Paradise Twice

Since coming to Costa Rica, I've been able to be involved in some pretty awesome ministries. I'm involved in a church, planting a church, a kid's club, a youth group, leading worship amoung the GAP students, and other random opportunities into which I'm able to get involved. But as you can imagine, with plugging into so much ministry comes fatigue. I get tired. I get tired of helping, serving, ministering, studying, working, planning, and everything else. This is the reason we all get Monday's off. We study in class for 6 hours a day during the week, and jam-pack our weekends with ministry. By the time Monday morning hits, there is no longer any way our minds, spirits, or bodies can keep going without a break. We desperately need a chill day to relax, unwind, hang out with God, and do nothing planned. However, going hand in hand with the busyness of the week comes the desire to do things other than school and ministry. Things such as Ultimate Frisbee, shopping in the San Jose market, cleaning at Coronado, going out to eat, or just leaving the Villa fill Mondays almost instantaneously. Because we want so badly to get out when we don't have school, our free day in a sense is no longer free. After compiling close to 3 months now of this routine, I along with the rest of my group, seriously needed an extended break from everything. Therefore.... this weekend we went to the beach for 2 days!!! Oh my goodness. How fantastic does that sound?! Yeah, it pretty much was. From start to finish.. I was finally experiencing the perks of living in CR ;) 


After already thinking I lived in paradise with merely slight degree changes from perfect weather, overpoweringly gorgeous scenery, people speaking a beautiful language, and the coolest ever team, I found myself in paradise twice. Moving from the mountains to the ocean I climbed out of the bus, looked as far as my eye could see, and saw nothing but horizon. I dropped my bags and ran to the beach.. across the sand and directly into the pacific. WAHOO!! Oh man.. not only in Costa Rica but at the beach. This is the life. God is so beautiful. So after swimming out to "Isla Tomar El Sol", walking the coastline, eating sandwiches and juice boxes for lunch, I ventured inland for the first time all day, only to find a sand volleyball court. I got pumped and ended up playing for a few hours straight. The sun was awesomely bright and hot, making me sticky and tired. Yet so happy. I love playing beach volleyball... When I got tired I jumped into the pool expecting to cool off. But as soon as I got in, a bunch of guys were talking about water polo. I got curious and very soon the lifeguard showed up with 2 nets and a ball. Looked like I was playing some water polo :) It was so fun.. I had never played before, but it wasn't that hard and it was super fun! By the end of the game though I was doubly pooped. Luckily it was time to check into our rooms so we got to go crash in our rooms. I drug my bags all the way up the mountainous climb (no joke) to room 206. My roommates and I took showers and collapsed on the beds for about an hour. Then Club Lucas decided to take adorable roomie pictures on the beach. We donned our black and jean and posed and smiled and captured all our love ;) It was awesome. Then we headed to dinner.. but not only dinner.. buffet dinner. Now if you know anything about Villa food you'll know how deeply we all appreciated and got very excited for this buffet dinner. We had options, we had GOOD food, and we had multiple servings. We didn't have corncob/banana soup, hot dog casserole, broccoli bacon pasta, cheese soup, or hot dog spaghetti. Living the good life. So after stuffing ourselves we were extremely full and content. During the after dinner hours those of us from Indiana figured the best way to digest was to not move from the dinner table. So we pulled out a handy deck of cards and dealt up some Euchre. Finally. We had been talking about playing ever since we found out there were 4 of us from Indiana all who know how to play and love the game, but we had never actually played. It was a blast. So for the next 2 hours we played some Euchre and chatted it up. Then close to 9 we walked back to our neighborhood since our rooms were right next to each other so I could grab my guitar and head down for some worship on the beach. I had never played my guitar on the beach before, and in my head it was pretty cool. So I decided to make an announcement that 9 pm on the beach there would be a worship service. It was far better than I had ever imagined. I played for close to an hour straight and we just sang in the dark listening to the waves and knowing and seeing and feeling how awesome God is. We stared out at the ocean, knowing that it's one of the most vast things man can come close to viewing, and yet tiny is not even a small enough word to describe how small it is in comparison to our great God. After some heartfelt, passionate, loving worship and prayer, we dispersed and had the rest of the evening to chill. I took my guitar back to the room and then walked back to the beach to pray with some friends about our group. Then I proceeded to wander nearly the entire camp twice looking for my roommate who turned 19 at the strike of midnight. My plan was to knock on her door at midnight and sing to her, but I couldn't find her until about midnight o five. But it was alright. I still sang obnoxiously and she enjoyed it ;) Bedtime was next.. sorta. We went back to our rooms, but I ended up staying awake talking until close to 3. Oops. Oh well. We got up to another beautiful day on the beach. More incredible buffet for breakfast, only this time accompanied by monkeys. They were everywhere. And I mean everywhere. They would hop down on tables and steal food, take food from your hands, and crawl all over the roofs waiting for someone unaware. It was hilarious. I fed one with a baby on its back a banana and it didn't even share with the baby... pig. After breakfast we headed out to the sand courts for a hardcore 2 on 2 tournament. One boy one girl, best 2 out of 3, play to 15 with a 2 point cap, 3rd game to 10, single elimination. Oh yeah, in the scorching sun with lots of sand to stick to your sweat every time you dove. It was awesome. What a way to spend the morning. I played for about 4 hours, probably 6 games straight, and was undefeated. Derick and I were a team and we beat everyone in 2 games. It was so much fun. Between games we had some rest time and we fueled up on coconut milk, which we learned afterwards has about twice the electrolytes as gatorade. So we really were juiced and ready. We were both completely covered in sand, soaked in sweat, dominating the court, slowly tiring out, and having tons of fun!! After we won (*grin*) we showered most of the sand off and jumped into the pool. It was pretty refreshing, but we just got out and walked to the ocean which was cooler and even more refreshing. After our short swim, we dried off and headed up to lunch. Yep. More buffet ;) By this time my body was screaming at me to sleep. So I headed to the beach with the plan to fall asleep in the sun. However, this plan was quickly thwarted with one look at the overcast sky. So instead of getting my tan on, I hung out by the pool and watched some of our guys be pretty retarded. It was really fun. After another hour or so it was time to go home. Happy, dry, tired, and yet rested, I loaded the bus for a gorgeous drive home. On the way to the beach I slept the whole way so I had missed all the scenery, which was absolutely incredible. So this direction I decided to stay awake and check out God's awesome creation in another country. During the drive it hit that magical hour of about 5 o'clock, and it got dark. But the cool thing was we got to watch a full moon rise and hang out over the mountains. It was so bright and gorgeous.. I love the moon :) God is cool. When we got back to the Villa, there was no food waiting for us so some people decided to make some pancakes. I grabbed some in between unpacking and just sitting around. Then my roommates and I showed Madison her CL birthday power point that I made for her. She loved it. I was so glad that it was an awesome birthday for her, even away from home, she had fun and friends and a great 19th. For the rest of the night we just hung out in Club Lucas. It was quite the weekend. I loved just being in some gorgeous creation, in which the mighty hand of an incredible powerful God was consistently apparent :)