Missions
We’re Back!
The Costa Rica Mission Team arrived home safely Sunday evening, August 12. We may have been tired and weary, but we were filled with joy for all we had experienced. We want to thank all who supported us. Your love and support enabled us to go out into the world and help others, not as a team of twelve, but as a church of many. Your donations helped us go, your prayers kept us going.
We arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, on Saturday, August 4th, after a long travel day. After checking into rooms for the week, we went to dinner at Emanuel Iglesia Evangelica Methodista. This was the church where we would eat most of our meals during our stay. Rosa, the pastor’s wife, is the cook. Sunday dawns a beautiful day and Charlie Strong has arranged a visit to the local volcano and other historical sights in the area. Church service is at 3:00 at Iglesia de los Guido. We met Pastor Edgar and his family who started the Children’s Feeding Program, where we will work Wednesday. It is a God filled service that lasts over two hours.
Monday we divide into two teams, one for the garden at the Special Needs School and one for the construction sight. At the garden we weeded and planted. By the end of the day, about one thousand assorted plants had been put in the ground. At the construction sight, we painted, put security bars on windows, and started a retaining wall at a new sight. The neighborhood was poor and the need great. It was called el Eden, however, it was anything but paradise.
Tuesday we worked together at the construction sight. More cement blocks had been delivered and there was a retaining wall to build. The day consisted of mixing mortar, moving block, mixing more mortar, laying block, mixing cement to fill the block, moving more block, and then it rained, and rained! We took shelter for a short while, and then the truck of fill dirt arrived and had to be unloaded, and there was more block to move.
After two days of physical labor, Wednesday we exercised our emotions. We returned to Iglesia de los Guido to help with lunch for the children. The church feeds 60-70 children two meals a day, breakfast and lunch, for most children the only two meals of the day. Pastor Edgar’s 16-year-old daughter supervises the program. After lunch, we played games with the children and took a tour of the neighborhood. This is one of the poorest neighborhoods in the area; houses are no more than tin shacks.
Thursday was another exercise of emotions. We went to the Orphanage at Visa de Mar, just outside of San Jose. It is a very nice facility with houses and classrooms for the children. Recently a new classroom and storage building have been completed with the help of teams through Strong Missions. Still, we thought it so sad that these beautiful children had to live here until Charlie explained why they were here. They all had been taken from their parents because of abuse, physical, mental and sexual. We then realized this indeed was a wonderful place for them. It was such a joy to interact with the children. We helped in the preschool class making telephones to call Jesus, we blew bubbles, we jump-roped, we played catch, and we played soccer. Just spending time with them brought such smiles to their faces, they just need love. After this wonderful time with the children, we went back to the garden to finish up the work we had started. We spread mulch, broke rocks for a planter wall, mixed mortar for the wall, constructed the wall, unloaded more block, and moved a couple of hundred plants for the other side of the garden. Again, we were exhausted at the end of the day. After dinner, we left on a four-hour journey to the coast for a day of relaxation. We arrived in Cahuita late Thursday night.
Friday we enjoyed God’s beauty surrounding the little village. We walked through the coastal rain forest and along the white sandy beach in the National Park of Cahuita. Howler monkeys, sloths, morpho butterflies, white-faced monkeys, and iguanas are a few of the animals we saw there.
The Missions in our Church support a number of local causes as well as some international ones:
· Camp Pine Creek
· Crisis Pregnancy Center
· Dial a Prayer
· El Mesias
· Grace Childrens Hospital (Haiti)
· Haiti
· Henderson Settlement
· Indiana United Methodist Childrens Hospital
· Mulberry United Methodist Church Kids Club
· Mulberry United Methodist Church Wee Blessings Pre School
· Mulberry United Methodist Church Youth Trip
· Rainbow Haven
· Stone Soup Pantry
· UMCOR