Aug 06 2008
at the bottom of the hill!
Greetings friends, this is Pastor Adam posting. One of the great things about mission trips is the people that you get to meet. You have already heard about Charlie Strong, Pastor Edgar and others. Tonight I want to tell you about someone else that we met this week. Her name is Serena and she is a college student from California who came to spend the summer in Costa Rica to work for Charlie’s mission agency and to learn Spanish. When she arrived at the beginning of the summer she spoke no Spanish, however, at this point she has become quite proficient.
What makes Serena so interesting is not that she is a student giving up a summer for mission work, or even that she has learned so much Spanish in such a short time. What makes her interesting is that she is the closest thing I have ever seen to a human Muppet. She goes at a constant frenetic pace. Every third word out of her mouth is “WOW!!” followed by an exclamation of how amazing something is or how hard something is. She is really very good at speaking Spanish but she lacks confidence in her ability. She is a joy to watch with the children from the church at Los Guidos and they absolutely love her as they hang off of her every appendage.
After leaving the work site the other day we had to drop her off on our way home so that she could walk back to the house of her host family. She did not know how to describe where to be dropped off except to say “At the bottom of the hill”. Rebecca, our guide who is a Spanish teacher in the states during the year, kept telling her to think about it and tell the driver (Rebecca refused to give her the spanish words – just like a teacher). Serena just kept saying, “Wow!! You have no idea how hard this is for me.” and “JUST LET ME OUT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL.” When we finally reached the bottom of said hill, we were all laughing so hard that we had a hard time saying goodbye to her.
After talking about it, we decided that perhaps a better description for Serena than a real life Muppet would be “joy personified”. She exuded joy, she kept making the comment, “Is there anything more precious in the Kingdom of God than children.” She laughed with the children, she cried with the children, she made crazy comments to us, she was one of the most entertaining people any of us had ever met. It seems to be her dream to someday move to Texas, so maybe y’all will get to experience the tornado that is Serena just as we have.
-Adam
AHHHHHH!!!! YOU ARE ALL SO PRECIOUS 🙂 Thank you so much for mentioning me in your blog! Thanks for coming and serving in a very needy place where God’s presence is so needed and wanted! It was a pleasure working with yall and i promise to one day visit your church to say HOWDY! I hope the rest of your trip is amazing. God Bless
I got a chance to meet Serena and she is a joyful woman to be around. People should definitely watch to see what happens in this womans life, God has amazing plans for her!