Costa Rica STT

Today went really well, though I've felt off all day. Unsure why.  Breakfast was tasty and worship was good. No one joined us today, but that was relaxing. I kept dropping things today, but nothing breakable. I just know that I'm going to break this phone. It's tuanis , I'm not used to it. After worship, we made a plan for today, made lunches, and then headed to the CDI. We rode on the bus with the same driver that Sheryl befriended yesterday, which was cool. We stopped by the AM/PM to snag some snacks for the kids and then got into and set up the CDI.  We got everything set up, cleaned a little, and then waited until the kids showed up. We had a smaller group than usual at first, but then Justin came and brought a new friend, Joshua, with him. We did our DBS (Discovery Bible Study) over the story of the guys unroofing the roof to lower their paralyzed friend to Jesus. We then had the kids act out the story to help solidify it, and to make it more fun. I did this one su...

We made tacos today. They were spicy.  I did run this morning! Not very far and not very fast, but I ran, so... that's something I reckon. After my run, I spent some time working on 1 John 4. It starts out with an interesting and very strong injunction against false prophets. I wonder what the apostles would say about our theology and stuff today. Have the heresies changed all that much, or just put on new faces? Random thought. Moving on. Sheryl and I were on breakfast duty, which was fun. After breakfast we had worship, which was lovely. After worship, the Lagos invited us to their home for coffee and second breakfast. We got to have some really good conversation with them about our plans for the rest of the trip and the CDI and H@ngout and also sent a lot of gifs and things to each other on WhatsApp. It was a good opportunity to connect more with them, which is always welcome. Their apartment is such a peaceful place and just invites good conversation. After a while, we headed b...

Weird to think we're 1/3 done with our time here. Though only 1/6 done with the portion that's just the smaller team. Today was pretty low-key. We made breakfast and had worship in the morning. Lagos and Ana joined us, which was lovely. Afterwards, we sat for a while and talked about ministry and a bit about church structure and the specific culture of the homegroups and cluster I am part of.  H@ngout is incredibly unique in the world of GCLA churches in its methods and structure and student focus. So much of what we do at Fellowship has been tweaked and refined over the 45 years we've existed, and has been informed and grown by opportunities to learn from our sister churches in Collegiate around the nation. I think it's encouraging for the Lagos to get to hear about other ministries and how they do things. My hope is that, as our partnership grows, we'll get to have more exchange with them. I would love to see some of their students come spend a week with us in Col...

I know that things happened today, but I'm not entirely sure what all they were, so I'm gonna start typing and we'll learn together. Today for breakfast we ate all our leftovers and small bits of the food we had left from our first grocery run. Then we worshiped together in the park (a nice lady complimented us on our singing, but didn't join us.....yet).  We walked to the grocery store and got supplies for the next week. We are able to strategize a little better because now we know better how a week can look. Though, we'll probably master the art of living in our Airbnb right around the time we leave. That's how life usually goes; you master a season right around the time it ends. That might seem frustrating, but only if you view the point of life as operating from a place of having control. If you view the point of life as learning and growing and being stretched, then it makes sense that you would start a new lesson once you've learned the current one.  W...

Another day happened! Matthew and I cooked breakfast, which means he made Gallo Pinto  by doing a lot of complicated things, and I made eggs by making eggs (and taking little pieces of his leftover supplies to add flavor to the eggs). It was fun watching him work. Our stove uses induction. Induction, apparently, means magnets. So... we're cooking with witchcraft is about as far as I've gotten. It's very fast.  Worship after breakfast. We sat at a picnic table this time. It was good...I think... I don't really remember any specific direction. We worshiped and prayed for the day, though I know some of the team didn't sleep very well last night.  We bused to the CDI, no problema , and set up and got ready. Today, we decided that I would lead the DBS for the little kids, and that we would to the story of Zaqueo  (Zaccheus). Georgen  and the kids arrived, and we played, and then danced, and then started the lesson. Each time we ask the kids to pray to start, they pra...

Have you ever had something small happen that occupies way more thought than it should have? Last week, while we were sitting in the hotel lobby, we started a game of catch with a paperclip. It was super random, but fun. Izzy and Matthew are very good at catching and throwing things (the rest of us aren't bad, per se, just less excellent). I spent a not-insignificant amount of time playing catch with the wall today while we were waiting on the kids, because I want to get better now, lol. Anyway, last week, while we were playing, the paperclip disappeared. Vanished. We searched for it for a while, then switched to a mini carabiner. But I heard it bounce. And every time that I was in the lobby, for the rest of the week, I briefly searched for it. I moved couches and lamps and the rug. Inordinate amount of time and thought. When we left, I gave up and just added it to my list of things I want God to explain to me when I die. It's sad.  Anyway. It's things like that tangent tha...

 So, the date for these posts is almost always wrong, because by the time I get around to posting them, it's tomorrow. But still today, because it doesn't count as tomorrow (to me) until I sleep. I know, that's not how dates work, but still. That's how Sams work. That's a weird way to start a blog. I think you get a lot of my flow-of-thought here. Maybe also look at Katie's Blog for a different perspective. I was talking to the team tonight as we were eating our Chizzas (if i wanted you to know, i'd tell you), and I said that some moments here, I feel like I could totally hack it here; I feel like I've getting the hang of just doing life here. Other moments, I feel like I am in over my head and maybe this was all a mistake and thank God that we didn't come for the whole summer (usually those moments coincide with the moments where my brain decides to forget Spanish). Today was one of the former. We took the bus by ourselves*, we ran things at the CD...

