This was a really nice day. The weather down here continues to be very moderate and beautiful, mostly in the 70s. Our first activity this morning was going to church. Christians in Desamparados and in Central America generally are all "huggers." We got to greet a lot of the church members as they arrived.
The worship service lasted about 2 hours. Ronald did a nice job of setting up the week. It was clear they had been preparing for our visit, and he preached on the parable of the sower, anticipating the four daily emphases for our Pescadores de Hombres "Fishers of Men" theme. It was especially encouraging that they had two respond today, wanting to be baptized: a man named Gabriel and a woman named Jovana. They invite all the members to come up to the front who want to take pictures or video clips. The church surrounds the baptismal pool, which is located for them in front of the stage in an (unheated) hot tub-type setup. They had been studying with members of the church for several weeks. They allowed me to say a prayer of blessing for them after their baptism, which was an honor for me to get to do.
For lunch, we had invited the whole congregation to join us. In my own experiences, "free lunch" is always a great way to boost attendance, and I think it probably gave them a little boost this morning. We were spread out all over the place, and it gave us some opportunity to talk with the christians more.
Following lunch we changed clothes and headed to an athletic center that has a number of soccer fields to rent. They were all astro turf and covered. We started by letting the kids play first, and we introduced them to bottle link tag. Following them, the guys divided into teams of 5 and started playing a sudden-death style rotation where any time a team scored, the other team had to step off and another stepped on. We kept that up for a pretty long time. After the guys, we moved to a field outside that had come open and was a little nicer, and the ladies played while the guys cheered.
This was really nice in general because it gave us a fun and active way to engage the church members; laughing, cheering, taunting...whatever the moment called for. We want them to know they're not alone, and we want them to view us as their peers who care about them.
We returned to the hotel late in the afternoon exhausted but full of good memories. Tonight for dinner, we wanted to treat Ronald's family and some of the church members to dinner. We decided that Pizza Hut was probably the most likely option to please everyone. Nora and the girls got there ahead of us to reserve table space for 38(!).
If there's anything I learned from 7.5 years as a youth minister, it's how to estimate pizza quantities. My formula worked perfectly and I felt like a boss. Everyone was completely full and there were fewer than 3 pieces left.
It's almost 11pm and we just returned from Pizza Hut. Though we had a late start, we took our time and had a very enjoyable visit. I was pleased to see a lot of intermingling between Americans and Costa Ricans. I know the ladies were appreciative that we bought them dinner as opposed to having them cook for the group tonight.
Tomorrow begins the first day of VBS and the evangelistic campaign. I know the church has been promoting it. We're excited, but have absolutely no idea how many kids will show up. Our expectation is that each night we'll have a few more than the night before.
For now, it's time for bed.
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