As many of you know, I was blessed with the opportunity to serve with a group of 41 other people in Costa Rica this winter break. It was an absolutely amazing trip, and even a week after getting back, I'm still excited every time I think about the people on my team, the people in Costa Rica, or the work we were doing.
On the trip there were 3 main things that we were doing. We were building a 50' x 215' x 4" thick concrete slab soccer field in the plaza at La Cuenca. La Cuenca was an amazing place. It is a slum located in south Heredia.
The slum has been there for some time, but recently a developer has come in and built a mall just above it in town. In order to hide the slum the developer also built a huge wall to keep it from view. Another unfortunate consequence to having the mall above the slum is sewage. It drains down and ends up running through the slum, filling it with trash and pretty gnarly water.Despite this, the people in La Cuenca, especially the kids, are filled with an amazing sense of joy. Every time we went there people smiled, and were genuinely thankful that we had come! It was cool to see the love these people had for us and each other.
We also worked in a church in a town called Barva, building a drop ceiling out of T-channel, and Styrofoam tiles. It was a very technically challenging but rewarding experience, and it was really cool to see how much the Pastor of the church loved having us there. Him and his wife are not very well off, as he has been out of work as a teacher for several months, yet they continued to bless us with fresh fruit every morning and coffee and cookies every afternoon as we worked. His faithfulness to God and his church was awesome to see.
There are many more experiences I could share, but until I have the opportunity to write about them, feel free to browse through my Flickr account to see the pictures of the things that we did.
-Zach Johnson
Zach Johnson's Flickr
