Possible Outreaches

Hey sorry guys I just realized that I forgot to tell you we have recently found out our possible three locations for our outreach in november.

We know that for sure we will be doing one week in Nicaragua and 3 weeks in Costa Rica (it is a requirement to do outreach in Costa Rica before we can go to other places because we were all called to Costa Rica so why would we not want to outreach here?). But the staff have been praying day and night about where the other place we should go and he has set 3 places on their hearts and now we are a part of the decision.

1) panama. There we would be working with an indigenous tribe doing community development and and other compassionate ministry.

2) Honduras/ El Salvador. The staff told us it is a place that needs a lot of compassion so we will be doing a lot of mercy ministry and working in orphanages and things like that. Creative ministry as well because all of our group is very artistic.

3) Brazil/South America. We all want to do this one more and any other but it's ultimately up to God. The problem is that it will cost an additional $500 for each person. The other issue is that for the people who live in The States will have to try to get a visa. But in reality this would be the best decision because it has so many different types of ministry from prostitutes and street people to children at risk to indigenous tribes. We all want to go there so bad but God will make it very clear where we need to go.

We were told that we need to pray about each of these places and in a few weeks we need to tell the staff with a conformation from God telling us where we believe our group should go. I need to spend a lot of time praying about it so He can make it clear to us.

I ask if you guys could pray for God to show us where the best place for us to go to is. Thank you all so much.

7/31/2010 pictures

my amazing group

It's good luck :)

Closest bus stop

This is Katie and I waiting for some girls outside the post office

7/31/2010

7/30/10

Wow I don’t even know where to start. This week is probably the most important week in the DTS. It’s called plumb line. What we did this week was try to get back aligned with God. Throughout our lives we sin, we get hurt, and we make mistakes. This week is all about renouncing all of the lies we have believed and the hate we have held on to. It’s like spiritual surgery. We all realized that there is stuff from our past we thought we had dealt with or didn’t think was an issue but it was an open door the enemy was using to attack us and he was thriving off of that. This week I slammed so many doors shut that the enemy has been taunting me with. Once I confessed and renounced all of the lies that I believed there was such a huge emotional change inside of me. I feel free. For so long I have been seeking for freedom and I have it now. I LOVE WHERE I’M AT. The night I confessed everything we had worship and I have never feel so close to God as I did that night. He really speaks to me through music and I’m getting piano lessons from a girl on my team so I can really glorify Him through that.

He has been knocking at my heart for so long and I am finally stepping of the pedestal that I so mightily placed myself on and I’m opening that door for him to come in and consume me. I feel that our team is so much closer now. We know each other inside and out. It’s incredible that I’ve only known these people for three weeks and I’m sure we will remain close for the rest of our lives. I love these people, they are all so genuine and we want the same thing. We all have come from such different backgrounds and pasts but that doesn’t make anyone better or worse. It’s as if I have a second family.

Last night we got given a really cool art project. I have done stuff like this before but the guidelines were much different then this one. We have a picture and it got cut up so each of us could get one. Then she gave us a piece of canvas that we are to draw our little scrap on without looking at anyone else’s style or piece. This is so that we all use different colors and techniques so when it all gets put together it is a unique piece of work. I will take a picture once we connect all the pieces.

Friday we had a day off due to all of the emotional work we had been doing which was so nice. We don’t get too much free time so that day off was really nice. I slept in and went downtown to the market. I went with a few girls and one of them needed to go to the post office, boy was that an adventure. So first we found out that you need to get your own box so we went over to this store and asked them if we could have a box and luckily they were nice enough to give us a free box. Then she realized she didn’t know the return address so luckily Costa Rica doesn’t have street names and numbers so we just said 50 meters below the last bus stop or something like that hahah! A little different then the States and then she went to go use their tape and the guy says, “you need to pay for that Miss” how funny is that! So about an hour later she mailed her package, which contained a hammock and some jewelry, and would you like to know how much it cost? $50.00, crazy. For everyone who thought that Costa Rica was way less expensive than The States I hate to tell you but you were very wrong. A lot of stuff is actually more expensive I don’t understand why. One good thing is that public transportation is way less than that in the States, which is good because we use that quite a bit.

