March 8-16, 2008; Athens and Language School Teams

During the weekend of March 8-11, the camp hosted a team from the Language Institute in San Jose, a.k.a. ILE (Instituto de Lengua Espanola), where Brooke learned Spanish the previous year. ILE is primarily for missionaries headed to various countries in Latin America. Every trimester since Steve Semler was a student at ILE, a group from the school has come on a weekend-long mission trip. There is usually so much to learn from this group of career missionaries. This year they hosted a Vacation Bible School at the school in Linda Vista and included kids form the local orphanage as well as had a construction team at the new cabin at the camp. Lalo from the La Carpio mission brought 5 kids from his 12 year old soccer team to participate in the mission trip. This was the second time these boys had been on a mission trip to San Carlos. A few months earlier, they worked with the kids from the Linda Vista orphanage and formed an amazing relationship with these boys. Kids can relate better to other kids, right?

On Saturday, a team from Athens, GA arrived at the camp. We didn’t hook up with them until the Language School left on Sunday. We attended church with them on Sunday in Santa Rosa, and were asked to help translate the sermon. This was the first time we had done such a thing, but I think we made a good team. When Brooke lacked understanding, Brett was able to jump in and vice versa… When neither of us understood, Pastor Giovanny tried to dumb it down into the simplest form of the Spanish language as possible.

Throughout the week, the team continued on construction projects in Santa Rosa and the new cabin. They also started a house across the street from the camp for Pedro, Juanita and their kids, Kimberly and Beto.

An introduction to some other missionaries and employees at the camp:

Pedro and Juanita are both missionaries and employees at the camp. As missionaries, Pedro has a calling to preach, which he was involved in when they lived in Los Chiles, and Juanita has a clown ministry, which she has started in El Mirador since they moved to the camp. As employees, Pedro is the construction foreman for all the construction projects for the camp (the towns with buildings under construction include: Santa Rosa, the New Cabin at the camp, Los Chiles, Pital, and Coquital). Juanita cooks her delicious Costa Rican meals for the teams as well as helps Mary take care of her father at times.

Mary’s 94 year old father has lived with them at the camp since 2002. Two years ago, another missionary, Peggy, came to live in Costa Rica, to help Mary take care of Papa. Peggy’s parents founded the Central Rural Metodista in the 1950s, so Peggy grew up at the camp, and now is a huge help with her bilingual and caretaking gifts.

Wolf, or in Spanish, Lobo, came to stay at the camp for 6 weeks to help with the mission teams. I believe his specialty was working in construction, but God changed that his second week at the camp, when he twisted his knee. So he was forced to take it easy and relax a bit, something I don’t believe he was used to doing. By the time the Athens group came, he restored enough strength to help build some cabinets at the home of the new pastor in El Mirador. We were blessed to have him as a dinner companion during the weeks that teams weren’t here.

The Athens group had vacation bible school at the church in Santa Rosa and the school in San Rafael. Pastor Martha broke up the lesson into 3 days with 3 rotating groups each day. The first lesson taught about Jesus as a child, when his family left Him in the temple (Luke 2:41-52). The 3 stations were the kitchen station, where the kids were served healthy snacks to teach that Jesus ate healthy food, the drama station, where the kids acted out the story, so as to visualize the events of Mary, Joseph, and Mary traveling to Jerusalem, leaving Jesus behind, and then returning to find him preaching in the temple at such a young age. The last station was the craft station, where the kids made cards for the people they appreciated in their life, such as their teachers, their pastors, or their parents. I (Brooke) was blessed to receive a card from a few of the kids, one of them thanked me for all I had done for them, which was quite special to see their appreciation after having both worked with them in bible school and painted their classrooms. The next day, the kids were taught about how Jesus healed people in Matthew 8, and the final day taught about the Feeding of the 5000, (Luke 9:10-17). When Martha was explaining the lesson for the day to Giovanny, she humorously mixed up her Spanish to say that Jesus ate everybody ¨Jesus comió todo¨, instead of ¨Jesus dió comida a todo¨ or ¨Jesus fed everybody.¨ Giovanny was sure to preach that lesson to ensure the kids understood that Jesus was not into eating his followers.

I (Brooke)put a lot of stress on myself trying to make everything perfect for the Athens team, trying to organize their day, where they were going, who was going where, etc…There was a lot of learning that I don’t need to plan so much. The whole mystery of the mission field was what attracted me to it in the first place, because God is always the leader, and the day is always filled with surprises. But there I went anyway, acting the gringa that I am, trying to organize and pre-plan everything. I was left exhausted by the end of the week, but the Athens group recognized this. They were so kind to show Mary, Marion, Wolf, Brett, and I the love of Jesus by washing our feet during their last devotional. It is hard to be served when it is so engrained in me that I should serve others. But this is what Jesus does always to restore us, if we just let Him.