Making a cement volcano at karen's

Karen's husband takes part in construction of his house

At the end of every work day this week our group has been winding down by identifying the high and low points of our day, and especially times when we saw Jesus.  Today was a great day for everyone here and we even got to spend the second half of it together, playing in the river with the local kids.  All of the projects were successfully wrapped up and the team members have regretfully said most of their good-byes with the people they’ve met.

After a week’s worth of work, the team feels good about the projects they have accomplished and the relationships they have built.  Karen is a very proud owner of a home that she can call her own, and she and her family moved in today.  Our community partner now has a covered porch where his family (and many other members of the community who spend time at his house) can relax and enjoy each others’ company.  Finally, the Watsi neighborhood  now has a vibrant, colorful community center that is used for everything from a locker room to a clinic.

At the end of every day, when we talk about what we experienced, there was one story in particular that came up several times.  The team that was at the community center has been working with a man named Carlos.  He has been leading the team and showing them how to make the necessary repairs.

During Friday’s lunch, the team had a chance to ask him about the origins of the Bribri culture.  As he told the story, the team got to see one of the things about which Carlos is really passionate: the Bribri culture and history.  Through the telling of this story, the team was able not only to learn more about the Bribri traditions and past, but also about this man Carlos, with whom they had been working all week.  Everyone really enjoyed asking questions and  hearing what Carlos wanted to share, making it a great end of the week for this group.
Team Costa Rica

June 11, 2010

*Note: Interested in going on a trip with Experience Mission? Visit our website at www.experiencemission.org to learn more and watch for our Summer 2011 trips.

Diogo helping build his house

Greetings!  This week has gotten off to a great start with an energetic team from Jupiter First Church (Florida).  The team arrived in San Jose on Sunday afternoon and after our 5+ hour bus ride, we arrived on the Bribri reservation.

This week we have chosen four different sites within the Watsi community: doing Kids Club, building a house, building a porch, and repairing a community center.  Though many this week are feeling the struggle of communicating in a foreign language, so far the teams have accomplished a great deal and seem to be having a lot of fun.

The house that we are working on this week is being built for a woman named Karen and her family.  Since Karen is currently studying English in school the group is doing a great job conversing, partly in Spanish and partly in English, in order to get to know each other.  It has been wonderful to watch the relationship grow between the team and Karen’s family.  Karen’s four-year-old son, now being more comfortable with the team, brings smiles to everyone’s faces as he runs and chases them around their home.

Karen has been very hospitable and has offered many refreshments to the team, including a native sweet and sour fruit called the guanabana.  The team has been appreciative of her gratefulness and is noting the love and hard work that emanates from each member of her family.  The bond that has been forming within this group of people is just one of the many ways in which we can see God working in our lives this week.

Team Costa Rica

June 8, 2010

To learn more about Costa Rica mission trips, visit www.experiencemission.org.

Rural Mission Trip: Just checking in from Costa Rica. The summer has been a challenging one but it’s been amazing to see how God continues to work in ways that we did not see possible. This last week we travelled up to Alto Coen; which to give ya’ll an idea of the kind of trip it is, just to get to the location where you are staying you take an hour boat ride in a banana boat, an hour bus ride, and then a 5 hour hike up roughly 1500 feet on a muddy, rugged terrain. It is an amazing experience but you definitely get a workout. Anyways, throughout the week Ali and I had the privilege of getting to know the people, specifically the women and children while the men worked on the bridge, which was our main focus for traveling up to Alto Coen- to assist in the building of a suspension bridge that would connect two sides of a village. It was a stretching experience as I battled not being able to fully communicate with women and children however it was amazing to see how God worked through my weakness to still do His work. As I sat under a tree constructed structure with a leaf roof, I found myself exchanging my English language with their BriBri language. While the time was spent learning small phrases such as How are you?, What is your name? Where are you from? And how to count to ten, the bond that formed seemed to go deeper then the simplistic phrase exchanges. It was an exchange of lives, a sharing of each others’ hearts and the joining of lives for a moment.
Team Costa Rica

*To learn more about the mission trips that Experience Mission is sending out, visit www.experiencemission.org.

