Blah, Blah, Blah...

Some of you may recall an amazing story of one of my elderly friends from the Albernia Home for the Elderly. Dona Clemencia has some sort of dementia and spends much of her day mumbling sounds that make no sense. When I visited her with a group of women from Barrington, Illinois, I had a very lucid conversation with her and a time of prayer.

Today I spoke again with Clemencia. She had been blabbering, "Blah, blah, blah," and the nursing home staff had been trying to get her to repeat some kind of meaningful sound instead. I walked over to her, looked lovingly in her eyes and asked if she remembered me.

"Si," she replied.

Once again, I had a lucid conversation with her and told her about Jesus' love. She assured me that she understood me and kept looking lovingly into my eyes. Her words were few, but deliberate.

As I walked away, she resumed her earlier talk, "Blah, blah, blah."

Next, I pulled out a magic marker and huge pad of paper to try to communicate with Don Carlos, my friend who is deaf and almost blind. With great effort he was able to read my words. I held a Reader's Digest version of a Bible study on Luke 22 with him. He was thrilled! Day after day he lives isolated in his own dark, soundless world. But God's light shone on him today!

(The photo is of Don Carlos as I visited him today.)

All Over Town

Last week I put together a number of our extra t-shirts and gave them to “Colli Loco.” Colli is a young man who has some handicaps. The town people call him “loco” because he is a bit off in the head and slow on the uptake. Over the years we’ve made friends with Colli and have even had opportunities to share the gospel with him. He earns a little bit of money by guarding cars near our old apartment in downtown San Isidro.

Yesterday I had to laugh when I went into town to do errands!!

First, as I parked our car, I ran into Colli. He was wearing a t-shirt from the Bolivian Youth Leaders Convention we spoke at two years ago. He grinned as he showed off his new clothes to me.

Then, I went into the vegetable stand. The young man who waited on me was wearing a t-shirt that came from someone we’d met from a short-term team from California.

As I drove away, I saw another needy man from town. He was wearing another one of Woody’s t-shirts!

I commented to our gardener about seeing our clothes all over town. He laughed as he told me about a trip he’d taken to a poor community on the Sarapiqui River. He’d taken a couple of bags of clothes we’d donated for the poor. He said, “I’ve seen people wearing your clothes in at least three other towns!”

Let’s pray that the light of Christ might spread across this country – just like our old t-shirts!

Little Known Facts About Costa Rica

-Mother’s Day is August 15th and is a national holiday.

-On August 2nd up to 2,000,000 people will be making a pilgrimage by foot to honor the Virgen of Los Angeles. That’s almost half the population of the country!)

-McDonalds here “McPinto” for breakfast… beans and rice.

-Also, McDonalds have “McInternet” which gives you a free half hour on line with the purchase of a combo meal.

-There is no self-serve gas in the country.

-If you want to install a phone line in your house, the wait for a line can be up to two years.

-All bars and liquor stores in the country are closed on Election Day and Good Friday.

-Just a few miles from here, the average annual rainfall is 312 inches.

-On the hottest day of the year we have temps around 88 degrees. Our coldest night of the year - about 59 degrees.

-For obvious reasons, homes do not have furnaces or air conditioners.

-We have very few mosquitoes. We don’t even have screens on our windows!

-On Wednesdays the movie theaters in the country all offer 2 for 1 tickets.

-Some movie theaters have VIP seating – leather recliners with waiters who serve almost anything you want, including sushi!

-Costa Rica has the third highest per capita accident rate in the world.