outside. The students immediately got to work and we were able to paint the whole space! It looked great by the end! MVP definitely goes to Dylan, who pretty much painted the entire outside of the building by himself. Dylan used to work for a painting company, so having his expertise (and lack of fear on a sketchy ladder) definitely came in handy. BT also gets a shout out, because he stayed til the end painting a second coat and filling in all the cracks and crevices. 

As we were finishing up painting, a couple neighborhood kids started playing outside. They came over to talk to our kids which ended up starting an epic game of soccer (Costa Rica vs gringos). It was so fun to watch our students play their hearts out in the street with a bunch of kids from the neighborhood. Parents even came out to watch and take photos as well! There was definitely a language barrier, but playing soccer is something that bonded all of us together! Riley, Brenden, Jose, Andre, and Hannah get the MVP for the soccer game. They were ALL IN and even have some ripped socks and battle wounds to prove it. It was sad to leave, especially when these kids were asking when we were coming back. We had a blast with them. 

After painting, we went over to Irma’s sending church (which we painted two years ago on our last Engage trip to Costa Rica) for a traditional Caribbean dinner with Señora Harrison’s family! We were able to meet 4 of her siblings, her 91 year old mother, several cousins, nieces, and a grand niece, as well as several ladies from the church. We learned more about the history of Jamaican settlers coming to Limon to work on the railroad and also learned the history of the battle between learning English and Spanish in this community. We were treated to an amazing Caribbean dinner of chicken, fish, gallo pinto (with coconut milk, Caribbean style), fried rice, plantain salad, mashed green bananas, yucca salad, bread, and more! Every time we stopped eating someone would bring us a new bread or dessert to try! It was amazing. After dinner our kids definitely wanted to dance with Señora’s family, and they were gracious to teach us several dances. It is so fun to dance and worship all at the same time! 

Today was a GREAT day of ministry and fellowship. 

Thoughts on the day during debrief:

• Alena - Had never seen fabric used during worship before and thought it was really beautiful and interesting. 
• Hannah - Dancing so fun, we just don’t do that at home! 
• Riley - Enjoyed playing soccer in the street, it was a totally different way of playing
• Brenden - Playing soccer was so fun today, even though he didn’t understand people (Side Note: Brenden is the only one on the trip who doesn’t take Spanish, so the team gave him a hard time for saying “Si, Si Si” the whole time) but he said that even though they couldn’t understand each other, they could still have fun and understood community. He also said that worship was interesting because he couldn’t tell if people were dying or sleeping and asked what the covering was for (modesty). Harrison explained the Lord’s presence overwhelms your physical body. You are so humbled. When you’re on your knees you are absolutely humbled before God. 
• Kate - Food was really good today, especially the chicken & the bread
• Cooper - Loved that people pulled up chairs and watched us play soccer in the street - The guy with the machete was a little bit scary and he thought he was going to kill Hannah, but we were okay! (Side Note: While we were playing in the street a man with a machete walked by - machete’s are usually used for farming/yard work, but on a Sunday people aren’t usually working, so it was a little bit out of place. He got a little close to our kids so we sent out Señora to talk to him. Luckily he did walk away. She explained to our students during debrief that we were in a neighborhood where the adults have been known to be on a lot of drugs (crack, cocaine), so we have to just be aware of our surroundings at all times.
• Carolyn - The whole day was a highlight - each section. At church, worship made her want to cry, it was so beautiful and people didn’t care what people thought and just worshipped the Lord. At first she was not used to it, and felt like it was kind of weird, but then she just realized that people were just overwhelmed by His presence. She also loved playing with the kids because it allowed her to practice her Spanish. She even made a friend and got her phone number. Finally, dancing & being in a part of a different culture was definitely a highlight! 
• Jose - Painting was fun - the other students noted that he got more paint on other people than the wall. Jose was also amazing during the soccer game - we have all been relying on him to be a translator for us on this trip and he has been doing amazing! 
• Kalei - Noticed that during worship people were still on stage playing music the whole time the pastor was teaching, this is different than at home where the worship team leaves after worship is over. 
• Korah - Liked dancing with Senora Harrison’s family. She also said meeting with all the kids was really fun, even though they were making fun of us at first.
• Keira - Hanging with all kids was fun, even though we couldn’t understand them, and they couldn’t understand us. You can still bond and connect. 
• Dylan - During worship we don’t need the lights and the fancy stuff to have a good worship service
• Harrison - Even though those kids live in poverty, what those kids know is all they know. We see it as them having less, but they see it as what they have. She encouraged us not to let that fact get us down, but do what we can do - make friends - we’re not going to solve their problems. When it comes to worship - Don’t take it as they’re doing it right and we’re doing it wrong. Just observe it and see how it can impact our worship. She said it’s all about intimacy - When He is revealed every knee will bow. 
• Andre  - Even though the people might have less, they seem much more joyful and happy than many Americans
• Grant - Playing with the kids was really fun - different than in America
• Timmer - He thought it was really interesting to be in a Worship centered church. He said he finds that difficult to find in the states, because when he’s seen churches like that it feels money driven and manipulative. He loved watching them worship and said that at home it feels like we need all this stuff to worship. Really, we just need to go worship. At home it feels like churches are built around the lighting in a church - it seems like churches make it a priority because it makes or breaks a worship experience. He liked that you could tell lighting was added at this church, but it wasn’t central to the building - just an added experience. Bryan mentioned he grew up in a church with the organ and it was pretty conservative - if the one guy in the front row clapped, then we all clapped. If not, that was that…no clapping. This is such a different experience. Our joke from the day was that the lady with the tambourine must buy one each week. She was BANGING on that thing! Bryan said, “I hope the spirit never comes over her when she’s disciplining her kids because she hit that tambourine hard!” (It was pretty funny). Our question was, how would that type of worship be received at our church? Would we tolerate it? Would we politely ask the tambourine lady to leave? What would we do? 
• Clausen - I was just really proud of our kids for how they jumped in today. They jumped into painting that church, they worked hard all day, they played with those kids and had great attitudes. They really made the most of the day and I’m proud of them. I just wanted them to remember the joy of those kids — it was truly amazing! 

Praises: 

• We were able to finish painting the whole church
• Dylan T’s allergies are feeling a little better
• Señora Harrison’s family is truly amazing and it’s no wonder she is so strong in the Lord. She is surrounded by worshippers and prayer warriors and it is just amazing that she was raised here, came to the States, and now works at VC with us. We are so thankful for her and the way she ministers to our students. 

Prayer Requests:

• Clausen’s phone is having major issues - we need a computer to get it fixed. This means some of the photos may be uploaded later in the trip! Thankfully Brenden let us use his phone for the rest of the day for photos and videos, but we do need Clausen’s phone to start working! 
• Pray for the church in that neighborhood that it would be a bright light to those kids and those families and that the Lord would multiply our work and the work of Irma and the pastors of the church!
• Pray for extra energy and rejuvenation for our kids - they worked hard today and have another long day ahead of them tomorrow!