Costa Rica - Day 3

An enthusiastic group of the Costa Rica Mission Serve Team started the day outside our sleeping cabin with a devotion challenging us with the word ‘expectancy’ and how that would work intothe day ahead.

After a breakfast of rice, eggs, bread and fruit we divided into two groups.  One group left for Santa Marta for construction work.  The second group stayed on site where they brought the Vacation Bible Camp Jesus Tour-Do Unto Others to preschoolers who attend school at the Costa Rica Mission Project.

Preschoolers arrived wearing blue uniform shirts, bright smiles and curiosity about what was happening at their school today.  The school day started off with a time for introductions.  We played the Hello Game with children and leaders all laughing and having fun as we got to know each other.

Games, songs, crafts and recreation reinforced the theme ‘God Loves Us’ when we are afraid.  Personalities really shined at recess with a fierce game of soccer being played, lots of tag and chase, and serving food from the pretend kitchen.

A special surprise for the preschool campers was an official VBC Jesus Tour t-shirt that they proudly put on and wore home!

While half of our group loved on the kiddos, the other half loaded up the old family bus and headed back to Santa Marta (haven’t actually seen Santa yet, but am hopeful). This is the same place we worshipped yesterday in a space that previous Resurrection teams helped build.

We were excited about what might be ahead for us, thinking some light painting . . . nope, we were stuccoing walls! And before you ask we did not bring a stucco master with us or actually anyone who had done this previously.  The construction leader showed us how to apply stucco, pointing out that the key to success was to squat all the way to the floor and drag the stucco all the way to the top of the wall – about four feet high.  We didn’t have a math specialist in our group, but we were pretty sure that was going to be way more squats than we had planned to do. After a few slip ups, we started to get the hang of it. Well, of putting stucco on walls – we did not get better at the squats. Once we proudly applied the stucco they mentioned there was a step two, sanding the walls we had just applied stucco to. OK, two step process – we’ve got this. Oh, and by the way, it takes at least three coats of stucco and three rounds of sanding. Being goal oriented and representing Resurrection, we were thrilled when Hugoito said “that’s an A+ wall”. Over the next few hours our pride faded a bit, but we hung in there and at the end of the day were pretty pleased with our hard work.

In the spirit of friendship, we messaged our VBC leading teammates suggesting they might want us to shower first, which they were more than happy to oblige. In fact, they greeted us with cheers when we got back. That’s a great team!

We had another amazing dinner – a great salad (the chipotle blackberry dressing was so good), ground beef, rice and beans with chips to make our own nachos. Dinner was great, but sitting around the table hearing about all things that our team had done that day was even better.

We moved back to our bunkhouse for a great devotion reminding us that God is always with us no matter what. We shared special God moments from the day and reflected on all that had been done and the amazing connections we made.

Then, flashback to the old sorority days, we ended up chatting, sharing, laughing, and realizing how very blessed we are to have this opportunity. Now it’s lights out and we prep for another day of amazing moments. Come back tomorrow and we will share about our trip–God willing.