Almost like an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire type thing. Except it's just life and ministry, so it's all good things.  Anyway, today happened! TL;WR: We sent off the half of our team that was staying for the week, and did a bunch of stuff to get ready for the month. Here's what it looked like: We woke up today at our normalish time, I didn't aprovechar  my last chance for hotel breakfast though. We had our worship time, and were joined by 5 (?) other gringas who were in the park. Even though you might think it would be better to keep that time for ourselves and not share our last worship time as a week-long team with some randos, there was something beautiful and perfect about it. I think our relationship with God does have aspects to it and pieces of it that we don't show to anyone; intimate things that are just between us and God. However, I think that those are far less than we might think as people in an individualist culture. I think God has made our rel...

 I started to write this post, but then I accidentally clicked the Twitter shortcut on my favorites bar and spent 30 minutes reading titles of Babylon Bee articles...I regret nothing. Well, not about that 30 minutes. Today was lovely. I think I feel sad right now, but I don't know why, maybe we'll figure it out together.  Like I said, lovely. Slept well, read some more 1 John and talked with God a bit, had breakfast (still magical). Our week-long teammates went with Lagos to get COVID tested so they can fly back to the US tomorrow, and the four of us that will be staying went to the park to worship and pray together.  Matthew invited Andres (our Russian-techno friend from ayer ) to come worship with us, and he did! Worship was really fantastic. Matthew played his guitalele (guitar that is a ukulele or something like that) and introduced us to a wonderful song, "Christ is Mine Forevermore." I loved it. I actually bought it and am listening to it as I type. I liked Matt...

I think God likes prayers about rain more than other prayers. It rained today, but just enough to be fun. That doesn't really relate to anything, but it felt really important that you know that. So now you do. No, I won't type the whole blog post this way, that would take up a lot of space. I woke up this morning (it'd be awkward if I didn't, though I did get my affairs in order before I left), read some 1 John (I think I'm gonna memorize chapter 4 soon), got some breakfast. We slept in a little bit, so that felt nice after the movie night last night. After our morning worship time, Hugo and Alexis went with Lagos to his apartment to make empanadas for lunch, while the rest of us (Sheryl, Izzy, Katie, Matthew, Sam (that's me)) spent time planning and brainstorming (i originally typed "Brianstorming," unsure what that would entail) for ways to strategically disciple and love the kids we're working with for the next month. Having a plan always feels ...

 Today sure did start at 5:30 AM.  So, real church community, so far as I understand it, comes down to Doing Life Together. That means playing and celebrating together, praying and worshiping together, mourning and hurting together, and working together...all focused on and for the sake of God's glory. If you don't have people in your life to do that with, go find them. And if you have those people, but are missing pieces, take steps to do those things together. It's worth it.  "Coooool Sam, what's that got to do with getting up at 5:30 AM?" Yisssss, good question. Today, I feel like we got to see and be part of the church here doing life together. This morning, we went to Duke's to help unload trucks full of a bunch of heavy stuff. Then we moved bags of dirt* around and put plants into the dirt that we put into the places that we took the dirt out of. That lasted until like 11:30 AM (with a break in the middle for breakfast). So, we moved boxes and oved d...

 Hello again! We got up at 6:30 this morning to work out. "We" was Hugo, Matthew, Sheryl, and I. Hugo made a workout that didn't kill us, so we would still be useful today ( gracias, Hugo !). I finished Galatians, and talked to God a bit, then had breakfast (still good, gallo pinto  and eggs and toast and stuff), then walked to the park to worship together. We were pretty quiet this morning, but our worship time was lovely. We have "our spot" in the park now, and even have met one of the other people who hangs out there in the mornings. He told me his name was Charlie Brown. I don't quite believe him, but who knows? We walked to the bus stop and bussed to the other bus stop and walked to the CDI pretty uneventfully. But we had good conversations and practiced some Spanish. Once we were in the CDI, Lagos walked us through an explanation of the ways that the branches of their ministry all connect to one another. It's really interesting, but I won't dra...

I made a mistake. The first thing I did today was tell Hugo that, though I wasn't going to work out with him today, I would tomorrow. So... this may be my last post since I might die from his workout regimen. Still kicking it in Galatians, today was about the freedom and joy we get to experience as children of God. It is a super encouraging and beautiful picture, with a context of, "so stop trying to live like slaves in his house! Get over your rules and start operating from relationship!" Sheesh, Paul, just @ me why don't you? Today started off really well! (does that mean it ended poorly?) I got a solid time with God, an excellent breakfast, and then we walked to the park and worshiped together. Worship was lovely; God spoke a lot of encouraging things, many in line with the joy and freedom I'm seeing in Galatians. We also got to listen to some birds being birds. Matthew knew things about the birds. I don't know things about the birds. Sorry to all my bird p...