COSTA RICA TRIP 2007 UPDATES
-- Costa Rica PHOTO GALLERY, CLICK HERE
Thursday, April 5
Our FINAL update! Yesterday was another great day of ministry. We were able to paint the entire church at Los Guidos both inside and outside. Pastor Gabriel, was so encouraged by the amount of work we were able to get accomplished. All of the students worked hard all week, and especially here to get the project completed.
We attempted to watch Saprissa soccer in the afternoon at the National Stadium. Once we got there and the game started we had an old fashioned gulley-washer Costa Rican downpour. It rained so hard, that the game was delayed and ultimately cancelled! We had a great time, but got soaked to the bone!
Today, we are at the airport waiting to board our flight to Dallas. Many students wanted to stay longer and wept as we hugged the SCORE staff goodbye.
We will see you in Fort Wayne!
Tuesday, April 3
As written by students...
Today was one of the greatest days of my life. We went back to the Lighthouse Church and we girls got to paint the dirty walls there. The church was incredibly dirty and the new white paint made it look much nicer. While we did that, the boys went and did a concrete job at the orphanage we helped purchase last year. After lunch Pastor Hubert (Pastor of the Lighthouse Church) took us to a neighborhood park. When we arrived there were lots of little kids running around and at first it was kind of awkward until we got ourselves “organized”. I was walking around trying to talk to some kids when I spotted a group of boys running around with a soccer ball. I went over and started watching them and Mrs. Barfell got me a Frisbee. I started playing with this 10 yr old boy named Carlos. I kept playing with him and then some more of the boys started playing also. Mrs. Kompara and Mrs. Barfell were working on salvation necklaces and Carlos wanted to make one. After he made it Mrs. Barfell talked to him about what the necklace meant (in Spanish) but I could tell that he was asking Jesus into his heart! I was so excited! It was such a blessing from God. I felt so much joy because this little boy was now my brother in Christ! He went and talked to Pastor Hubert and he kept giving me this big smile. I am so thankful for the people down here and there willingness to work so hard for God’s kingdom. Praise God!
~Tianna Clark
This morning was spent at Pastor Hubert’s Lighthouse Church in the middle of San Jose. We had realized how dingy the place looked at the service on Sunday morning. The walls were covered in spiders and “cucarachas” and looked so incredibly simple in old white paint and a painting or two with a Bible verse or the name of the church on it. So, all the girls stayed at the church to give the walls a fresh coat. It felt like it took us half an hour to paint and detail the ‘entire’ one-room church and we spent the rest of the time hanging out and taking some killer pictures (I hope some get shown on the site!).
It made me realize, once again, how insanely much that we as Americans have and how a Church doesn’t have to be gorgeous and beautifully decorated and spick and span in order to worship our Lord and grow closer to Him. The people at the church were amazingly happy and had the coolest sense of community (if someone in our group was in need of ‘el bano,’ the nearest neighbor would host us, complete strangers!) It was definitely an awesome morning and a great rest of the day just having fun and ministering and loving on the people around us. I thank God so much for this fun opportunity, and pray that our group will keep up this hardworking and loving spirit when we come back to the States.
After we returned from the park and later shopping, we had an awesome devotional with the pastor here at the villa, Pastor Jose, who challenged us as Christians to have Christ as our filter from the world. He discussed the verse from 1 Thessalonians 5:22 and how the world hates the word ‘abstain.’ But how we can, no matter if we are in Costa Rica or in America, God still expects us as His children to “Avoid every kind of evil.”
Later on we had a great worship time with each other and thanked God for what had happened earlier in the park with Rosa and Carlos (see Tianna’s story). It was just an eye-opening experience that all the work we had done and people we had written to and all the preparation and practice was for this. These two children gave their lives to Christ and many more at the park that we were at hopefully had a seed planted in them and will have a further thirst for Jesus. This is changing their lives!
Tomorrow we are supposed to do about the same as today, but in a village that is about 90% immigrants from Nicaragua and sounds like it is definitely in need of some hope. I can’t wait and I pray that we won’t ever stop feeling this sense of usefulness to our Lord’s Gospel.
