Costa Rica Day #6

Sabado! 

Saturday was such a fun day here in Costa Rica, possibly my favorite day actually...

We started off the day by getting up early and all going as a team (Anna, Laura, Brooke, Megan, Gabrielle, and me) to a mostly boys soccer ministry. A man named Jairo ran this ministry in a very poor community outside of San Jose. Our group of 6 girls walked up and quickly saw that we were outnumbered. There were only 2 girls there. This was the first time that anyone from LightForce had worked with this ministry so we really had no idea what Jairo was going to have us do. Laura, Brooke, Megan, and I jumped in and started kicking around the soccer ball with some of the kids. Because I was deprived from playing soccer as a child, I have absolutely no skill at this game whatsoever. So the kids had a fun time showing off at girls who were twice their age and ten times worse than they were.

After kicking the soccer ball around for a while, Jairo pulled us and all of the younger kids (7-16) off of the field and on to a basketball court below. I got excited because I thought we were about to change it up and play some horse! But, no, not at all. We then proceeded to go through a full soccer warm-up/workout with the kids. I felt like I was doing Insanity again. We did stretches, agility drills, push-ups and even crawled on the ground. And we ran, a lot. Even though all of those things sound like torture to me, we were having such a good time doing them with the kids. Jairo and the other men helping were having a fun time joking around with the kids, while Anna and Gabrielle were laughing at the rest of us from the side and getting some "quality" footage!

So after getting all warmed up, we split up into teams and played soccer on the basketball court. By this time, the rain was really coming down, but it didn't stop anyone from playing. The environment and relationships that Jairo had created with these kids was so incredible to watch. They all had so much respect for him like a father figure, but at the same time would take advantage of every chance to splash him in the face with some water, just like brothers. We were all so thankful to be a part of that ministry that morning. We spent 4 hours hanging out and loving on those kids in their environment. And we were so blessed by it. I almost took one the kids with me to put in my suitcase...he was SUPER cute and I swear he will be in the World Cup one day!

We got back to the house, showered and settled down for a little while before I had my next adventure. Some of our friends from the Coronado Bible study had invited us girls to come to a surprise birthday party for one of the guys, so Brooke and I decided to go. We started the trek to the church in Coronado to go to their youth service and meet up with our friends there. We get to the bus station in Coronado and as we start walking to the church, the rain starts coming down harder. We walked for 25 minutes, uphill, in the rain until we got to the church. We were drenched and exhausted. We get to the service there at 5:35 and the service that was supposed to start at 5 still hasn't started yet, so atleast we didn't miss anything. Several of our friends from Bible study are on the praise team and they started the service soon after we got there with worship. After lots of worship, lots of speaking in Spanish, and LOTS of Pentecostal things going on, the service ended at 8:30. We stayed at the church chatting with people, like church folks do, for about half an hour before we actually left. 

Then we went to a guy's house for our friend Louis' surprise birthday party! Except, sometime between planning the party and when the party actually happened, Louis found out. So...so much for the surprise! The fiesta was a very small get-together with only about 10-15 people there (don't know how we got on the A-list for that one...) Brooke and I shared a few firsts here: playing FIFA and playing Spanish charades, neither of which are easy! Thankfully two of our friends, Nacho and Marcella spoke good English so they helped us through FIFA and charades. Next thing we know it is 1:30AM and now we are celebrating our friend Jeff's birthday! All in all it was a very fun night with some very fun friends/brothers&sisters in Christ.

Although Brooke has been friends with this group for almost 2 months, she is still "new" to their group and this culture. However they accepted us into their group and into their lives without hesitation. Even though I have only been here less than a week, I feel so comfortable here, with my roommates, with my new friends, in this foreign city. I am going to miss these new friends when I leave :(  I am going to be so overwhelmed when I get back to the States and can actually understand everything that is written or is being said!