Mission: Costa Rica

My daughter recently returned from nearly two weeks in Costa Rica on a mission trip with our church: Faithbridge UMC. Below is the thank you note she wrote to her sponsors about how these kids changed their little piece of earth for the better:


Hello Everyone,

I would just like to say thank you again for supporting me on my mission trip. I got back last Friday evening and I must say that I’m a changed person. Going to Costa Rica may sound like a picnic but let me tell you it was far from luxurious. We stayed in a house that was on the road we were building so we got a firsthand experience about how the people of this town live.
There wasn’t any hot water so the few showers we did take were probably colder than the water you drink. I guess that’s good because then you didn’t really want to take a shower anyway!

Building a road was challenging and came with a lot of obstacles, and since I was the work site leader
it was my job to navigate those obstacles and tell people what to do (sounds like me doesn’t it). We didn’t do the road completely on our own, the men and women of the neighborhood helped out a lot. One of our goals besides building a road was to inspire unity within the community and we were very successful with both. With the help of the natives we completed 90% of the road.

The first week we were there we had a VBS for the children in the area, and it was a blast. God really bridges language barriers. All the children obviously spoke Spanish and I knew approximately 5 words, but that didn’t hinder us from communicating and becoming amigos. Every single girl loved to play the hand clap games almost like patty cake, so in that one week it think I played more of those games than in my elementary school years combined. Even though we only spent a week with them it was really hard to say goodbye. In the pictures I am sending there is a picture with some of the kids.

Over the weekend we got to have a little fun and relaxation. We went zip lining which was so much fun, we swam in the river that we zip lined over, and we went shopping in the little town. We stayed in a really pretty cabin with flowers everywhere. We had a great view of the volcano, got to swim and take a HOT SHOWER!!! There was another mission trip group there with us so we made friends which was really great, because after living with the same people for a week in a small house it was time to meet new people.

The second week was really challenging because we were all tired and we had to work all day, but we all called upon God’s strength so we got through it.

Now you are all probably wondering how I grew spiritually. Well I definitely did. Every morning after breakfast we had 45 minutes to do our devotionals for the day, and as that may seem like a long time it did allow for a lot of thinking. I learned to put my complete trust in God so that I can take risks without being afraid of failing. I learned and accepted the fact that my plan may not be God’s plan so I shouldn’t get frustrated when things don’t go my way. This was probably the hardest thing to do because I am not the most patient person in the world and I get frustrated very easily, and being the work site leader I had to motivate people who were tired and didn’t want to work and deal with the natives telling me 40,000 different ways that they wanted us to do something.

I grew immensely as a leader as well. One of the goals of a Leadertreks trip is to develop every student into the best leader that they can be. This is done by requiring everyone to cook, clean, and make decisions for themselves. We knew that if we didn’t do it then no one else would. This trip was entirely student lead, I mean we had leaders from the Leadertreks company, but a part of their job is to just do what we need them to do and they are there to guide us when we need it. Even they were fairly young - the oldest one being about 26 years old. This is an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life and hopefully it’s something that the people of Costa Rica will remember as well. Thank you so much for your support and prayers!

Love always,

Rachel