Friday night I got persuaded to go to a Christian concert at 9pm even though I had to wake up at 6am Saturday morning. One of the guys in our DTS lives in Costa Rica and his friends are in a band, “una sola cosa” and they had a show on Friday so they got me to go. I realized I need to learn Spanish pretty bad, especially since I love Latin America and would love to come back and do a lot more missionary work down here. We got there in time for the last few songs, originally the plan was to go at 7pm but the guy who was driving us ended up breaking down on the freeway on the way back from Jaco. So he showed up at about 8:30 and we drove there. We have a curfew of 11pm so we got back to the base right on time but it was great fun. One of the girls that I went with is a leader for the teams down here and she did a language school a few years back so she knew several people at the concert and lucky for me a few spoke English. Moral of the night was, I need to learn Spanish and soon, a few of my friends told me the main reason I should learn is because you can say love in so many different ways. Spanish just sounds much more beautiful than English in my opinion. When I told my friend last night that I was pretty much full Italian he asked if I spoke Italian I was ashamed to say no… not at all hahah. So then he told me he was only going to speak to me in Spanish so I will learn at least Spanish- a lot of people have told me that but then they change their minds after a little bit, I wont let them this time.

Each student and staff gets assigned to a weekend where they do all the chores on the base. That is because we get the weekends off for our trabajitos (chores) and someone needs to clean up the base, especially when there are a ton of people on base. So this weekend me and 3 other people from my group have it this weekend. We wake up at 6 and cook Gallo Pinto, which is a traditional Costa Rican breakfast-delicious- it’s black beans, rice, bell peppers, onions, and some other spices with a yogurt/sour cream side to put on it. It was really good J but we didn’t have very many eggs so we ran out before we got our food unfortunately (I made the eggs but I tested them as I went so I wasn’t disappointed) . Then we had to clean the bathrooms including scrubbing the toilets and showers which I’m used to because we had to do that every few days at my boarding school. All the people here are so willing to do any work chore, over at my boarding school everyone made such a huge deal for doing gross chores but we are all like “sure I’ll climb in the trash can and clean it, that’s totally fine”. Today there was a dead mouse in the kitchen and I think I may have stepped on it. I was telling a staff to look at one of the rags that had fruit flies all over it and he thought I was talking about the thing on the floor (he doesn’t speak very much English so we were getting a little confused) and then I look on the ground and there was a DEAD MOUSE right where I was standing!!!!! EW I like mice and rats but domestic ones, not the wild ones. He put on a glove and threw it out. But I have been skittish whenever I see things on the ground now J. We also have to sweep and pretty much clean everything everywhere including the kitchen! AH now I’m scared of that place, we go into the kitchen at 4 to make dinner and then clean it up so I will probably be in the kitchen from 4-8 this weekend. It’s not too bad though you get some free time.

Well I think I’m going to sign off for now but I will let you know if anything else cool goes on around here! I miss you all and hope you are having a great summer. For all the san Diego readers, I’m sorry your summer hasn’t started yet just pretend like you are in Costa Rica it rains here everyday!

Love you ALL

Nina

STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING

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Read the site if you are interested in knowing more about what this organization is doing to help stop human trafficking. This is a huge issue all over America! Slavery is still around, it's now all the the young children locked in basements and studios forced to do what their "pimp" wants them to do. It's happening in YOUR town.

If you would like to sponsor me for every time I wear the shirt, it could be any amount even $0.10 if that all you can affort, all that money goes to Teen Rescue who needs this money to STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING! There are other options listed on the link below if you would like to participate yourself in any way, they need all the support they can get.

I know the founder of this organization, he is also the founder of the boarding school I went to so if you are concerned about it not being "safe and reliable" that is not an issue AT ALL. Any of the board members would gladly contact you to tell you all the information you would like to know.

follow the link if you are interested or email me at ninajbarbour@gmail.com if you would like to sponsor me for every day I wear the shirt (don't worry I won't run you dry:)).

