Costa Rica - Day 7

For our last day in Costa Rica, we enjoyed a cultural day to explore the incredible nature and wildlife in the country. With the help of a tour guide at a national park, we saw adorable monkeys, incredible sloths, bright colored crabs, bugs, lizards, and snakes, and the most incredible plants and trees. Afterwards we kicked around the town laughing at the antics of monkeys playing everywhere around us. We wrapped the day with a fun group dinner at an open air restaurant built around a historic airplane. Most of us opted for American style food which seemed to indicate that our work here feels complete… and we’re ready to get home. It was a perfect time to enjoy each other’s’ company knowing we’d be parting ways soon… we reflected on the week, shared our experiences and perspectives, thanked Kate for her organized, thoughtful, and fun leadership over this week as well as the months of preparation that preceded it, shared pictures, laughed, and soaked up the evening together.

On the first night in Costa Rica, Wil suggested we consider a new perspective on mission work. He inspired us with the notion that we are not “human doings”… we’re “human beings”, so rather than focus on the things that we DO while in Costa Rica, he encouraged us to focus on what we are BEING. His hope was that when we return home after this trip, our description of the experience would not be that we “did work”, but that we spent the week “being the church”. This in mind, it seems that the perfect summary of the week might be a description of not only what we did… but also what we have become.

Yes… we did stucco on walls, sanded, painted, scraped, scrubbed, and ultimately transformed the dilapidated appearance of an old camp to begin the process of restoration.

In doing that, we found ourselves also BEING:

• Compassionate listeners
• Eager learners
• Creative communicators
• Joyful appreciators of all kinds of music
• Companions to animals
• Adventurous eaters
• Sunset and wildlife enthusiasts
• Safe role models and friends to God’s children
• Flexible planners
• Respectful roommates and guests
• Valued contributors to conversation
• Gratitude focused
• Curiosity masters
• Mindful witnesses to God’s surprises in real time
• Receptive to new and unexpected friendships
• Enthusiastic worshipers
• 11 special people who by divine chance found themselves at the same place at the same time… and by individual choice, each contributed their unique strengths toward collectively BEING the church.

We are so blessed to have gotten to be a blessing this week… for the United Methodist churches in Costa Rica, for each other, and for the people who benefit from the work that we’ve done this week who’s names we’ll never know.

To quote one of the Pouzars’ favorite musicals… We have been changed for good😊