The last work day

On Friday 9/16/2011 we had our last day in Costa Rica.  Yvonne, Colleen, Tina and Adam took a trip to a very poor part of the country to visit an orphanage/recreation center.  Although they did not get to spend as much time with the kids as they had hoped, they did get to experience a whole different lifestyle and level of poverty that few people actually get to see up close.  Seeing how some people are forced to live and seeing the conviction of the foreign missionaries that are serving these people, really puts things in perspective.  We have so much in the Unites States and God has blessed us with far more than we deserve.  I think it struck everyone that we need to continue to do whatever we can to serve others that are less fortunate.  Whether that be a mission trip to a foreign country or a more local service effort, we need to keep working towards helping others and spreading the Good news of Jesus.

Ed, Dave, Gary and Rob spend the whole day finishing up the last of the three cabins that we painted and repaired for the week.   For the week, we painted the insides of 3 large cabins, each with 4 sets of bunk beds and 3 sets of shelves.  On each of the cabins, we repaired 8 windows that folded down to allow air flow.  One of the cabins also needed 2 areas of the floor to be shored up.  The third cabin needed the most work.  The floor joists were completed rotted out and the whole floor was starting to collapse.  Ed and Rob spend an entire day carefully removing the tongue and groove mahogany flooring so that it could be reused.  The camp had a small supply of new boards available, so we had to salvage as much as possible.  We took another full day to build the floor joists and anchor them to the cinder block foundation.  We saw enough large ants and spiders to last a lifetime ;-)  At the beginning of the week, if you had said that we would only get to three cabins, we would have been disappointed.  At the end of the week, knowing the amount of work that we accomplished, we were thrilled to have rehabilitated ‘only’ three cabins.  Seeing the joy and energy of the kids that came through the camp when we were there, we know that our hard work will pay off significantly by giving many kids a safer and more comfortable experience at camp.

-rob