Costa Rica

To be honest you guys, it's hard to stop from all I've been doing to write about my adventures, but it's good to reflect and to keep you all updated.

Costa Rica was a blast and I had so much fun there. We did miss our flight to get there though, which I got a little frustrated about but we had just enough in our emergency fund to buy new tickets. We just had to hang out in the Mexico City airport of 10 more hours than expected. But hey that's outreach and we are flexible and prepared for anything.

After a rough time in Brazil, we started out our time in San Jose Costa Rica with a relaxing weekend of worship and meeting the people at that YWAM base. We then took quick a long bus ride to Puerto Viejo, further south close to Panama. There they have a fairly new base that is hosting their third DTS. We started our stay by helping the base clean out and organize a storage closet/tool shed. The first step was to get everything out, and there was a lot of random things and broken things that had been thrown in there. We then made piles of similar tools and painted the walls inside the room. While that was all happening, half of our team was cutting and building new shelves and bamboo buckets for nails and screws. Out next project consisted of digging holes at an indigenous community center so that they could build a fence around the playground area. The dirt was more like mud which turned into more like clay which was pretty difficult to dig out but we did it. We only could go so far without cutting down some bushes and banana trees but we got the posts cemented in there and all set up for them to finish the project when they have the time. Our last project that we worked on was the holes for posts for a foundation of a house. We measured and dug all the holes they needed. It was really cool and encouraging to see, a few days after we left, a video of them building up walls on the house that we started. While we stayed at this base we really got to know the DTS team pretty well and loved hanging out with them. Even the night before we left we hosted a worship and game night. We made crepes with mango and pineapple and just had a great time of fellowship with all of them. It was a time of very practical work in Costa Rica, but we also did some evangelism down at the beach and in the little tourist shops along the coast. I had some good conversations with people and just tried to be kind and encouraging, showing what being Christlike is. We told them our story and why we're here and they would open up and tell us the same.

While we were in Costa Rica, our base leaders, Karen and Joe came to stay with us to join us and just be encouraging. It was great to have them and hear about what they've been doing and tell them what we've been doing too. Also, our outreach leader, Brye, mentioned to us that he would like to offer one of us the leadership position for a few days if we wanted. I volunteered and took on the leader role, communicating with the people at the base about our projects and relaying that to our team. It was a good challenge and something different. I really learned some cool things, communication skills, patience, humility and so much more.

Back in Brazil, a person from the other team we were partnering with asked if I was a leader and I said no, but it got me thinking. I would like to come back I thought but I told God, "if you approve of this please give me two other people I've never met to confirm this". So that was on my heart during this time of leading for a few days. Another thing that I forgot to mention was that we lost yet another student at the end of Brazil. He had some family problems going on at home and had to leave. So of course that was disappointing and hard for our team but we've really grown closer through all of this craziness.

Towards the end of our stay, we heard that our flight to Thailand was cancelled because we had a layover in China and that airport was closed due to the Corona virus. So we got our money back but the question was where to next? We went out for some pizza and had a meeting all together to talk and pray about where we should or could go. Our base leader and finance lady, Karen, had a list of all the places we had enough money to go to that didn't require visas. After enjoying some really good food, we had a quiet prayer time just to listen to God's voice. I heard very clearly from the Lord where we were supposed to go. When we all came back together everyone expressed what they had heard and guess what? We all heard the same thing...amazing! Of course I'm not telling every detail but I really enjoyed Costa Rica and am continuing to love this team and our adventures. Tune in next time for some stories about the Middle East!

Love and miss you all!

-Anna💛