Bethel University Day 4
Today started at approximately 8:00 A.M. We left to go back to “El Hueco,” the village below the church we attended yesterday. Pastor Gabriel had arranged for us to deliver meals to some of the families in the community. The area is very poor and many of the people are immigrants from Nicaragua. The houses were put together with lots of random sheets of metal. Each house is about the size of a freshmen dorm, but they didn’t get a tuition discount for having 4 people in the room! It was such a blessing to help some of the mothers in a tangible way. One of the mothers made everyone simple cloth bracelets which she makes to sell for an income of $4.50 a month! Another mother is 23 and providing for 2 young girls. Some of the guys were able to deliver food to other houses in the community that were also in need. The pastor shared the gospel with one of the young boys (about 12) who accepted Christ!
The guys played another game today at 12:00 after the most amazing lunch ever! However, we were limited to how much we could consume…except for the goalie. The boys started off with a bang as Matt Polding scored 2 early goals. The rain started coming as the game went on and we had to end early because of the raging monsoon (aka lots of water). We ended up winning 2-1 after which Kirk Darling was able to share his testimony. It was hard to tell which boys truly heard due to the rain pouring on the metal roof, however we think the message got across. – Nick Kantor, Chris Dirks
Hola, chicas here… sooo after standing and cheering (very wonderfully) at the boy’s game despite the flash flood downpour we headed back to score to get into some dry clothes. After changing we loaded up in our trusty bus and were off to the markets for some good old souvenir shopping. Some of the favorites on the purchase list were bracelets, candy, t-shirts, coffee, and a life’s worth of Disney ponchos. One amazing thing that God decided to do with our shopping experience was to introduce us to this amazing woman. Sara, Tori, Alicia and I (Kylie) walked into one store in particular to hear Hillsong United (a worship group from the states) blasting over the speakers in the store. Since we were the only ones in the store at the time we all (including her) began singing these worship songs at the top of our lungs, sometimes all in English, other times us in English and her in Spanish (which is a beautiful and moving thing). When we had all finally decided on our purchases we went up to pay and decided to leave our change with her and told her to put it towards her Hillsong concert tickets (she had previously informed us they were coming to Costa Rica and that she had been saving). At this she happily proclaimed “Gracias a Dios,” and asked to pray with all of us. We grabbed hands and circled up while this amazing woman prayed this passionate prayer in her little corner store, we probably only understood half of it but it was so powerful and at the end there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Its truly amazing how God can use any circumstance for His glory alone and how much meeting fellow believers, especially ones who have a passion and joy for the Lord like this woman does, can really move everyone involved. So after hugs and blessings we left to meet up with the group and pile back on the bus. We drove back to the villa for a quick “snack” (which was more like a first dinner) and waited for the word on whether or not the ladies game would be on. It was so we loaded up again and drove to what ended up being the most gorgeous field ever. The sun was just setting and the view across the fields was the city with the mountains, just breathtaking. The sun set, the lights came up and we began a mud bath of a game against some very feisty 15-18 year olds who put up more of a fight than we would probably like to admit but ended in a 3-0 win (goal credits to Krista Polding, Rachel Chavez, and Kelci Schedler). We headed back for dinner number two, some good showers and as always an awesome devo time, which was led by Coach Murchie. But its time for the attack dogs to come out and we’re all very sleepy so goodnight and this is Katelynn and Kylie signing out.
