Los Guido

Los Guido

This morning we went to visit Los Guido.  This is a community that Clint and Renee have worked in several times before.  Last year, the graduating class at Dayspring Christian School in Greeley went on a senior class mission trip to work in the same area.  Jerry had helped with that team and spoke highly of the work they did there.  Today I was extremely impressed with what they had accomplished when I saw the obstacles they faced.

We found our way into the area although it was difficult as many of the roads in were blocked because of on-going road repair.  The houses we went by were increasingly humble the farther in we got.  They also were clinging to the hillsides.  Down at the bottom of the gully ran a river.  All of the pipes running directly out of the backs of the houses ran with liquid falling into that river.  The electric lines ran helter skelter from house to house at times.  We parked on a steep narrow road, and found a narrow path running up the hill between houses.  The path ran by houses of people Clint greeted at times.  At one point the path had all but dropped into the gully with only a small part still passable. When we got to the church, there was a concrete walkway.  We met the pastor who showed us the church and the construction project that the school had helped with.

These "kids" had hauled many many loads of gravel and sand up the hill on their backs as well as sacks of concrete and re-bar.  They also carried a cement mixer up, a septic tank, and a water tank.  It seems almost impossible when you see the steep, long, narrow path.  They said the septic tank barely fit through in places.

After they hauled all of the supplies, they dug out a long dirt bank and poured a footing for a new church wall.  They also dug the septic tank hole and drain field.  They also put the water tank way up on the hill above the church.  The wall has been mostly been built upon the foundation they poured.  The church is hoping to get further this year.

The church they now meet in is pretty humble, but they have done a lot with scrap materials.  They have a few electric lights and can run a simple sound system.  Right outside the church, the hill falls away to the gully.  The church is at the end of the path, so the pastor says they are usually not bothered by anyone there.

This is the mission field, the houses of Los Guido.

The church from the front.  It apparently is not really sound and will come down when the new church arises.



This cement mixer was carried up the hill by the Dayspring Team




Jerry pointing to the new wall that was erected behind the church on the Dayspring foundation.  This was will be part of the new church.




Here is the wall




Inside the present church.  They just had a women's crusade for the local women.  That's what the balloons are for.




Jerry and Pastor Rocha (sp?)



The pastor's "study" was just a table by one of the windows.



The bathrooms at the church.  Note the sink.  Pretty nice.




Sometimes it is hard to see where one house starts and the other stops.



The water tank way up the hill.  That was a very steep hill too.

The disappearing path would be a challenge with a cement mixer. That is quite a drop.

We spent some time praying with the pastor and encouraging him. What a passionate heart he has.

We plan on going back to Llano Verde next weekend to hold a church service,  and then to Nicaragua for the next week.  We may visit the Mosquito Indians and see what ministry opportunities are there with them. It is a recon trip mostly.
 We also are interested in seeing more of Nicaragua.  It seems like things politically are heating up there, and this will be a good time to go before it gets too unstable. 

Quinta Esencia and Guanacaste

It is inevitable for those who aspire to do mission work in Costa Rica or Hawaii or some incredibly beautiful place that they are “forced” to have a beach encounter.  It has been our lot these last few days to be at the beach.

 All of the Wisdoms were able to go as well as us 5 making 15 in the van.  It truly is a 15 passenger van. Even with 3 kid's car seats we fit fine.   We pulled the smaller trailer for our stuff, the beach gear and ice chests with food in.

On Tuesday we headed off for a 6 hour drive to Guanacaste.  This is in the northwest, on the Pacific coast.  It is the off season for tourists.  For those of us from Washington and Colorado, it is great.  There are partially cloud-covered days. Maybe a few hour-long rain storms but otherwise it is very warm and comfortable.

The beaches were empty, the stores and restaurants were empty and people were just hanging around hoping we would give them business.

The first night we drove right to a restaurant that had plastic tables and chairs, covered with colorful table and chair cloths, under an awning right on the beach.  While our food cooked we kicked off our shoes and waded into the surf.  With sandy toes, we ate fresh seafood and listened to four guys who came up and played music for us.  A mariachi (sp?) band.  The one guy had a guitaron which is a huge bass guitar.  The strings look more than an 1/8 inch thick and are plucked. 

The next 3 days all that we did was to be in the water as much as possible.  Despite the fact that Dale and Shari, and Jerry and I, Carol got out every hour or so to slather ourselves with SPF 50, we still got well burned.  We just stayed in the bath-warm green water and bobbed and soaked in the beauty of the ocean beaches.  We found a particular beach that was made of broken shells, and was white that was our favorite.