~Dios Te Bendigo! (God bless!)
~Souletta Laufman
Monday, April 2nd
As written by students…
This is the day of our much needed recreation and relaxation. The drive to the Punta Leona beach resort was absolutely amazing! The drive to the Oceano Pacifico was more than a 2 hour drive through the mountains on curvy roads, usually without guardrails. On the way there, Alfredo (our bus driver) stopped by a bridge and told us that there were crocodiles in the river beneath it. Of course, we took lots of pictures and were thoroughly creeped out. Dr. Barfell modeled some hideous neon green water shoes for us, and no one, not even Alfredo, approved!
The beach resort was incredible though. It had monkey and butterfly trails, pools, and white sand beaches. Some students saw toucans, monkeys, geckos, exotic butterflies, anteaters, and coatis (a raccoon-like critter that is basically orange). We swam until dusk, then after dinner we explored the resort grounds. I went to the beach with some other people and watched the stars and saw shooting stars. It was so completely gorgeous with the waves crashing on the beach. It seems so obvious that this is God’s creation!
As much as we all loved the beach, we all really missed the villa (the food is so much better at the villa!), and we’re all so excited to start back in on ministry work on Tuesday! ~Elizabeth Rhee
Sunday, April 1st
As written by students…
So we went to a local church called “The Lighthouse” Sunday morning for church, and it definitely wasn’t what you’d expect when you think of a church. From the outside, it looked no different than any other building on the block, and the inside was no better. The building was a single level, probably about 20’ x 30’; with a dirty cement floor and an unfinished ceiling. You could literally see the support beams, plumbing, and electricity because there were no ceiling tiles. It didn’t have any windows, and there were probably only one or two light bulbs in the ceiling.
That’s the basic description of the building itself. Now for the actual service… we started by singing a couple of songs (in Spanish, of course) which I wasn’t all too good at. They only had one extra hymnal for our entire team, so it was quite a task to let everyone follow along. After the hymns, we performed “The Redeemer” for about the 5th time. It definitely wasn’t our (at least not my) smoothest performance, since I almost fell in my opening sequence. Other than that it went pretty well and seemed to be received very well. After the drama, we had a short refreshments intermission. After the intermission, we sang some more hymns and then Brooks Blosser (one of our adult leaders) got his first opportunity to share his testimony in public. It was pretty funny because he was talking about how his biggest fear was speaking in public the night before. He did a great job though. After that, Dr. Barfell gave the main church sermon. He gave a very interesting and thorough message about Ephesians 5 which talks about being imitators of God. After he gave his message, Lauryn Barfell gave her personal testimony, and she did a fantastic job as well. Her testimony was followed by a couple of more hymns, and even though I didn’t understand a lot of them, they were still really great songs!
The children's' Sunday school only had about 10 children, so only a portion of our team served them. They helped the Costa Rican children with a Gospel necklace and explained the Gospel to them in the lesson. Those who helped there, said it went really well!
The whole experience was really great for me personally. It really showed me first-hand that it doesn’t matter where you gather because the people make up the church, not the building. Even in a dilapidated building, we can praise and worship God with our whole hearts and become closer to Him. Also, a major thing that the drama has shown me is that, with a little creativity, you can still clearly share the Gospel message without the language barrier holding you back. All in all, the entire day was a tremendous experience and was something I’ll never forget.
--
Aaron Kelpin
Saturday, March 31st
As written by students...
