Just a couple of weeks before Christmas, two of the school teachers from the elementary school around the corner from our house stopped by and introduced themselves. They were wondering if the camp would host their graduation ceremony this year. We have never in the three years we've been asked to host that ceremony, but always wanted too. They've had a principal who has always wanted to have the ceremony right in the school building. Someday, I should walk down to the school and just post pictures of the building from the outside. It is a very poor school. This year the intern principal wanted the ceremony to be "special" and so we of course said that we would be more than happy to host them at the camp. We sat with them at a picnic table in front of our home and discussed their plans for the ceremony and before they left we asked if we could pray for them. As the graduation ceremony got closer we thought it might be fun to offer the kids a hot dog each and some popcorn and drink, but we weren't sure if this would be okay with the school and the teachers. We realized we didn't have any contact phone numbers for the two teachers and couldn't call them, so we walked down to the school. For four days we walked to the school and each time, it was locked up. Not having kids in the school system here, we know "about" when school breaks are, but we never know the "exact" dates. We were kind of sad because we wanted to help out the school however we could, but it seemed as though things were closed down until the actual day of the ceremony and we had a team here at the camp that we were working with. Just a few days before the ceremony and while the team from Threshold was cleaning up their supplies, the two teachers came by the house and asked if they could talk to us. They wanted to go over the "final" preparations for the ceremony. We were so glad to see them. When they had finished talking with us, we explained to them that we had a group at the camp who was just about ready to leave and return to the States, but that they had some drink mix left over and on behalf of that team, we wanted to know if we could offer it to the school children. Tears began to well up in one of the teacher's eyes. She explained to us that this last week before graduation she and the other teachers felt like they were walking in the road and trying to climb over boulders. At every turn, it seemed to them as if their graduation ceremony was falling apart. We asked what was happening. They said the person who had committed to have hamburgers prepared for the kids called just that morning and was not going to be able to donate those for their class party. The school didn't have any money to put towards those and they didn't know what they were going to do. We smiled and explained that for the past four previous days we had been walking to the school looking for someone to talk too about the possibility of donating the juice to the kids and also, Ken and I wanted to donate hot dogs and free popcorn. The teacher began to cry! And we asked if we could join hands with both of them and pray for them!
Simple and inexpensive things for Americans that we just don't think about; a hot dog in a bun, a small bag of popcorn and a cup of juice, but for some schools here, a real treasure!
We got to help with the decorating process and had a lot of fun interacting with the teachers and the kids and parents from our community. Reaching outside the gates of the camp to our community and then to the corners of Costa Rica. Thank God for the opportunities He affords us!
Thank You Scipio Center Community Church in New York State for the camp's popcorn popper!