There were strong enough surf waves for the littlest kids to play in and have fun.  I actually enjoyed that quite a bit, being tossed around and pulled in and out like a piece of driftwood.

There also was one end of the beach with rocks that we were able to snorkel around and see some great fish.  Puffer fish were the most exotic.

The second day we all were crispy and had a number of sand flea bites, but were content inside.  The ocean stays in your brain for quite a while.  I still feel the bobbing after 2 days.  I hope it never goes away.  That night we sang Clint a group “Happy Birthday” song.  He and Renee went out for dinner together. They found a private romantic spot that they raved about.   After that we had cake and ice cream. Clint said that he liked his birthday, at the beach, with family.  I can say that that would be my first choice too for a birthday.



The owner of our hotel and his dog going to town.  I believe that he is Italian.  He keeps a nice and clean hotel with off season rooms for $35 a night. We ate lots of cereal and sandwiches with an occasional meal out which made this a cheap vacation.




This was our end of beach day reward, pretty spectacular!!



Russell hated every minute of this.



If you bury the children, you know right where to find them later.




our veranda




 which was also our living room, note coffee maker there




The only thing that makes you tired of bobbing at a tropical beach is getting chilled or shriveled, but it takes hours.



We stayed at an excellent place called Quinta Esencia.  Clint and Renee, the Weides and us Chilcotes each had a room in a 4-room hotel.  Right across the driveway was another hotel with large apartments. All the girls minus Chloe stayed in there in one room.  They had a swimming pool, a kitchen, several bedrooms, as best of all TV!!!  They enjoyed watching movies at night.

We had a 2-block length walk to the beach from the hotels. The area really had no big hotels or buildings.  Everything there, just about, was open to the air.

Our hotel was very charming.  All wood, with a full length porch that we really lived on, looking out at huge tropical plants.  The weather was warm and muggy.  We never needed more than shorts and t-shirts outside.  There was a Jacuzzi.  It was unheated and when we first got there we were not sure it would be used.  It actually was a favorite later with those who wanted to cool off and soak their sunburns in cooler water.

We left yesterday after struggling to get ourselves stuffed back into the van.  Our hearts just wouldn’t stay in there.  We had a remarkably quiet trip home.

As we exited, however, there was a sudden rain storm which made loading gear damp. Also Jerry's flip flops didn't do well on our steep stairs, despite trying to be careful while carrying a load he fell head long without serious injury.  At the same time Dale put his hand on the deck upright and felt a strong sting. He shook something off his hand, and it was a scorpion.  He felt afterwards like it was equivalent to a hornet sting, but hurt more going in.  I guess it was time to go.

Other than the trip to the beach,  we have continued in our spanish lessons daily, and had weekend adventures locally.  Jerry and I took Shari and Katie to the mall. We didn't need anything particularily.  We wanted to test our navigation skills again. 

We did do better the second time without the extra 2-hour trip riding the bus.  We had no problems getting through all the bus changes.  We did get off a little early in one town, but asked for directions and found our stop.  It made a huge difference that we were traveling in daylight.  It boosted our confidence a lot.  If you ask for the town square by the huge Catholic church, you may find one of several. (note to self). 

Each weekend day we can, we go to the local market.  We are less shy about asking questions and have brought back all the fruits and veggis for the house.  It is fun to see, the market people are friendly and honest, and the food is great. Some of them know us now.  We are extremely easy to spot however.

We like to eat the local food from stands when we can. It is usually some variation of a soft taco with a hand-made tortilla.  You can get fresh squeezed juices too.

This band followed us around willing to sing us a tune anytime for a few bucks.  There were few other tourists to help support them.  I thought that some of the businesses must suffer this time of year.

Some of us are going to the church in Llano Verde today.  The rest will stay here and do homework.  Which we did not do over the days at the beach.  No surprise.