Today was our second and final day in Guacimo, and it was absolutely amazing. We were up early this morning and arrived at the church around 8:30 to prepare for a “carnival Bible school” day with the kids in the village. The carnival was so much fun! The kids just loved to play all the games, and you could tell by the huge smiles on their faces that they weren’t used to so much attention. They just loved to be hugged and held, and it was really hard to let them go because they would hold on tight and give you a cute little sad face. After the carnival we had lunch and got ready to go back to the gym and play some soccer and volleyball with the teens of the church. It was really fun, especially because for the most part they play more often then we do, so it was pretty challenging. Well that is an overview of what today looked like, and we are all just so excited for the upcoming days and projects! See you all soon! -Melissa Ford
We had the opportunity to share the Gospel with both groups today…the children and the teens. We then, were able to bless Pastor Abi and his wife Gladys on their anniversary with a gift of money. We instructed them to go out to a nice restaurant. We have been so moved by the dedication and sacrifice of the missionary pastors here. We have so much in the States, yet we seem to give so little. Not true of these believers here in Costa Rica! It has been good for our students to see this. Tomorrow we will be going to the Lighthouse Church. We will conduct both the Sunday school, and worship services! We will let you know how that goes!!!
Friday, March 30th
As written by several students…
Today we went to the small town of Guacimo. It’s about two hours away, down the mountains and through the rainforest. Being the first of two days in Guacimo, we did work projects…painted the entire church, washed windows, and picked up trash in the neighborhood. We also visited a nursing home of old folks. After lunch we went to the town square to pass out tracts and clean up the streets by picking up trash. The strategy here was to make ourselves visible to give us the opportunity to invite the children to our “Bible school” tomorrow. While we were there we bought shoes for a missionary named Kevin who willingly gave away a pair of his shoes to a girl on our team. He gave them away without an expectation of getting another pair back. Thankfully we were able to bless him by purchasing two pairs of shoes to replace the one he gave away. Tomorrow we get to go back to Guacimo and work with kids for the day.
The morning drive to Guacimo was incredible! Even though we left a little after 6 no one was able to sleep because of the beautiful scenery. The mountains of Costa Rica are breathtaking, a sight that I will never forget! In the morning the heat wasn’t bad, but as the afternoon came the heat started to get to us. The painting was fun and with us all working together we got it done very fast! It was a great bonding time for our team because we got work next to each other for the first time. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow and work with the kids! -Amanda Ackerman
Hey its Lauryn Barfell….I’m so excited that I’m here! Last year was good but this year is great, and I’m starting to think that this trip has the potential to blow last years out of the water!! Anyways, today we went to Guacimo which is a city about 2 hours outside of San Jose but holy moley it’s totally worth it because it absolutely gorgeous! I can’t say that I remember it being that pretty. When we got there they told us we could either go to a nursing home or stay at the church and paint, but I stayed at the church because frankly old people scare me. Never the less the day was great and I loved working with my team, and I can’t wait to get to know them even more through the course of this week!
Thursday, March 29th
I am sitting under a cabana here at the SCORE Villa this evening. Several of our fine students have gathered with a couple of guitars and are enjoying some worship together! There is another Christian school group here from the Chicago area, and our students have asked them to join them for this time of worship!
What an incredible first day. We spent the morning on the busy streets of downtown San Jose. We passed out hundreds of gospel tracts to many. We learned to say "es un regalo" which means "a gift for you" for those who are not up on your Spanish! We also said "Jesus te amo" many times....We had the opportunity to meet and talk with several and explain to them who we are and what our message is! It was great to see our kids so engaged!
We caught a quick lunch and then headed to an orphanage on the outskirts of San Jose. As soon as we arrived the kids came running. They knew we were laden with gifts for them. So we broke out the new soccer balls (footballs), basketballs, volleyballs and began games all over their campus. Many of the team played a game of soccer. They have a small soccer field with goals, it was fun to see guys and girls, orphans and our kids playing together. Taylor Ruble and Nikita Neri held their own with the Costa Rican kids and represented the BCS soccer program well!
After a few hours, we gathered about 100 of the children around for our presentation of "The Redeemer". This is a drama that portrays Christ redemption of mankind, and not one word is spoken by the drama team. This year's drama team is Derek Johnson, Aaron Kelpin, Souletta Laufman, Nikita Neri, and Kristen Guthrie. They did a great job and really "nailed" it. After the drama, Pastor Hubert, a Costa Rican pastor who was accompanying us, explained to all the children the gospel. These children, ages 5-16 sat and watched and listened attentively. What a privilege to carry the gospel! You would have all been appropriately proud of our BCS kids!
