La Finca sits on a big field surrounded by sugar cane and coffee bean farms and tropical plant greenhouses. But towards the front and in the back are big valleys. The valley to the front is wide and covered with houses. At night we can see all the twinkling lights for several miles. We walk down a small hill in the back that leads to the cabin where we stay. Between the church area and the cabin are gardens that grow beans, corn, cilantro and other vegetables that the church sells to help support its mission. The hill behind the cabin drops steeply down to a river. All over the hill are banana trees and many different types of trees. Our advance scouts – Chris, Darryl, and Mark – decided to walk down to see the river the other day but after their exploration the rest of us decided we would not be as adventurous. They couldn’t even get to the river because of the jungle, the thorn bushes, the big spider webs, and the huge hornets nest. Some things are best left undiscovered!
Pastor Johnny Calvo is the senior pastor at La Finca. He is a very outgoing, energetic man in his early 40’s. He is also the district superintendent of the Costa Rica North district. He preached on Sunday and worked with us on site on Monday and Tuesday. He grew up in the San Pedro de Poas church. The church was a typical small mission style church running about 30 people when he became pastor 7 years ago. It now runs 200-250 and is the largest Nazarene church in Costa Rica. They moved locations and became the La Finca church leaving a smaller but active congregation at the San Pedro location. Tuesday evening he said good-bye as he would be spending the rest of the week in Panama at a regional meeting. In his place our Costa Rican pastoral influence is Pastor Jorge Radi, an associate at La Finca. He is originally from Switzerland and his given name is Urich. He speaks German, French, English, Spanish, and can communicate in Italian and Portuguese! He studied at and received his BA in ministry at the Costa Rican seminary in San Jose, then received his DMin from NTS in Kansas City. He does teach some extension classes for the seminary here in addition to his associate pastor position. He is working alongside us on this project also.
We have also had a great variety of other church members come in as they can to help out. The lady in charge of arranging our meals and the cooks is Marjorie, a beautiful cheerful lady who is in and out during the day. She has also spent some time in the kitchen cooking delicious meals for us. She worries very much that we have food that we like. It has all been very good!
Victor, Sr. is the job foreman. His official job is as a construction foreman. He takes time out of his work to be onsite with us in this project. He is very particular that everything be done correctly and is very patient and kind in teaching, especially in teaching Morgan how to run all the power tools and put together the bed frames.
Another man that has been helping out a couple of different days is Ralph. He is in his 60’s. For those of you who are history buffs, Ralph, when 11 years old, was one of the many children who were “smuggled” out of Cuba in the 1960’s prior to the communist government taking over. He grew up in California, raised his family there and settled in Florida. He has now moved here and is an active part of the La Finca family.
Today has been really easy going. It has been cloudy and real comfortable all day. Sorry, folks at home…..but we are really not looking forward to the hot temps when we get back. We are just trying to finish up the projects we’ve been involved in and not trying to start anything new. After lunch the pastors (Ron S, Ron M, and Jimmye) were invited by Pastor Jorge for a brief “pastor’s outing” to the old church in San Pedro.
Correction on a previous post. There will only be 8 trusses total for the building….not the 18 I stated before. :-)
After supper tonight Pastor Jorge, Pastor Harrison (another associate pastor) and some of the church people came to the site, showed a video of the story of La Finca, gave us some little gifts, prayed with us and visited with members of our team. Most said their good-byes as this was our last day of work and we will be leaving early Sunday morning before church time. It was a very special time for all.
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