Home Again

Alright, everyone! I'm back home, and I've been taking some time to relax and gather my thoughts. What I'm going to do is post some pictures on here, and hopefully some videos. If you want a short story of what happened, I'll have captions for the pictures (in blue) so you can scroll through, otherwise, you can read the full stories that I have to share about the things that happened during the trip.

My blog doesn't like me posting a ton of pictures from every activity, so I'm not going to post about everything I did, just the ministry-related things. I'll put a full update on facebook after I get the pictures up there. :)

This is a picture of the campus that we stayed at in San Isidro de Heredia. There were trees and plants and flowers everywhere and this is what we walked through every day to get to meals. You can see in the middle there was an outdoor type room where we had meetings at times.

We arrived at the missions campus at about 8pm, but it was already really dark, so we couldn't see around campus. We could tell by the sounds of the animals and the shadows of plants around us that the place was beautiful. We just went straight to our rooms that first night and went to sleep, then we explored the place and got a tour the next morning.

For the kids at the Pecario I learned how to tie balloons. I made un persona (a person). He died pretty quickly, but it was great that we were able to do that for the children, and they really loved the different items we gave them.

I made a person, a flower, a hat, a dog, a cat, a giraffe, a sword and an elephant out of these balloons for the kids, so I was really happy to be able to serve them in that way. :) But then when we actually got to the village we were given the wrong pump to use, and it was super difficult to blow up the balloons. When we ran out of balloons we switched to different stations and I went to the bowling station for the remaining times. At the beginning of our time at the Pecario we did a puppet show to share the Gospel with the kids.

This picture was taken by Ethan Butler. Ethan is a photographer, singer, guitarist, you name it, he can do it! We adopted him as part of our team for our trip. We couldn't take all of our cameras to the Pecario since they might get stolen, but this picture that Ethan took should give you an idea of what the village looked like.

Our first night with the youthgroup that met at the campus where we were staying. A lot of our ministry was building relationships with them.

Our main ministry (what we did most often), was build relationships with the youth group that met at Cultura Vertical (our organization). In the picture, we're simply throwing a football around, but even that helped us to shine Christ's love by how we acted. On the right you can see others playing four-square ( a VERY popular game there!). They called us gringos we called them tikos. Some of their names are Davis, Fanny, Topo, San Marco, Sesso, Maria, Sophia, and Manuel.

This is the camp that we went to with the youth group. You see the main gathering building on the left and the cafeteria on the right. My cabin is to my right when I took the picture.

We went to a camp half-way through our trip there. They didn't tell us until about two days before that we were going, but being our flexible selves, we packed a small bag and we

nt to Camp Recargados. There we learned (in Spanish) about being recharged in our faith. We all got bandannas for our team games with different colored batteries painted on them.

The name of our missionaries' church is Vida Abundante Coronado. We attended the last Sunday we were there. This is a picture of their praise time.

Our whole group went to our missionaries' church. It was a huge building, but we still stuck out. There were other gringos there (they had to use translating headsets for the sermon), but we still were noticeable. We sang a few songs that translated to English, so we were able to sing in our own language. When I heard a song sung in two different languages, my sense of worship became so much more in-depth. Our God is praised throughout the world! As for the actual sermon, we studied Genesis 2:15, and he discussed consumerism and Christianity.

This was my favorite part of the trip. Teaching! We taught from middle school ages up through kids ready for college. We taught English through games and simple lessons.

This was the first day of teaching. I was instructing them in Bingo in this picture. We played a few games for them to keep the class moving and enjoyable. The next day in teaching was a little more calm, and I was able to use quite a bit of Spanish to help them learn how to write sentences. This was my favorite experience because I feel led to be a teacher. I feel like God wants me to teach Elementary Education, and even though I technically wouldn't be preaching the Gospel to the kids, I'm hoping through using the same techniques of building relationships with them, I can show them what faith truly looks like.

We went to a really advanced high school that day. They spoke fluent English, so we were just there to help them practice. This picture is proof that I actually played soccer with a bunch of tikos. By myself. In the middle of the school yard. (I'm the only white one near the middle)

We went to an advanced high school the first day. They were a really fun group, and I was able to talk with three of the tikos in a small group and show them a photo album of pictures. We also played sports with them, which meant a lot. Especially since such a bad sports player (me!) was willing to try. I actually blocked a ball or two, so they knew I was trying. :)

A third school that we went to was my favorite since that's where I taught the most and we had the clearest lesson plan. The kids were about 13-15 that I talked with. I was teaching them how to write sentences that described different objects in the room. I taught them some new words, and I enjoyed the interactions. I met two kids that stuck out (in a good way), Ashley and Leo. Leo came up to me after I showed him a picture of some friends from church and he explained that he was a believer as well. I'm sure we had differences in our beliefs, but the fact that he was willing to come up to me, a gringa, and say something like that meant a lot to me. Ashley came up to me and another member of our group (Stephanie) right as we were getting ready to leave the school. She spoke to us really well because she had lived in Texas for a few years of her life. It was so neat being able to meet these kids so willing to speak out about their faith, and to people from a different country! Praise the Lord.

On the plane ride home a member of our team, Holly, and I sat next to a man who had just finished staying at a resort with his son who graduated from high school (graduate's name is Joey). He asked why we had come to Costa Rica and I mentioned the missions work we did. He pretty much just said, "Oh, that's good of you. How nice." I thought about his response for a while after and then discussed it with Stephanie while in line for customs. Some people just view this trip as "something good to do" or "something nice", but we view it as so much more. It's not about earning your way to 'God's good side' or doing something nice to make yourself a better person, it's about showing Christ's love and being willing to step outside of your comfort zone (I sure did!) in order to fulfill God's purpose for us and to spread His word.

The Great Commission states in Matthew 28, "¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

This was our main focus on the trip, to follow His commands. Adam Bowers, the director of the missions program, explained that God could command the stones to speak out and glorify His name. But He chose us to spread His word. Considering how sinful and self-centered we are, I think it's a blessing He is working through us. I thank God for this absolutely amazing opportunity I had to share His love with the Costa Ricans this summer.

Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Your missionary,

Hannah Silver