Hey everyone! Marie, Deven, and Abby here. After hearing about everyone’s bug stories from last night, we headed down for a devotional and breakfast. For the devotional, Matt led us through Psalm 34. We talked about its meaning and its significance in our lives. Breakfast consisted of pancakes, eggs, watermelon, and pineapple. Then we got on the bus and began our long journey to an indigenous area – which was about a three-hour trip in total. After a short 20-minute bus ride to the river, we piled into two boats and headed upstream. Once we arrived at the riverbank, we were greeted with a tractor and a cattle trailer. We helped each other into the trailer and began the tumultuous journey that would be an hour and a half through the jungle. Along the way, Diego treated us to fresh roadside coconuts and bananas.
Around noon, we finally made it to the leader of the tribe’s house. He gave us a warm welcome and told us a little about himself. For the rest of the afternoon, we played games with the kids, such as duck-duck-goose, soccer, and cones while we waited for families to come for water filter demonstrations. We showed the leader and his family how to use the water filters. After a hot three hours at the leader’s home, we piled back into the trailer and were able to hand out some more water filters as we passed families that were heading back home from school. On the way back, Diego treated us once again – this time to refreshing sodas. Once back to the river bank, we all piled into one boat and started back to our house.
When we arrived at home, we began preparing for the church service we would be attending later that night. The service took place with some of the locals in the area. At the service, Jennaka, Dan, and Hannah had the privilege of sharing some of their favorite scriptures, and we all got to sing two songs that we had prepared. We hardly practiced them at all and none of us are really good at singing – but it turned out to be a really powerful moment for us and those attending the service. The service was pretty different from the ones that we’re used to, in the sense that everyone prayed out loud simultaneously. Nonetheless, although we weren’t used to certain practices, we felt God moving in that place. Following church, we had dinner – rice and chicken, beans, salad, and Costa Rican Munchies. After dinner, Madison and Dan blessed us by sharing their testimonies. We are excited for our jungle adventures to continue tomorrow; pray for us as we continue our travels!
