Sik Wit It

Well, it has been at least a week since our last blog and a lot has gone on. We will start with yesterday and work backwards. Yesterday (Tues.) I went to San Jose with Pastor Dimas to buy the materials for a campaign that will take place at the church in Alajuela called 50 days of Love. In the afternoon, Justin and I went to Palmares with Dimas for their Tuesday night Discipleship service. Justin and I were able to give the discipleship lesson with the youth (jovenes). Considering the youth that had been at the church during other services, I thought we would have about 5 or so in the group, but we ended up with about 10 or so...the youth's ages varied from 2 years old to 27 years old! It was definitely a good time...we are looking forward to next week.

On Monday we got up early (5:30) and set out to go fishing in the gulf on the Pacific side of the country...we got the boat onto the trailer we made last week, only to find out that it was set a little to low and the boat rubbed the tires whenever we hit a small bump. We ended up driving about an hour to Palmares where we stopped at a Mechanic shop that one of the church members owned there. We basically worked on the trailer for a few hours and hung out with that family (the car shop was beside their home). The hospitality they showed was amazing to us as we waited. After a few appetizers of some kind of grilled bread, we feasted on this chicken and rice dish that was unbelievable...the woman who made the food had no choice but to be a good cook as her name was Iris! After finally getting the trailer fixed, we arrived to the gulf in the afternoon and started fishing....we probably caught about 15 or so salt-water catfish before heading home around 9:00pm or so. It was fun just to roadtrip it with the family.

On Sunday, we once again participated in the church services at the two different churches. Justin had been working all week on putting all of the songs onto a new program called "Easy Worship 2007" to have the words for the congregation and was able to have a few songs ready for the service Sunday morning.

One of the highlights of last week for me was one day when Justin and I took Enny and Wendy to the town square in Alajuela for them to buy a few things they needed. As Justin and I waited for them as they shopped (I was hoping that the whole guys waiting while the women spend endless hours shopping was going to be an avoidable evil upon coming to Costa Rica, but I believe that is a worldwide phenomenon), there was a guy on the street who was obviously homeless. To make a long story short, I was able to show him some love simply by treating him as a human and listening. He is a 25 year old alcoholic who is broken and humbled. I was thankful to be able to meet him and tell him that I would be praying for him and that I would ask my friends to pray for him. His name is David Perez; please pray that God would grant him repentance in Christ and free him from this stronghold of Satan on his life.

Another highlight of the week included eating at Cesar and Wendy's house on Sunday evening. She made a chicken lasagna with white sauce that was super good...as if that weren't enough, she followed that up with a chocolate cake! It was great just to be invited to their home and to eat...we finished up the night with a healthy soccer match which ended with a controversial 12-11 victory by Justin's team (bad guys) over the good guys (Aaron's team).

Aaron and I also had the opportunity to put our cooking skills up to the test on last Saturday. Enny was out of town for the day, so Dimas figured it would be beneficial to him, since he doesn't cook or do anything that is done in a kitchen, to ask me and Aaron to whip up a lunch for him, Wendy, Cesar, Rony, and one of Dimas' friends, who was a pastor also. We ended up cooking our specialty (grilled chicken, steak, and sauteed vegetables). The whole meal was a success, and the time spent together was very memorable. We have posted a video below that shows Dimas singing "Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord" in english... Listen for Cesar's reaction afterwards... We hope you enjoy...(people in this video: Pastor Dimas, Cesar, Wendy, and Rony is in the back)





Also posted below is a video of Cesar and what he thinks of his soccer skills. Pretty hilarious if you ask me, although it is very true...