vision team from abilene

We just said goodbye to a group of thirteen from Abilene, TX that worked in Missions in Vision Clinics and VBS this past week. We worked for two days at a home in Caporal de Aguas Zarcas, about 15 minutes from the camp. The next two days we worked in La Salon de las Delicias de Aguas Zarcas, a bit further down the road towards Pital.
Half the team worked with the kids in Vacation Bible School. Two of the girls that worked in VBS, Min Ju and Lauren, were both musicians, so they worked with some of the kids to offer piano and guitar lessons. Several kids that Brett and I have been working with tell us they wanted to learn piano and guitar. It’s quite rare to find people that offer music lessons in the small villages here. If children can make it to high school, they have opportunities to learn how to play a recorder or join the high school band. It was a blessing to have music lessons offered to children in elementary school. When they weren’t giving music lessons or singing, they decorated and made foam visors or played kazoos that were handed out.
The other half of the team worked in the vision clinic. First, there was a registration table, where Brett helped translate and fill in forms because many patients couldn’t read or write. Some of the pastors and congregation from the church in Pital helped with communication with the more “rural” Spanish speakers. When Brett and I come across rural folks with Spanish dialects so strong, we often can’t decipher what is being said. The patients were then sent to the Acuities’ test, where I helped translate with a fellow named Nate when patients would go into detail about what there issues were. If there vision was 20/40 or higher, we would send them onto the Focometer with Lidia and Jack or Richard, before testing what lenses worked the best. If they just needed reading glasses, we would send them directly to Sylvia or Amanda who would help them find what they needed. David and Amanda were the experts in the lenses’ section, where they’d send patients away with clear vision in their “Harry Potter” style lenses.
Most patients went away ecstatic to be able to see clearly for the first time in their life. Some came hoping for a miracle. One lady named Sidey recently had laser surgery that went wrong, leaving her legally blind. A second surgery had been done to try and correct her vision with no luck. She was also a diabetic with high blood sugar. We had to send away anyone with high blood sugar, since it affects the vision so drastically. We asked Pastors Wilbur and Adolfo pray for her, to offer her some reassurance, since her issues were beyond the power of the vision team. There were also several young kids whose teachers had recommended they get their vision checked when they complained of seeing letters backwards. When their vision on the Acuities’ test checked out to be 20/20 or 20/25, we suggested they might want to talk with a counselor about the possibility of dyslexia or another learning disability. We are learning that there isn’t proper education on learning disabilities in the school system. Rather than giving special attention to children that have trouble learning, many children are held back in school year after year.
Also during the week, Brett and I took turns tutoring our regular students: Katherine, Jenny, and Adiel. They have exams coming up next week, so we are trying to bump up the frequency with which we help them. The week before last, we visited the two high schools where our students attend school, Liceo and COTAI. We are trying to organize a way to know their curriculum ahead of time, so we can be properly prepared before our tutoring sessions. The counselor at Liceo was extremely helpful. In fact, she called in most of their teachers over the loud speaker out of their classes, so we could talk to them. The counselor at COTAI was more protective of the students, and she didn’t want us talking directly to the teachers. Instead, we are trying to send messages to the teachers through the student. This may in fact be a better system, so the teacher and student have more direct communication.
I have been having great difficulty working with one student in particular, Jenny. She has no desire to study or listen to my suggestions or my attempts to help her learn. She just wants me to tell her the answers rather than work towards understanding the material on her own. I had to walk out of one session after she had called me a “bruja” or “witch” and chose to play with a little video game rather than work with me. I know the times I am able to work with her is when the grace of God gives me patience to try and get to know her rather than force her to work on something against her will.
Brett has been continuing to visit the boys at the orphanage in Linda Vista. Last week Brett helped them plant sunflower seeds and taught them the Parable of the Sower from Luke 8.
The women’s bible study and sewing class has died down until the dry season returns. Dona Theresa, who was teaching the sewing portion, preferred not to travel during the rainy season. I am still continuing with the English class, where we try and pray or incorporate a bible study into the class. We have been meeting at a home in Linda Vista, since Brett and I returned from the states. We now have refreshments after every class, which is quite a lovely time to get to know the ladies in the class better. Jenny and her mother are also in the class, so hopefully the better I get to know them, the quicker we will get to the heart of why Jenny is not passing in school.
This coming week, there is a team from the US that will be conducting Veterinary and Medical Clinics. We may spend some time translating, but Monday we are making a trip to Atenas, three hours from the camp. We will be meeting with a fellow from EMI, Engineering Missions International, to discuss the possibility of doing some architectural work with them. Since the camp currently has no need for our architectural services at this time, we thought working with EMI would be a good opportunity to keep us in practice with architecture. I hope to eventually get licensed in Costa Rica, so working with this group might open some doors there. They currently have projects in Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala. We have been invited to participate in a project trip in Mexico for a week in September, but we are still praying as to whether we should attend or not.
We are also trying to get a land telephone line, so as to not have to stand out in the yard, under the tree on one leg while grabbing a branch with one hand and holding the phone in our hand with the other, in order to make phone calls from our house. All attempts have failed thus far, so maybe God is trying to keep us separated to some degree too keep us focused on the mission here and on our marriage. Again, I have to pray to not get discouraged by such mild inconveniences. This is just another part of life on the mission field. God gives us exactly what we need, all the time.

La epoca de la lluvia...The rainy season

Hello...

We are back in Costa Rica after a nice visit with our families, friends and supporters. During our mandatory exit from the country we visited three states SC, NC, and WV. It seemed like everywhere we went people were having babies, adding to their families. It was great fun getting to know all their new faces. If we missed you on this trip we hope we´ll catch you on the next one.

The rain has started here and probably will not stop for a couple months. In the last five days I would estimate that we have received about twelve inches, which is too many centimeters to count.

We hit the ground running and have been working at the camp, tutoring, and catching up on all the events of the three weeks that we were away. The summer crop of VIM teams has begun to arrive, I think there will be 12 weeklong teams just in the months of June and July. We are slated to join them working in the North near the border and closer to the camp on projects such as church building, bible studies, well digging-drilling, and medical-vision missions. We will be translating, swinging hammers and perhaps even working with doctors and patients.

We imagine this time period will be substantually different from our routine to date, as we will be traveling with some of the teams and away from the camp more often as well as participating in mission work in different aspects.

Brooke and I have additionally made contact with EMI, an engineering and architecture mission, located in CR where we may work as architects in the mission field. They work throughout Central America and we could potentially produce plans for projects in multiple countries, should this door open to us.

To further add to our repsonsibilities, Brooke just this morning spoke with a teacher at the local elemnetary school about teaching English to 4th through 6th graders. It is something at which I think that she would excel and we are looking forward to more news on this front.

Our time seems to be more and more full with projects and plans, we pray each day that they are God´s plans for us and we appreciate all your prayers and support. More soon. Love Brett and Brooke