Reflections on Our Sojourn in Costa Rica
We flew into San Jose, Costa Rica, and were relieved to find that our accommodations were very posh. We were able to relax and enjoy the beautiful swimming pool and the great Wi-Fi service there. It was a nice few days of collecting ourselves as we knew we were going to have a long bus journey where we would spend the rest of our Costa Rica experience in Golfito. It did rain some, but we never realized what rain was until … but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The long bus ride took us to Golfito from San Jose. It would have been fine, as the bus was fairly comfortable, but unfortunately, I was coming down with a severe head cold. 8 hours later, I was so happy to reach our Airbnb.
Why Golfito? We chose Golfito because we had some connections there with friends back in Oregon. They were teachers from Livingstone Academy. This school happens to be the school that I attended for the first 10 years of my education where I have some really fond memories. So, why not Golfito?
Livingstone students had gone to Golfito to help build the church a few years back. In fact, the school had sponsored several trips for their students for school mission trips. Naturally, we wanted to go there to see if we could be of any help to this area.
We enjoyed the Golfito SDA church and getting acquainted with some good folks here.
We enjoyed potlucks with this sweet little church.
Rick helped out with the Pathfinder club, helping to teach knots to a few kids.
They enjoyed challenging their new knot knowledge.
Golfito, Costa Rica is the longest time we stayed put in one country so far.
Golfito is a small port town located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is known for its natural beauty, with lush rainforests and nearby wildlife reserves. The town also serves as a gateway to the famous Osa Peninsula, a prime ecotourism destination. Golfito was once a major banana port, and remnants of its banana history can still be seen.
We had a lovely house to live in with beautiful views over the bay and a close walk to the grocery stores and restaurants. However, what we didn’t realize is that when they say it is “rainy season,” they really really mean it!
It rained quite heavily pretty much every day, usually later in the afternoon. Thus, if we needed to go into town, we needed to do this early in the morning. Plus, it is quite hot and extremely humid here. These facts made us less inclined to go out and experience the great outdoors, but rather to stay nestled in our cute little house.
With a nice kitchen, I was able to flex my cooking muscles. It was fun to experiment with making vegetarian hamburgers from scratch, whip up some spaghetti, and cook same-day fresh fish for Rick. He seemed to enjoy my culinary talents. Did I mention that the fruit here was awesome!?!
We were delighted to be able to enjoy popcorn in the evenings. Yes, it’s the little things, isn’t it that makes us go ahhhh. Also, we enjoyed the fast Wi-Fi we had, so we were able to catch up on our blog and stream movies in the evening for our entertainment. This was definitely what we call our living mode.
We did sneak outside a few times if we thought we could dodge the rain.
We took a trip up to the hills to see the view of the valley in the cool of the evening and to take a Tarzan swing over the hill at sunset.
Of course Rick had to swing like Tarzan upside down!
We went across the bay to have lunch and see the other side of the bay. We saw some boys fishing with rope tied to a stick. They said they caught fish with this simple set up and were working on dinner. The sunsets on the bay were always stunning.
Rick was able to help out with a church member whose house had been collapsed by a mudslide from floods from torrential rain. He helped salvage the roofing of the house so that they could use it again on a rebuild, and also to reclaim some of the contents of the house that he could safely reach.
It was hard work as they had to shovel off heavy clay mud just to get into the house. It was a very hot humid day. They used a little 4-wheeler to assist in transporting the roof once they extracted it off the house.
The occupants of the house were very grateful for the assistance and praised God that they had been alerted by the loud noise, which they recognized, and had run out of the house grabbing their baby just in time to get out for safety. No one had been hurt. Praise God!
We found out later that our local SDA Church with the assistance of ADRA & the Costa Rican government helped these folks get re-set up with some land and assistance with rebuilding a house.
We also had the opportunity to help launch an English language school with a local church member. We starred in a video advertisement that is geared for children in the community to come and learn English and also to play and have fun and learn about Jesus. The plan is that the teaching will be conducted by traveling volunteers who are native English speakers. They will get room and board & the opportunity to make a difference.
Rick got to teach the first student – a hyper-enthusiastic and fun nephew of our new friends!
Unexpected mission work opportunity alert – Rick felt called to join his sister on a last-minute Maranatha trip to Kenya. His sister wanted to return to Kenya; it had been 40 years since she had lived there. It was a wonderful time for them to work together, get reacquainted with Kenya, and participate in a Maranatha Volunteers International mission.
For those of you who are not familiar with Maranatha, it is an SDA-based mission organization that travels all over the world to assist with building churches, dormitories, and schools, and providing other needed services such as medical and dental. Maranatha missions are family-oriented; whole families with their children are encouraged to come, as they can help out with VBS (vacation bible schools) and with construction. We have gone on several Maranatha missions and we appreciate that they are organized well, are safe to attend with the whole family, and are a lot of fun. You get acquainted with mission-minded folk like yourselves and make friends for life. What is not to love, right?