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peaceloveblessings

nina

7/24/2010

7/23/2010

This week has been so great. Our topic was “The Father Heart of God” and our speaker was Jack Kody from North Carolina. His style of teaching was incredible. Jack understood that we couldn’t pay attention for much more than an hour before we got bored and start to not focus so what he did was talk for an hour and then give us a break. He also played movie clips a lot like Pride and Prejudice, The Village, and High School Musical. All the clips were about love and he only showed the best ones he could find because he wanted to express that actors can portray love very well and make it feel real so just imagine how much the Father God can love you. The answer is WAY more than any actor could act out love. This week love was a very prominent subject in the teaching. Love is hard to accept and understand. So many people have been hurt by the people that claim they “love” them whether it be a boyfriend, best friend, or family member it hurts and makes that word so difficult to accept. There are pretty epic stories and testimonies from people on this base. My friend who plays guitar on the worship team told me his testimony last night and I never would have expected he had such a horrible life by how amazing and happy he is now, he is always smiling and just makes you feel good when your around him. I would write it out on here but I don’t know if he would want me to broadcast it on the Internet. So if you are extremely curious let me know and I will ask him if he minds.

Anyway this week was very impacting for a lot of us, including me. A lot of people in my life have thrown the word love at me like it is nothing, I want to believe and trust everyone but the amount of times the one who told me they “loved” me just meant it conditionally and would end up hurting me so it’s difficult to accept love now. I know that my past is my past and I am made new now. What ever happened in my past does not bring me down now; I am an absolutely different person. I no longer have to carry that huge bag of burden on my back. One very interesting thing he showed us was that our culture, friends, family, schools, entertainment and so much more plant seeds in us and that becomes who we are. Who we are is what we have experienced some things are bad and others good but there are many things that need to be healed especially when you are holding on to the times you have been hurt. When you are being healed you can’t just trim the grass you need to rip it up by the roots and throw it out, trimming the grass just means it will grow right back. That is what Jesus wants to do for us. But so often when he tries to do that we say “No! That’s who I am, you can’t take away that memory then I wont be who I am”. What we don’t realize is that he wants to exchange that memory for something SO incredibly no one on this Earth can do that for us. No man that had good morals and never drank and believed in living over and over again can do that for you. They would say that all your pain is due to your past life. Well I don’t want to live again and again, I want to go to heaven and live eternal life where these is no more pain, no more struggling, and no more darkness, does that not sound incredible? If not I may be crazy. When you can’t stop laughing for absolutely no reason at all is the greatest feeling ever and that happens to me daily here.

Well I’m sure all you non believers are like okay this girl has gone mad but in reality I have come to the truth so whatever you believe that is up to you but I would love to tell you more about Jesus and God if any of you are interested. I will tell you everything you want to know because I was an atheist up until Easter 2009 and I was so skeptical but there is just so much proof. Last night a married couple, my friend from the worship team, and me stayed up till about midnight talking about miracles we have seen, well what they have seen and it is incredible. It makes your faith grow a little bit more every time. Alright now all you people are probably like “okay! So what have you done this week.” I’ll tell you now J. We started a workout video program called insanity this week. It is so crazy, I didn’t know I was that weak. It is like military training but they give you a bunch of different videos and one of the guys in my DTS did it for 2 months and lost 25lbs. You all wouldn’t be able to recognize me if I lost 25lbs haha. So we are doing it 6 days a week and I am having a difficult time walking. You guys should check out the infomercial, it’s on a lot. Insanity is what it is called. The name describes it very well. On Wednesday Jack, the speaker, took us out to ice cream and bowling. It was SO much fun, I am a pretty bad bowler and everyday since he has mentioned how fun it was to watch me throw the ball in the gutter. I actually have a video of us. I’m sorry the way all the pictures are coming up on here it’s not set up very well so when I try and upload a picture it wont let me label it in the right place. I’ll try and figure it out better, it’s only week 2. So that was incredible and yesterday we went out to the University and learned how to approach people. I was partnered with one of the staff who is fluent in Spanish but originally from Colorado, he did his DTS in Costa Rica as well. He told us to just find something to say to someone walking around and talk to them. My line was, “hey do you know where I can get an umbrella?” The two guys Morgan picked out for us to talk to were the “scariest” he said he could find, haha. The two guys stared at each other and just said, “the mall?” and started laughing. Then we started conversation with them. We ended up talking to them for about an hour about a ton of different things, a little bit about God, missions, and a lot about the university they went to. One was studying medicine and the other mechanical engineering. One guy told me you can get educated at the University Latina for one $600 a year! That is incredible. We also talked to them a little bit about their opinion of who God was and they were very open with us, they said He was there everything but after hearing the way we talked about God one of the Costa Rican’s asked for our contact information. We told him our emails and facebooks and last night he sent a friend request! I was so excited; I think he wants to know more about the God we love so much. Anyway it was an awesome opportunity to just learn how to approach people and it will be very useful if I ever want to get into sales or marketing.

