Here are my journal entries, with comments, from our trip this past summer.

7/30/08
We're in Costa Rica!
When we started practices, it seemed like we'd never get here, but here we are half-way through. Here's a recap of our activities so far:

Wednesday, July 23rd
Arrive at Manna Church at 2AM (!)
Depart for the Raleigh airport. Our flight was supposed to take off at 7am- but it was cancelled due to inclement weather. At first, we were told we wouldn't get a flight until the next day. Then, God worked it out so we all made it (on two different flights), to Atlanta. Our flight to Costa Rica was also delayed a few hours, so we finally made it into San Jose, CR at 12:30am (our time). All in all it was almost 24 hours later that we arrived in Costa Rica. What a trip! But we sure did see God's hand in orchestrating a flight to Atlanta, and the last leg of the trip into Costa Rica. By the time we got to Liberia, CR, it was 3AM (our time- 25 hours later...) We stayed at a hotel called Daisyta (it was beautiful).

Thursday, July 24th
We got up super early and went to two schools: Teocali, a bilingual private school, and another public school. At Teocali, they had a cultural presentation for their national holiday, and they even let us join in their broom dance- where the person left without a dance partner had to take the broom and sweep. It was quite an experience. When we came back to the hotel, we rested and then had some team bonding time swimming in the pool.

Friday, July 25th- We went to the festival and bought delicious ice cream treats. The vendors had tiny little carts, with an ice block that they would shave the ice off of into a cup, pour syrup on top, put some powdered milk in, and then pour sweetened condensed milk on top. There was a parade of all the schools, with different displays, etc. After the parade was over, we went back to our hotel, moved our belongings into El Salon de Victoria, the building they've rented for Centro Cristiano de Liberia, and got settled there. That night we went to the rodeo, which was pretty cool. The riders would come out on the bull and start hitting their spurs into the bulls sides and the bull would buck maybe 6-10 times, then the rider would either jump off or be thrown off. When the bull had calmed down a little bit, three men on horseback lassoed the bull and brought it back into the pen. I was glad it wasn't the other kind of rodeo where they actually kill the bull because that's just cruel.

Saturday, July 26th-
Outreach at the park; RUSH performance.
We went early on Saturday morning to set-up for the outreach. When we started, there was a small crowd watching and the response was very positive. After the performance, when we were packing up, a gentleman told us that we were very good and he really enjoyed the music and dancing. Some skateboarders also had a chance to try out our "patineta's" boards. They sure liked that : ) Another positive thing that happened was that a man from a local newspaper interviewed Magda, one of our team leaders and also a native of Costa Rica, about what we were doing. He said that if we come again next year, he wants to go around with us to each school and do a big story on why we do what we do.

Later that day, we prepared for an outreach at El Salon de Victoria by handing out flyers. I walked a few blocks around the general area with Carlos and Andrew. At the outreach itself, Audriana shared the good news about Jesus and we can have a personal relationship with him. Several people either rededicated their lives to the Lord, or came to know him for the first time. This is why we do what we do. We wanted to see people come to know the Lord, and the lost ones come back to Him. We also had fun teaching everyone a dance during worship, and it was exciting to interact with the natives. I really enjoyed it.

Sunday, July 27th-
We traveled by bus & car to La Playa Hermosa (The beautiful beach), a gorgeous paradise on the Pacific with crystal blue waters. It was breathtaking!! After a relaxing day playing soccer, swimming, playing water volleyball, and laying out, we departed by bus to Heredia. It was a long trip. We almost didn't make it that night because our bus broke down. It started smoking, and we thought something was wrong, and our leader was wise enough to tell us to run to the other bus. We were crammed like sardines, most of us standing, for 2 more hours. I sat down after awhile but it really wasn't that much more comfortable. We finally got to San Jose, and a schoolbus that had been rented for us took us the rest of the way to our hotel paradise, Hotel Ciebeles San Rafael de Heredia. It was like coming home, since I stayed at this same hotel last year. I ran in and went right to bed.

Monday, July 28th-
We all slept in after our many adventures the day before.
We went to the mall and window shopped for awhile. The Paseo de las Flores (mall) has a huge movie theatre in it as well, and the movies only cost about $4.50 each. That's half of what it is here- so we went to see The Dark Knight. It was pretty good, if a bit intense at times.

Tuesday, July 29th-
Performed at an elementary school and Samuel High School. Came back to the hotel for some seriously needed rest.

To be continued...