hey everyone, i made it to the villa safe and sound. not
gunna lie it has been a super hard transition for me. i never really
experienced that super excited i just wanna get down there feeling that
everyone else seemed to have. i felt like i as the only one walking off the bus
once we arrived at the villa that wasn’t excited. and that feeling of being
alone in a foreign country with a bunch of strangers scared me to death it took
everything inside of me to not burst out in tears. if it weren’t for my friends
hope and alex, i probably would have spent this week laying in my bed curled up
in a ball crying wanting nothing but to go home. alex has been one of my best
friends for several years now and even tho i was so mad at him at first for
signing up for the gap program (selfish, i know), i couldn’t imagine being here
without him. hope i just recently met at the beginning of august. God was in
control and worked it out that i would be able to meet her prior to the
trip. i was so upset when i found out
she wasn’t in my room but we have been put in the same small groups and
assigned to the same church and ministry, which was a super relief. don’t get
me wrong, i have been making other friends but she and i have really been able
to connect. i feel like i have known her my whole life haha.
so heres a little intro about the staff:
andy and tina: andy is one of the directors and tina is his
wife. they have 4 little kids and live like 2 minutes away. andy sort of
reminds me of my youth pastor jake haha he’s a good guy. i haven’t really
gotten to know him too much but he seems chill. tina is fairly busy with the
kids and pops in every nw and then with the kids. she’s a sweetheart.
john and rebekah: these two are jut about the cutet people
ive ever met. john is crazy smart and i cant wait to get to pick his brain.
bekah and john have a 3 month old baby boy so she is busy with him and pops in
and out like tina. i cant wait to get to spend more time with her.
both tina and bekah like being involved and love passing
their children around.
sonya: sonya lives in the villa and is around a lot which
has been great.
there are 4 interns brandon, eron, courtney and sydney. i
haven’t really been able to get to know them very well but they seem super
chill.
anyways so we got down here last tuesday and like i already
said i was immediately super homesick.
the day overall went very smoothly tho.
WEDNESDAY there was more orientation and we walked to the
bank to exchange our american money for costa rican. after the bank we took
busses into san jose to get a feel of what it looks like down town. later that
evening, we found out our small groups. my small group will meet every thursday
and consists of me, hope, becca, and steph. our leader is sonya (she is
absolutely amazing) from my understanding in small groups we will be digging
through the book of romans though out the year.
once we found out our small groups we split up and my group played 2
truths and a lie then went around and told a brief testimony and something that
we are struggling with right now. after
that we had freetime for a while then it was bedtime.
THURSDAY was the start of our spanish evaluations. they
literally took all morning it was so boring. we we started with a multiple
choice test then once we finished that we moved to another area to wait in line
for the oral test. it went fine i just thought
it took forever. after we all finished those, we had lunch. after lunch it
started down pouring. some people left to walk to one of the little stores down
the street but a lot of us sat around in the living room for an impromptu
worship time. it was kind of cool to just be hanging out like that. after the
rain had died down some i left with another group to go to the store. sometime
around dinner, our church groups and ministries were posted. i am going to el
lugar with 9 other people on sunday mornings for church. and will be working this
a missionary named jairo with a 4 other people working with kids and teens in
high risk areas. i guess a lot of it will be playing soccer so this shall be
fairly interesting haha.
FRIDAY we found out what spanish class we were put into and
had our first mini lesson. sometime that afternoon, sebastian came by and
talked to us a little about costa rican culture and he shared his testimony.
sebas is not too much older than most of us here and he has a good relationship
with the staff here. his family owns a pizza place a few streets over so he has
been in and out of here a few times already. i was on kitchen crew meaning that
i had to help clean up from lunch and help prepare serve and clean up dinner.
there are 7 groups of 5 students and we will rotate days throughout the
year. so after lunch, a group of us went
to the store and got ice cream at pops after we came back we had dinner and shortly after that we made
s’mores then we just hung out for the rest of the night.
SATURDAY we went into san jose for independence day. they
hyped up how it was going to be this huge parade and then we get there and it’s
a bunch of school kids haha it was kind of a let down bu it was still fun. once
we got back it was mostly just free time. a few other girls and i went to sonya’s
room and did nails. after dinner was a game night. that was a lot of fun
everybody was put on a team and had to come dressed in the color their team
was. it was nice to have that bonding time with everyone. afer the game
everyone just chilled until bedtime.
SUNDAY was a busy busy day. we went to our spanish churches.
that was rather challenging to stay awake through haha. after church my group
went to the mall to get lunch. then we walked around a little. then we rode
back had some free time then went to the english church led by john. that was
really good. it was the first time we heard john. i cant wait for his bible
classes. he kind of reminds me of my brother ben, i feel like they would get
along pretty well. sunday was a late night because monday is our day off so we
get to stay up later.
MONDAY i woke up and a bunch of us went to the university
which is about a 10 min walk to play ultimate frisbee. we all started trickling
back a few at a time until it was lunch time. then we had lunch and a bunch of
people left to go get smoothies but i stayed behind because i had already made
plans with sonya to go for a walk and get them. so midafternoon sonya and i
left and we talked it was so great! we were gone for a while and i told her
what i was struggling with here already and talked to her about myself and she
talked to me about her family and how she ended up here. after that we came
back and talked even more until dinner time. im soo glad that i have been able
to already find somebody im comfortable sharing stuff with. last night was
another chill night and we were all just kind of doing out own thing.
overall its been a pretty chill week we didn’t have too much
going on so there was a lot of down time. but classes started today so hopefully
there will be more to report next tuesdayJ
prayer requests:
patience
no distractions