A church group of 45 just came in last night from Wisconsin and they are staying on base, I feel bad for them a lot of them don’t know how to use the showers so they have a freezing cold shower. There is a trick if you turn it on just a little bit and begin to hear the motor running then just wait it will warm up a little bit. But I don’t want to tell them because they are making me wash 45 extra dishes and pans 4x bigger ;) just kidding, I tell them. They are helping us out on the base for the 50^th anniversary of YWAM which is being held at our base on August 8-10. I am so excited there are going to be people from all over the world coming to see our base and celebrate YWAM being around for 50 years. They have the celebration at different YWAM bases all over the world and San Jose was lucky enough to be picked to host it for Central America. The thing is there is only 17 more days and a ton of stuff to do since this campus was a mess just a few months ago. We painted some today and got rid of a ton of trash laying in the back. It’s really cool to see everything come together.

I am also hoping to learn some more songs on the piano so I can play it during worship. The girl who is playing the keyboard now is also the lead singer and she said it is very distracting. I used to play piano and I can pick it up pretty quickly so I’m just going to have her teach me some of the songs and God willing I may be on the worship team. That would be pretty cool. I could come backing speaking Spanish and playing the keyboard?! SO COOL Well I’m sure you guys are so sick of reading this by now and I need to read my book, the bookreport is due next week. It’s the book about how YWAM started written by the founder. It’s called Is that you God? It’s amazing.

I love you and I miss you a ton.

Love nina

This is my new amazing group at the park just after Jack bought us all ice cream!!

This is some of my group and the guy who took us out bowling!!

This picture is right before I threw it in the gutter... again

7/19/2010 pictures

This is our "laundry room" it is located outside by the "containers" which are the trailers that guys/staff sleep in. Since we clean up dinner dishes everynight we have to do the kitchen rags. At night after 7:30 this is where you will find us most likely :)

The other picture is a project we had to do. We were to write in a creative way what we thought God was to us. I chose peace

7/19/2010

1) 1) 7/16/2010

1) Sara in our classroom

2) Heidi blow drying her hands in our bathroom with the dryer that does not work ;)

3 ) On campus (backyard kinda) - we're still cleaning

4) Bus on the road to church week 1

We just finished up the first week of school. It was incredible! We have classes from 9-12:30 and each week we have a different topic and a different speaker. This week’s topic was about “intimacy with God” and I know many of you who are reading this are not believers but I think that even an atheist would have enjoyed the lectures, well maybe not an atheist but… The woman who was teaching was a beautiful Costa Rican whose smile lit up the whole room. This is the kind of information that needs to be told to everyone interested in God. I feel that so many people want nothing to do with Christianity because they consider the Bible a book of rules and when they meet an extremist they believe that is how we ALL are. There are certain denominations that are a little dramatic but that is not the way we are here and that is not the way God is. If any of you would like to see some of the notes I took from this week or any week feel free to ask and I would LOVE to send some your way. They are extremely interesting.