Tomorrow morning we leave at 6:00 AM for a 2-hour ride through the rainforest to Guacimo, our next site for ministry!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007:
We arrived safely at the SCORE Villa at about 9:00 PM (11:00 PM Indiana time). The Team is exhausted after having got up at around 3:00 AM to meet at the school for departure. Our 7-hour layover in Dallas was long as well. But we are finally here!!! As we were flying over Costa Rica as the sun was setting, we were able to see a couple of active volcanoes with glowing red lava...really...we did see it from the air. It was spectacular! This country is amazing.
Tomorrow morning (Thursday) we will get up in time to get our supplies ready for our first day of ministry. We will be going to downtown San Jose to do "street evangelism", which means we will be passing out tracts and entering dialog with any who will speak to us. The SCORE staff will assist us with the language, as we work in small groups. In the afternoon we will go to an orphanage to spend time with the children there.
The SCORE staff are very gracious, and seem genuinely happy to see us again! I'll send another update with some photos Thursday evening!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007:
Commissioning Chapel: Today the 2007 BCS Costa Rica Mission Team was commissioned in Chapel. Dr. Barfell explained to the student body why BCS sponsors mission trips for students. First, a foreign experience like this has profound educational value. To experience another culture is a deep, rich learning experience. Second, as Christians it our responsibility to share the Gospel. Taylor Ruble (10th grade) read from Romans 10:15..."How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news (Gospel)." Third, we want our students to learn and experience the value of serving others. Jesus is our model as we learn how He served, we too, must live a life of service to others.
Kara Sipe (10th grade) explained to the student body what the team will be doing with the church in Guacimo. Lauryn Barfell (11th grade) describe the orphanage that the team will be visiting on the first day.
The Costa Rica Team was invited to the stage as all of the faculty, and those parents and grandparents of the Team who were present, gathered around the Team to send them off in prayer. The student body was then led in prayer by students Nick Robison, Megan Thieme, and teachers Mrs. Sue Griggs, and Mr. Joel Guthrie.
The BCS Costa Rica Mission Team leaves BCS at 4:00 AM Wednesday morning to travel to San Jose, Costa Rica where they will be hosted by SCORE International for the 8-day trip. SCORE is a mission agency based in Atlanta, Georgia that specializes in sending teams to foreign counties for short term mission work.
The BCS Mission Team is: Freshman-Melissa Ford, Nikita Neri, Grace Allison. Sophomores-Derek Johnson, Aaron Kelpin, Laura Kompara, Elizabeth Rhee, Taylor Ruble, Kara Sipe, Jake Stoller, Alysse Barfell, Tianna Clark. Juniors-Liz Geroff, Kristen Guthrie, Heather Hall, Amanda Ackerman, Lauryn Barfell. Seniors-Sharon Jeong, Souletta Laufman. Adult Leaders-Karlene Kompara, Brooks Blosser, Jenni Barfell, Sam Barfell.
Friday, March 23, 2007:
On Wednesday, March 28th, 19 students and 4 adults will leave for an 8 day mission trip to San Jose, Costa Rica! This is the second time that Blackhawk Christian School has hosted a mission trip. Our prayer is that God would do an incredible work in and through the lives of the students who are participating.
The team will be sent off and commissioned in a Chapel Service on Tuesday, at 9:00 AM
The team will be working with two churches in Costa Rica. The church in Guacimo, located near the eastern coast and in the rain forest will be the first site of ministry for the BCS team. The students will conduct "Bible School" for the children in the village on Friday and Saturday. The second church located in a small, poor community named Los Guidos. The BCS team will give the church building a "makeover" by painting the block walls, repairing the metal roof, and even installing lights. During the evenings, the students will again conduct "Bible School" for the children of the community.
2008 Secondary Finals
The Spring 2008 secondary final schedule is now available to download... read more