Day 2: Anyway... ('sploring, praying, howdy ohio, church on saturday)

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 José, nice parks, nice museum, nice sculptures, nice green and vibrant everything. Oh, I didn't tell you this, but there's a little garden area behind the hostel that is amazing. many plants, much bright, very nature. It makes me wonder if the green spaces here are planned out or if they just happen if you leave nature alone in Costa Rica. 

Anyway, after some 'sploring, we spent time praying and walking around the city and then on the campus. Lagos showed us the area where their college ministry meets on campus (in an open area since the university won't allow religious groups to use rooms). We prayed a lot there. The campus (UNA - Universidad Nacional) is very progressive and wants to make sure everyone knows that. The college ministry, H@ngout, does a great job of showing the love of Christ to students and allowing the Holy Spirit to be the source of life change for them. That's so important for any ministry; controlling behavior has never needed to be our priority. It usually doesn't work, and when it does it's usually at the expense of the relationship to some degree.

Anyway, after prayer walking, we got lunch with Lagos, Esteban, Ana, Jesica, and Jovany. I may or may not have spelled those all correctly. Esteban, Ana and Jesica are all from Honduras and came down to Costa Rica to help during the trip! That's amazing to me. We are such a mix of a team; Texas, Ohio, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia...it's glorious. Oh yeah, I haven't gotten to the Ohio part yet. My bad. We spent the afternoon chilling, walking, talking, bonding. We walked down to the parque and listened to live music and watching people dance. Rachel did not catch a pigeon. Notably, she didn't try to catch one. There were a lot though. One landed on a kid. Several were almost stomped on by a different kid.

ANYWAY, we walked back to the hostel and arrived right as the Ohio team rolled up in their vans. There was scurrying and unloading and introductions and settling in. They all seem really nice. There are 11 of them, so A-Whoop to that. Let's see if I remember names: Grant, David, Kelsey, Courtney, Dera, Abby, Mallory, Sam, Amanda, Blanca, andddd….darn. Sorry person. After a brief settling, we all loaded up in said vans and drove into San José for church (Saturday nights is when they meet). The name of the church is Iglesia Gran Comision San José. It was really awesome to worship and fellowship with the believers here. Everything was in Spanish and my brain did better than I expected, worse than I hoped at keeping up. Conversation afterwards was rough, but I survived. It usually takes my brain a couple of days to switch gears and actually function in Spanish. Even then, it goes in waves of being able to understand, but not speak then being able to speak, but not understand. I'm mostly in a can speak/can't understand mode right now, which is ironic since one of the key verses from tonight was in James, "be quick to listen, slow to speak." That's my brain though, it betrays me sometimes. Shoot, my heart is worse I guess.

Anyway, after we ate after church, we came back to the hostel, worshiped a bit (and got to share our format of worship with some of our new Ohio friends), and debriefed from the day. We took time and prayed over each other in a ministry-team-type format. It was lovely.