Costa Rica Sunday

8:45 a.m. Just finished breakfast. All of the kids and Giovanni went down to the river with Lynette at 6 a.m. to go swimming. Over breakfast we were dying laughing as we listened to Giovanni recount his horrifying adventures of jumping off rocks, rope swinging, and crossing the river in the rapids, all while Lynette stood on the rock encouraging them and taking pictures. Or, as G describes it, watching them die as she worked on her suntan. lol! We are about to head out for our morning church service.

12:30 p.m. Just arrived back at camp and everyone is packing up and cleaning their rooms. We had a good service this morning, and it was nice to have Lynette along with us. She is super nice and it’s been nice for both parties to be together these past few days. For her it has been nice to have conversation. She’s all alone out here and speaks no Spanish. She carries her dictionary around to converse with the couple who oversee the property, and to get around at the store, etc. The church we went to was small, but very nice inside with a tile floor, tile ceiling, and even mounted fans (which we sat right under). The service had maybe 50 people there including kids. Apparently this was a special service as their normal service is Sunday nights. We did our stuff, Tiffany shared her testimony, and I preached a message from Hebrews 3. After the message we had a time of altar ministry during which we surrounded the pastor and his wife and the entire church and prayed for them. The Lord gave me a word for the pastor, and Ady also had a word for them. After the service we made balloons and bracelets with the kids, and gave them toys and candy. We also left a bunch of craft supplies and Bibles with the pastor. After lunch we will be loading up and heading back to San Jose.

5:30 p.m.

So after leaving camp we decided it would be worthwhile to go on a riverboat tour about 20 minutes away before going home since it was only $5/person. We loaded onto the boat and the tour took about an hour. Along the ride we saw some beautiful birds. monkeys, poison dart frogs (which the guide caught and brought onto the boat for us to see), bats, a basilisk (lizard that runs on the water), an iguana, and a 4’ crocodile. Of course, our guide got us almost on top of it (literally within 2’ of it) but it would not move and everyone was asking if it was fake, so Giovanni decided to throw a craker at it. The first cracker missed and floated past it. The second cracker, however, hit it and with a flash and a big splash that got us wet it took off straight under our boat. You can only imagine the horrifying screams and the rocking boat followed by sheer laughter. It was hilarious!