I Came Home... a Piece of my Heart Stayed

In the summer of 2008 my husband and I were blessed to be chaperones on our Church’s youth group mission to Costa Rica.  I was very excited but I was also very scared.  You see folks; my idea of roughing it is staying at the Hampton Inn.  I knew the conditions weren’t going to be great but luckily I didn’t know just how “not great” they were going to be.  If I did, I honestly don’t know if I would have gone.

Before we left, we loaded up with tons of donated and purchased items.  Necessities like toothpaste, toothbrushes etc but also fun things like combs, hair pretties, coloring crayons, coloring books, play dough and so on.  The day we left everyone brought their suitcases to the church.  We weighed each one so we could juggle things around and not go over the limit.  It was a miracle how we were able to take everything we had collected with not an ounce to spare.

When we landed in Costa Rica, we were picked up in what I guess you would call a bus (it was no Greyhound that’s for sure).  It seemed like we drove for an eternity.  The driver kept saying “soon” but 2 hours turned into 4 hours and 4 hours turned into 6.  I wonder what the definition of soon is in their language? We finally arrived at the banana plantation which we would call home for the next two weeks.  It’s hard to explain but the plantation was so big there were different little villages scattered within.  We pulled up to ours and kids came running from everywhere to meet us.  They were dirty and their clothes were worn but they had the brightest smiles and whitest teeth I have ever seen.  For me, it was love at first sight. 

They helped us settle into our new abode which was in their “church”.  It was a pole building, not a nice one at that, with a concrete floor.  There were several pews which were some boards nailed together.  Have I mentioned yet that Costa Rica is highly populated with mosquitoes, spiders, fire ants and other nasty creatures?   At night we would put two pews together to hold up our mosquito nets.  Next would be the spraying of a bug repellent barrier around your sleeping area.  Then you would throw your sleeping bag in and crawl under the net as fast as you could to keep the scary things out.  Every night some would inevitably make it through the barrier and net causing the girls to scream which in turn caused the boys to laugh. 

Are you remembering the whole Hampton Inn/roughing it statement?  When I first saw our sleeping conditions, I seriously almost went into cardiac arrest.  I can’t even tell you about the bathrooms (which consisted of one for the boys and one for the girls) because there are no words to describe them.  I will simply post a picture and leave the rest to your imagination.

My routine for the next couple weeks was to wake up, gather enough courage to use the bathroom, eat breakfast and thank the Lord for surviving the night (and the bathroomJ).  After breakfast all the girls walked to the two room school to teach.  Insert…. The school was two miles down a dirt road which wasn’t too bad problem is we had to walk to school in the morning, walk back home to eat lunch, walk back to school for afternoon classes and then walk back home.  Let me tell you, eight miles every day is a lot especially for a person whose regular form of exercise is typing on a computer.  I soooo wanted to call a taxi but… there was not only no taxi but there was no phone either. 

 At school, we would do art projects, practice English, give science demonstrations etc.  My favorite was when we brought bubbles.  I think it was a first for most of the children and the look on their faces was priceless. Aren’t they cute in their little school uniforms?  The plantation provides those for them.

 The boys (except one had to go everyday with us to school as our escort) stayed home to put up steel beams which was the start of a community building.  They had their own obstacles.  The tools and equipment or lack of didn’t make the project easy.  They even had to fashion a ladder out of some scrap wood.  Thank goodness there is no “OSHA” in Costa Rico or this job would have been SHUT DOWN. J

In the evening, all the children would come around and check us out.  Since there was a language barrier, the first few nights we did the girls hair and the boys played football.  They turned out to be great icebreakers and towards the end of the first week their girls were doing our girls hair and even took a turn on Pastor Joel’s. J 

Many strong bonds were formed during our time in Costa Rica and God’s presence was felt by all of us.  On our last day it was so hard to leave… the boys the girls, even the men the women, every last one of us was crying. These people we had grown to love were poor, lived in huts with dirt floors, and had no indoor plumbing or electricity but you know what… they were happy.  They didn’t know what they didn’t have and they were thankful for what they did.  I have so much and they have so little yet I’m ashamed to say I’m probably not even half as grateful as them.  To this day, I still miss the amazing friends I met in that little village on that big banana plantation in a remote part of Costa Rica but I thank God for taking me there.  I came home but a piece of my heart stayed.

Life’s better with butter" and going where God sends you. Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to see the beauty in a place that is far different from my world.  When I’m feeling sorry for myself, please remind me to be more like my friends in Costa Rica… grateful not greedy.