Love was a big thing this week. So many of us have been hurt or abandoned physically or emotionally and just hearing about His love for us makes you yearn to know Him more. I was the most skeptical person not believing anything I heard about a “God” but my heart has changed and learning more and more about Him makes it so rewarding.

Since breakfast is served from 6:30 a.m. I went out and bought a few breakfast things so I can wake up a little bit later. We have gone to the ampm(which has fresh fruit and looks way different then the one in America) and grocery store Pali by our base a few times this week. I also had my first one-on-one where we went to this really nice coffe/bakery/lunch place called Kai, which is actually funny because one of my favorite places to eat at home is a restaurant called “Ki’s”. Then on Thursday we went on our first Local Outreach. We went with a women on base who is a part of a group called Metro ministries. She goes with different YWAM/ mission groups to hang out with kids in really poor areas and do little performances for them. This week we went with her to a neighborhood about 30 minutes from the base where we sang some songs, did a puppet show, and a really funny skit(I’ll try to post it on here). I really hope to improve my Spanish though because it is difficult communicating with these kids when I can’t speak their language. There were a few girls who just came up and stared at me, they must not have seen a tall, light skinned, blonde girl before. So many children lived on the block, probably about 30 came and hung out with us and right next to where our performing truck was, was a basketball court which also had soccer posts set up with tons of teenagers. There was graffiti of drugs and gangs all over the walls and it just looked so run down. During the middle of our time with the kids we started to smell Marijuana smoke from the basketball court. The saddest part is that these little kids have to play around there neighborhood with who knows what kind of drugs go down at the basketball courts. It was so sad to see what they are going to grow up into if they continue to just follow the crowd. But we are there to help them find a different way to live and I really hope that happens.

We went to the beach on Saturday. It was a 2 ½ hour bus ride to and from Jaco which isn’t the nicest beach but it’s the closest and that’s were all the tourists go. I was told that a bunch of people from San Jose come to that beach on the weekends and they all sit around eating their egg sandwiches so they are called, come huevos. Haha. But that’s better then GRINGA which seems to be my new nick-name. It was such a great time! I love my group everyone gets along really well and a few rented surfboards and another girl had stayed at one of the Christian Surfers bases – it is a place where Christian surfers can stay for however long and help out with local ministry while they are there- we borrowed a few of their surfboards so it was awesome. A few people surfed even though the waves weren’t too good and the waters currents were horrible! After a while the lifeguard came over to us and told us we had to move because we were in one of the worst places. After that we did some shopping and got back on the bus. It was a super fun day with a lot of pictures. I’ll post some.

I love this place I am meeting some awsome people! Oh I didn't mention that when we went to the "christian surfers"

That is a video of me jump roping with some little Costa Rican girls in a poor neighborhood last Thursday.

7/12/2010

6/12/2010

Today was our first day of classes and I honestly didn’t think I would be so inspired on only the first day. I think everyone in that room shed some tears. There are so many misconceptions you pick up from society about who God is and when you truly learn about His character you begin to wonder about the people who have told you those lies. I have only been a “Christian” since Easter 2009 so this is all still new to me. Actually I don’t like to classify myself as a Christian because it’s just another label and labels don’t do anything but lock people in a box (x350 Thanks JYA!). I believe in God, I believe I was uniquely designed to be here for a purpose and my goal is to ask Him what that purpose is and fulfill it. I would like to do what Gandhi said, “be the change you wish to see in the world”. I have been living a hedonistic lifestyle that has taken me absolutely nowhere but lost, broken, and alone even though there were people all around me. I don’t want anyone else to suffer the way I did so if I could help just ONE person get out of their pit then all the difficult times here will be worth it, every tear cried, every person missed, every bug bite I get will all be worth it. The most amazing part is we do so much reconstruction inside our self while we help others at the same time. “Do first, then teach” is what they tell us.

I will give you a summary each week over the weekend so I can sum it all up instead of leaving you with a suspense story every few days! Today (Monday) we learned what our schedule is going to be who our one-on-one staff is going to be and what are work duties are.

