earringproject: Saturday..leaving Camp Jennie Sue

(Do you know why it's called the rain forest? It rains a lot!)

Friday I ended up the night playing cards and then turned in for bed early. The longer I stay here the better I sleep. Our cabin, with about 20 bunks for ladies was surprisedly comfortable.

I awoke early, as usual, and go ready quietly so as not to disturb the later sleepers. I put on my makeup on the porch of the cabin and watched the ducks doing their morning routine. This routine seemed to consist of morning stretches, some chatting and chastising, before jumping back into the stream for a swim. (Kind of like our life.)

I worked on Friday's blog while waiting for breakfast. We would only be at this camp through early afternoon before we would have to say good-bye to most of the church members who had come for the retreat. Cristian, the minister, and his family would be going with us to our final retreat at La Fortuna.

We finished up our Bible retreat with one more split class. Margaret Reeves lead ours and had us share our thoughts, feelings and good-byes to our Costa Rican sisters. She shared that from her own experience that we have no guarantees that we would be back next year. (She couldn't come last year.) It is also always emphasized that this team this summer will never be exactly the same again. She also exhorted us to do everything possible to make sure that we would all be reunited in heaven one day!!

Several of us shared and our hearts were full. I shared that this experience, I felt, was the most like heaven there is on earth. That is being surrounded by like-minded Christians while we totally focus on praising God, serving Him, helping others, sharing and learning more about the Bible, and being the hands and feet of Jesus!!!

There also was additional sadness because Cristian and Yendry will be leaving soon to move to the US for two years. Cristian will be attending the Southwestern Bible College and his family will be living in Texas during this time. Yendry's mom, Maribell, cried and expressed her sadness about not seeing her daughter and granddaughters for two years. (People in other countries, especially Central America, don't have the freedom to fly to the US. In fact, Yendry shared how they had been trying to get a visa to study in the US for 8 years. Each time they apply their is a hefty fee and most are often denied. They had been denied until this last time.)

Not only that, Maribell was worried because her other daughter and son-in-law had gone to Panama to study. While there, they had a terrible experience. As a mother, she felt so bad because she wasn't able to help them as much as she wanted to. We all assured them that their experience in the US would be much better. In fact, if it wasn't, several of us said we would go to TX and help.

We packed up and left the camp after lunch around 2. We hugged and said our good-byes and "Proximo Anos" to the church members that had to leave. It is great that we can at least stay in touch via Facebook.

We boarded our buses to head to our final destination, La Fortuna. Our rided lasted several hours, but was filled with lots of sights to see has we headed over the moutanins that had been in the background the whole time we were in San Jose. I will stop here for now, but try to add pictures that will tell the rest of the story.