La Basilica

Hola!

The past few days have been pretty full with classes and homework. I got my paper done. It ended up being pretty intense: 14 page research paper on the role of women in the church in Latin America. Now today I have my 8 minute presentation on mental health in Costa Rica. It’s so wonderful to wrap big things up like this!

Monday, Valentine’s Day, is very similar here as it is at home: it’s a commercial holiday but can be cute for some people. Well, it was definitely an ordinary day for me, but then when I got home from class, I had this cute little bag of chocolates sitting on my bed. I went into the kitchen and found my family around the table, and I asked them about the gift. My dad had given it to me :) It was so cute, and it definitely made me feel loved, even if it is just the thing you do here. Next we enjoyed some Valentine’s Day cake for our coffee time, and it was just good to spend time with them.

On Tuesday we had class where we heard more information about our trip to Nicaragua. We leave next week Monday at 6:00am and we are told that the trip will take between 10 – 15 hours, depending on the traffic. We will be gone for 10 days, and just a heads up that I will have no internet access at all while I am over there. Not even internet cafes, and for sure not in our houses. Just remember that if you think I fell off the earth when I don’t’ write for a long time :) More on Nicaragua later…

The rest of our class period on Tuesday was about the church in Latin America. Catholicism is definitely the predominate religion here, and it was really good to learn about a lot of their beliefs in the past and also in the present. I really appreciated this lecture; after all, I’m super into theology (even after my life-crisis the past few weeks :)

After a time of lecturing, we loaded up in buses and took off for another city which is home to the most important church in Costa Rica: The Basilica. This church is huge. Seriously gigantic and beautiful. It took up a whole city block, and the inside was adorned with all kind of images. I would like to share some of the information we learned about, but honestly it’s a lot to just type out. So just know that there is a really interesting story/belief that people have about how the church got started. I saw the actual rock that the church was built on, and it was just really interesting to see. It was also fascinating to see that there were so many people in the church when we were visiting in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. If you are a devout Catholic, you will go to the church everyday to pray. There were many people in the church doing that as we were visiting. It was really a cool experience to be learning about the Catholic Church and then visibly see people who believed these things. For those of you who don’t’ know much about Catholicism, I recommend that you look it up. It’s our roots and it is fascinating. Plus it’s good to learn and be stretched :)

One more interesting fact about the Basilica: every year on August 2, people in Costa Rica take a pilgrimage to this church. They walk really long distances to get to the church for this day of celebration. One of my professors does this too, even though he does not consider himself Catholic. It is also a very cultural thing here to do this pilgrimage. This past year, over 2 million Costa Ricans walked to this church. For many, the trip takes days to get here, or for sure several hours. It’s really an interesting thing to learn about.

My prayer for all of you: “Father, thank you for the prayer warriors who are joining me on this journey. Thank you for their encouragement and for the blessing that they have been on my life. Thank you for showing me your love through them. Please bless each person who reads this blog, and please be sufficient for them. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”