Mom's Visit & the Best YoungLife's Yet!

We'll start with a quick March Madness sports update that can be summarized with how terrible my bracket was/is this year. I guess I'll leave Bracketology to Joe Lunardi. Alabama sure didn't help me by losing in the first round...c'mon ya'll.

 

BUT, in the midst of my ESPN Tournament Challenge rankings plummeting, my mom came to visit me in Costa Rica! And let me tell ya'll- we had an absolute blast! I got to play tour guide/translator for 6 days as we traveled (via public transporation) around the country. Her first night here was a YoungLife night, and mom was able to attend her first YL club since she was in high school. The next morning we caught the 6 am bus to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast where we roasted in the sun for 3 days. We also did a rainforest canopy tour with 10 ziplines. We decided that was more like an overly priced Disney World ride because, as cool as the trees and rainforest were, we saw way more animals exploring on our own. However, we can check ziplining in Costa Rica off the bucket list! After the beach, we returned to San Jose and lived city life for 2 more days. I'm now a professional at economically & efficiently traveling in Costa Rica, not to mention translating, sooooo- Bring on more visitors!

 

This was the view from our hotel balcony-Manuel Antonio beach

The sloth that was in a nearby tree at breakfast each morning

First day on the beach!

Getting in some exercise/exploring the beach

The "white-faced" monkeys we encountered on the beach

This iguana wanted a good view & a sun tan

One incredible sunset...

Zipline tour of the rainforest canopy

Go, Momma!

 

It's always difficult to adjust back to the normal routine after a great vacation, but having YoungLife clubs to prepare for makes it much easier. Speaking of YoungLife clubs, in my opinion, we've had some of our best YL clubs yet recently. We had a YL Fast Food Progressive Dinner, YL Donut Olympics, and then YL Senior Citizen Club- all phenomenal ideas for you other YL leaders out there looking for themes/club ideas. Pictures will speak louder than words in this case, so here are some of the "best of" photos from each club.

Fast Food Progressive dinner

1st stop: Taco Bell for a taco eating relay

Next stop: McDonald for a french fry toss (my personal favorite)

3rd stop: KFC for some popcorn chicken (instagramed)

Then we finished up with some ice cream at POPS while we listened to Nicki's talk

 

Donut Olympics
The classic toothpick pass

Stuffing your face is always attractive...

Getting creative: The girls constructed a nice donut tower

...& the guys came up with a donut boxing match (typical)

Demonstrating the ol' donut swing & bite

 

Senior Citizen Club

Your elderly hosts & Green Acres Retirement Home residents: Oscar & Opal

Ready for our close-up...I hope I turn out nothing like this at 75!

Powdered white hair & wheelchair races make everyone 65+

 

As if we needed something else to celebrate this March month, my sweet friend Miguel (Mexico born, Houston raised, and now Costa Rican med school student) was baptized last Saturday!

 

Things you can be thinking about/praying for before you hear from me again:

• YL Costa Rica is taking 12 people to El Salvador for a Habitat for Humanity service project March 31st-April 7th! Speaker, Will Hawkins from Mesa, Arizona, will be flying in to join us.   
• A potential full-time YoungLife ministry opportunity for me is brewing stateside. I'll keep you updated, but I would love prayers through the process!

 

March Madness: Sports Edition & then some

I apologize for the long break in blogging for those of you who actually missed it. A mouse, or something along those lines, chewed through my laptop power cord, so my computer is dead until my mom comes to visit with a new one. (More on that further down) In the meantime, I couldn't wait any longer to post, so my good friend Alex let me use her computer to update you!

This is the sports edition of "Vida en Abundancia" because my life lately has been sports, sports, and more sports. While March Madness will soon take place stateside, we've been having our own sports madness in Costa Rica. Talk about some quality contact work on the YoungLife front! Jessie, my area director, and I are coaching two seperate soccer teams; middle school & high school. Then Alex and I, Alex more so than me, have been helping out with the newly formed cross country team. It's been an awesome way to spend time with students, encourage them, get involved, and love them well.

I have made you all well aware that I coach the girls' varsity soccer team at Country Day School, and each season of international schools soccer culminates in the AASCA tournament that took place last week. (Februrary 29-March 3rd) The tournament includes American international schools from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama; a total of 25 teams and over 450 international school students. It was quite an experience to go with the team to this event and be a part of the opening & closing ceremonies as well as coaching the girls' games and supporting the boys' team. It was long, sunny days that were well worth the sunburns and exhaustion. I had some awesome opportunities to spend one-on-one time with high school friends and small groups as we spent hours relaxing and waiting for our next match. We finished 7th out of the 12 girl teams....not too bad at all. Get ready for photo overload of Coach Sydney and the CDS Lady Panthers.

The team at the opening ceremony with the school banner & country flag

My personal favorite of us at Wednesday nights' "meet & greet" with the other teams 

Meredith & I on the bus going from one field to the next

Sol (top), Erin (left), & Daniella (right) on the bus

Game faces for our game against Nicaragua

My favorite brother/sister moment after each game

Your coaches: J.M. Artavia & Sydney (frustrated hands going on here...)

Alex, Nicki, and the boys' team supporting like champs

Seniors after their last AASCA game (left to right: MaJo, Jime, Cami, Fish, & Eva)

The weekend before the AASCA tournament started, Alex & I put our cross country endurance to the test and ran in CDS's annual fun run with over 200 other students and parents. In my opinion, the best part of the whole race was the free bananas and pineapple afterwards courtesy of a Dole employee whose kids go to CDS. And not just your average yellow banana...ever tried a red banana? Don't. 

In the words of my 5th grade favorite, the Dixie Chicks:

"Ready, ready, ready, ready...Ready to ruuuuuuun. All I really wanna do is have some fuuuUUUnnn."

Another big project I've been working on is a scrapbook for one of our committee members/my in-country mentor of her families' historical tour of the United States last summer. Yvonne homeschools her 2 boys, so they contributed essays about the historical significance of the places they visited while I crafted each page to be visually appealing. It turned out great and was fun hours spent at the Van Slyke household with Yvonne and the boys!

The work in progress...

...& the finished product! God Bless America. 

A brief update on WyldLife & YoungLife clubs: We just hosted our 5th YoungLife club of the semester including 2 events; Beanbag-O-Rama & a fast-food progressive dinner. My personal favorites so far have been YoungLife ThugLyfe club &, of course, the fast food pregressive dinner (this meant eating items from Taco Bell, McDonalds, KFC, and POPS ice cream all in one night). I'm sure parents appreciated the nutrition value of that event...

The dark, shadowy figure in the right of this pic is yours truly 

My WyldLife favorite so far was Wet n' Wild club- pretty self explanatory & here are some photos. 

My group performing an out-of-water sycronized swimming rountine

What's more fun than soaking your student WyldLife leader?

2 of my favorite middle school friends, Harry & Andrew- endless laughs

Life outside of sports, ministry, and the combination of the two has been somewhat non-existent in the past few weeks, but it's about to get a lot more exciting! I'm having my first visitor come since Kristin dropped me off here in August...MY MOMMA! Mom comes next Wednesday, and we're heading to the beach for 3 days to soak up the sun & do a canopy tour of the rainforest. Then we're spending 2 nights in the city so she can experience a YL Costa Rica club, meet my host family, and see what my day-to-day life looks like here. You can be looking forward to the blog post that will follow her visit, because I can assure you that no one does mother/daughter vacations better than Erin & Sydney. 

Mom & I last parted ways in New Orleans, LA after watching Alabama win its 13th national title. This photo is of us on Bourbon Street. Here's to us reuniting in the Rica!

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." -Colossians 3:15-17