Costa Rica 2002

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Wednesday, September 25th, 2002

Wednesday we had several things planned. We were to go to visit some members who had not been in attendance for a while and then we planned on having a Bible study with some young ladies of the congregation who had not made the decision to put their Lord on in Baptism. We arose that morning and had Pizza for breakfast (yum). After this we prepared to go on our first visit.

We arrived at Chester and Juana's house about 10:30 AM. This couple lives on the other side of town quite a good drive away from where the church building is located. It was a nice drive and we got to see a part of Tres Rios that we had not seen before. We drove through an upscale neighborhood to get there and saw some of the nicer houses in the area. Chester and Juana's area was not as depressed as some of the other areas that we visited while we were there. Since we were there, Juana decided to go ahead and make lunch for us. It was delicious (as usual). I am not quite sure what it was called, but it was kind of a chicken stew with beans and corn. Everywhere we went we were fed very well. We had a good visit with this couple and got to meet a few of their sons--they have seven! We learned that Chester was from Nicaragua and although a very educated man, he could not get work in his field because Costa Ricans like to hire people from Costa Rican. So Chester worked at a service station in the city. I guess this visit bore some fruit because Chester and his wife were in attendance Thursday evening.

After spending quite some time with them, we went back to the residence. To my surprise, Maritza was cooking lunch. Evidently the lunch at Chester and Juanas was not planned. So, I sat down and ate again. I just LOVE beans and rice (especially the way that Maritza cooks it). YUM! Amazingly enough, I ate every single meal there and some days I had four meals and yet I lost ten pounds in my visit. I attribute this to the lack of fat in their diet. The diet contains a lot of chicken, beans, and rice, and is high in fiber and low in fat. If I could only have stayed for a month, I might have lost 30 more pounds! Personally, though, I just couldn't get enough of the good food that they fixed for us while we were there. It was evident both to Rusty and myself that some of these good brethren made sacrifices in order to give us good meals. For this, I am thankful.

Well, Wednesday afternoon we had to go pick up our translator, Walter, from school so that he would not be delayed for our meeting that evening. This trip was a most excellent adventure (not to take anything away from Bill and Ted). One has to understand that the traffic situation in Costa Rica is really bad. I mean, really, really, really, bad. Worse than anything we would ever expect in the United States. I would be a fair assessment for me to say that many Costa Rican drivers have little respect for the traffic laws. It did not mean anything for them to run red lights without even slowing down to look. Many disregarded the fact that the roads had lanes (where you could see the stripes). Motorcycles constantly darted in and out of traffic to get closer to the front of the line. And buses really did not care whether you were in their way or not. Add to this that every single vehicle was driving at least twenty kilometers per hour over the speed limit and you have a pretty hazardous situation. There is one more thing about driving in Costa Rica. Every two or three miles you will run into a traffic circle (some people call these rotundas). This is where five or six streets converge into the same place and in order to go the right way you have to make your way around the circle to the correct exit and then dart through the merging traffic to get out in time--quite hairy. Now, add to all this that the traffic signs are in Spanish and you really have a mess. Well, we did the best that we could and we made it back alive so we are grateful for that. However, on the way over to pick up Walter from school, we had to make a couple of decisions at the last moment. As a result, we ended up going the wrong way on a one way street. We picked up Walter and then we continued on because there was no way to turn around. Well we got to the middle of this one way street (it was kind of a square around a little park) and we met another car. So I turned into the first place that I could--a parking lot. In Costa Rica, the parking lots have attendants so as to guard the cars from vandalism and theft. Well, the attendant was not too happy that I cut through his parking lot and so he proceeded to let me know about that. We apologized and went on our way, but after this, I was known as Kevin de la Hoya. Needless to say that we had a good time driving around San Jose.

We were able to stop at a Christian Book Store on the way back and look at some of the books there. I was hoping to find a Greek New Testament for Moises and Porfirio but they did not have one here. (I later ordered one and sent it with them via Moises when he and Maritza came to be with us this past November). We took our trip back to the house, picking up Kenji on the way, and arrived back at the house to get ready for our afternoon Bible study.

This particular Bible study was with some of the younger girls who came quite frequently to services, but had not made the decision to be baptized. So we talked about the plan of salvation and the need to be obedient to the Lord and be baptized. These girls understood the gospel message, but they did not wish to be baptized at this time. We did have a good visit with the family and we learned later that in that particular family, the father is not as spiritual as he should be and this is a large influence as to why these girls did not go ahead and commit themselves to the Lord. Satan can work in so many ways to dissuade us from becoming a Christian. I just hope that these young ladies will open their hearts to God's ways and one day will come to understand that there is nothing that should come between us and our God.

After the study, we returned to Moises residence to get ready for the evening service. Again we made the rounds to pick up all the brethren and sisters who wanted to come and started about thirty minutes late. I had the privilege of being able to speak for the next two evenings. This particular evening I spoke on the topic, The Word of Reconciliation. Walter did the translating and we had a fine evening. We ate a nice supper of beans and rice after services and retired for the evening.

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