Day 2: Today Was A Good Day (a.k.a. your prayers are WORKING, don't stop!!)

Just waking up in the morning, gotta thank God. I don't know, but today seems kinda odd. I slept really well, y'all. Had a good quiet time in the morning (Galatians - "don't do things in your own strength, rely on God"), had a great breakfast with a side of conflict resolution, met up with the team and walked to the park to pray and worship together. Scripture and worship and prayer is just such a great way to start a day. Much bless.

Lagos and his brother Alejandro joined us and we took the city bus to the CDI. When we met Alejandro on a previous trip, he lived in Honduras. He's been helping out a lot with the church here in Costa Rica though, and now he lives here! Oh yeah, did I mentioned he married the daughter of one of the leaders in the church? Funny how that happens. Alejandro is amazing and was a life-saver for our team today.

At the CDI, we finalized our plans, got everything ready for the kids to arrive... ... ... and chilled for a couple of hours until they came. It was a good chance to rest and get to hag out as a team, but we may seek for ways to use that time better in future CDI days. To be fair, Lagos and Jovany had to leave us there and take an Uber to a sketchy part of town to try to resolve the issue with Airbnb's host here scamming our team. Thank the Lord for Lagos and how he fights to take care of us.

"Did the kids ever show up?" Wow, you read my mind! That's exactly what I was gonna say next! The kids showed up! As they arrived and we checked temperatures and got names, there was a little bit of an awkward stand off as they looked at the weird gringos and as we stared at these kids whose language we don't speak. Then, Matthew and I picked up the toy balls and started throwing them around. Approximately 2 seconds later, we were all best friends. As other kids came, they jumped right into the game and we spent probably an hour and a half, just playing around together before we did anything. I feel like I constantly have to re-learn the lesson of how powerful fun can be in building relationship. Whether it's doing crazy things with college students or coloring with 2nd graders, fun allows time together and little glimpses into personality that really are irreplaceable.

Anyway, we threw balls, we colored pictures, we jumped rope, we sang about cows. All the basics. (and all while trying to eat lunch on the side) Then we did our "English lesson." I talked for about 2 minutes about God creating the world and how it took 7 days and how that means that nothing and no one happened on accident, but God made each of them on purpose and loves them. Then we learned some numbers in English (that the kids may have already known) and played a game with said numbers. 

We helped the kids with their homework, which for Alejandro and I meant helping Natasha (who was like 6) cut out pictures and perform small coordination and comprehension activities like jumping over things and rolling on the floor. It was my best possible scenario. Because that's like my intelligence level in Spanish. Sheryl and Izzy helped Justin with his science homework and unit conversions. I crawled like an alligator and walked slow like a turtle....and helped a little girl maul paper with her scissors. 

After the kids left (around 5), we got on the bus and went home. We had about an hour of down-time before dinner and our evening College Group Zoom Hangout, so some of us walked to a McDonalds to check out the menu differences and buy pre-dinner fries and ice cream. Then we ate AMAZING fried chicken for dinner in the hotel sitting room. The lady that runs the hotel came over and offered to let us eat in the dining room next time, "so that we will be more comfortable," though I got the vibe that it was actually because she wasn't thrilled about us eating on her couches. We were very careful to clean up very well.

The time on Zoom tonight was a game night. We played a "name that song fastest" game and a "guess whether or not the other people on zoom are wearing pants (or shorts)" game and a fun version of telephone pictionary called Gartic Phone. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. The students had a ton of fun with us, language barriers notwithstanding. At the end, Lagos shared a brief encouragement from scripture and invited everyone to come join us tomorrow in Heredia (nearby college town where the ministry H@ngout is focused). It was so encouraging and exciting to watch Carlos and Ana Raquel doing student ministry. They are INCREDIBLE. They connected to their students and kept them engaged (even over Zoom) and generally did an amazing job. What a team, what a couple. Dang.

If y'all remember my prayer requests from yesterday, it made a HUGE diferencia today. Like, a notable difference in each area. Thank y'all so much. Please, please keep praying for us!

Tomorrow we will be going to Heredia, la ciudad de flores, in order to connect to college students for H@ngout. We aren't sure that the parks will be open, we aren't sure that students will join us, we aren't sure what exactly we'll be doing. Pura vida, mis amigos, pura vida. My supervisor (hi Rollin) recently suggested that I thrive in chaos and maybe enjoy it. I think it's only when I plan for there to be chaos, but he's definitely onto something. I am nervous, but excited to engage with college students here. It's so starkly different from ministering to little kids, but it's also one of my favorite things in the world. Though, I'm insecure about doing it in Spanish. So much of how I do ministry is based on being able to understand nuance and operate in relationship with people. Guess that whole thing in Galatians about relying on the Spirit, not on myself is pretty timely.

Y'all, our team did SO WELL today. Like, it made me feel emotions. I am so, so proud of everyone today. 

PRAYER REQUESTS:
- Some people did not sleep very well last night, please pray for good rest
- We're having some language struggles (amplified by masks), please pray for sharp minds and clear ears and supernatural understanding.
- Keep praying for us physically, for relief from pain and protection from sickness and injury
- We are and will be hit with different spiritual attacks: discouragement, conflict, logistics problems, etc. Please pray that God will fight for us and use everything for good and that we will have peace
- Tomorrow we'll hopefully have opportunity for more spiritual conversations, this time with college students. Please pray for students to come and parks to be open and good conversations to happen.
- If you're into praying for people by name, here's the kids we spent time with today (many we had met last year): Isabela, Genesis, Sharon, Natasha, Justin, Saul, Axel. 

All right, we all know you want more pictures. Here's the thing though, we (deliberately) don't take many pictures with or of the kids. If there's circumstances where we can, we will (I think Katie got a good one today!), but we don't want them or their parents to feel like we are tourists coming in to objectify them ("oh, look at the poor little foreign kids we're helping."), and we definitely want to be careful to stay away from that mindset for our own hearts. So, we'll get some pictures of them (and a lot with the college students), but don't expect a whole bunch. 

Walking to the CDI, a lovely view of Matthew and Alejandro's heads

Speaking of heads, here's Jovany standing on his. He worked briefly as a clown I think

(which, I did too, but I can't do this, so...I was a much lamer clown)

Matthew and Hugo, outside the CDI with it's steel shades pulled down