For over 30 years, First United Methodist Church in Rocky Mount has been doing missionary work in Costa Rica. For much of that time, RMA students and faculty members have participated. This summer, I had the opportunity to join 12 of my classmates on this project, while Admissions Director Hadley Gross served as one of 6 chaperones as she followed in the footsteps of her father, Dr. Dempsey, who has traveled to Costa Rica nearly every year since this trip started! The RMA connections don’t end there, though: this mission trip is now led by Wil Bailey, who is a former RMA student (Class of 1994) and has been featured previously in The Eagle Examiner.
Wil told everyone on their first day in Santa Marta, Costa Rica, that he has come to realize that the purpose of these trips is “to be church.” This means not only worshiping God through whatever task needs to be completed–in this case, it was construction on a church–but also taking time to get to know the town’s residents. We started making those connections by attending a church service that was fully in Spanish. This might have intimidated some volunteers at first, as it is a language not all of us spoke (although senior Charlie Crumley used the Spanish she learned here at RMA to help us communicate!), but the language barrier disappeared as we saw how full of life that church was. People were dancing around and using all of their energy to worship God to the point that they would eventually fall to the ground in exhaustion. It was truly a beautiful experience.
After that Sunday service, we spent four days working on a church that was built the previous year. Since the sanctuary was complete, the congregation needed us to work on Sunday School rooms that were being built nearby. Our group did jobs such as grouting door frames and window seals, plastering walls, putting a ceiling into one of the buildings, and beginning the structure to create a ceiling for another. The group worked from about nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, taking breaks to visit one of the stores down the road for a snack. One of the stores was a bakery with some of the best pastries I have ever tasted, and we also enjoyed visiting the general store, which offered local foods.
On our last day in Costa Rica, Friday, we were able to choose a fun activity as a reward for our hard work. The options were horseback riding (which is what I chose) and zip-lining. The people who went riding had the opportunity to go up to Nauyaca Waterfalls and swim. The volunteers who chose zip-lining made their way through various courses, which ended with a refreshing swim at the bottom of another waterfall. Charlie Crumley describes her zip-lining experience as “feeling like Spider-Man” since she was going upside down on the courses.
After our activities, we traveled to Quepos to see the wildlife of Costa Rica, including monkeys and iguanas. Two of our RMA students, Carter Ingram (12th) and Thomas Honey (12th), made friends with one of the monkeys by offering it a drink of Fanta. The monkey ended up holding Carter’s hand as he made his way to the bottle, drank some soda from the cap, and then stole the bottle! After some close encounters with the wildlife, we went that night to Marina Pez Vela for a celebratory dinner before heading back to San Jose to rest up before the next morning’s flight back to the States.
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying how grateful I am to have had this opportunity to work with the people of Costa Rica who were so incredibly welcoming. When I first arrived and walked into the church, I was given a hug by one of the kids who was very happy for us to be there. Expressing his thanks, the pastor of the church we were working at said, “I hope to see each one of y’all again, but if not, we will see each other again in heaven.”
