And so, our next adventure begins. We return to San Pedro de Poas, Costa Rica. This West Texas District Work & Witness team consists of 15 people from around the West Texas District of the Church of the Nazarene. We are coming from several different cities and towns in Texas and have even included one from Wisconsin. Sam & I were unable to get reasonable priced tickets out of Amarillo so we are leaving from Lubbock, a two hour drive south. We left at 3 a.m. so that we could arrive in time for check-in for our 6:30 a.m. flight to Houston. While we were waiting in the airport I received a call from one of our team leaving out of the Midland airport. She told me that their flight had been cancelled!! I’m not sure of the reason but the airlines was trying to get the full plane load of people booked on other flights. We hope they are able to make it to Costa Rica today.
Arriving in Houston we met up with the rest of our team who had arrived from Amarillo and Ft Worth. They were Kay Lynn Robson, Marcia & Gerry Nikl, Jimmye Cole, Luetta Bentley, Ron & Deanna Sullivan and James Miller. The last we had heard from the Midland group was they were still trying to get flights. We are not all on the same plane out of Houston so 5 of us left on a flight around 10:00 and the other 5 left around 11:15. The last word I got from the Midland group was that they thought they were going to be able to leave there between 1 and 2 p.m. Hopefully they will get a flight on to Costa Rica today.
Our flight was uneventful except for a little turbulence. Ron & Deanna were upgraded to first class on our flight while the Nikls and James got the honor on their flight. Once we arrived and disembarked we could feel the heat immediately. Coming from winter temps to summer temps of 80’s will be really different. We didn’t have any problems going through immigration or customs, all our luggage came through with us, and then we went on to the outside where we were met by Anne and Stephen Sickel and their little boy, Micah. He is a really cute, tow-headed 18mo old. We waited outside the airport for the next group of 5 since they were just an hour behind. They finally arrived about 4:15 p.m. We have tried but can’t reach the last group of 5 so don’t know what their status is.
We were all loaded into a rented bus where we started through the city of San Jose and climbed up the narrow winding roads into the mountains to the town of San Pedro de Poas to the La Finca church site. Turning into the gate we were amazed at the progress that has been made to the church since we were here three years ago. There were several people walking around the grounds. A praise band was practicing on the platform of the new church. It was lightly sprinkling as we unloaded the suitcases into the back of Stephen’s truck. The bus couldn’t make it down the hill to the dorms so Stephen had to take them for us.
So much has changed in just three short years. The sanctuary is huge…and yet, still only half the size it will eventually be. There is now a nice big house on the grounds behind the sanctuary where Pastor Johnny lives. Pastor Johnny came over to greet us and welcome us back to La Finca. Of course, he couldn’t remember any of us because of the great number of teams who have been here between our first time and now. Then we decided to go down to our dorms and get settled in. Oh my! There have been some very nice changes to the dorm rooms. We now have hot water for showers!!! Of course, with a “widow-maker” water heater in each shower stall but still no more cold showers! We now have nice bunkbeds. They are the ones we worked on last time we were here. And, hooks for clothes and some shelves. Much more comfortable than the last time we were here. We finally heard that three of the Midland 5 were on the plane in Houston but the other two were on stand-by. Hope they make it on the same plane.
Supper was at 6 p.m. Our first trek up the hill to the dining area. La Finca now has a lady hired to do the cooking and planning of meals for the teams. She now lives on site. Tonight she fixed fried fish, green beans and masked potatoes. There was a sauce to put on the fish called “English” sauce. Don’t know what it is but it made the fish taste much better. After the meal Pastor Johnny had a little welcoming presentation for us, introducing us to some of the people at the church and served us a flatbread with honey that tasted like back pie crust. It was good.
By now it was about 7:30 p.m. and pitch black. We went back down to the dorms where we got our rooms ready to live in for the next week. At 8:00 we had our devotions on the patio with Marcia leading us tonight. We tried to call Cherry and unfortunately, she and Marcella are spending the night in Houston and will be here tomorrow morning. About 9:30 Sam & Stephen left to go back into San Jose to pick up Clarence, Wonda and Sally. Glad they finally made it. I waited up for them and they finally made it in about 11 p.m. Then off to be I went. Good night to a very long day.
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