The Green Plain

This weekend as a team, we went to the far north to Llano Verde which means green plain.  This is a small town which is not really a plain, but rolling hills.  They are green, however, vivid, spring green.  It's greenness is all the more visible because the dirt is a dark red.  The church there is pastored by Clint Wisdom.  He went there last weekend, and in fact most weekends.  It is about a 6-hour drive from San Jose.
None of the driving is freeway driving.  On the way there, we went along a very steep, windy road that is on very unstable ground.  The views were pretty, and would have been breath-taking had not the clouds been hovering about us.  After we got to the top of the switchbacks, we entered an area where the road winds in and out through steep hills. I don't remember exactly how long ago, but within the last 2 years, there was a devastating earthquake here. The Wisdoms were among those who helped in the disaster relief.  Several hundred killed, and many lost houses, and businesses.  Also the few undamaged tourist places, including the waterfall garden/butterfly pavillion are struggling as people are afraid to come up there.  There is an area where houses were erected for the displaced to live down at the bottom of the mountains. There were places where the road got down to one lane, where temporary bridges were in place, and where the road was flaking off into the deep gorges below.  The government as of yet has not decided to put millions of dollars into fixing this unstable area.
After a pleasant 5 hours of driving, we hit the end of the paved road,  from then on it is car rattling dirt.  You can't build up too much speed as it is easy to bottom out.  This area is all beautiful farms and planted forrests.  Lots of the peaceful looking cows, teak trees, other commercially planted trees, and small farm houses.  Many of the fences have living fence posts.  There is a kind of small tree that you can cut off a branch and stick it in the ground, and it will grow.  The farmers have place these in close-together rows and strung barbed wire on them.  In my opinion it is much nicer to look at than the usual barbed-wire fence.
It was about an hour on the dirt road to Llano Verde itself.  All of us had been there before.  There is one improvement since I last was there.  They have electricity now.  No more going to bed with the sunset and getting up at dawn.  Now they go to bed whenever, and still get up at dawn.  The first evidence I had of the change was TV antennas on the small wooden homes.
Renee, Katie and I attended and shared at the Saturday ladies meeting at the church.  The women are very shy with strangers and didn't speak very much.  I asked also if I could read some Spanish from the Bible as I needed the practice.  They applauded when I finished, but not because I was that good, but because they are that kind.  That night we had a service and a movie night.  Many of the people walk several hours to church, and stay the night with someone, so a Saturday night movie gives them something to do.  We ran a cord over from Victor and Aurora's house two houses down for our electricity.  The film was shown on a white sheet.  The church is open on two sides which makes it possible to get breezes in.  It also lets the bugs in.  At night when they are the thickest, they didn't bother us much, but flocked to the white, lit-up sheet.  It was a little comical to see the heroes faces covered with insects.  Better them than us, I say.
After church, we went back to our host's house to eat, beans and rice with spaghetti noodles also in it.  Not bad.  We also had amazing local pineapple.  Like candy.
The women put up a tent in the house and slept on their living room floor. This kept any mosquitos at bay.  The men had a tent on the wood floor of the church.
Sunday morning, we all got up and showered.  Victor and Aurora have gotten indoor plumbing since last we visited.  It beats a trip to the outhouse in the middle of the night, or a "shower" out of a tub in the yard.  No hot water, of course, but still great.  Their house is very basic, but has everything needed for a good living, and some for beauty.  They still only have 3 pictures of themselves from long ago hanging on a wall. 
The church service was great.  They have a very lively and Spirit-filled worship team.  They give their all to the Lord and it was great fun.  The sermon, in Spanish passed some of us by, but their were lots of "amens" so I think it was well received.
Two babies and a family were dedicated to the Lord in the services.  After prayer, we all went and changed clothes and went to the river.  There are many flowing in the area.  It obviously rains there a lot.  As it was very hot it was great timing for the baptism which occurred.  5 people were baptized, after which everyone jumped into the river pond and played or waded in the water to cool off.
We went back to Victor and Aurora's and ate lunch.  After a leisurly afternoon and showers, we returned home. 
The roads in Costa Rica can be tricky at night.  There are many winding roads filled with slow-moving trucks.  Often people pull out in front of you without warning, and bicycles abound, without lights.
We made it back by 9 PM and ate pizza and went off to bed and emails, etc.
We found it a good challange to try to use our Spanish.  It is a lot harder to understand and speak at the speed people normally do. 
We are going up again next weekend, I think, so will get more opportunity then.


A few of Victor's cows. He makes and sells great fresh cheese.  He gets up at dawn and milks his cows.




Family dedication in church.  We can look right out at the fields and palm trees beyond.



One of the baptisms in the river by Jerry and Clint



New Amigas




Victor and Aurora with their sons and Jerry and Carol



Gorgeous water fall on the way to Llano Verde. You can see how rugged the terrain is. There is a temporary bridge next to the car.

                                

The walk to the river

                                                               Fun is the same anywhere!!