Vanguards in Costa Rica

An International Immersion Trip Recap

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

August 4^th, 2023

An important part of the Vanguard year is a two week-long immersion trip. This year, Vanguards could choose to go to Costa Rica or Mississippi, and both were transformational experiences. Ann Morgan, a current Vanguard in the Media work rotation, put together a recap of her trip with photos and reflections.

In early March, a group of Vanguards and I traveled to San Jose, Costa Rica for a two week mission trip. We worked with Students International (SI), a group in San Jose who work to provide better opportunities to those living in the community of Desamparados. A neighborhood of those historically left behind by the progression of San Jose, Desamparados literally means “the forgotten ones.” It is a community of poorer families who have had a far harder time getting by than the rest of the people in San Jose. Our Vanguard team spent two weeks working with SI during our stay in Costa Rica.

We arrived in Costa Rica fairly late at night, so we could only see the lights of San Jose, but the next morning, just stepping outside allowed us to see how bright Costa Rica was. The sun was in the sky by the time we were picked up for our first day of work, bathing everything in an early-summer glow. We had all jumped at the chance to wear shorts, something we wouldn’t be able to do for months back in the Northwoods. Our entire trip, the temperature was consistently in the mid- to high 70s, and it felt wonderful to get to have such beautiful weather for two weeks.

On our first day in Costa Rica, we stayed at the main campus – or Base – of SI with Jeff Dickson, the director of SI. In the morning, we had half an hour of silent journaling time, followed by half an hour of worship through song. This practice, along with a devotion, was a daily occurrence, and it was great to get to worship with everyone before we went to work. Following our first worship at SI, we learned more about what kind of work we would be doing, toured the neighborhood around Base, and mingled together before meeting our site leaders. The next day, we were in our respective work sites with our site leaders, rejoining for a nightly debrief of our work days. Debrief was full of discussions about the work we were doing, the people we were serving, and enjoying fresh coffee and pan dulce, which is sweet bread with fruit or caramel-like filling. Debrief was a great time to hear about the different experiences of each Vanguard and hear funny stories from our friends in the Sports ministry, the Women’s Health and Fitness group, the Creative Arts ministry, the Tutoring center, the Boys and Girls’ Club, and the Women’s Microfinance group.

After a wonderful week of good work with SI, we rested on the weekend and got to fully enjoy the warm weather of Costa Rica with a day at the beach. After a two-hour drive from San Jose, we spent the morning and much of the afternoon enjoying the sand and sun and playing in the surf, even learning the “proper technique” of bodysurfing from Charlie. On the drive back to San Jose, we stopped at a small restaurant and store to buy smoothies or ice cream and had the opportunity to see wild crocodiles in their natural habitat from a bridge.

The following day – Sunday – was the first of two cultural immersion days for our group. We attended a church in Costa Rica where worship was entirely in Spanish, allowing us to see what church looked like in another culture. We then spent the afternoon at the Dickson’s house, enjoying each other’s company and meeting Jeff’s family.

Week 2 of our work projects started off with everyone working at different work sites doing larger-scale projects, such as removing grass in front of Base, repainting the Boys and Girls club and the tutoring center, etc. For our hard work, we got to enjoy the sweet reward of our second cultural immersion day: exploring downtown San Jose. We were led on a tour of Central Mercado, the oldest market in San Jose, got ice cream at Pop’s (a popular ice cream chain), and then were taken shopping at the Municipal Craft Market, where we had the opportunity to buy anything from wooden animals to bags of coffee.

The next day, we returned to our respective work areas for the rest of the week.

Friday was our last day in Costa Rica, as well as the night of the banquet Students International was kind enough to throw in our honor. Our travels home would start right after dinner, so we were released from work early to return to our host families, pack our things, and say goodbye. Later that evening, we Vanguards, our work leaders, and our work leaders’ families gathered together at an event location called El Patio. The location was very pretty, with a green garden-like area, a small fountain hidden in the corner, and a mural of angel wings on a wall where we took lots of pictures. We sat with our respective work leaders and enjoyed a delicious meal of chicken, beans and rice, salad, soup, and chocolate mousse for dessert. After dinner, we watched a slideshow of the trip put together by the staff at SI, over which many smiles and a few tears were shared in the bittersweet moment of our time in Costa Rica coming to a close. The rest of the evening was spent taking pictures and enjoying everyone’s company as we said our final goodbyes. Around 8pm, we left for the San Jose airport to catch a midnight flight to New York, and began our travels home to HoneyRock.

Going to Costa Rica was a beautiful experience that allowed us to not only encounter life in a different culture, but to see the power of hope and love in the world. The people we met in Costa Rica were some of the most welcoming and loving people any of us had ever met, even though many of them had gone through extreme difficulties trying to provide for their families or build lives for themselves. And even though we had gone to Costa Rica to serve, we all agreed that in reality, we had ultimately been the ones to be served. We had been welcomed into the lives of incredible people, seen amazing historical sites, and grown closer to each other as well. Our mission trip to Costa Rica was a fantastic experience and I’m so glad I got to go.