Looks Like Rain

It was cold this morning. It has been cold and windy here since the floods came. In a lot of ways, the floods in Delta are like snow in Alabama. One morning you just wake up and your yard is unexpectedly full of thousands of gallons of water. Everything is much prettier during the flood, and we all get a vacation from work. Instead of trying to work in all of this water, we do fun things like hunt, visit with neighbors, and hike through a foot and a half of water. The main difference is that the floods aren’t crystalline, and last a lot longer than snow in Alabama.

Joshua, our resident Canadian, really wanted to finish his canoe quickly so that he can travel to San Juan on the 15th, and hopefully make it all the way to the Rama, a Nicaraguan indigenous group, where he hopes to spend the rest of the time working. To finish his canoe, he needs a sander so that he can smooth the wood and fiberglass before adding paint. Our neighbor has agreed to loan us his sander if we can just come and get it.

The problem is that between our house and the neighbor’s house there is a 1000 meter path that crosses one really deep and fast moving creek, and about 5 smaller but still fast and powerful creeks. Almost the entire trail between here and there is completely covered in water. There is really no good way to describe the adventure that ensued, so I will try and let pictures do my talking.

Oh don't worry, Andrew can do it

Axiomatic – taken as given; possessing self-evident truth

Only a few minutes before, I put down the book I was using to prepare for the GRE (a test needed to apply to many graduate study programs). I was pleased with the amount of vocabulary that I knew or partially understood. Using the rain as an excuse to not weed the flower beds anymore, a got out my copy of Stranger in a Strange Land and began to read. After only a few pages, I heard voices in the comedor. That is when the Chaos started.

The students, and teacher, had arrived for the missionary training school, along with Joel, the man in charge of the farm, and his family. For the next 48 hours, I was running constantly, finding building supplies for the neighbors, carrying bags for Joel, serving food, running errands for Ana, shoveling manure, trying to take a bath (we ran out of water before I could rinse), and generally trying to help everyone with everything all at once. The icing on the cake was when I was asked at 9:30 at night (past bedtime) to preach the next morning.

I did not prepare at all that night, knowing how important sleep is. The next morning, I cleaned up, borrowed a shirt, and began praying and listening for the word of G-d. He led me to Matthew, where I taught out of the Sermon on the Mount. The main thrust of the message is a part of the scriptures where Jesus says that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, and a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. Jesus also says that in the end many will cry out to G-d, and he will say “I do not know you”, and that if we truly believe in him, we will do G-d’s will.

After teaching in Media Vuelta, I was able to spend a bit of time visiting with Brandi, a friend who used to work with Palmas de Mamre, and who is now living in Media Vuelta, and married to Andre, another friend of ours and native Costa Rican. After visiting with them, we finally turned our boat toward Delta and began our journey “home”.

How to Farm Underwater

The teacher for this week at the missionary training school is a Professor of mechanical engineering who moved to the U.S. from India 43 years ago. Dr. Job Ebenezer focuses his work on developing appropriate technologies for the poor around the world. These technologies include vertical gardens which we will be trying at Delta because the will not be affected by the floods, as well as bicycle powered mechanical devices. He chose to work with bicycles because unlike other forms of renewable energy, they are cheap, readily available in poor areas, can be moved to power many different devices, and can also serve as transportation.

To find out more about Dr. Job and his work, you can visit his website at www.technologyforthepoor.com . If that link does not work, I will find one that does when I get home.

Pass the Red Sludge

“I’m hungry too. Will you hand me that bowl?”

We sit in our 1970s Land Rover, eating day old stir-fry out of metal bowls. To our right is a small, green, concrete house. To our left is a steep dirt embankment, draped in vines and roots, and lightly feathered with small green ferns. I am amused that, despite present circumstances, our first reaction is to eat lunch, knowing that somehow God will work it out.

A few seconds before, we were happily bumping down a gravel road in Costa Rica, making our way to our farm, when suddenly our engine just sputtered to a halt. To a sane person, this would be a problem, but we are not sane people. At Palmas de Mamre, we are so used to things not working, especially that annoying yellow Land Rover, that it is no longer natural for us to panic when things go wrong. Instead, we start praying, and then start thinking, and G-d always seems to present a solution.

