Costa Rica Mission Trip, Day Three

7/2/10

I awoke early, about 5:30 a.m. CR time, put in my contacts, and took my journal to the Rain Forest Café.

I was not sure what the day would bring, but knew that it would involve hard work. As I was still a little sore from yesterday, I did not want to overdo it.

After breakfast, we divided into several work teams – painting, trash removal, hauling of wood and boulders, and siding “Hope’s Cabin”. I was on the last team.

I walked to the cabin; a foundation that had been laid by previous Hope mission teams was now nearly enclosed with the top section, where its future inhabitants would spend their time. A group brought fresh, wet cypress lumber, which I helped to stack in the basement of the cabin, while Butch and Rollin cut lumber from a dry stack for Trevor, Jacob, Tanner and J. T. to hang.

Another team delivered a truck bed full of volcanic rock – boulders that averaged 40-50 lbs., which had to be rolled to the bottom of the hill and stacked. I stood at the bottom and helped with this task as well, a little surprised that it did not bother my back as much as I might have anticipated.

The truck that was used to delivered the rocks was unable to make it up the hill, due to the wet conditions, and had to be pulled out with Bob’s jeep.

We then had lunch. Afterwards, Rollin, Lew and I made some much needed shelves for the bathrooms, from scraps of the wood used for siding.

More lumber was delivered and stacked, and then we began to place the boulders in a trench behind the cabin. The trench was part of the septic system which was about 4 feet deep. We placed the boulders in the trench, connected a pipe to the septic tank, covered the pipe with plastic, and then the rest of the group filled the trench with nearby dirt. It rained rather hard, but the team completed the task, joking and laughing the whole time.

We returned to the Rain Forest Café and Rollin divided the team into five groups of five for tomorrow’s trip to the farmer’s market – a large, outdoor market where local farmers sold their crops. We would be shopping for the food we would need for the remainder of the week.

We ate dinner and then I led the group in singing a song. Lew then led us in a reflection on the day. It was good to hear the “God moments” from the day. Afterwards, Terri led us in an icebreaker game that helped us get to know each other a little better.

I was tired, so rather than play cards, I went to bed early.

Addendum:

I was awakened about 1:30 a.m. (CR time) Several of the boys came into the adult cabin in an attempt to place Gator paraphernalia around me and then take a picture. For some unknown reason, even with ear plugs in to avoid the snoring of my cabin mates, I woke up and thwarted their plan.

After they returned to their cabin, and since I was up, I took the opportunity to take some revenge and began making tapping noise on the outside walls. Eventually, Daniel came out to see what the commotion was about. He returned to the cabin, with me behind him, and then announced to the others that it was nothing. After a couple of minutes, I quickly opened the door, made a growling noise, and scared a few of them. I realized that the shenanigans would probably continue in the nights to come.