March 21st:
Drove to Portland, had dinner at Shari's, stayed at the Comfort Suites Inn.
March 22nd:
Woke up at 4:30am got dressed loaded all our bags on a bus, headed to the airport. Made all our flights on time! Security is crazy though, they took away Pastor Brians Crisco but let me keep my four pounds of brown sugar lol:) After a ten hour plane ride arrived we FINALLY at the Costa Rica Airport, and we all had our first experience of driving here. (probably the most dangerous thing I have done!) on the ride to the place we were staying I saw TONS of garbage, lots of stray dogs, and street dog fighting. Its so different here!
March 23rd:
Had a rest day. Although hiked up a steep hill for about 11/2 hours, got my first sunburn!
March 24th:
Went to Sojourn Academy, a missions school located in Costa Rica. We lead a VBS for about 100 kids, also did some songs and a skit for them. LOOONNGG day! I taught the kids on how to do the Hula. They are soo cute. The kids there dont really have a choice to be there, they are there because their parents are training missionaries. Imagine leaving all your friends and family to go to a 3rd world country surrounded by a language you dont know. They loved hearing songs in english!
March 25th:
WOW, what an amazing day! This morning we all woke up and headed to the Sojourn Academy “bright and early” we lead the worship to the adults that are attending the school. I was going into it thinking, “what would I have to offer to these adults that are missionaries in training, wouldn’t they know way more then me?” That kind of thinking stopped about 10 minutes into worship. These adult missionaries were crying, coming to us teens for prayer! They were so happy to be able to worship in their native language (english). It was such a blessing to know that my words have the power to change someones elses situation.
Right after worship time us girls decided that we had to get our “baby fix” and headed down to a small orphanage near the Overall’s house. The kids were so welcoming and very excited once they saw that we had face paint and tattoos! We also put together bracelets and hearts. There were about 10 kids from the age of 4 months to 7 years. At the end we all prayed with them and said our goodbyes.
While the girls were at the orphanage then the guys decided to head down to San Jose to check out a spot that we could perform our skit “Everything” on the street. I heard they also did some shopping…also Nathan got to lead a fashion designer in prayer and handed out some of their bands cd’s.
We all met back at the Academy at around 2:30pm and led much needed worship and prayer time with the teachers of the Academy. We all paired up and prayed with every person their, it was intense! Pastor Brian, Preston, and Anthony were really getting into their worship…although I heard that Preston fell asleep while playing the piano…ssshhhh…(don’t tell) he is just that good!!
Today I learned that no matter where you or who you are then the spirit of the Lord can show up at any time, any place! Tomorrow our plan is to perform our skit on the streets of San Jose, we had skit practice tonight and all the men were in tears after watching, even Jairo was crying and he only speaks spanish! It was amazing and I am getting very excited to see what God is planning for us tomorrow!
