Guanacaste Outreach

Most recently we went on a weekend outreach to a region of northern Costa Rica called the Guanacaste. The trip by bus took 5 hours and we arrived at night to a church in the town of Rio Naranjo. The pastor is a single 24 year old guy named Marvin, who we learned is very passionate about the church and community. We slept on the concrete floor of a warehouse type building and awoke around 3 am to loud wind and rain, 4 am to roosters, 5 am to a baby crying, and 6 am to the sun coming in, and 7am for breakfast. Throughout the day (Saturday) we went door to door in groups of 2 or 3 to talk and invite folks to our worship service later on that evening. I (Jason) am extremely apposed to door-to-door evangelism but in the Latin culture here people are very welcoming and open. It turned out to be fruitful and I actually enjoyed meeting quite a few of the locals. After lunch we picked up trash to show our involvement in the community to those whom with we didn’t get a chance to meet. We all gathered on the soccer field in the center of the town to play with the children (boys played soccer of course and the girls talked and played games). Afterwards we preformed 3 different attention-getting dramas on the field. After cleaning up and eating dinner (of more beans and rice) with put together a 2-hour worship service with music, dramas, and a short message. Upon closing for the night we were able to talk more one on one with several of the folks who we invited and had never been to the church before. After another night of sleeping on the concrete floor with rosters crowing at all hours of the night, we awoke around 6am for breakfast and a hike to the local waterfall. The water was bitter cold but that didn’t stop many from jumping right in. Upon returning in the afternoon we participated with the Church service with yet again more drama, worship, and short message. We completed the trip with the 5-hour bus ride back home with standing room only or sitting on the floor in the isle as we did.