Here is a brief overview

6:30am breakfast (optional-we have a small public kitchen so we can buy food/drinks for an alternative to the meal being served or so we can wake up later)

7-8am meditation

9-12:30 classes

2-4:00 differs; outreach prep, class, free time, local outreach, small group (to express what is stirring inside of us and receiving feedback from others).

4-6:00 work duties but since I have dinner clean-up I get free time except on Tuesdays I have one-on-one time with a staff to discuss anything going on that I need/want/would like to talk about

6 dinner

7:00 usually free time

Weekends differ a little bit in mealtime and activities- we can plan outings like going to the beach or jungle or whatever we think of.

OH by the way internet gets turned off at 11pm on weekends and 10pm on weekdays so that means 10pm and 9pm for you California timers! So I wont be able to talk at peak time for people my age haha.

I MISS YOU ALL and I will update in a few days and let you know how it’s going around here.

P.S. I’m writing this on Microsoft Word right now because the store where you buy an Internet card on campus is not open right now due to the construction going on. If there is any confusion on the way I’m referring do dates that is most likely why.

LOVE ALL

Nina

7/11/2010

The journey has definitely begun. Arriving to the LAX airport and trying to find the correct terminal was an adventure in itself. By the third loop around the airport we finally found the correct US Airways entrance- just so you know if you fly a domestic flight before exiting the country, you don’t have to go in the international terminal, so don’t park there! You’ll just waste time- we found that one out the hard way. So I checked in and everything seemed to be running smoothly. Then I went through security no problems and found my gate right away. So I figured I should charge my computer while I waited. A few minutes later I get called up to the podium to be told that the women who checked me in didn’t realize that I was going to be staying in the country for 5 months without a visa. But for the work that I am doing a visa is not necessary because we are exiting the country before 90 days to renew our traveling visas. But that wouldn’t fly with customs over in Costa Rica because you need written proof (supposedly) and LAX wanted to make sure I didn’t get all the way down there to get turned around to come back home. So I went to the ticket counter and tried to discuss with the check-in attendants what my options were and they seemed slim. All I was hearing was, “you’re not going to be able to get on this flight” my mind was racing. What in the world was I going to do!

I didn’t have a cell phone either so I had no way to contact my parents who were on their way back down to San Diego. The attendants called my parents for me and let them know the situation. My mom, being the brilliant person she is, said she could buy a fully refundable ticket that would say I would be exiting before my 90 days are up to show to customs so they would let me come into the country. My mom was on the phone with the check in attendant while my Dad was on his phone with the airlines trying to book another ticket, simultaneously driving home, so I’m guessing it was a little hectic on their end. For me I was just running through every possible outcome that was to soon be revealed. So they finally gave me the conformation number to give to customs when I arrive in Costa Rica and sent me on my way back through security- luckily the airport was pretty much dead. So in the end I made it on to my flight with seconds to spare. But it only got worse from there.

I made it to Philadelphia 6:05 eastern time with my next flight boarding at 9:08 so I had a bit of time to spare. When 9:08 came around I was exhausted from the lack of sleep. My anticipation was peaking during the previous flight so there was no way I would have been able to sleep. I plopped down into my seat and tried to get some sleep. I woke up several minutes later and looked out the window to see we haven’t moved but I didn’t think much of it I just thought that we weren’t done boarding and I hadn’t been asleep too long. The woman sitting next to me said. “Feel free to close the window if you would like” so I shut them and went back to sleep. I woke up again what seemed to be hours later and opened up the window expecting to see the Central American skies but instead I saw us taxiing at the PHILIDELPHIA AIRPORT!

