Pura Vida! This fun expression means “pure life” and it is a common expression for many things such as goodbye, have a good day, and a sweet salutation of love for the day. Pura Vida is also a great way to describe the way that we have been living this last week. Since last updating, we have been doing manual labor and lots of farm work at the ministry host’s place in the jungle in Northern Costa Rica. We are staying in a shelter made of tin, with a kitchen and a separate room for bunk beds. We are truly living in the jungle this month, because with no walls, the jungle has become our home. During our daily afternoon coffee time, I have seen toucans, monkeys, and parakeets! This place is so simple, yet so sweet.

The farm that we are staying on will eventually be turned into a school, although it is still in the beginning stages. The workday here starts at 6am to escape the Costa Rican heat (but we all wake up at 5:00 when the howler monkeys begin) and we have been doing work such as deconstructing small structures, sawing logs, clearing out plots of land, moving materials such as tin, and building new structures. I have been amazed at how the Costa Rican people can truly make anything into a useful tool. Piles of what Americans would see as garbage have been reused and repurposed by us this week to build new structures. For example, if something breaks, they will reuse each piece down the screw for a new product. Nothing goes to waste here and I am so impressed by the way that every small thing is seen in the big picture as something beautiful. Work has been very hard, but we have made it really fun!

This weekend, we had the opportunity to meet with kids from different communities in the area, and just play with them! Our hosts for this month run a church in San Carlos, and they have become friends with 25 different local communities and love to bring travelling missionaries or people from the church around just to spend time with the kids. On Saturday, we sang songs with them, played lots of soccer and at the end of our time, we were able to give each kid a new pair of shoes! Language barriers can be difficult, and I was really worried about that challenge in the beginning, but the kids just want to play, and no language barrier is going to stop them! They were so excited to see that we brought a soccer ball because many of the kids did not have access to one in their daily lives.

I have loved getting to live life for a little bit with these people and they truly have so much to teach me. I would love continued prayers for the kids that we are spending time with, for the continued work efforts on the school being built here, and for the church in San Carlos that is still meeting online due to pandemic shutdowns.

Thank you all again for your time, prayers, and love.

Love always,

Claire