Day 8 - Widow’s Ministry & Volleyball Games

Today we headed out to visit the Widow’s Ministry that we support every year. On our way, we stopped by Maxi Pali to purchase groceries for the widows. We purchased 17 of each of the following items: Rice, Beans, Flour, Salt, Sugar, Oil, Masa, Toilet Paper, Tuna, Bread, Milk, and maybe a few more items. We packaged those items into bags to give away, then drove to the church to meet with the Mom and son who run the widows ministry. In the past, we have always visited the Bethesda House for this project, but because of COVID, the Widow’s Ministry had to move to an area that had more space, so they moved to a church location. When we got there we were given a brief history of the neighborhood by Dona Luisa’s son, who informed us that this is one of the poorest neighborhoods in San Jose, one filled with lots of crime - drugs, prostitution, etc. Many fathers are missing from the picture, which is why the widow’s ministry is so important. He explained the importance of having a safe place for women to hang out and connect as well as a safe place for kids to come and play. Their hope through providing this safe space in the church is that they reach the kids before the drug lords do.  

After our introduction he took us up to the Christian School that is connected with the church for a tour. This is the only Christian school in Los Guido and as soon as we walked on campus we could tell it was a bright light in the community. The walls were all painted in bright colors, the gardens were beautiful and brought life to the campus, and there was scripture painted on many many walls in hopes that the kids would memorize that and use scripture to combat the false messages their drunken family members are telling them at home. We got to interact with a few kids as we toured the campus and they just seemed so excited we were there! Carolyn was able to drop off a bag of crafts she had brought that allow the kids to construct a booklet in Spanish. Andre was also able to drop off the rest of his toys to the kids in 4th grade as well. 

Following the tour we headed back into the church for a time of worship and a message. The main message was about God calling his disciples to ministry, them having to leave everything behind, and then following him even into the storm in the sea. He asked us, do you have God in your boat? If you do, you can always be at peace. If not, you need to get God in your boat. Following the message Dona Luisa shared her testimony of the struggles she had personally faced during COVID. Some of the stories that stuck out were the widows walking to the church in the pouring rain for fellowship, the church being freezing because it had no insulation, and the tin roof sounding like it was break from how hard the rain was coming down on it - yet they were committed to fellowship and studying God’s word. Are we like that? Would we walk to church? Would we stay if we couldn’t hear the message? Sadly, would we even open up our phone and do a bible study in the comfort of our own home? Unfortunately the answer for many is no. 

After the message we were served a delicious lunch of chips, beans, and chicken & rice. Following lunch we were able to pass out a few more toys, stickers, and gifts to the kids who were in attendance, then we loaded the busses back up to head to our COVID tests. After a stop at WalMart to try to find a ping pong table and some waxing strips for Jose and Brenden, we got back to the house in two hours and  time we got back to the farm and had already heard that all tests were negative! Truly praise the Lord!! We are all coming home!!

Our next activity was the volleyball game, and while we tried to leave on time, Tico Time and Costa Rican traffic struck again and we were 50 minutes late to our game. The only saving grace was that the power had gone out at the gym while we were late, so I guess the Lord does work in mysterious ways, because we walked in, the power was back on, and we were able to start the game against Belen volleyball club! At first when we saw their team warming up, we were a little bit nervous. They were definitely talented and several of our girls hadn’t played before or in a while. Once we finally took the court and got into our routine though, we were able to pull out wins in all 3 games. It was so fun to watch both of the Counihan girls back on the court, Kate and Korah dominate as usual, Kalei owning the back row, and Carolyn setting a great game! The boys also get a shoutout for being a great student section (until they ditched our game to go get snacks, but we won’t mention that ;)…). 

Following the game, Kate and Korah changed into their beach uniforms and we headed over to the home of the coaches for a beach volleyball game. Alex Villegas and his brother were part of the Costa Rican National Team for many years, so they have built a beautiful beach facility in their backyard where they train athletes. Kate and Korah were scheduled to play their daughters (who we found out were 19 & 20) and it was a GREAT game! Poor Korah was just coming off of a stomach illness yesterday, but she played her heart out and she and Kate ended up winning both games against the Vajellas family. The whole club came out to watch, so it was also fun to see everyone watching and hanging out together. The boys were pretty excited to be getting so much attention from the Costa Rican ladies (and a couple of German exchange students) - apparently Grant was asked by two different girls for his number! 

Following the big win, we all enjoyed a barbecue together, then all the players, including the guys, played some queen of the court to end the night. By the time we got back to the house it was already 11 PM, but of course, we had to do devos and debrief since it was our last night. We will include those notes in the next post. 

