Success: We have arrived!

   The day started off with a whole lot of excitement muddied by the third day of rain in a row in Montgomery. A crew of Ascension parishioners and the mission team gathered outside of the church under the covered portico to pack the bus and pray together before departing to Atlanta. Our send-off team led us in an Outreach and Mission litany with the reoccurring response of "We will love like Jesus loved" and that will be our goal this week in San Jose. But before we can do that we had to make the trek from Montgomery to Atlanta then Atlanta to San Jose. And so we were off right on schedule.
   About forty-five minutes outside of Atlanta we made a pitstop to top off the gas in the bus and grab a snack for our ever-growing young people. There was a brief moment of "oh-no, what will we do" when the Ascension bus wouldn't start, but luckily jumper cables and Chip's car did the trick and we were off again! I was very thankful for the extra hour I built into our itinerary for travel in case of an emergency like the one we came close to experiencing.
   Bill Garrett, our faithful driver, dropped us off at the newly constructed international departure gates where we encountered a bit of confusion. We approached the group check-in counter where no employees were standing. I got the attention of an employee on the other side of the counter who told us to just go to the opposite direction where we should get in any line. So we got in a line when a different employee approached us and asked why we were in that line and I told him that we had been sent there by the other guy and lucky for us this employee was very helpful. He got us started at the kiosk check-in and through to baggage drop-off. It was a bit of a pain that we had to do it that way since a separate group came in about fifteen minutes after us wearing matching Costa Rica mission shirts and they got through the group check-in with no problem putting them ahead of us in the security line. But again, I was thankful for the extra time I built in to the travels. Maybe next time we will wearing neon pink Costa Rica Mission shirts, or dye our hair (that was Tim's suggestion).
   Finally, we all made it through security without a hitch and located our terminal, which only changed once in the period of time we spent there! A little under half of us did not have a proper seat assignment, so we got that all squared away and were finally all ready to board the plane. I call it a miracle that we made it to this point without losing anyone! Keeping up with 18 people isn't as easy as it might seem.
   Other than the 45 minute- 1 hour delay on the runway due to weather we had a pretty uneventful flight. It was probably one of the loudest flights I've ever been on with so many groups all split up over the cabin and one group of probably 25 children ages 12 and under in the middle of the plane, but overall it was bearable. In my book an uneventful flight is a great flight! We even got a small little dinner on board- so no complaints on that.
   After making it through customs and gathering all of our bags we found our greeters, Kristen, Gray and Clarence. Kristen is our in-country liaison who has been doing the brunt of the work planning our mission experience. Clarence is an additional team member who will be helping on site, and Gray is just here for the weekend working on a garden here at the diocesan house. They directed us to our bus which took us the 15 minute ride over to the diocesan house, where we all are currently.
   We took a few minutes to have a snack and settle into our new home for the next 5 days before we had a short group brief on what to expect in the morning and our evening devotion. The plan for tomorrow is to have breakfast here at 8:30 a.m. prepared by the cooks- if it is anything like what Jeff and I had on our previous trip in November, it will be a huge and delicious spread. At 10 a.m. we will hop on our bus to go to "Little" Ascencion where we will be hosting VBS and doing construction this week. We will attend their Sunday morning Eucharist with them tomorrow which I am very excited about! It will be an opportunity to introduce ourselves and begin building our relationship with this parish again.
   After church we are going directly to downtown San Jose to have lunch and go to the artisan market where we can purchase any souvenirs we might want. The afternoon will be spent at Walmart getting any last minute purchases we might need for VBS or construction this week. It should be a pretty fun and eventful day tomorrow! Maybe one of the other mission team members can post from their perspective tomorrow night. Until then, buenos noches!

Muy Bien.
Adios, amigos.
Pax.

Love,
Holly

Ascension's Costa Rica Mission Team on the bus to the Diocesan House- July 6, 2013.