Costa Rica STT

This may feel formaller than usual, but i'm in brain mode right now more than heart mode: The 2019 Short Term Trip (STT) to Costa Rica affected me in a way that no other trip I’ve previously taken has. Coming out of the trip, I feel a change in the deep places of myself, which are not always easy for me to access. It isn’t an emotional change though; it’s a structural one. I view myself as brackets with personality, emotions, perspectives, opinions and the like all inside of the bracket. [sam] The changes that usually happen in my life are changes to the things inside. This trip feels like it has changed the brackets somehow. I am unable to tell in what way at this point. Perhaps it will be a function of time to get the distance to see clearly. To my understanding, the trip originally had two expressed purposes from Fellowship’s Global Team. 1. Assist the church in the city ministry work they are doing, 2. Assess if we believe a longer-term partnership with Fellowship is...

This is late, but yesterday: We woke up like normal, but just to be awake to say bye to Ohio. They all went hiking with people yesterday to a waterfall. Carlos Gomez came and we went into the city to grab a souvenir or two. This passed without incident; I did nothing to embarrass myself at all.* Gomez took us to the airport and we grabbed lunch and hopped on the plane. Katie and I sat next to a guy who had been helping with a mission trip out in the country, so we talked to him the whole time about the trips and church and relationship with God and a million other things. it was really encouraging :) Our team had some great debriefing conversation. When I post a summary, it'll include some of our thoughts for next year too. That'll help me for when I meet with the Global Team at Fellowship to let them know how the trip went. Home safe! Today I'm chilling in Round Rock with my familia! *That was a lie, btw. I tried to get into some random guy's car that had st...

Today was really good. I feel like I've said that every day. I guess that's not a bad thing. We spent the morning at the campus, but only went to one class and just hung out with the students the rest of the time. I got to walk through the gospel in a really natural way with a student named Umberto . He asked questions and broached topics that made it really easy for everything to come together into a solid gospel presentation. At the end I asked where he thought he stood with God and he said he didn't know, but wanted to go home and think about it. He seemed shook. Be praying!  After campus we went into the city, but this time to Carol's house. Carol is the lady who facilitated our conversation with the women from the streets yesterday. She, along with a lady named Gretel, shared information and stories with us about how difficult and dangerous life is on the street for women. The stories they told were heart-rending. I really can't express just how inten...

Is how I feel. It was a good day, for sure. We took another extended morning, which felt good. I mostly just napped. We got to UNA (that's the school) and the team jumped into the classroom to talk to students. Lagos pulled me aside and we talked a bit about strategy and how he feels doing ministry and how he views our church. It was really good, though I feel for the leaders here. They all feel pretty lonely, since there are not many of them and they work in different sections of the church. The students and gringos came out of the classroom and I was able to reconnect with a guy I had met previously. He also is connected to a bunch of people from the Ohio team, which is exciting. They've made a lot of good connections and have spent some fantastic quality time pouring into the students here. I'm very proud of their work; it's laying a great foundation for H@ngout (which just started this year, btw). I got to meet a lot of other students and talk about accents ...

I can feel my brain fading before I've even started, so this might be short. But I'm also prone to not making any communication short, so I guess we'll see. Our team took an extra hour this morning before walking to campus so that we could rest a bit and have down time after the night before. As much as my heart was against the idea of doing an hour less of outreach, I know it was the right choice. Sustainability is so important; I've seen so much hurt come from people attempting to do good things unsustainably. If you aren't getting time with God, get time with God. Don't mistake Idleness for Rest. And pray that over people you know in ministry; pastors, friends, missionaries, etc. Ok, that's what I'm gonna say about that. We got to campus today and dove right into conversations that the Ohio team had already started. (The Ohio people are lovely, though I feel pretty separate from them most of the time. We have our team structure and things and the...