Debrief Thoughts on the Day:

• Kate - Thought it was cool this whole time to have the group in the back of the bus - we just got to know each other a lot better throughout the trip. 
• Señora - Today she LOVED the visit to the school and talking with the guy who gave us the tour - when COVID hit, they came to a complete halt - no money was coming in and everything is from donations. God brought them through and it was so awesome to see their faith in the Lord. (Senora’s prayer group at church actually gifted her with some money from this trip, so between that, and some money from the student trip fees, we were able to make an additional donation to the widow’s ministry today, which they were very appreciative of)
• Carolyn - Today she thought it was really cool that the girls we played against had such good English. They wanted to know about her and asked lots of questions. Carolyn also said she just couldn’t get past the fact that she was in Costa Rica…playing volleyball…against Costa Ricans! It was so fun. 
• Hannah - Her highlight was when we went to the widow’s ministry, as the mom was talking about bible study when the rain was so hard and you couldn’t hear the scripture. We just don’t face trials like that at home. She was impressed that these women were facing temperature and weather issues and still committed to learning the word. 
• Jose - His two highlights were playing volleyball at the Vajellas house and after the regular volleyball game he and Riley noticed there was a soccer game going on outside, so when they walked out to watch it for a minute they saw kid from yesterday’s clinic - Jose though it was so cool that the kid remembered him and it shows you really do make an impact in people’s lives.
• Alena - The highlight of today was that she just had fun getting to play volleyball after such a long time - she hadn’t played in a long time and it was so fun to get back out there (by the way, she was acing the off the court!)
• Riley - Liked going to the school today and seeing how it was set up, even though we didn’t go in the classrooms she see how passionate the guy was when he was talking about the school. She also really loved watching Kate and Korah play beach and do their thing! 
• Brenden - Liked the school and how all the kids were excited to see us. All the food we ate today was also really good. He also said watching Kate & Korah play was great.
• Grant - His highlight was the widows ministry - hearing the stories of what happened to them makes me think how easy my life is. 
• Cooper - Highlight was playing with and interacting with girls volleyball team at the beach game. They were still willing to talk to us and be kind even after we had beaten them.
• Keira - Playing volleyball today was really fun and made me miss the sport. Going to the school was also really great, it reminded me of my childhood at a Montessori school. She also just loved seeing how many people put in time and effort in to change kids lives. 
• BT - This whole trip it has been fun to get to know a lot of you guys, I had an idea of who you were, but it has been fun to get to know you and crack jokes and have a good time on this trip. I really enjoyed it, even though it was different than trips in the past. Your guys’ work ethic was very refreshing. Your generation gets a bad rap for being lazy, but I don’t think we walked away from a single job on this trip saying anyone was lazy or not working hard. Thank you. 
• Dylan - His highlight was at the school when we stopped at the step and read the biblical affirmations the kids read every day. He said it was cool how they were trying to essential programming the kids with the truth instead of lies, that stood out to me. 
• Andre - Widow’s ministry was a highlight as well as the volleyball game - just watching it and seeing the girls play together even though they haven’t played together. They worked really well together. He also loved the cheerleading section. 
• Korah - The Beach game was a highlight - it was really cool that even though they didn’t speak any English we could still interact and knew all the rules and could play together.
• Kalei - School was really cool to see how intentional they were about teaching about God. She has grown up in a Christian school her whole life, but she doesn’t know if she’s ever really felt like they were that intentional with it. You could tell they really wanted to instill that faith in the kids. 
• Ronny - At the beginning of trip he didn’t know anyone and it has been really cool to see you guys have grown as a team and individually. He loved getting to talk to so many of our students about everything, from family to harry styles. He also really loved seeing our kids all work in the clinics. This trip definitely had an impact on him and he said this was an amazing team.
• Clausen - Similar to Bryan and Ronny, it just made me cry thinking about how great this group did on this trip. This year has been such a struggle - so many times we were close to cancelling or traveling to a different location - all the COVID rules were just exhausting. By the time we got to taking the Engage Trip all three of us chaperones were kind of feeling like we just needed to get through it and make the most of it, which is not where you want to be heading into a trip with kids. But truly, this group was the perfect group for this year. They were all so kind, so hardworking, rarely complained, and worked so hard. They made this trip so refreshing for all three of us chaperones. I also just loved seeing them interact as a whole group. Sometimes these trips end up having groups split off, but this team seemed to really enjoy hanging out together and it seemed like everyone talked to everyone. I just wanted to say thank you to all of them for their effort and energy they put into their devos, asking each other intentional questions in the hot seat each day, and into going hard in every game and service project. That does not go unnoticed and was a game changer for us as chaperones.