By: Jennaka and Luke
After a full night’s rest, we woke up to Luke and Jonas getting back from a sunrise run, and we headed downstairs for eggs, Costa Rican sausage, fresh pineapple and mangos, orange juice, and hashbrowns. Our breakfast conversation was led by Matt, and we talked about what life looks like to live with God versus without Him.
We then headed to the UAI prison where we were greeted with open arms by the staff and inmates. All of the prisoners were in full uniform ready to compete with us in a game of basketball. We began by a scripture and a testimony by Marie who talked to the group about how she found fulfillment through her faith in God and sports. Deven led us in a warmup to dial us in for gametime. After two competitive halves, Hope won by 1 point! (thanks, Deven). After the conclusion of the game, we celebrated three birthdays of the inmates by eating cake and dulce de leche, singing in both Spanish and English. We realized throughout the morning how similar these people are to us and how genuine they were. Upon our departure, the inmates went out of their way to thank us for our time and for playing basketball.
We left the UAI and arrived to the AMCA house where arroz y pollo (rice and chicken), mashed black beans, blackberry juice (YUM), and fresh watermelon was waiting for us… it’s safe to say we are obsessed with all the fresh fruit here! We had a little bit of downtime, so the group sat at a circle table and talked about our similarities in difficulties and adversities in our different sports.
We thought we were heading straight to the Project Abraham school, but we had the pleasant surprise of going to Pop’s ice cream shop on the way there. We all indulged in ice cream, gelato, shakes, and crepes, and drove to the school where we winded through small towns, rugged cliffs, and jungle terrain. When we arrived to the gym, the children immediately started waving and cheering, and continued to grow more excited the more people they saw from our group. Abby and Deven shared a testimony for both groups of third graders we got the opportunity to play with. We played red light green light and dodgeball, and it was nothing short of pure joy from both the kids and us. When our time was up, the kids expressed so much love to us by hugging us and not wanting to let go.
We had some time before dinner, so we decided to explore the area around San Francisco de Dos Rios. We walked through beautiful parks and neighborhoods, and it was really interesting to see what life looks like for another culture. While we were walking, we realized that while we all met just a few days ago, our group has grown so close. We finished the evening by eating rice, Canelones, cinnamon rolls, and cas (a tart juice).
After dinner, we had a time of devotion and dove into the first two of the 10 commandments. This discussion was followed by testimonies by Deven and Kerrigan. They both showed a lot of courage and had very moving stories of their life of faith. We ended the night with great conversation as well as group games such as Mafia and a plethora of card games.
Thanks for following along on our seed trip! We can’t wait for the rest of the week!