Which is kind of a big deal, but we'll get to that later. Today started like a day; I woke up, I spent some time with God, I got up, I had breakfast, I helped clean up, I made a total fool of myself in front of a stranger... While I was helping Maru (our cook lady) clean up, she asked me, "do you know how to drive? Can you help me?" Of course, I said yes, because those two questions are like the two most triggering questions ever for me, lol. Maru couldn't leave the kitchen because she was still making pancakes, but the electrician needed to get his work car into the driveway. So, she asked me to back it out and pull it back in. Somewhere, my mind said, "Hey! Wait!" but I didn't. As I walked up to the car, I realized why it was so weird for her to ask me if I could drive. It was because she probably drove stick-shift. She did.  Now, I technically know how to drive a manual, theoretically I learned once. But, you see, her car's shifter was s...

Scheduling-wise, today was the most chill of days.  We woke up and had breakfast, which was muy rico . There is a lady named Maruja who has been cooking for us this week with help from her mom. I think Maruja probably has kids about our age, because she moms at us. After breakfast we cleaned up and then Lagos laid out the plan for us in a little more detail, which I'm sure I'll lay out below. We relaxed and prepared for the afternoon until lunch, then after lunch we loaded up into a van and drove into San Jos é to play with kids in one of the poorer neighborhoods. Most of these neighborhoods are populated with people who have immigrated (largely illegally) from Nicaragua. It's pretty complex to get good work if you're here legally , so it's nigh impossible for them. After playing with the kids, we came back and had dinner and then chilled. Tomorrow (Monday) is when the crazy starts. When Lagos was laying out the plan for our time today, he let us know that one ...

Today felt like three different days, but they were all good days, so.  I woke up and read in Numbers a bit (weird stories there, but good stuff). Moses and Aaron did a lot of falling on their faces before God and God did a lot of vindicating them. Maybe there's a lesson in there about feeling less need to justify ourselves and more time intensely seeking God. Maybe. Anyway, breakfast was dope. Apparently the food here is muy similar to Guatemala (did you know I went to Guatemala once? It was a long time ago. I fainted.). Similar means it's lots of Rice and lots of Beans and sometimes a meat in the mix. But it's really, really good. Simple and good is a great way to summarize the life that I've seen here so far. Food and Culture, yo. You are what you eat? Maybe. Anyway, after breakfast we explored Heredia a bit - it's a lovely little city on the outskirts of San J os é, nice parks, nice museum, nice sculptures, nice green and vibrant everything. Oh, I...

We made it!  Our flight was un poco delayed, but that gave us time to relax and grab dinner (we had burgers, perfect last meal before leaving America). It was Hector's first flight, and it was a little bumpy, but he seemed completely unfazed by the whole experience.  Our flight was somehow filled with other Aggies. I sat next to a girl who is graduating in May and plans to move to Costa Rica to be with her family and decide what she wants to do next. She was there with a group of 5 other students, I saw a different student-aged group with an A&M hoodie, and there was a kindly old man with an A&M hat who informed the group of 6 girls that he was class of '54.  We arrived in San Jos é and worked our way through customs and immigration. They were more suspicious of us than I was used to, but we got through no problem. As we exited the airport, I was a bit nervous about finding Carlos Lagos, but he found us before I even started looking. He told us there are t...

Well...we're in the airport. We drove here, no problem, traffic was pretty chill. They changed our gate around and swabbed us for drugs, but we're in! Here we all are, lookin' fly. Be praying for a safe flight :)

We're days away from leaving and I feel GREAT about the trip! Our team is united, praying, and ready. Our church rallied behind us by donating a TON of hats for us to give to the church in Costa Rica. (Hats are a huge blessing to the homeless population there, as they are often discriminated against by, among other things, the fact that they are generally more sunburned than the rest of the population) We leave Friday at 2PM to drive to IAH, whence our flight will leave at 6PM. Here's a rough version of our schedule: Friday - arrive. sleep. Saturday - explore the city, build relationship with the church leaders (Carlos and Carlos), pick up the Ohio team* from the airport, church that night Sunday - having a party/hangout time in the slum with kids and their parents. Carlos expects about 70 kids/100 total people Monday - help Carlos (Gomez) work with the ministry that the CR church partners with ( La Sala ). La Sala focuses on loving and helping women who are ...