Internation Mission Trip: After being here in Costa Rica for about three weeks, the reality of being here all summer started to set in and the days seemed to get long, but our spirits were brightened when our next team from western Pennsylvania arrived.  The group came with great attitudes and ready to work.  Once everyone arrived at the work sites they realized that with the cultural difference, work was going to move much slower than expected.  For us in America, we are used to getting things done in a time effective manner, but here, all of the teams are finding that the work moves much slower.  After realizing the cultural difference, they decided to embrace it instead of fight it.  They immediately spent more time getting to know the people they were working with and serving alongside as well as sharing their lives with them.  Western Pennsylvania was not only a blessing for this community on the Bri Bri reservation, but also a blessing for our summer staff as well.  Their great attitudes lifted our spirits, while Jacob and Alex brought constant laughs. 

This group came down ready to serve in any way possible and ready to serve anyone.  They were even able to financially bless us as summer Staff after Yon’s tennis shoes were stolen.  He desperately needed a new pair of shoes and they wanted to treat us to dinner so they left us money for him to get new shoes and for us to watch a movie and get dinner.  We had money left over so we wanted to pass on the blessing to someone else.  We were able to help Retano, a taxi driver from last year, who lost his leg to diabetes.  He is in the process of getting a prosthetic leg, but is short on funds.  God was able to bless Retano though the western Pennsylvania group with money to go towards his new leg.  Many lives were touched this week.  Even though there are bumps in the road sometimes, God is providing down here and doing amazing things.

Team Costa Rica

*Do you want to go on a mission trip? Check out www.experiencemission.org to view our communities for Summer 2010.

Short term Mission Trips:

Mid week fix for everyone.

The first mission trip team arrived Monday, we have done so many crazy and God-filled things it has been amazing. We have been helping out with kids at the Root Cellar, painting decks for the people that are living in public housing, and volunteering at Preble Street, where we have helped serve the homeless breakfast. 

The current youth mission trip team is made up of only 13 people, the Maker’s dozen, and we have stretched them really thin. We have had very little downtime for them to recover, so please pray for strength for them as well as Cori, Laurie, and I.

Laurie has been under the weather so we need her to get better soon.

Thank you for your prayers. Pray that we lean not on our own understanding, but on our Heavenly Father’s.

Portland team

PS. The reason this is so short is because my computer was locked in an office during the time I had planned to write this. Another great example of God forcing us to change plans for some other good!

Find an urban mission trip in Portland or another city in the US: www.ExperienceMission.org Summer 2010 trips posted soon!

Sebastian at the helm

3/1/2009

Yesterday the teams arrived safely in Cauhita, and our bus was at the hotel by 6:15 this morning. Timoteo came on the bus, and was there to meet us. We all crammed into a mini-bus and went to Timoteo’s house where we dropped off our bags. We then went down to a community center where we ate breakfast. Timoteo took some time to officially welcome the team and then after breakfast we headed off to Timoteo’s church.

The church service was a meaningful way to begin the trip. The church collectively prayed for our team in Spanish and then our team went to the front of the church with Timoteo, and he prayed for us in Bribri. After this Kaylee, a member of the IWU team, prayed for the church in English and Yon translated. Later, Jay, another IWU student, had the opportunity to close the service in prayer. I was pleased that we had this opportunity to meet with the church, and I think it was a good start to the week.

After church we went back to Timoteo’s house, and conducted the last group meeting before the official Bribri mission begins. We split the teams into teams, and these two teams will remain together for the remainder of their time on the reservation. Team one is with Yonathon as the translator, and they will spend tomorrow identifying potential summer projects near the town of Bribri, and Tuesday morning they head up to Alto Coen. Team two is with Sarah as translator, and they left this afternoon to go to Coroma. They will be planning all the logistics for next week’s team who will be working there. Both teams have until Thursday afternoon to complete their missions. The projects will conclude when we all come back together in Saretka.

I was able to accompany the Coroma team on their initial journey. We all hopped in the back of a pickup truck at Timoteo’s and started the trip to the port of Saretka. Our first stop was at a local grocery store, and the team purchased food to bring with us to Coroma. From there we arrived at the port of Saretka. Our truck drove onto the rocky beach, and we piled in Sebastian’s long narrow wooden boat and headed off into the jungle. As we left the mountains were before us and to all appearances we were going into the middle of nowhere. It was an exhilarating feeling.

The boat ride turned out to be a slow one. There is a motor on the boat but it is small and it was weighed down by ten people with packs and food. We were headed up current, and there were times that we were barely moving but nonetheless we made steady progress. On one occasion, we actually bottomed out because the river was so shallow, and we had to get out and walk a while before Sebastian once again took us on board. After perhaps forty-five minutes in the boat landed for good, and the first leg of the journey was complete.

