Today was a different day than the rest as we helped with the Feeding Ministry. We ate breakfast at 7:30 and left around 7:45 en route to La Carpio. On the way, we got the chance to sing some of our chorale songs to our bus driver Gabriel. Some of us, especially Mr. Harris, have become good friends with him and it was awesome to be able to share our singing with him. The ride to La Carpio was pretty long. The neighborhood we were headed to was right beside a dump and all the trucks were unloading their scrap metal and garbage, so there was no room for buses to fit. After a while, things finally got moving and we made it to the church. Bruce explained some of their history to us and how the church had started from literally nothing and the pastor and his family had to sacrifice basically everything to start the church. Then Christiana, the pastor's wife of the church, explained the rest of the details and shared her story. Now, the church has 200+ people and it's thriving and currently they are partially under construction to make it an even better space!
Every day except Monday and Friday, the church has this program called the Feeding Ministry. Children from all over La Carpio come to their church and have lunch, play with each other, and learn about Jesus. The building where the kids were fed was about the size of 1/4 of a tennis field.. Imagine putting our team of 20 in there, then add 35-40 kids! And add the fact that there was no air conditioning or air flow and it was about 80 degrees and humid! It was a tight fit, but we made it. We helped serve the meals and drinks, and some of us helped feed the younger children. After that, we helped clean the dishes and then went up to the second story of their church. The size of it was a little over half a basketball court, so there was a lot more room to run around. We played with the kids for a good while - dancing around, making bracelets, coloring, playing tag, and just running around with stickers and placing them on everyone. Most of the kids were from rough homes, many were abused and didn't have parents who truly care about them, so it was awesome getting to just carry them on our backs and smile with them and share some of our time and love with the kids.
Next we ate some pretty great pizza and I guess this detail didn't really need to be said but it was so good so I think you all needed to know THAT IT HAPPENED AND WE ATE AND PARTOOK IN IT AND IT WAS SO GOOD. OK. Costa Rican pizza is killer.
After that, we left and brought out the American side in us and went to Walmart!! Which let me tell you, IT FELT GREAT entering somewhere that felt like a taste of home *insert cheesy magazine quote with pumpkin recipe*.
Following our Walmart trip, we went to drop Bruce off at the Abraham Project. We were supposed to get sod yesterday, but it wasn't available so they got it today while we were at the Feeding Ministry. When we got there, they had laid about half of it down. IT. LOOKED. SO. GOOD. Just seeing all the work we've done all week to have this grass finally laid felt insanely satisfying.
We got back to Franco's around 5:20 and had dinner, then had devotions at 8:15. Throughout the week it has been super cool to see our class grow closer together and become more like a family. I'm blessed to be surrounded by these people. :)
Thank you for our prayers..tomorrow is our last full day!!
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