Costa Rica Youth Mission Journey 2024

Hola! Yes, we are still in Costa Rica on a journey of a lifetime. We are currently scheduled for a 7 am departure Monday, and we appreciate your continued prayers. For this post, we thought some quick reactions from our youth would be a good way to illustrate how things are going during our 41-hour flight delay. —————————————————- Mackenzie: “41 hour delay” Tanner: “if I’m going to be stranded anywhere it might as well be paradise” Hadyn: “I think I’ve eaten a whole plantain farm at this point” Hailey: “what’s one more day” Grayson: “I could’ve driven us there in 2 days and 20 hours” Madeline: “we should have taken Grayson’s offer” Lila: “I have no words” Izzy: “The only thing that can save me now is honey mustard” McKayla: “It’s day 9 and I still haven’t had rice and beans” Amelia: “I don’t want to be here” Ansley: “Everything is expensive” Ana: “This stinks” Bekah: “I want to go home” Addison: “I missed my dads birthday for this” Parker: “life throws you a curve ball, hit it a differ...

This morning we woke up at our hotel in front of a beautiful volcano! We were so excited to go home to reunite with our families and pets. Little did we know we’d get to spend another night together. After getting through security and getting to our gate we got some snacks and waited to board our flight. Then we got the news that our flight had been delayed 2 hours (from 2pm to 4pm) then it got delayed until tomorrow at 8 am. YES. TOMORROW. Although we were not happy about the situation, Mr. Matt worked with the airline to get us a nice hotel and shuttle there and back! We know we could be upset but we have still seen God through it all. Some of those ways are we got a very nice hotel with dinner and breakfast for the morning. We still have a flight to Charlotte to get home. And we have gotten to share one last devotional time together as a team! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers we have felt them all throughout this week. The view of Arenal Volcano on Saturday morning. Waiting for ...

Today we departed from Strong Missions. We took one last group photo in front of the new mural at the mission before boarding the bus headed to La Fortuna. We were able to zip line over the rainforest canopy and visit a waterfall. Saturday, we fly home.

At the entrance to Strong Missions, our work crew built an extension to the wall and that created another panel (roughly 6x8 feet) for a mural. The photo above is the mural designed and painted by McKayla Roehner. VBS was a great experience and me and others really have enjoyed it. Some people who did VBS for only one day wanted to join and do more. This picture is of us doing pato pato ganso (duck duck goose) and the kids really enjoyed it. Last night we had a salsa dancing lesson. Even though the instructor only spoke Spanish she was very patient and joyful with us. It was a very fun experience and we learned a lot of new moves. We learned a new game, that was the turkey dance. It was oodles and oodles of fun. We finished our concrete ramp. It was over 90 meters long. The lady who lives here is in a wheel chair and this will give her better access to her home. We all painted a kitchen, bedroom, and exterior walls. Strong missions has been working on this home for 2 years and this was...

Today our skit at VBS was about Noah and his Ark. The day before we had the skit read in both Spanish and English, but we noticed the kids weren’t really paying attention, so we decided to fully translate it and it made a difference! Today we moved dirt from a room of someone’s house in order to make a wall for a laundry room. We worked in a group of 12 people in an assembly line to get the dirt from under the roof to the trees.  Today we plastered a house in order to prepare for the primary coat of paint in the interior of the kitchen area. We also installed concrete board around the inside of the windows in preparation for the exterior paint. The interior color of choice but the homeowner was white (blanco), and the exterior was yellow (Amarillo).  Today we built a ramp made out of concrete and steel. Primarily we spent all day shoveling gravel into a concrete mixer to make our solution to pour into our molds for the ramp. Today half of our group delivered 21 boxes of food t...

Today (Tuesday) construction work expanded, and we kicked off Vacation Bible School at a local school. We did our first VBS session of the week today, and got to meet so many new faces that greeted us with hugs and laughter. Between the games, bible stories, crafts, and music, we all grew connections with the kids even if we couldn’t understand everything they were saying. It was such a special moment to receive hugs and waves from the kids as we were leaving and had only just met them. Everyone is looking forward to spreading God’s love through VBS the rest of the week.  Today in our group we worked on leveling the outside of the school so that they can make use of the space for indoor use in the future. We broke down a wall and moved a lot of dirt around. We started working on making some concrete as well! Overall had an amazing day.  Today, we painted the outside of a house and it was really fun. I loved doing it and laughing with the others on the site who helped. It made ...