Sunday, December 7th, 2003

We arose Sunday morning and had breakfast. We all got ready for morning services. We worshipped with the Tres Rios congregation Sunday morning and with the Coronado congregation Sunday afternoon. The Tres Rios church has their worship before their Bible classes. The song service was very well done. The observance of the Lord's supper here was especially touching because they placed a great emphasis upon remembering the sacrifice of our Lord speaking for several minutes about its significance before partaking. Larry preached on the subject of faithfulness with Hebrews 10:19-26 as his text and Walter did the translating. They both did an excellent job.

After the worship hour, we had the Bible classes. Moises asked me to teach the adult Bible class, which I did. I wasn't expecting this, so I just used the same material for the youth devotional the day before and threw in some questions and asked the members to participate. Walter translated for me and together we had a good class. While I was teaching the adult class, Mary Lynn was helping Maritza with one of the kids classes. Susan and Larry were also observing in the other classes as well.

That afternoon, we had several members come over to Moises and Maritza's house for lunch. We had a big lunch and it was outstanding as always. We learned that Saprissa had defeated Leaga in the soccer tournament that morning. So Moises Junior was bummed out about that, but Sarai was very happy, as she is a Saprissa fan. After lunch, Walter and I went to the Terra Mall to see if we could find some T-shirts. We could not find any, but find half of the population of Costa Rica in the mall. I have never been in a mall so crowded and I have been in a few. By the time we got back, it was time for us to get in the van and go to Coronado. We had a lovely drive on the way over. Traffic was not so bad on the weekend as it was during the weekday.

Services at Coronado began at 5:00 PM. I spoke that evening on faithfulness (the same outline as Larry) and Carlos translated for me. While I was preaching that evening, I used the English expression, "This is where the rubber meets the road." Carlos was translating fine and then he looked at me and said, "There is no Spanish for that!" Well, he tried to translate it directly into Spanish, but it just was not getting across. So he used another expression that is loosely translated into English, "You've got to put the heat to the ant." The message was understood clearly at that point and we moved forward. It was a rather amusing situation, however. The message was well received and many commented on the good material that was being presented.

At the end of the service they asked us if we wanted to say any last words. John had a few things to say about their wonderful hospitality and the good food. Larry said that he and Susan had definitely grown spiritually from this experience and had learned many lessons. I thanked our hosts and especially Maritza for having us in her home this whole week and working very hard to do the things that she did. After services were over, everyone wanted to gather for pictures and to say farewell to us. They also gave us several souvenir type gifts. It was touching that they all cared for us so much and wanted us to have a good trip home.

We left Coronado that evening and went back to the house. Moises and Maritza were completely exhausted doing all of the work that they had done for us the whole trip and had arranged for us to have dinner with Alejandro and Mercedes in Cartago. We had a great meal that evening and a wonderful time visiting with this family. They are one of the pillar families of the church at Tres Rios. It was good to get to encourage them. Alejandro gave us some coffee to take home with us and we thanked them for all of their hospitality. When we got back to Moises house, everyone else was pretty much in bed, so we went to bed as well as it was fairly late in the evening.

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