We thoroughly enjoyed our time last week with Joan (George's sister) and Frank who came to visit us from Toronto. George asked Joan if she'd be willing to share a few thoughts for our blog from a visitor's perspective:
Gringos in Costa Rica
Flying in to San Jose from Toronto in November you aren’t quite sure what to wear. You need to
leave your car of cheap Toronto airport parking in the hinterlands to board a shuttle to Terminal
3—and it’s COLD in the early morning! So you wear boots, leggings, a jacket, and your leather
gloves—none of which you will need again.
What you notice in San Jose is the heat and humidity. It feels good! Then you see the hustle
and bustle of people and taxis and shuttles and traffic—but beyond them you see mountains all
around. It’s gorgeous here!
The sun goes down really early, but it’s so incongruous for it to still be warm. In Toronto warmth
at night means blazing summer and long, long evenings of light. Not so here. The sun rises and
sets pretty regularly all year round. On the shuttle to Quepos I kept thinking, “Why are all these
people walking or biking around so late? What are those babies at the bus stop at this time of
night?”—forgetting that it was still before dinner.
We had the best of both worlds in our trip to Costa Rica. We got to sleep in a nice place (TheFalls Resort—highly recommended!) and yet we walked around in town, hiked down to the
beach, took numerous trips in the local bus, hung out in Quepos with George and Jane, ate at
their house, and followed them around for some of the time. That’s how we like it. Getting a
close-up sense of what things were like for them. It was good to go to church with them (okay—
we skipped out after the opening 1 hour of worship), visit the school, and go to the addiction
rehab home for men where we played games, chatted, sang, prayed, and ate a great meal
together. George was impressive in his leading of the Bible study—as even Nathan told him at
the end!
It was easy to see that some things were harder for their family, and that they are living
sacrificially. Their home is small, dark, and hot. By North American standards their street and
town feel crowded and grubby. There is no hot water in the kitchen. And it had rained a lot in the
last few months.
Yet Jane cooked amazing meals for us, as well as preparing large amounts of food for other
gatherings in a small kitchen with limited supplies. The kids seemed fairly content, though we
did hear about some of the difficulties of adjusting to a school with a different educational ethos.
But I did assure Angelina that God can use even hard things to be good learning experiences for
us in life. The kids did realize that they have had amazing experiences that were not available in
Zeeland, Michigan—especially seeing and learning about all the wildlife they have encountered.
They are in a very beautiful corner of the world!
We were blessed to see the school in action, and know that the lives of these young kids are
being deeply impacted by a quality Christian education. And so many more lives could be
shaped in positive ways if the school could actually build and accept all of the students who want
to come. This is a very worthwhile project.
I highly recommend a trip to Quepos*, Costa Rica to bless and be a blessing. Pura Vida**!
Joan DeVries
*We would love to share our experience with visitors. If you've ever wanted to visit Costa Rica, consider a visit in the next 6 months and include Quepos in your itinerary!
**'Pura vida' is a very popular and versatile expression used here in Costa Rica. It literally means 'pure life' or 'full of life' but depending on the context could mean many different things: awesome, cool, going great, hello or goodbye
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