Another busy week here in San Jose…I’m at the mall taking advantage of free wi-fi, since we have to pay for it back at the base. Whenever I’ve told people there’s a mall here, a lot are surprised. I was too at first, because the city of San Jose is pretty run down and poor, and so the mall seems out of place. But it’s actually a really nice indoor mall with some big name stores, like Apple, Nike, as well as a movie theater. We come here on weekends a lot to hang out, see movies and get online at the coffee shops. It’s a nice change of atmosphere from the base and our neighborhood, and it’s about a 30 minute walk, which feels nice to get out and do.

Speaking of walking, my foot is doing much better. I’m about 80% back to normal, I’d estimate. The swelling is almost completely gone, and I can walk normally again. (Yay!) But I am refraining from getting involved in the Rugby and Soccer games that happen often, which stinks because I really want to play. But I’m just thankful it’s finally healing and I’m back to normal activity.

This week was called “Destiny By Design.” Our speaker is living in Costa Rica currently, with his family, but is originally from the states. We talked about how we were designed and what our strengths/passions/dreams are. It was helpful because most of us are at a point where we are wondering what to do next…so it was perfect timing for this class. We did a lot of tests determining our personalities, our gifts, and our potential…and then tried to tie them all together at the end of our week to determine what our next steps should be. It was a really fun week and I’ll be using a lot of what I learned in the future, I’m sure.

Our class with our speaker this week

Thursday we went to La Paz park again, to pick up trash. It started raining though, about 45 minutes into our time, and when it rains here, it POURS. If you can envision a large grassy area with a huge steep hill overlooking the city in the center of the park, that’s basically the layout of La Paz. So as the time passed and we were all soaking wet, some of us started playing in the muddy puddles forming…and then about half the group slid down the hill when we left. (It reminded me of the scene from Princess Bride when they’re rolling down the hill, that’s about how big the hill was.) We were all pretty wet and some of us muddy as we walked home.

Yesterday we went to the Heredia YWAM base, which is about 30 minutes away from San Jose. It’s up in the mountains and a lot different from our surroundings. The base has a great amount of property and they have goats, horses, chickens, gardens, and more. There was probably around 50 people including our students and staff, and we relaxed all day with each other. We had a BBQ, played volleyball, wandered around the property, listened to a few of the musicians in our group as they played for us, and got to know each other better.

We’re nearing the end of our time here in San Jose, which means outreach is coming up! We started learning dramas for children’s ministry and our outreach prep will be getting more and more involved in the next four weeks before we leave. It will be bittersweet though, because I’ve loved living in this beautiful community the past couple months.