WOW. . .long time no see

So. . .yeah. . .

Been a while.

Haven't really felt like writing in the last few months.

Been pretty busy.

Well, that's not completely true.

Never did finish up the last blog about Costa Rica. Needless to say, it was a great trip.

Had another great mission trip after that to Hayesville, NC. Painted another mural.

Vacation Bible School came after that.
Great times.
Great t-shirt design if I do say so myself (I admit to a personal bias as the designer).

Couldn't have been any better.
Oh wait, yeah it could have.
I could have not fallen backwards out of a pool deck lounge chair at the City of Winter Garden pool.
Fallen backwards, down a concrete wall, onto a concrete sidewalk, on my head.

I was laughing at Matt, and the predicament above that he found himself in. In fact, the chair fell backwards at the precise moment I laughed at his girlish scream of "you're pulling my chest hair!"

The next week, nothing happened.
The week after that, nothing happened.
The week after that, Youth Week, lots happened. And it ended with me playing Putt Putt Golf.
Second hole, tripped, lost my balance, and snapped my left pinky at the knuckle.

I don't have a picture of the event. This pic was taken right before my turn. The aftermath is all a blur, I know that I fainted, I know that they called an ambulance. I also know that they had to take me out on a sitting stretcher, because I could not walk without fainting again.

Did I receive a simple cast and get sent on my way?
No.
I got three nights in the hospital, lots of pain killers, and oh yeah. . .
SURGERY. . .A PLATE AND FIVE SCREWS!

 

That happened in August. The second week of August. It is now October 31st, and I still can't straighten out my finger. I'm still on pain meds.

Oh. . .I almost forgot. . .

Russ, Lana, and Leya got to come down to see us twice within the past five months! YAAAAYYY!
The first time was a birthday surprise for mom.

The second was for Leya's first birthday.

 

I also got a dog. . .Toby. . .so. . . .

Everything's great!

Costa Rica-Pura Vida 2012

Ok, so I promised that I'd give you a run down of my mission trip to Costa Rica. Oh, and share some pics.
Seeing as how my only registered followers are already friends on my facebook, I'll try to share a few here that they haven't seen.

We left on Sunday (our flight was at 10:00a, so we were at the airport at 8:00a.) No real problems at either airport, our flight was great. There was one bag from the Ocala group that got ripped (BADLY) and we ended up having to find her a replacement bag while we were in San Jose.

At OIA waiting to get on the tram

 Last year, we worked at a larger church on the outskirts of Alajuela, in Tuetal.  Our work this year was at a church in the midst of San Jose. Iglesia Evangelica Metodista "Monte de los Olivos" is a much smaller church but possesses no less passion. The church building itself is over 90 years old, and has recently suffered significant structural damage from an earthquake. Needless to say, our work was definitely not lacking. Unfortunately, the permit to repair the roof did not come through in time for us to be able to work on that. So, we switched gears and worked on the interior and exterior walls.

I had told Danny to inform Pastor Gustavo that I could paint a mural for him if he liked. So, I packed in my suitcase a painting kit that I had recently been able to purchase through a generous birthday gift from a neighbor. I was actually a bit worried that the kit would be confiscated out of my checked bag. However, God prevailed, and the paint made it to San Jose.

The first day in San Jose (Sunday) we checked into our hotel, Hotel Villa Tournon, and then dressed for Sunday evening Church service. The congregation at Monte de los Olivos had changed their Sunday morning worship schedule so that they could welcome us on Sunday evening.

The Praise Team

Jr. and the lyrics

William translated

We realized that Sunday evening while doing a walk through of the church campus, that there was more work than we could ever possibly hope to finish. So the prayer is that God will bring more mission teams behind us. We determined that our main focus would be scraping the walls, plastering them, and painting them. We would also work on replacing some over head lighting, purchase beams for the sanctuary roof, put in a dividing wall for the Sunday School room/kitchen, paint the outside fence and gate, and if God saw it possible-paint a mural in the Sunday School room.

The awesome thing about mission trips is that they always teach you the wonder of patience. Whether its because you have to sit around and wait at the hardware store, realize you're missing scrapers, realize that you got the wrong type of paint, realize there is only one jenky ladder, that the overhead lights you want to buy are extremely expensive, that the walls are crumbling and will require several layers of plaster, that there's a hurricane coming through over your heads and you won't be able to plaster the outside walls, or that you have no power saw and are going to have to cut all the 2x4's for the wall with a hand saw. Oh and you have to get everything done in four days and most of you don't speak Spanish.

Monica and her "scraper"

Matt and his "ladder"

Either you spend your spare time laughing or waste it crying. We mainly laughed. And sang.

I'm going to make this a double post. So I'll finish the story tomorrow.

Leviticus 19:9

As found in the Message version of the Bible:

 ^9-10 "When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am God, your God.

Julie clipping Poncans

Have you ever heard of the Society of St. Andrew? 

Neither had I until about five years ago. That was when our youth director decided to sign up our group,
Teens N Touch, for a gleaning slot.

Gleaning is defined as the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.  In Florida this applies to many types of fruits and vegetables. 

Emily and Richard with their haul.

Our group gleans citrus from local area trees. These trees are normally neighborhood or backyard trees. Occasionally we get the opportunity to glean whole groves, but that can be a daunting task for a youth group. 

The group at House #1

This year we were assigned three different locations. Our first stop had only one grapefruit tree.  For a group of seventeen mainly inexperienced fruit pickers, that one tree was thoroughly harvested. We ended up with twenty-one bags from it.

At House #2

The second stop was at my best friend Julie’s in-law’s house.  They had about eight trees of several different varieties, including blood orange and grapefruit.  From here we picked about seventy-five bags.

House #3

The third stop had about twelve trees, all of which were pretty scraggily. There were even two trees, an orange and lemon, that had begun cross pollinating and creating what we called “omens”. Not sure how those will taste. Other fruits included Honeybells and grapefruit. We picked fifty-one bags here.

Delivering the goods!

We took the fruit to St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, where the Society of St. Andrew had set up a drop off location. All in all we gleaned about 

1,300 lbs. of citrus. 

Great day of service in His name!