Work Site

So our team leaders decided that all 18 of our team members would participate in both missions: 1 = construction of a future Methodist Children's Orphanage and 2= putting on a Vacation Bible School in 2 different areas of San José.
I need not tell you the reaction of our 7 guys and 10 women (+ a 9 year old girl)of this decision! Our work days started at 7am with a 45 min bus ride and then work til 12:30pm and lunch on the work site, then another 45 min bus ride to the VBS sites and work there til 5pm. On the last night of our week, everyone concluded it was so neat to work together the whole time. The guys got the biggest blessing working with the little ones in VBS and the ladies discovered we can really pull off some heavy duty construction work if we are put to the test!

Fortunately for me they assigned me inside work on the caretakers' home at the orphanage site. I painted walls and then mudded(skimmed)a complete wall from ceiling to floor! Working up close to the ceiling and the corners was hard and my neck ached but it beat digging ditches outside with some of the others in the Costa Rica sun.

side of the home where the tools and supplies were kept


The Caretaker's home

taping the kitchen area for painting


hallway where we mudded the wall and sang Amazing Grace!


team members mixing mortar and cement


Madge mudding one of the walls we worked on


We marveled at the fact that the caretaker had a 9 year old daughter, Hillary, who did not go to school every day til 12:30. She and our own 9 year old team member, Caroline, entertained each other all morning long and brought us fresh fruit mid morning snacks. Neither one spoke each other's language but they played and danced all week. Those two became fast friends as I did too with both of them!


This is the caretakers' 11 year old daughter named Lady (in Spanish) which is Lolli in English! You should have seen my face when José, her father, introduced her to me and he had no idea my other name is Lolli!


This is Carmen and Lillian, our cooks for our lunches all week. Carmen is the wife of José and the mother of Hillary and Lady(Lolli). Lillian was Carmen's helper and the wife of the head foreman on the worksite. I loved these two women. On our last day there, Madge and I were singing different hymns to pass the time while we finished up mudding a wall. When we started singing Amazing Grace, both women came out of the kitchen and stood in the hallway where we were working. After we sang one line of the song in English they sang that line of Amazing Grace in Spanish. It was one of the most touching moments of my whole trip. I will never sing that song again without tears for remembering the bond we shared with these 2 women.