When we landed, we met two Bribri men and a young boy standing next to a bunch of plantains, which they would eventually take down the river to sell. They helped us unload the boat, and we began the hike to Coroma. We hiked along and through the river for a while before we settled onto a nice path. As we were walking, I talked to one of the men who’s name was Anselmo. He told me that the boy was his grandson and that he had had five children but two of them had died. Interestingly, he told me that the Bribri in Coroma speak differently than the Bribri in Saretka. Soon, however, the conversation died because of the language barrier, and before long we arrived in Coroma.

We walked through the main area of the village, and then went to the school where we will potentially be working. It became clear that this is where the teams will stay, and we found that the community leaders were expecting us. We all gathered around some tables where a few men were waiting for us, and we were informed that the main spokesman was the President. At this point, I sat back and let the team conduct the meeting. Kyle their elected spokesperson began to introduce the group and their objectives and Sarah translated. As I sat back and filmed, I was struck by the extreme clash of cultures. In front of me was a young college student from Indiana speaking to the weathered leader of the village who has survived the Jungle his entire life. I think that this will be a rich experience for all involved, and my hope is that the team will be able to develop good relationships with the locals during their stay in Coroma.

Because I need to go into town tomorrow and change the last of the money and find an internet connection, I decided to return on the boat so I had to leave during the meeting. The ride back was beautiful. We were going down stream, so it was much faster and more treacherous, but Sebastian clearly is very skilled, and he navigated perfectly. The sun began to set as we floated down and the view of the mountains was incredible. By the end of our trip it was raining, but all was well, and we made it safely back to port.

Now, I had the challenge of catching the right bus when no one around spoke any English except one man who seemed a little bit crazy. However, I was able to get on the right bus and was lucky enough to have a driver named Owen who spoke English and had lived in the States for a while. It was well after dark when I returned to Timoteo’s house to find the Alto Coen team in good spirits and wrapping up dinner.

The Alto Coen team did well while I was gone. They were not able to look at projects today, but the successfully negotiated with Timoteo to stay at his house, and they had purchased food and dinner was waiting for me. The team is good spirits. It’s now about 10:15; I’m at Timoteo’s with the team, and they are all sleeping. Overall, I think that day one for the teams went very well.

**To learn more about what Experience Mission is doing, visit our website at www.experiencemission.org.

2/23/2009

At 6:00 last night I left my house in Chimacum, WA and flew all night arriving successfully in San Jose at 12:50 pm. My plan was to meet former EM summer staff, Chris Salmon, who will be serving as a translator for the next few days. Amazingly, Chris and I ran into each other right away and in short order we were through immigration. Our bus driver Rodrigo and his friend Oscar were waiting for us. After lunch with Rodrigo and Oscar, we went straight to a hostel owned by Rodrigo. It is very nice by Central-American standards, so this is a good place for teams to stay in the future. Read the full story

Team Catadupa finally arrives! The day we thought would never come has come and gone, we’ve made it here. It took a lot of training, prep, prayer, packing, repacking, and a few customs issues but we are here. Josh Gray, Luke Clum, and Stuart Hoetger all made it fine into “MoBay” (Montego Bay, Jam.) while I, Nathan Heath, spent my time being tossed between departments in customs. I spent a couple of hours running around trying to find someone who would give the stamp to let me into the country. But we are all here now and things are Irie (… just Google it).
So, first impressions: Driving seems a lot like a mix of southern Mexico and England. Everyone drives on the left side of the road, steering wheels are on the right side of the car, and at a first glance it looks like total madness on the road. People are honking and yelling and waving, cars slide by inches from touching each other. It is a bit of a wake up after coming out of the American airport system. It was also interesting to just hop on a public transportation bus and take off, instantly thrown into the culture. Fortunately Josh, our EM Community Coordinator for Jamaica, was there to introduce us to the right people and pretty much answer the hundreds of questions we had concerning culture and our roles in the community. Josh, you are our hero.

So now, two days in, we are approaching Josh’s departure (Friday) and our first group’s arrival (Saturday). We have already accomplished so much, but the to-do list seems to be growing exponentially. We will get it done though. It has already been amazing to see God taking care of us in crazy ways. He has provided us with local people who are an invaluable asset, both in advice, help, and guidance, but more importantly in friendship.

So that is where we are right now–prepping for the incoming short term mission trips, establishing ourselves as a team and in the community, and figuring out how to do it all within a budget (without going crazy). We have an adventure ahead of us. It will be amazing. Keep praying and believing. Take care and God bless.

Until all know,

Nathan Heath