Gifts

Christians love to talk about how each of us have gifts given by God, both spiritual gifts and skills that was use in our everyday lives. I've always thought my life would be defined by finding these gifts and then finding a suitable way to apply them.

Funny thing is, I don't actually like many of my practical gifts. Sure, I can do math, but I don't enjoy it. Yeah, I can write a research paper, but why would I spend my life on theoretical knowledge?

I do enjoy writing, music, relationships, building, etc. The list goes on. Naturally, I have little talent for any of these things.

One of the ideas that I'm learning through YWAM is that you can, to some extent, pick your own talents. The human mind is one of God's greatest gifts and I get to choose how to use it, which tends to result in a great number of failures. Life is failure, however, and then standing up again. So if I want to learn to garden, then I can try, and probably kill a great many plants (sorry in advance). If my heart's deepest desire turns out to be raising goats, well, there might be lots of temporarily unhappy goats in my future. If I love to pass my knowledge along to others, there will certainly be many confused students wandering around at first.

Finding that one natural gift might not be my best option. After all, think of all the adventures I would have missed while hiding in a library. Then again, there may be many adventures left for me in libraries, who knows?

Lizard!

Everyone needs more lizards in their lives.

Double-Digging and Zai Holes

Every week we have two workshops teaching us the practical part of sustainable development. In this case, double-digging and zai holes. Sounds thrilling, eh? Actually, these techniques are pretty cool because they help rejuvenate tired soil as well as increasing crop yields. This is wonderful for farmers with very little land or who have been growing cash crops without resting their soil. Great stuff. Very easy and effective - really the main idea is to add compost for nutrients and then learn how to apply the compost correctly.

Learning how to double dig an existing raised bed. Basically you loosen the soil and add compost. 

Digging a Zai Hole - 2' by 2' by 2'. We filled it in with layers with fresh manure, compost, dirt, and dry materials. This nutrient rich and light soil can increase yields by 3-4 times the normal compost and dirt in the double-dug beds. It's a bit more work, but it wonderful for wakening up tired land.

Plants! We put some baby zucchini in our hole. Hopefully they will do well. I like zucchini. 

Visitors

Last week my class headed out to one of the poorest communities in San Jose. Most of the people living there are are Nicaraguans, probably illegal immigrants. Our teachers are part of a ministry called Homes of Hope which has built a number of houses in this community and they wanted to show us the difference it can make in a family's life.

We weren't there to do ministry, just as visitors to understand the meaning of extreme poverty. I'm not particularly proud of our excursion, since I don't think any community should be used as show and tell. However, our teachers seemed very at home with the people we visited and everyone was very welcoming. If the same thing had happened to me, I don't think I would have been nearly as forgiving. 

That being said, it was amazing to see the difference a single house can make in this community. Just look at the differences between a Homes of Hope house and it's neighbor.

The yellow house on the left was built by Homes of Hope. They didn't paint it bright yellow, the family did that themselves. Our teachers thought the colour choice was pretty funny.

Right next to the train tracks.

The entire neighborhood looks like this - it was pretty intimidating.

Settling In

This week has been quite an adventure, both good and bad. Luckily for me, I've had a lovely week, though the base has been in chaos with two volunteers going to the hospital. All is well, but one man almost died of a heart attack, which shook all of us up quite a bit. He's up and walking around already, which is amazing given his condition, and we are all extremely grateful.

Other more interesting adventures include attempting to learn to dance latino style. I fail. What are hips and how do you move them?

My first real football match! They whistle instead of booing, which is hilarious. Also, I didn't get a good picture, but there was a section of the stands that spent the entire game jumping around and chanting. That's an hour and a half of dedicated cheering. Ohmygoodness, so much noise. The local team, Saprissa, won and watching the crowd celebrate a goal was definitely the highlight of the night. The mascot is a purple monster and I have no idea why.

The stadium in San Jose

And the goats have finally decided they like my friend and I milking them, mostly because we have gotten much more efficient. Goats and chickens are highly amusing to me, but finicky enough that I am content not to be dependent on them for my livelihood. My respect for farmers and ranchers is growing by the minute.

Milking Vanilla - definitely my favourite goat. It's actually pretty fun.

Practical Learning

In the past five days I have:

- Learned to milk a goat

- Made friends with three lovely cats, one of whom just likes me because I help milk the goats

- Investigated the murder of three pullets, apparently a daring crime by a weasely-type creature

- Fed the adult chickens as well as the slight creepy ducks, who have been charged with the brutal drowning of a turkey

- Learned how to make good soil out of composted goat poo and rice hulls - it's all about the poo, fyi. Great for growing things. Though the compost will pack down too far, so you need rice hulls or straw for aeration.

- Learned that some cultures are actually accepting of Christian tracts. I didn't believe, but some others of my school handed them out and I saw people reading them. It was so odd.

- Watched Solly the dog bully the horses

It's great good fun! My Spanish is improving daily and I'm enjoying talking to so many people with different backgrounds. 

There are also lots of birds, though I haven't gotten a chance to go birding yet. So far the highlights have been a summer tanager, rufous tailed hummer, and blue gray tanager.

Adventures

On January 17th, I will be flying to Costa Rica to be part of YWAM Heredia's Environment and Resource Stewardship program (entertainingly called "EARS"). During a ten week class I'll apparently be learning everything from foundational missionary practices (how to help without being pationizing) to basic veterinary care to how to construct and take care of an aquaphonic system. Basically EARS combines two of my deepest passions: caring for the environment and helping others.

I just got accepted into the program a couple days ago, so I'm a bit in shock. Bah! Less than a month. There's barely even enough time to start a countdown. Think I need to go spin in circles for a bit - coherency will return shortly.

Anyway, I am excited to learn how to gracefully integrate my (occasionally unorthodox) views within a stricter Christian community as well as discover hands on techniques to promote sustainable development. I've been searching high and low for an opportunity like this! How often does one get the chance to combine two of their loves AND go to an amazingly beautiful place (ALL THE BIRDS)?

Oh, more logicistics, just for reference. I will be in Heredia, Costa Rica from January 17th through the end of March. After that, I'll go on an outreach to an unknown location until the beginning of July. Finally, I fly back to Seattle on July 7th. It'll be a long trip - especially since I don't know Spanish. "No entiendo" will become my new favourite words.

One more thing, for more information on the program or the YWAM base, here's a link: http://ywamheredia.com/training/ears/

They also have a fb page that is updated moderately regularly.

Please think of me and post travel tips! Either here or on facebook, whichever works. Hopefully, this blog will stay current, but I know myself well enough not to promise anything :)

Picture from the first time I was in Heredia - Youth Mission Trip 2010. I barely remember the base. Somehow, I think this experience will be a bit different...