Lending a Helping Hand in Costa Rica

A group of 22 students, staff and parents from Rock County Christian School, in Wisconsin, had the experience of a lifetime on a 10-day trip to Costa Rica, from May 29 to June 10.

Volunteers from Rock County Christian School recently traveled to Costa Rica to help teach Sunday school, work on school repairs and more. The group included 22 students from the Rock County school.

In addition to visiting howler monkeys, rain forests and scenic beaches, they helped with various building projects while creatively spreading their faith.

The group stayed in San Antonio De Belen and worked in Alajuela, near the capital of San Jose. Tasks to help two schools included painting, tile work, carpentry, dirt moving, teaching English and more. At a Costa Rican church the team taught Sunday school, shared testimonies and sang.

Lance Horozewski and his 15-year-old son Nathan Korevaar went on the trip together. He liked that the multi-faceted trip included community service work as well as recreation and cultural activities. The group slept and ate at a local church and all participants had the opportunity to spend one night with a Costa Rican family.

“My favorite thing was just experiencing a different culture and the way people live,” Horozewski said.

The group spread their faith by doing skits and songs. Junior Avery Befus went with her parents and two brothers, and fondly recalled their unique efforts to spread the Gospel.

Avery had acted as a mime in the park, spreading a message crossing cultural and language barriers. Some of the mimes represented alcohol and drugs, debt and depression and sin, while others represented hope. Avery said students met for a month prior to the trip getting their skits just right.

Horozewski agreed the skits were fun, and the trip was a great experience for a father-son getaway. He also learned to appreciate his American life a little more after the trip. Although Costa Rica isn’t as impoverished as some other countries, he said there is little law enforcement presence. Property owners must take the law into their own hands, and homes and businesses are covered with barbed wire and steel bars.

Although the group didn’t venture out at night, Horozewski said the countryside was incredibly beautiful with towering green mountains, rain forests and scenic oceans beaches. Many of the rainforests feature well developed trails. His favorite spot was a world renowned monkey beach.

“It’s an incredible feeling to be amongst monkeys swinging around. It was an amazing and surreal experience,” he said.

He was impressed with how the Befus family knew the culture so well and organized the trip accordingly.

“To get youth to experience something outside their normal experiences in Rock County is great thing. I wish more kids would be able to do that,” he said.

The trip marked the fourth mission by Rock County Christian School, according to Rock County Christian School Administrator Tim Befus. The school goes every other year to Costa Rica.

On the off years it helps on domestic missions. Trips have included helping flood victims in Iowa and poverty-stricken people in Kentucky.

In Costa Rica, the group helps at both a public and private Christian school. At the Christian school, Befus has formed partnerships so students from Costa Rica can come to Rock County Christian to study and vice versa.

“We are going to send at least one high school student down there to study at the Christian school, and they are going to send students our way. It might grow depending on interest,” he said.

Befus used to live in Costa Rica and has invaluable connections. He started a school back in the late 1980s in Costa Rica and worked in a church.

“We maintained relations with the people down there. It’s nice for me to go back and see people and families down there,” he said.

Sophomore Sarah Mason said it was her second time on the mission trip to Costa Rica. Since her first trip she’s learned Spanish, making it easier for her to communicate. She has plans to return this summer and to study at the school she worked on next year.

“It was a lot of work but the people down there are so friendly. They are really welcoming and grateful we were helping them,” she said.

By Hillary Gavan, Beloit Daily News