Cultural Immersion(5th Full Day in Costa Rica)

Sunday was a very relaxing day, starting with being able to sleep in 'till 8:00 oppose to our usual 6:00. The wonderful aroma of good ol' classic American pancakes was in the air as we walked downstairs for breakfast. It was refreshing to have some food that we'd all have in America instead of the gallo pinto we've been accustomed to. The bus picked us up at around 9:00 for church at the Abraham Project. The worship in Costa Rica is very upbeat and a lot more exciting than a traditional church service we are all used to. It was extremely fun to see the differences in our church services in America to the ones here in Costa Rica. After church we got about three hours of playing games with the local youth group. We met all the kids in their youth group and got to play nine square and fútbol with them. Nine square was left behind as gift to the project by a previous missions team that visited.  We played fútbol in an soccer field just a few blocks away from the project, which we walked to after cleaning up nine square. Fútbol, being the favorite sport in the country, was very competitive with the locals. We were all split into three teams of seven; one goalie, 3 defenders and 3 offenders. The field was roughly the size of the Shalom gym, maybe a bit wider, and was played a lot like how we play indoor soccer in gym class with the main difference being you can't play the walls. After an hour and a half of fútbol we went back to Bruce and Angie's house for a time that is only practiced in Costa Rica: a coffee break. This is practiced among everyone in Costa Rica and is used as a time to relax with friends and family over a cup of coffee. Even big businesses will stop working for a coffee break at around three P.M.. At Bruce and Angie's we had all different types of bread such as: bread filled with custard, caramel, apple, pineapple, and guava(a type of jelly). Bruce also made us coffee the old fashioned way using a chorreador, which takes a lot of time but tastes a lot better than throwing it in a machine and letting it do the work for you. A chorreador is very easy to make and costs little money to buy one as well. During our coffee break, Bruce shared his testimony with us which was very interesting to see how God worked in his life to take away all the bad. After around 3 hours at Bruce and Angie's we went to Eliel's house for something called cell group. Cell Group is a lot like a small group at church or even sunday school. At cell group we sang a lot of worship songs together in both Spanish and English, then a man named Onry, who is also Eliel's brother sang some of his own songs with us. His songs were a mix of rap and reggae and are part of the ministry he does himself on the streets of San Jose. He shared his testimony with us as well after he was done singing. A lot of us are planning to buy one of his CDs tomorrow. He is very successful with what he does and is even on the radio sometimes on christian stations. After a good night of worship and conversing with the locals about their own testimonies and lives we got on the bus to head back to Franco's. We arrived at Franco's at 9:30 and all headed upstairs to get a good nights rest. It's back to the grind tomorrow, getting up at 6 and working all day long at the Abraham Project.