What's Next. And I'm Stoked!

I've never been to Disney Land. I imagine it is wonderful and something like a wish coming true for any child. You know that feeling you get when you are really excited? I am not a person to hide excitement. I dance, I jump, I shout, I sing. This is the kind of excitement I imagine that children who are fortunate enough to go to Disney Land experience. This is the kind of excitement that I experienced when Leslie told us our next step in Jaco....


I have spent the last two weeks in San Jose, Costa Rica. It's about an hour and a half from where we live in Jaco. We came here for two reasons: Learn Spanish and help out with Metro Ministries. In the morning I would wake up to my Ipod quacking at me and wonder why I ever set my alarm to be the sound of a duck. I would then spend several minutes debating on whether or not I actually wanted breakfast and why breakfast at the San Jose base is served at 6:30 in the morning. The rest of the morning consisted of Spanish class until noon and several cups of coffee. Robbie, Lisa, and I hired a tutor to help us learn Spanish. I learned all of my Spanish in Mexico. I thought I was getting pretty good, and then, I switched countries. For those of you English speakers, the accents are different somewhat like the accents between the USA and the UK are different. If you are from Michigan, the best anology I can give is comparing the accent of someone from the Mitten and a Yooper. Perhaps you can now better indentify with my struggle to adjust. And so I used this time to cram a little more Spanish into my head and try to acclimate best I could to Central American Spanish.


Do you ever meet people who make you say, "Wow,"? Picture Renate Fast. Renate is wow. Renate is a German missionary in Costa Rica. She speaks German, English, and Spanish and almost single handedly runs a children's ministry in three locations throughout San Jose. Not to mention, she's got a pretty cool name (it means 'Born Again" in Latin.) Renate is in charge of Metro Ministries and the Youth With a Mission base here in the capital. Metro Ministries started in the Bronx and our dear Renate has continued it here. I could not tell you the number of kids she works with. Take the number of your fingers and your toes and multiply it by a lot. She works with about that many kids. And so we tried to help her and the ministry out in any way we could. We made animal masks for a drama, pin the tail on the donkey cut-out, and helped put on the program. I think that my favorite aspect of this ministry is that Renate does a thing called visitations. On the days that she is not putting on a program for the kids, she drives out to their neighborhoods to spend time with the kids. She stops by their homes and talks with their mothers. She makes a real effort. You can tell that she cares and through these visitations she really gets to know the kids and what life is like for them outside of the weekly program she puts on. This is the kind of thing I want to do in Jaco.


And so you ask, "What is it that you will be doing in Jaco? What is it you are all excited about?" Let me enlighten you. Robbie and Lisa are my roomies, my friends, encouragers, and my team mates. We will be working along side YWAMers Scott and Leslie Freeman and their ministry in Jaco. And so when Leslie began telling us earlier this week what exactly that means, I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was. Leslie began like this, "Last week I went to go check out a school, that I thought you might be able to help out with. The kids from the poorer community go there and I was thinking you could work at the preschool. But when I arrived I just got a funny feeling, like something wasn't right." At this point, my heart sank. I had just been thinking how great it would be to work with preschoolers! "And sure enough, the people weren't super friendly at the school and they already had enough volunteers," Leslie said and I tried to hide my frown. "But I started praying and asking God what He wanted for you girls! And I remembered another school I had visited about two years ago but I couldn't remember for the life of me where it was!" To make a long story short, Leslie kept praying and God showed her exactly where the school is and they were more than excited to hear about the prospect of three volunteers. And so I start Monday! My team and I will be working in a preschool with ten students. How cool is that? Aren't you excited for me?! It sounds like my kind of kids ministry! I can't wait to tell you all about it. And I really hope to take what I learned these last two weeks in San Jose. I can't wait to get back to Jaco and meet these kids. I feel like a kid headed for adventure at Disney Land. ;)