Today was quite an eye-opening day. Last night, we packed 80 bags of food to deliver to the people of the Los Guido slums. This morning, we headed out early and started delivering the bags right away. We split up the load into two so we could do half in the morning and half after lunch. For the first half, we visited Sector 8, the area that we did for our first day of VBS. We walked up the steep, slippery slopes of the slums to the top of the hillside to start delivering the food bags. We went to each individual house and gave them a bag and prayed over their houses. The youth leaders of Iglesia Nueva Vida went with us to share the gospel with each house that we delivered to. This was such an amazing experience because we got to see just how grateful people can be over one little bag of food. Their smiles and ‘muchas gracias’ really touched our hearts. It was so amazing to see how God can use us to love others.
For the second half of delivering the bags, we went to Sector 7 of Los Guido to an area we had not visited before. This sector was packed full of houses with maybe a 10-foot walkway in between them. It was very steep and full of trash and sewage. No one refused the food or the time to talk about God. This was so great to see because they were willing to hear what the youth leaders had to say. They were so willing to listen, and I could see on their faces that they agreed. They seemed happy that people were talking to them about God and how and why Jesus came and died for them. Today was such an eye-opening experience for me to see how God can work in people’s lives and how much He loves them!
After we delivered all of the food bags, we went back to the farm to play a riveting game of volleyball. We played a best-of-three match. Since the Ticos beat us pretty good at soccer, I was thinking that they would definitely beat us again. But we put up a fight like no other! For all three games we had a solid defense, blocking most everything that came our way, and keeping the ball in play. On offense, we had a good front row to keep the ball alive and mostly on their side. We let them make their own mistakes, which won us a couple of matches. They put up a good fight on the first game, beating us. But we came back and won the second one, making us tied at one game a piece. For the third game it came down to a 12-9 lead with Nick up to serve. He gave us three aces, winning us the game! So we proved that the Gringos can win at a sport against the Ticos. Overall, it was a truly splendid day in Los Guido, with all the lives that God allowed us to be a part of, and the good fun we had.
-Deanna Becker