Costa Rica 2002

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Thursday, September 26th, 2002

Thursday we had planned on going to see the Poaz Volcano. This is a relatively dormant volcano that is relatively close to the Central Valley and the San Jose area. We had tortillas and cheese for breakfast and it was yummy! Kenji also wanted to go with us to this Costa Rican National Park to make some observations for his research as a graduate student. So we hopped in the car and drove over to the University area to get Kenji. From there we got on the freeway and headed toward the Volcano. This particular Volcano was about 8,500 feet high. The park has a reception area and you have to make about a half a mile hike to the active crater. It has not had very much activity recently. We also took a hike to the older crater which was now a tranquil lagoon. The Botas Lagoon is still acidic enough not to have any life in it, but the setting is quite tranquil. For more information on these natural phenomena you may visit the following web site: http://www.infocostarica.com/places/poas.html. This trip took up all of the morning and some of our afternoon. Driving back from the Volcano, we saw a wonderful little waterfall on the side of the road. We stopped to stretch our legs and to get a good view of this place.

We stopped in a little town outside of San Jose to eat lunch at McDonalds. But instead of having our usual McDonald's cuisine, we had the fried chicken. This is one of the more interesting things about Costa Rica, I think, is that McDonalds serves fried chicken on the bone. "Pollo frito" in the vernacular and it was very tasty. One of the more fascinating things to me in stopping at McDonalds was to observe how Izaac, the youngest child of Moises family, cared for his toys. At McDonalds, we bought him a happy meal and it came with a toy. Well, normally, we are used to our kids taking the toys and unwrapping them and throwing the wrapper away and then almost destroying the toy playing with it. Not so with the children in Costa Rica. It is a rare thing for them to be able to get some toys and they feel very responsible about the toys that they get. So when I put the plastic wrapping for the toy with the other trash, I was surprised to see Izaac looking for it. After he was finished playing with the toy, he wrapped it up nice and neat and put it back into the plastic out of which it came. This respect for ones personal property really impressed me. In contrast, our society is quite the opposite. We live in a "throw away" world. We take for granted things that other people in other countries would love to have and would cherish. Izaac taught me a valuable lesson that day and I hope that this lesson is observed by many.

When we got back to San Jose, we decided that we needed to pick up Walter for that evenings services, but we could not get a hold of him at his residence. Finally we were able to locate him via cell phone and picked him up outside the University campus. We decided to go to one of the local shopping centers called Hypermart. Particularly, I was looking for an English/Spanish dictionary. I wanted one of the same type that Moises and Maritza had and this particular shopping area did not have one of these. We also went to another store to find one but they did not have one either. While we were at Hypermart, we purchased a piece of luggage for Moises and Maritza so they would have something to take with them on their trip to the U.S. that they had planned for November. I also was able to acquire a nice soccer ball with the Costa Rican national team logo on it. This I gave to Moises and Maritza's kids the next day as a gift. Soccer is the national sport there and it is very big. The kids grow up learning how to play soccer and for them to have this really thrilled them.

We made our way back to the residence and then we prepared for the evenings worship. This evening, Rusty decided to make the rounds to pick up our fellow brethren and sisters. We seemed to have a larger crowd on Thursday night. Each evenings attendance was good but we probably had about 60 people on Thursday evening. I figured that this was partly due to that evening being the last night of the meeting and possibly the last time that they would see Rusty and I for a while. It was heartwarming. That evening I spoke on the topic: "Be Ye Reconciled." While there were no immediate responses to the invitation this evening, we later learned that one of the ladies who was in attendance at this very meeting (Rosario, with whom we had had dinner Monday night) was later baptized into Christ. She credited the work that we did with her as being influential in helping her come to an understanding of what she needed to do to have her sins washed away. I am deeply thankful that she was able to render the proper obedience to the Lord's will in this regard. After this particular evening, Maritza had prepared some snacks and coffee for everyone and we had a great time visiting and saying goodbye to all who we met this particular week. It was with some note of difficulty that we had to say goodbye to these that we had come to love, and many were inquiring as to when our next visit would be. After everyone had been shuttled home, we retired for the evening.

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