I asked my neighbor what time it was and she informed me that for the past hour and a half we had been waiting for the weather to clear up and for the 30 planes ahead of us to take off. I just am thinking to myself “OH GREAT am I EVER going to get here?!” I’m wide awake at that point and a voice comes on the loud speaker saying, “We are now at the minimum amount of fuel you are able to take off on so we are going to need to go back to the gate to refuel then we will be on our way.” Everyone sighed; we were already 2 hours delayed. We pulled up to the gate and they let us know that it will be a little while so if we would like to get off the plane and get something to eat that would be fine as long as we stay near bye. I ended up exiting to try to call my mother. $5.00 in coins later I finally got a hold of her and let her know the deal.

It’s all apart of traveling she told me. Then I asked her to let the school know what was going on and re-entered the plane. It turns out that we needed to have a crew change as well due to the regulations attendants have. They are only allowed to be on the plane for so many hours before they are required to have a break. So we sat and waited patiently while trying to squeeze every bit of information we could out of the flight attendants such as; “When will we land in Costa Rica?” “When is the new crew coming in?” “When are we going to take off again?” No questions got answered but we did learn a bit about the 2 male attendants. One wanted to start to do missionary work similar to that I am doing now, he lived in Pittsburg, and unfortunately he liked the Steelers (not good). The other man was from Chile and he knew Jujitsu, salsa, and was really excited to see the soccer game that day. About 2 hours later the crew comes on and we take off.

Boarded: 9:08am

Took off: 2:00pm

Amount of sleep: ~ 1hr 15min

Luckily there were no further complications. I got through customs in seconds who, by the way, didn’t even look at the return date back to America (turns out U.S. Airways is the only airline that gives people a hard time about Visas even when one is not needed, it had happened with another staff but none of the other girls who flew other airlines). A few staff members picked me up from the airport and politely carried my huge bag for me.

We drove about 15 minutes and made it to our home base! As soon as we pulled up we heard music and laughing. Turns out they were having a Welcome dinner for my group. They served the traditional Costa Rican meal: rice and beans with plantains. I don’t know how they make it but the rice and beans are a million times better down here then in San Diego J Everyone was so kind and loving it made entering this whole new culture so much easier. I was the last person to arrive so all the people already knew a bit about each other. My DTS group got pulled aside into the classroom for some bonding time. We all introduced ourselves, played a few games, ate some cookies, and drank some coffee. Then a few of us went back to the room to get our stuff ready for a shower.

That’s when I found out we don’t have a water heater. The way YWAM is set up is to teach the groups about the culture, we are not westerners living in a developing country we are actually living like Costa Ricans. It’s so interesting to see all the differences in cultures. So I want you guys to take extra hot showers for me! Overall this place is amazing, the people, the food, the weather- even though it pours down rain half the day I was wearing a tank top, some pants, and flip flops. The base I am staying at is right outside downtown San Jose, Costa Rica. They just moved into the new property September 2009 so there are still many renovations going on. I was talking to a girl from the X-treem DTS and she said she saw pictures of the property last year and it was a disaster! She told me they have been working really hard and this place looks much nicer then it did in the pictures from last year. So I’m really looking forward to seeing how much is going to change while I am here.

Sunday a few of the girls and I took a bus to the mall in San Jose. The bus fare was only 215 colones which is the equivalent of about 40cents, I’m happy to hear I won’t be spending a lot of money on public transportation. Especially since we can plan trips to different areas for the weekend and I’m pretty sure we will be traveling there by a bus. I’m writing this on my first full day here so I don’t know much for sure. Actually I think I’m going to sign off for now and update in a few days and let you know our routine and duties. Besides I just realized how long this posting is, I apologize! But before I go I would like to let you know the places the people in my DTS are from.

El Salvador: 2 girls 18 and 26 years old

Guatemala: 1 girl 21 years old

Montana: 1 girl 18 years old

Canada: 1 guy 26 and 1 girl 25

New Zealand: 1 girl 18 years old

Texas: 1 girl 24 years old

Costa Rica: 1 guy 26 years old

Florida: 1 guy 22 and 1 girl 21

Pretty cool huh?

The other girl from Texas and I are really interested in learning to speak Spanish fluently so we have asked the girls who do speak Spanish to help us out. I’ll let you guys know how that goes!

BYE GUYS!

Lovenina