Buenos dias! It’s day 5 here on our
Costa Rica mission trip and I, Tara Green along with my little Costa Rican
buddy Manuel are writing to you this afternoon. It has been an amazing 5 days
down here with our first work day fixing up the church, our trip to the Hot
Springs, our incredible VBS with the kids (over 100!), the visit to a local
community who are in such poverty most kids can’t attend school because they
can’t afford shoes, let alone food, our trip to the most beautiful waterfall
and today our work day at a local preschool.
A couple blocks away from our camp
there is a small preschool but it’s not like our preschools. This preschool is
a place where kids who are sick, kid’s whose families can’t afford to feed
them, and kid’s who just can’t afford to go to public school. At this preschool
the kids receive schooling, a free meal, and medical attention. Today we were
blessed with the opportunity to go and help out the lady who runs the school
with some much-needed improvements. Our team jumped right in! We had students,
along with some of our local kids, painting some new doors that had just been
installed for the children’s bathrooms. There were students working outside
cleaning the school walls and pulling weeds from their playground. Lastly, the
lady in charge of the school asked us if we could create her a new garden
because her last one had gotten ruined. This was so important to her and her
school because they use the garden to grow vegetables and spices to help feed
their kids. Y’all should have seen our team go to work on this, we had students
with shovels, hoes, picks and some just using their bare hands. After four
hours we finally finished and had left the school with a beautiful garden
accompanied by a new compost box, and 7.1 Student Ministries sign towering over
them. We are back at camp now washing the paint off of our faces, arms, legs,
and any other place you can think of because in less than 30 minutes we will be
starting our Youth Conference! It has been incredible to watch our team prepare
for this conference, last night 4 of our students were invited to practice with
the churches worship team so that at the conference they could all lead worship
together, in Spanish and English. I ask that you would continue to pray for us
as we continue in our work for the Lord. Pray for the conference we will be
leading, pray for Zack Bishop and Tate Hawkins as they prepare their messages
for the break out sessions tomorrow, and pray for the students who will be
attending this weekend that they may encounter God in a new way.
