Day 17 (10): A Weird Day, but quite lovely

So, I know I haven't taken a lot of pictures. But, I definitely made up for it today. I'll put the bestest ones here, but there's MORE. That's a link to my google drive for fotos.

So, today we did not go to the CDI, because we were invited to Duke's Texas BBQ to try out some of the food before they open later this month. Alas, however, that plan fell through. But, today was a good day:

Katie and I were breakfast crew, so we made.....Eggs. We've eaten so many eggs in this Airbnb. Like, 77 eggs. And we've been here for 9 days. That puts our predicted egg consumption at 256.6 eggs before we leave. Now you know that.

After breakfast, we....had worship in the park! None of our friends in the neighborhood (Andres, Rodger, that lady) have joined us yet (except Andres the one time). Maybe please pray for that.

Once we discovered that our Duke's plan had shifted, we decided to still go to Heredia and make today our day off. We reached out to two students to invite them to join us (they had work, alas). We took the bus to Heredia with Ana. Lagos, if you remember, is en route to Indiana to share at a wedding for two people that met each other on a Costa Rica trip (aw...). We told our little 7-person team not to get any ideas when they told us that story.

Anyway. We rode the bus with Ana. We made it to Heredia (yay!) and ate lunch in the park. I love PB&J, y'all. It's just so good. We got to have some good conversations with Ana, which was really cool. Then, while we were eating, something amazing happened. I didn't believe it could, but it did. It was beautiful...and a little weird, but hey.

Matthew caught a pigeon. With his hands. And it just sat there, trying to pull its head into its body. It was the start of a day of many wilderness adventures with Matthew. Most of my photos today are just him interacting with nature.

After lunch and pigeon-catching, we walked around Heredia for a bit. I bought a batido (smoothie. it was delicious). We walked and walked (we put in 10k today, 6.2 miles). We did swing by Duke's to say "hola" to Gomez and see the restaurant. They have a life-size longhorn (yea, yea, ssss) in the middle of the restaurant. It's amazing. It's just really well done. It's Texan enough to be fun, but still classy. Sometimes I feel like when you theme a restaurant after a culture, you don't always do it well. In College Station, there's a French-themed crepe place near my house. It's tasty, but it looks like a Texas grandma who's never been out of the country just bought all the Paris-themed decorations she could find at Hobby Lobby and hung them up in a restaurant ("wow, Sam....kinda harsh.." sorry. but not enough to delete it).

All that to say, I think Duke's is legit. The logo is fun, the decorations are awesome, and someday I'll let you know how the food is. Though if you want a good evaluation of BBQ, you'll need to read Katie's Blog, I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to what makes meat good or not. I just like it. My brother is into grilling right now, and I think he's really good at it. I LOVED when he made steaks for us. But, I don't have what you'd call a discerning palate. In fact, I actually misspelled the word "palate" just now, because I haven't spent much time interacting with it. A N Y W A Y (sheesh, brain), Katie's good at that kind of thing, it's like a skill she has.

While at Duke's, we got to see Justin and Saul(from the CDI)'s mom and dad, which was awesome. Duke's is doing something really cool with their hiring process. They are hiring students from the universities the church ministers at, they are hiring people from Barrio Mexico (the neighborhood in the Merced District that the church is ministering to), and they are hiring highly skilled people for specific jobs. In everything from construction to decoration to customer service, they are funneling the start-up money into the community here in a way that (especially in the COVID-smitten economy) is making a huge difference. An important piece to it being successful is having the work overseen by a team of savvy business people who are making sure that, while being incredibly generous, the business is also being wise and making good hiring choices to ensure long-term sustainability and success.

I say "long-term sustainability and success/impact" a lot in describing the work of this church, which is really encouraging. In college ministry, we still want those things and take steps to work towards them, but we almost never see the fruit. I was thinking today about a friend of mine; I'm really excited by the steps he is taking with God, but I felt a tinge of sadness that I will likely only get to see his life first-hand for a couple more years. This church is in it for the long-haul though. They are starting with kids, training them as students, mobilizing them as adults... it's lovely. And well beyond my ken, to be honest. I'm not sure I know how to invest deeply, for a lifetime, in people. That's parenting I guess (thanks Mom and Dad).

Duke's. We walked with Ellie (S&J's mom) to the bus stop and rode back to Chepe (San José) together. We then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in the Parque Sabana, which was converted from an airport into a giant park in the 1970's. It gets called "the lungs of Chepe." It was beautiful. This is where most of the Matthew-interacts-with-nature pictures happened.

Right in the front of the park is the Museo de Arte Costarricense, which was really beautiful. We walked through and looked at all the paintings and sculptures and just... experienced culture. I loved it. There was a room where all of the walls were a giant metal mural timeline of Costa Rican history. It started with the indigenous peoples (about whom the guide didn't know a lot), showed Columbus landing to say hi and name the country, then leave (they love him here), all the way to the building of the airport. It was really interesting stuff.

We walked more. Nature, nature, Mangoes in a tree, Matthew in the tree, Mangoes in the bag. Flowers everywhere, flowers in Sam's hair. Big ants, bees without stingers but with mandibles, Matthew bitten by a bee. Walking, walking, walking. Beautiful views. Much nature. Did love.

We walked back to our Airbnb, with a quick stop at a French pastry store (very tastefully decorated) and a grocery store. We invited Ana to come for dinner, so we made amazing chicken pineapple tacos. Dinner was delicious (way to go Sam and Katie), hanging out with Ana was a lot of fun, though we missed Lagos. After dinner, we ate our pastries and watched Episode 1 of Season 2 of The Chosen.

Now, Matthew (our party's Bard) is strumming his guitalele, Katie and I are working on our blogs, and Sheryl is doing something on her computer. Unsure what.

Tomorrow we'll be with the younger kids at the CDI. I'm feeling really excited to see them and get to do what we do.

PRAYER:
- for the hopes and plans this church has for sustainable change to come to fruition
- for the schedules of the H@ngout students to line up with ours so we can invest more in them
- for our team to be healthy and rested and centered on God
- for the kids at the CDI. Just...that God would bless and call and shape and protect them
- for the Universities here to re-open for in-person classes soon

Pictures: