Costa Rica: the Job

In June, I went with my friends' youth group to Costa Rica for a mission trip. I had only left the country once before. I went to Costa Rica for a week when I was 9 with my elementary school, because it was a Spanish Immersion School. This time we stayed for 10 days at la Universidad Biblica Latinoamericana. UBL is very small, but it gives people in Latin America of all ages the chance to go to seminary, regardless of their financial situation. UBL pays for tuition, accommodation, and food for the students, so they rely on volunteers to take care of the campus. We were there to prepare the campus for an international conference, because everyone attending would have to stay on the campus.

Some of what we did was weed the gardens and smaller maintenance projects, but we mostly just worked on "the wall."

Our job was to scrape the plaster off the wall, get the dust off, prime the walls, put a new layer of plaster on, and then paint the wall. It took us the whole week, but it certainly made a difference in the appearance of UBL as you first come in.

I know the work we did really helped the staff at the university because they only had to supply the materials. I had a really good time working with the staff, since I was often translating between the staff and my group. Honestly, I would love to go back to Costa Rica, but hopefully my next trip won't involve so much manual labor!