Wednesday, August 7, 2013

A chat with Devon and Taylor


Hello, this is Taylor Diehl (T) and Devon Zweifel (D), and we are juniors on the Asbury cross country team. We are going to take turns telling you about the wonderful experiences we had in Costa Rica today!

T - We started our day with another lovely run at the track.
D -Well, I'm not quite sure that lovely would be the correct descriptive word...
T - Anyways, after our run we all went back to the church to finish the concrete floor.
D - Wait Taylor, we have to tell everyone why we ALL went back to the church. Yesterday we finished the last of the painting at the children's home.  All the children and tias (meaning "aunt" in Spanish, the nannies who care for the children) loved the bright green and purple that we used in the home, and it brightened up the whole house.  So today we all decided to join the others at the church to knock out the last of the concrete flooring project.
T - I was so glad that the whole team got to spend our last day of work together. It gave the rest of us a chance to experience the toils of mixing concrete from scratch. We all had a lot of fun with each other, and with the other people working with us.
D - For those of us who hadn't been working at the church, though, it was a bit intimidating to come in on a job that the rest of the team had been a part of for the past three workdays.  Despite the hesitancy, it wasn't long before we all just jumped in to help one another out: constructing bucket brigades for sand and gravel, passing the shovel to help mix the concrete, and passing those same buckets back to pour the newly mixed concrete.  It was quite the endeavor, but so awesome to see our team work together so well with the members of the church to finish the project.
T- It was hard (but kinda fun) work mixing all of gravel, dirt, and cement into concrete with shovels! We had no cement mixer, but mixed it all on the ground.
D - Halfway through the concrete mixing process, myself and three other girls went back to the children's home to say one last goodbye before we leave. Before we even walked through the gate, the kids began yelling and running to come see us.  They came bounding out of their rooms and began playing with us - just like we had never left.  Between the picture taking and farewells, it was so nice to reflect on the crazy, hectic, and wonderful times that we spent in that home, serving the children and the tias each day.  And by the time we returned to the church, the group was nearly done with their project there!
T - My favorite thing that we did today took place after we finished pouring the concrete floors. The guy in charge of the project, Luis, brought us all over to the wall and began to plaster it with cement. As we all tried to figure out what he was doing, he handed us four coins. The first was a nickel from the US, and the other three were coins from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. "Remembrance this moment" he said. We then realized that each coin was a representation of all of the different people who had helped on this project. (There were teams from Guatemala and Nicaragua also helping.) Once we had cemented each coin to the wall, Louis drew lines connecting each of them and said "unity." It was so neat to see such a creative representation of the four different cultures that came together to work on this project. We all put our thumbprints on the wall and took lots of photos of the occasion.
D - After each member of our group made our mark in the concrete, we all sat down to listen to the pastor express his appreciation for the work we had done.  After previously going to worship with the pastor and his congregation on Friday night, it made all the work we had done a little bit sweeter, knowing that the expansion to the church would allow so many more people from the community come to worship with this amazing group of people we had come to know over our time working there.
T- I actually hadn't felt like we had done all that much, but hearing them thank us helped me to realize just how much all of our work meant to them. It made me so happy that we were able to be a blessing to them and their church. Afterwards, we gave them a poster that we had made and a soccer ball which we had all signed as a small thank you to them for letting us be a part of the crew.
D - To wrap up our day, we all returned to the house we are staying at to listen to the testimony of the man who had set all of our projects up for us, and had been working alongside us throughout the week to ease us into the experience - Steve.  Without going into too much detail, I will say that we were all deeply touched by the stories he told us and the amazing work that God has done, and is still doing, in his life.  It was a wonderful way to end our last day of hard work in Costa Rica, and a great way to reflect on the amazing power that God has in all of our lives.
 T- We ended the night with a little trip to the mall, where we quickly found that everything seems to be expensive in Costa Rica. We did get some delicious mora flavored ice cream though! All in all it was a wonderful day.
T & D - Hasta luego amigos! Thanks for all of your prayers!

Mixing cement without a mixer







saying goodbye to the kids at the children's home







































Today was also the last day running the bible school at Carla's house. We walked through the neighborhood recruiting kids to come. We did the same activities we did for the previous days. Coloring, puzzles, a bible story, a song, and craft. The kids were so excited to sing the song and make the craft. It made us so happy because the previous days the kids didn't really want to sing, but today they sang so loud!
we look forward to a day of fun tomorrow touring around Costa Rica and going to some natural hot springs. Hasta Luego!


For your enjoyment... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhsy6epaJGs