Kenya Mission – Rick & Sharon
In September, Rick’s sister Sharon announced that she was going on a construction mission trip to Kenya. Within minutes of hearing about this, Rick decided he would go along with Sharon, and within a day he was set with visas, airfare, hotels, and tickets for the mission that was just three weeks away. On arrival in Nairobi, the team got to visit Rick’s and Sharon’s grade school/academy from childhood, Maxwell Adventist Academy, and then traveled, with a stop in Lake Nakuru National Park for some wildlife viewing, to the town of Bomet, where they’d stay while building a new dormitory for the Kimogoro Adventist School. The project consisted primarily of constructing a large concrete block building, with rebar and mortar. The foundation and roof frame were already in place, as was an expert local team. The volunteer team also conducted VBS for the students throughout the project.
The old dorm
Dorm in construction
New dorm filled with goodies
Rick and Sharon primarily worked on the block walls – troweling mortar and laying block, carrying block, knocking out rebar channels in the block, pouring concrete into the wall at the rebar locations, cleaning the trowels, and just tidying up at the end of the day.
They also carried scaffolding and planks. They joined the VBS team, for fun with the kids.
The volunteer group had some exceptionally capable builders, and they got ahead on the project.
They had time to bring the roofing sheets to the building, work on an adjacent retaining wall, carry and assemble beds in the dormitory, and outfit the boarding students with mattresses, sheets, pillows, some clothing, and much more.
Sharon also supplied medical kits to the school administration after realizing the need.
Sharon brought girls’ hygiene kits. These were of assorted sizes but contained essential hygiene items that young girls need & can reuse.
Sharon then taught the 7th and 8th-grade girls how to use the hygiene supplies.
They team gave Bibles to the students, worshiped with them, and gave Bibles (in local languages) to another church and school.
The school is located on donated land high in tea-growing country, with beautiful views all around. It was fantastic for Rick and Sharon to visit Kenya again and see how well the lovely Kenyan people are taking care of their country.
Rick was also able to meet up again with a long-time missionary associate from India. Kotesh currently works for Maranatha and is essential in managing the team.
Rick was able to meet up with the leader of one of Rick’s and Marta’s favorite missions (from two previous trips), the Olmalaika Home for vulnerable Masai girls.
Kim came over one evening and gave information on her mission which is to end female genital mutilation (FGM) & childhood marriage. It was received well!
And they made lots of new friends. After the construction project, they had a day and a half of safari in the incredible Masai Mara National Park, where they completed seeing the Big 5 game animals, plus cheetah, and so much more. Finally, it was time to rejoin their families.
Meanwhile, I (Marta), stayed back in Golfito. The cost and effort of going to Kenya were not something I was interested in doing as I still had quite a lot of work to be done to get the blog updated. I missed Rick a lot, but I enjoyed just puttering around the house and taking my walks to the grocery store in our little town. What made this time bearable was that I was able to video chat with Rick almost every day. Just seeing his happy tired face made me very happy! I think Rick is happiest when he is doing mission work.
Costa Rica Outings
We did have the opportunity to go on a few outings. We met up with Fernando Zelaya who is, among other things, a wonderful tour guide (he also coordinated the Tarzan swings over the bay and over the lake, the Pathfinder assistance, the mudslide recovery, and, with his wife Linneth, is starting the English school – he’s the reason we chose Golfito).
Fernando took Rick on a waterfall/canyoning trip starting with a bushwhacking jungle climb and ending with massive rappels down three waterfalls, a swim through a cave accessed behind a
waterfall, and jumps from cliffs into pools below.
It was a fun trip but a bit more challenging than I would do.
I was glad he went and I got to see the pictures!
Coffee
Our wonderful guide, Fernando also took us on a trip up northeast high into the mountains where we visited a coffee garden – Coffea Diversa.
Now they call themselves a “garden” as they don’t grow just one variety of coffee but 100s. They experiment and grow smaller specialty coffees for specific users.
They informed us that their coffee wins prizes and is sold around the world in specialty shops.
They had such lovely paths to walk on and even cute little places to overnight.
We were able to try some of their coffee, and it was very tasty!
We found it relaxing to just sit back and enjoy the scenery while sipping the coffee and cake.
They showed us how they pick their coffee and separate it, and the large drying racks.
This was very interesting to see the variety of coffee plants and their different development styles. It turned out to be a lovely educational day.
We found a nice net that Fernando had hung by the lake.
We stayed at the Chocuaco, a nice eco-resort with cute little cabins, a lake, and a decent restaurant.
It was a pretty little lake where you could walk around, and also canoe it.
Rick did the Tarzan swing out over the lake – this one was also built by Fernando, and it had an extra cool feature – a trap door launch. It was a lot of fun to watch and do.
Some of the lily-pad flowers were spectacular!
We stayed long enough to get acquainted with a few folks from the church which is always a bonus.
It is so nice to be invited to their houses and break bread with them. It reminds you why we are Christians and that we all have shared interests and love for God’s family.
We enjoyed our 3-month stay in Costa Rica. The people were nice and friendly, and it seemed safe all around. The Tico food was inexpensive, and the scenery was beautiful lush jungles.
Would this be a place we would visit again? Yes and no. Costa Rica, we definitely would visit, but perhaps not in the rainy season.
Although we had a relaxing time here, we still were able to get acquainted with folks, see some awesome sights, get some mission work in, and remember to take time to be quiet.
Be still, and know that I am God
Psalm 46:10
Wow – what an experience in Costa Rica! You saw and did so much, met wonderful people, helped out, had fun and experienced the rain!!! I’m SOOO glad Rick joined me in Kenya too! : )