Costa Rica Day 8

Today was a great day! We started early and headed to San Lazaro from our Motel in Santa Cruz. We arrived around 8:30 in the village. This was our visit to where we would spend the remainder of our time in Costa Rica. It didn’t take long to loop through the village and arrive at the church in the southeast corner of the village. We had planned out a service and our group was ready. We walked through the village inviting people to church and some of the village children joined us. The service was supposed to start at 9:30 but only three children and two adults were there. Aby looked a little discouraged. I asked him what was going on? He said the Catholic church in the village only has a Sunday morning service twice a year. However, they heard we were coming and scheduled a service. To top things off the village soccer team had a soccer game the same morning against a neighboring village. Bummer!!! We waited and started the service later. Some of the church members who play for the soccer team came by and said they would not be able to make the service due to the game. Slowly but surely the church began to fill. First with children then with adults. Before long the church was full and most of our group was standing outside looking in through the windows. Some members of our team sang songs in English, did a drama on sin, and Kaitlin Kijawski shared her testimony. All our students did great.

After the service we fed everyone who attended church that morning. We also passed out bags of food that should feed a family for a full week. The people seemed very happy. After, we all headed to the soccer field in the middle of the village to watch the remainder of the game. The San Lazaro team won and it was fun to watch. If you haven’t figured it out, soccer is KING. After the village team played Aby had challenged some of the villagers with a game against the “gringos” – That’s us. We knew this team was going to be good and we would have to play our best if we didn’t want to be embarrassed. We took an early lead scoring 3 points pretty easy. It seemed the opposing team were all good ball handlers but didn’t play well as a team. It was the middle of the day and over 100 degrees. We played hard and ended up winning the game 6 to 5. It was a huge win for the gringos and devastating for the villagers. Oh I almost forgot to mention we were playing the village children. We whooped up on the six and seven year olds. . . and almost managed to lose. They definitely underestimated us. On the way back from the village we stopped by a neighboring village called Guatille. This village is known for its pottery. They did a demonstration for us and let some of us try our hand at making pottery. We made some purchases and headed back to Santa Cruz for the night.