I would like to start off this blog post with an apology for not having updated in two months. There has been so much going on here and I now know what it is like to be consumed by work.
But anyways...let me get you caught up part way. I will have another blog post coming next week (scout's honor).
So let's start off with the holidays. Christmas was nice and relaxing, even though I thoroughly missed my family and I don't know if I could get used to that. However, I was able to Skype with them and open a couple of presents. Bishop Héctor was kind enough to invite me over for the afternoon and spend the day with his family.
....New Year's. So I was extremely lucky to have my girlfriend, Lindsay, come down and enjoy the new year with me. We went out to the beach for a few days then headed to Manuel Antonio (southwest of SJO) for a week. It was an extremely fun time and a great way to spend some down time before work just exploded.
I had my first group come down a few days after Lindsay had left and I was quite anxious for them to arrive. St. Timothy's Winston Salem was a fantastic group and worked hard digging an extremely long ditch. They did great dirty work and were able to put in the new drainage system for the new sanctuary of La Ascencíon.
After a fun filled week with many laughs, hard work, and spiritual reflection, I headed back up to NC with them. As part of being a YASCer one of the commitments that we make is to spend the entirety of our service outside of the US, but I was lucky enough to be asked by Bishop Curry to come and speak about our Companion Relationship at the North Carolina Diocesan Convention. It was a wonderful experience and I was very honored to do so. I am not the public speaker, but I think I did ok. I had a little something written out and was going to use that but when I got up to speak my mind turned to mush for a second and I forgot everything I had written down. But I consider myself a good improviser so that is what I did. It was a pretty cool experience, minus the mushy brain. I was also able to meet a lot of cool people and discuss future groups and projects.
After convention I jetted back to CR where I had St. Paul's from Riverside, CT waiting for me. This group painted a mural at our new Hogar Escuela in Heredia. It looks fantastic. After them, I received a group from Christ Church in Charlotte during the second week of February. They just went to town on some demolition in La Ascencíon. Everybody just worked extremely hard and finished their project with ludacris speed.
I really enjoy having groups down here because of the great conversations I have, the wonderful people I get to meet, and also for the work that gets done. This ends part 1 of this two part blog and I will be sure to catch you all up to present time next week. Also, I will be putting up pictures but am not able to right now as I am writing this on my iPad at the work site. Until next time...KCCO!
Pura Vida
Ryan
