Almost "Coming alive"

Right now I'm frustrated. I've been typing out my post about my team that I led nearly 3 weeks ago now and I have been trying to post up some pictures too. Through all of it, the pictures won't post how I want them to and the sweet story that I had about my time with the team is lost. Some where in cyber space I guess. Being as vast as actual space, at least digitally, recovery ain't happen-en, as we like to say in the Southern half of the Estados. So I'll write some other fleeting thoughts as I begin to reconstruct my last near-post to satisfy your desirous pleas for information of my life.

Second change of subject: (I'll leave the juicy stuff for later in the week.) I was able to have a day of "recovery" if you can call it that between dropping the Troyers off at the airport and going on another mission trip. It was an internal one, with as many ticos as gringos. We went to the Guaymis on the Osa Penisula in southern Costa Rica. I can say this about the trip-- it was the worst mission trip I've ever been on. I'll qualify that statement. Mission trips are good (period) They have this quality of building relationships between the team and those whom you are serving. This is good. They are a proclamation of the Gospel, in word and action. This is good. So naturally the mission trip was a good thing. But in all the mission trips I've been on I found this to be the worst. "Why?" I read on your forrowed brow.

A couple of reasons.

It wasn't organized. Now I'm in Latin America, so I naturally use that term loosely-- but it still wasn't organized. The call was placed a day in advance to alert the peoples that we were coming. This resulted in a few complications. The worst being that we weren't able to trek into the Reserve to spend the night there, so that we would be ready in the morning. Of course God works all things to His good, right, so it wasn't a huge blow out, but it caused a headache for a couple of hours.

The second reason was I just got off of being the "lead" of an awesome mission trip. How, what? Okay. I organized the whole 13 days of the previous trip I was on, I took on a lot of responsibility. And God sustained me through it and allowed everything to be awesome to His glory. But this trip I was a participant, I have no problems with this, except I was treated as a child by one of the leaders. There was a drill sergent attitude present in this individual. For ease, we'll call this person, um, Smith. I spent the night at Smith's house, cause we were to leave at 4 am. I figured 30 seconds to put on my shirt, shoes and socks-- in that order, it was 4 am. Then 2 minutes for the brushing of the toothes, plus another minute to repack my bag and get down stairs. Now that's like 3 and half minutes. So I decide I'll get up at 3:55. I have some spare moments, if needed. The bus actually got there at 3:57. I've put my shirt on and then I get "THE BUS IS HERE. EVERYBODY GO. COME ON..." I was being treated like a child. That's cool if I deserve it, but at this moment I didn't. Unfortunately, it didn't end once in the van/bus and for the next 11 hours traveling south, the drill sargent drove from the backseat for me and was overtly abrasive. We worked great together on Saturday when we were ministering, but then on the way home it was the same thing. I was amazed.


Well, enough venting. And I do thank you for that. The mission part of the trip was pretty cool. Saturday morning we loaded up an old Land Rover and piled in to head the short trek into the Reserve. I became a pharmacist for the day, when I wasn't scouting the area for the team I'm taking there in June. I filled baggies with drugs that I have no idea what they do! It was great. I'm excited about the team that I'll be leading there. We'll have a lot of work to do, but it'll be great. The experience gave me a picture for what we'll be able to do, plus a connection to the people.

Here's some more pics:

Some Guaymis waiting medical attention.

The group.

I'm pharmacy-ing. Is that a word?

This is Sarai. She probably keep me sane the for the weekend. She's eight and her mom goes to the church that we slept at. Her brother, Nataniel, her and I played for hours Friday night and then this picture was taken when she came to church on Sunday. I was going to bring her back to San Jose with me, but there wasn't enough room in my bag!