Luis Palau Festival

So the time finally came for the Luis Palau Festival. We had no idea what was in store. Corey and Alex had been working on their skit and on Friday, March 10th, it was finally the big night. The whole festival was held at Parque de la Paz. There was a small field where a bunch of inflatables were put up for the kids to play. This is where the stage was for their skit. Alex was so nervous! When we got to the park he wouldn't speak. People were talking to him and he had this incredibly serious look on his face. There was quite a crowd, but at this point they were kind of wandering around doing the games and checking everything out. When we arrived they told us they had changed our time and we were supposed to go immediately. Fortunately they changed things up again and we had an hour to get everyone in gear (we thought we had arrived two hours early!) I took Alex and Maggie to a moonwalk and Alex just stood against the wall while Maggie jumped all around him trying to get him to smile. I was really worried that he was going to bail out of the skit.

They started sounding off that the "mini-show" would start in a few minutes and we all made our way to the stage. There Alex sat with such a solemn look. We were doing all we could to get him to relax. One of the guys in the first part of our mini-show starting dancing around to the music that was playing. A crowd started to draw near and within a few minutes he and a few other guys started having silly dance offs. It was hilarious. I was standing in the crowd praying for the whole crew but especially for Alex and slowly during this whole impromptu dance off he began to smile. The skit went off without a hitch. It was wonderful and very impacting. I was so proud of everyone!

They said at the end of the children's festival over 4000 kids had signed cards that they accepted Jesus into their hearts. Alex was in awe. He told me later that he was really nervous when he saw all the people, but he knew he had to do the skit so that people could learn about Jesus. I don't know if I wrote this before, but they changed the skit so that Alex was the son going to heaven while another son took Alex's previous role. The directors felt that Alex was too little to be the one to go to hell with the father. (This could open a whole can of worms of debate on this subject.) Anyway, when he hit the part where he ran into "Jesus's" arms I nearly cried. It was precious and his expressions were incredible! One of the large local churches has asked the team to come in this Sunday and present the program for their children's church.

After the children's festival shut down was when the main event started. It was huge! Here is an excerpt from a report I read...

Luis Palau Festival Draws Hundreds of Thousands in Costa Rica
A year-long effort of more than 800 churches drew a crowd of more than 401,000 people to the Costa Rica Festival with Luis Palau this past week. For seven days, the Palau ministry spread the good news to the country's top leadership, including President Abel Pacheco Rodriguez and incoming President Oscar Arias Sanchez, church heads, believers and nonbelievers, and even historic crowds that had heard Palau more than 30 years ago. The weeklong outreach culminated with a weekend festival at the city's famed Parque de la Paz in San Jose where more than 17,400 individuals committed themselves to Jesus Christ.
~The Christian Post

We were amazed by the Luis Palau Festival. I’ve had trouble posting pictures, but here are links to the official website that currently has a lot of info and pictures from the festival: http://www.palau.org/ and http://www.palau.org/lpea/resources/news.php?rowid=275

God is doing amazing things in Costa Rica. Continue to pray for this country as they settle down after an intense presidential election. Lots of seeds have been planted and now they need to be nurtured and, in God's timing, harvested.

~Tona

Time To Catch Up

Well, call me a slacker! It's taken a while to get back and update on what's going on. We have just a few weeks left in this trimester and I think spring fever is hitting us! We're anxious to finish up this term and take a short break before starting again. In a couple of weeks we'll have our echo, which from the best I can gather is a time to sit in front of a teacher and basically be given scenarios and questions to play out until they can stump you. Apparently they push you to your limit to see how far they can go. Sounds like fun!

So we've done a few things this past month. We had a week of Cross Cultural Counseling class. It was very interesting. Honestly I'm not sure I gathered a ton about counseling, but I learned a lot about diversity, racism, preconceptions, etc. It's amazing to explore preconcieved ideas that everyone has about, well, I guess about everybody you come in contact with and how much society can impact your view of yourself and others. It was very eye opening. One interesting study we watched was a report from the 70s where a teacher wanted to teach her children about racism through an in-class experiment. It was an all white school, so she told the kids that they were going to try to understand how non-whites felt. The first day she told the kids that all the blue eyed children were smarter, cleaner, nicer, etc. than the brown eyed kids. The blue eyed kids received special treats, got to sit in front of the class, had extra recess, etc. The brown eyed kids received very little attention. That day the brown eyed kids had a hard time completing some mental activities, were sad and even one boy got in a fight because the blue eyed kids were teasing him for having brown eyes. The teacher was shocked by how the blue eyed kids instantly became egotistical and felt superior. The next day the teacher reversed the program, the brown eyed kids were now superior. The same activity they had done terribly on the previous day they excelled at the second day. I could write much more about this, but it was so intriguing how the responses varied based on what society told them their places were.

So that was one week! On another note we took a Saturday to go to the Parque de Diversiones, an amusement park. It was pretty fun! It wasn't quite six flags, but there weren't lines and it was incredibly cheap. Imagine a park where you can actually eat lunch for three dollars a person and get a drink for a dollar or less! Amazing! It was a nice break especially for Alex and Maggie. This is a picture of Maggie with her pal, Caleb, on one of the rides. By the end of the day Maggie had drug Corey and I, Caleb, his parents, and a few other adults on the rides until finally she couldn't find anyone else who had any energy left to ride the rides with her. I think she would have kept going until she collapsed.

Last week was the Luis Palau Festival, but I'll put that in a separate blog. It was incredible! So I guess besides classes and such the only other fun we've had is that Alex has been attacked by bugs! We thought at first it was bed bugs, but we're pretty sure there was some sort of mosquito getting into his room. It was pretty bad. He's eaten up on his arms, legs, face, back and chest. Apparently he was also having an allergic reaction to the bites. He's been on allergy medication and a couple of lotions every day. His skin is finally clearing up, but we were getting worried that he was going to develop an infection from the bites. I spent this past weekend completely disinfecting his room and fumigating it. Keep him in your prayers that God will keep all the bugs away from his room!

Well, that's it for now. Let me know you're doing and if there is anything we can pray with you about. We have a prayer wall at school that we keep in front of the chapel so any needs that come to us that you don't mind us sharing we put on the board for all the students and staff to pray for.

Dios les bendiga,
~Tona