Outreach on the brain

So when I last updated I was barely un-packed from our amazing week of outreach in Diriamba Nicaragua. Since then we have been doing a lot of reflection, preparing for our upcoming outreach/ NIKO camp and attending an amazing week of classes.

Thinking back on my time in Nicaragua it seems so crazy. Crossing the Costa Rica/ Nicaragua boarder is like stepping (yes we walked across the boarder with all of our packs) into a completely different world. Nicaragua is an amazing country, starting with a really unique landscape, a massive lake with two volcanoes in it as well as a lake that has sharks in it, yes sharks very cool. The people in Nicaragua are very open and friendly. The neighbourhood Barrio Berlin that we were in was just getting a stone road (bricks) put in over the dirt. There were all kinds of houses from sheet metal and scrap wood to fairly modern brick constructions, right next to each other. This is the neighbourhood the church and JUCUM base are located in. The people here were absolutely amazing, the kids were always hanging out with and attending every class or program we put on. The church there is a huge light to the community, and it was really great to see how involved and open the community was with the church.

As for our up coming outreach, my DTS will be leaving out base here in San Jose on Saturday April 3^rd. We are going to be going to Talamanca, close to the boarder of CR and Panama for our NIKO Camp. NIKO is a hardcore camp in the jungle for 5 days and 4 nights, which begins on the Monday. They don’t tell us a whole lot about it, its ment to be a time of testing and I am SO EXCITED! After NIKO we will all be doing 3 weeks of outreach in different areas of Costa Rica, then the Central America & Haiti team will be going back to Nicaragua for 1 week (yay!), and then I along with the Haiti team will be leaving to Haiti around May 7^th. Somewhere in there before Nicaragua and Haiti we will be stopping by the base for a few days, so if you still want to send me mail please do! :)

So that brings us to classes this week; we had the option of going to the Heredia Base and having a teaching from water for life or staying at our base and joining with the Children at Risk school and having a teaching on human trafficking. I chose to stay here and learn about human trafficking, it’s something that is a huge global problem but is rarely talked about. There are more people in slavery right now in the world than at any other point in history.

check this video out if possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPoauYYhI5E

It was a really eye opening week and we are all fired up to go out and do something. It’s a good thing we only have one more week of classes left because I think we are all getting restless and ready to go out. I have so much anticipation and excitement for these next few weeks!

That’s all for now, lots of love from Costa Rica