Monday

We arrived safely yesterday, ate lunch at Burger King and then headed to the hotel to settle and sort supplies. We made a pit stop to drop off supplies at the mission house and drove up the mountain to visit the home of Nery and Pam Duarte. Nery is the head of search and rescue here in Costa Rica. a seminary professor, psychologist and is also a pastor for the prison. He has a beautiful home overlooking the city. We ate dinner with our Alabama team, Carlos and family and other people from the CR team at Rosti Pollo. We then made a stop at the Hiper Mas to pick up pillows to donate and of course, Costa Rican coffee! We headed back to the hotel and were in bed by 10pm. We had a very long day since most of us had been awake since 330 am.

Today has been the first opportunity to log on to our blog at the mission house. We walked to the mission house from our hotel in the rain, which is actually somewhat refreshing since we have not been getting much in Alabama. Now we are sorting through the items we brought to the house and getting it ready for the Kairos team that will be staying here. We have a full day ahead of us visiting three prisons. APAC, Buen Pastor women prison and tonight at San Sebastian we will be serving communion.

The first prison we visited was APAC, which is the faith-based prison that Carlos founded. There are 27 men in this prison. It is a low security prison. We had a tour and a mini concert by their choir. Hugo played the accordion while the other played his guitar. They did a fantastic job! They even sang a special song for Jack and Barbara since their 43rd anniversary is this week (Wednesday). We also got to see two new additions, the butterfly garden and the new workshop area.

After APAC, we came back to the hotel to drop off all that were not going to Buen Pastor. Only four were allowed to go, so Dianne, Steve, Sue and Sydney went to Buen Pastor to see the women's prison. We only got to see the part where the mothers of 3 years and under lived. Each room had a bed for the inmate and a playpen/bed for the child. Some of the women had very young infants and up to 3 years of age. After they child turns three, they must either go with the family or become a ward of the state. That broke our hearts. The women do get conjugal visits every 15 days and some have gotten pregnant in prison...but most have brought their babies into prison with them. We took a photo of one of the inmates and her baby and soon after we found out that she was in prison because she had killed her brother, mother and father. We were totally amazed!!! She just didn't seem the type, but you never know! She is currently 22 years old and she committed the crime when she was 15. We also toured the area where they hold the Kairos and also toured the chapel.

The team went into San Sebastian to do communion for two churches. As we entered the prison, we could hear praise and worshiping going on inside. We joined the first church, served communion, sang and then several of our team members spoke to the inmates. We moved over to the second church next door and did the same thing. What an awesome experience to see the inmates praise our awesome God!
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Communion at San Sebastian: It was raining as the guards opened the gate for us to enter San Sebastian Prison. Once inside they take your passport and "pat you down", in some sense robbing you of your identity, before passing you to the next stage of steel doored security. When you are called by name, go through the doors and down the hall where windows and outside walls are covered in a steel rebar lattice.

The room was dark and smelled of urine. It was painted a red-mud color with red, wooden tables and attached wooden stools. Clearly this was not "home".

The men gathered from the cell blocks, forty two Christians with every sort of tattoo, beard and outfit; but oh how beautifully they sang. The Holy Spirit filled the room. They sang loud to overcome the constant din from those who gawked, and talked, and went about their business. We joined in the songs with men who had found hope in a hopeless place.

The men provided Communion elements on the tables, small steel cups filled with grape soda. And the "Bread of Life" was in fact broken saltine crackers. There among the bars of San Sebastian, in the overpowering clatter, we communed in remembrance of Him. In the mildew and damp of the tropics, in the dim red light of a prison room, those men professing to be Christians had their first encounter with the Holy Spirit on the Kairos weekend. All would experience God again in the succeeding days, but on this first night, grape soda and saltines, the only elements available to fallen men, were symbols of His love for the "least of these".