Day 3: Part two @ Villa Del Mar

For the past month I've been blogging about my 7 day Costa Rica Mission Trip that I returned from last week. If you haven't read about the other days yet, start from the beginning with Day 1. To read all about all the preparation to GET to Costa Rica, just check out old posts on the right or scroll to the bottom.



Every day while we were there our lunch was taken care of, either through the Orphanage we were visiting, or by Hotel Jaguar, where we were staying. The exception to this was our second to last day when we went to Puerto Viejo for dinner at Brian's restaurant, Loco Natural. Brian really was the reason our trip ran so smoothly, and because of that we were able to focus on why we were there in the first place and not worry about water or where our meals were coming from. More on that later.

But I say that so you'll understand how hospitable the orphanages were while we were there. At Coco's Orphanage on Day 2 they served us chicken with beans and rice, which was delicious, and on this Day 3 at Villa Del Mar we were served lunch as well. On this particular day we ate before the kids, and if memory serves me correctly this day we had pescado (fish) with beans and rice. It was really good too, and the whole time we were there the Tia's were in the kitchen getting our food AND the kids food ready.


Between our group and the kids, we're talking like 20+ meals! They were just so nice to do this and thats a LOT of food to prepare! I kept offering to help them in the kitchen and they would shoo me out with a smile.

After we ate, we played some more and got to know the kids better. Its amazing how well we were able to interact with them knowing little (and for a lot of our team no) spanish. The kids just really needed people to spend time with them and give them attention and we were happy to do that.




This game was SO MUCH FUN. Of course Angie came up with it, and she put on this song we danced to while holding a balloon in between us. You couldnt use your hands and then she would call out a different body part to transfer the balloon to. So she'd say, "CHEEK!" or "KNEE!" and somehow we'd have to get the balloon from our backs to our cheeks or wherever else she called while we continued to dance.

This was a blast and Tara and Aricely won hands down every time. I think its cuz they're both the same height (read: short)


Before we left I took the opportunity to peek upstairs where the kids slept, take a look. There were three rooms I believe that looked just like this and then one for Sandra, the Tia (Aunt).


Here's the outside, where their playground is located.


It was time to leave Villa Del Mar and we were really sad to go! We had SO much fun, but we knew we'd see them the next day at the beach. And now since we've met all the kids and already developed some great connections, we were excited about the whole day even more.

We left Puerto Limon but our day wasnt over yet. We had plans to go to a skateboarding park run by a missionary family from Florida. They do a BBQ every Friday and we were invited! So we drove to Puerto Viejo, about an hour south through SO many bumpy roads and potholes. We've gone through a lot of potholes at this point but going into Puerto Viejo is much worse. I'm just sayin. So we pull up to this AWESOME place and this graphic was up outside on a sign. I got really excited because seriously JUST how cool is that!



Once we arrived we met Barrett, his wife Amy and their two daughters (youngest not pictured here)



They moved to Costa Rica I think four or five years earlier and have run this ministry for the kids in their area. Amy told me when they moved there, her oldest was 5 and her youngest was 18 months. I KNOW RIGHT.

So they used to have 4 or 5 people that worked with them but now its just the two of them. You can tell they really enjoy what they're doing but they really need prayer because its very difficult work having it just be the two of them now. I hope we encouraged them a bit while we were there because they're doing such great things and it was such a cool experience being there.

Kids were all over, skating or hanging out on the bleachers they had while we helped them prepare the BBQ.



Barrett opened in prayer and said a few words in English, then another younger fellow said a prayer in Spanish as well. Then it was like a punk version of "all skate". We had a great time and it was nice to relax and hang with such great people.



Tomorrow we'll be AT THE BEACH with both orphanages and we cannot wait!! Here's the next installment of Day 4 here.