week number 1

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