In this case, the solution came in the form of a friend that Ana had not seen in a long time, so long in fact that she could not remember who he was at first. This friend of Ana’s came driving down the road right about the time that we finished our food. On top of the random appearance of a long forgotten friend, the gentleman’s son just happened to be a mechanic who worked on Land Rovers. In just a few minutes, they had us driving down the road again. A few minutes later we broke down again, and this time the son showed up with a full set of tools, and while the father gave us a 3 hour ride, the son dismantled and cleaned the gas tank of our Land Rover, pouring a thick red paste of mud and rust from the bottom of the tank.

Is G-d not spectacular in the ways that he chooses to work?

To all of my wonderful readers!

I apologize for the long delays. As you know, I am currently in Costa Rica, and my internet access is limited. At the moment I am at an internet cafe, and because I have no jump drive, I cannot transfer blog posts from my computer to the computer that I am using. Please do not think that I hve stopped posting for ever. I am still writing, and when I finally get back to what we often refer to as civilization, I will regale you with extensive tales of my varied and sundry adventures on the frontera. Upcoming post topics include stupid cows, sprained ankles, transriver crossings, and my exciting run in with a jungle cat. I hope to share with you again as soon as possible!

Andrew

Last Game of the Year

Sheets of rain soak the ground in our small jungle clearing. Our bare feet churn the field into a stream of mud and grass as every drop of rain swells the ranks of the Caño Bravo River on its steady march toward the sea. Bruises and mud are my war paint. My lungs burn as I streak down the field. An opening forms in the enemy ranks, and my brother in arms takes the shot. His aim is usually excellent, but his feet are wet and the target is small. The ball goes left and the enemy rushes in for an interception. I run. I run as hard as I can. I run a little bit harder. My opponent is closer and more skilled, but I want it more. I slide. My body cuts a path through the mud and, for the first time ever, my aim is good. I drill the ball the last 5 meters into the goal. I score. I score the first soccer goal of my life in a rain soaked field in Costa Rica, against people who speak no English. I score in a goal that is two feet wide.

Anticipation

It feels like Christmas and home are just around the corner. I have been pretty homesick this trip. I just feel like I am missing out on all of my relationships. There are a lot of great things about Delta, and I love my friends here (especially Juan, Herol, and Joel), but it will be nice to spend some time with my close friends and family.

I don’t really know how to describe all that I am feeling. I want to do this water catchment project, but I am also ready to be home for good. I hope that I am able to take full advantage of my time here to serve Christ, and I hope that he gives me a good attitude for the rest of my time in Costa Rica.

Brita

I am about to revise my letter to Ana. I have been talking with the pastor next door, as well as some of my neighbors, and I am starting to get a better sense of the needs that people have on the river. I am going to try to talk with Ana about shifting my mission a bit.

The zone that I live in is called Delta, and it is one of the poorest places in Costa Rica (which is admittedly one of the richest countries in Central America). The area is so difficult that, during the annual floods, the Red Cross brings sacks of food to each family on the river to help sustain them. The families here have no clean drinking water, no electricity (except for a couple of families with generators), and the majority have less than a fifth grade education. The people here know how to live in this environment, and it is not a struggle for them to survive, but there is a lot that could be done to improve their standard of living as well.

As I was sitting in the boat riding back from Barra, Pastor Carlos Catilla asked me if I knew of any groups that did work with proving systems for making clean drinking water (wells do not work here because of the shallow swampy terrain and contaminated ground water). I told him that there were many groups like that, and that I even had a little bit of training in that area. I started to tell him about rainwater catchment systems, which would be the cheapest, easiest, and most reliable way for them to harvest clean drinking water in a rainy region like Delta. He asked me if there was something I could do to raise the support to have rainwater catchment systems installed on the 16 homes in this zone of the river.

I have become really excited about the potential of this project. I need to talk to Ana, and I need to look up some numbers, but I think that we can provide the families around here with clean drinking water for a relatively low cost. In a high rain area like Costa Rica, you do not have to have very many feet of gutters to harvest enough rain for a good sized family. I need to price the gutters, spigots, and a special filter that my sustainability teacher taught us how to make. If the price is low enough, we can provide each family with a set of gutters, a filter, and a spigot, and most of the families here will be able to provide their own water tank.

Please pray for this. For this to happen it has to be the will of God. If it is his will, then the problem of finding finances to do this project, and getting Ana’s permission are in his hands.