The trip is over. I haven't journaled as much as I expected. We're on the flight back to Charlotte, then have an hour layover in which to grab our bags, rush through customs, recheck our bags, and board another plane to SeaTac.

After our adventure on the way here, US Airways is giving us a $400 voucher, so I might be making another trip here soon, possibly to visit Denna again. We'll see. She's supposed to come visit me here soon, too. I haven't looked at the details of the voucher, but if they're smart, it'll have no restrictions.

We were at the orphanage from Sunday (which I've already posted about) until Friday morning. We split into five groups: painting, groundskeeping, construction, pulling nails, and a miscellaneous group that taught, made trinkets for kids and other things. Most of the groups changed jobs from day to day except for the construction group, because they were building cabinets, and it was beneficial to work the project through to completion. I was on pulling nails the first day and painting the second day.

Kaleo is a great guy. He's the biggest morale booster I've met. He can be a bit obnoxious and sometimes says things that seem to have no connection at all (though after a lengthy discussion, he usually brings it back home), but you can't be mad at him. It's impossible. He was able to just mumble his way through conversations in Spanish, knowing very little himself. Anyway, during the first day, we were pulling nails, and as if I were pumping metal, he'd start shouting for that extra little adrenaline boost. During one of these chants, he decided to call me JJ, despite my name having a single J in it, and it stuck. It actually helped a bit because it disambiguated the other Jordan on the trip.

There was another guy, Derek, that was with us the first day. He's fluent in Spanish and was our main translator throughout the trip. He didn't actually fly down with us because he'd been in Honduras for a year or two, and this trip was his last hurrah before returning to Whatcom County.

The last member of our group was Bill's girlfriend, Jane. She and I have always gotten along really well. She just has one of those personalities. We got a bit closer this trip, because she was the other person in my orphanage house.

Before lunch, while we were unnailing hardwood floor boards, the businessman turned missionary who started the chicken farm (he did not start the orphanage) came and took me to attempt to fix their wifi repeater. I did my best, but I wasn't really happy with the way it turned out. I know there's a way to do it where you can name the repeater's network the same as the router's and then laptops will switch between the two seamlessly, but at least I got it working with [mynetwork] and [mynetwork2]. The signal was still a little weak in the house we all slept in, but it was usable, though, we couldn't get Jeremiah's laptop to connect. I'm not sure if it was just an old machine or what.

The second day Jane was transferred to the miscellaneous group, and I don't know where Derek went. Kaleo and I switched to painting. That was pretty unremarkable except that I don't particularly like painting. I talked to Kaleo a little bit, and asked if he thought it meant something if a girl asked if you were seeing someone.

In the evening, we visited the homes again. Our mom was keen to my tastes that night and gave us the best chicken I've ever had, and a good portion of salad. It was the first time in a long time that I ate too much. That night or the next, I think the next, we had a translator who, for Jane and me, was one of the staff members. We played a "game" called Get to Know You or something. Basically, it was just some open ended questions on 3x5 cards and each of us in the house answered two. At team time, it sounded like every house had a different experience with that game. Some had kids bouncing off the walls that didn't take it very seriously, and some wanted to each answer "Who's your best friend?" with their personal reasons for why God was.

That night, the businessman gave his testimony during our team time. It was a lot more powerful, I felt, than most testimonies, at least resonating with me because it wasn't this huge turn around in his life, and mission work was a struggle for him. He wouldn't trade it, but he would in a heart beat if God told him too. It makes me feel a little better about working at Microsoft rather than out on the field, because I really do think God got me that job, and I can't imagine he would have if he didn't want me there.

The next morning we visited a slum called Los Quitos.

It's crazy how like-minded our group is. At team time each night, we went through our thoughts of the day and our struggles. Several struggles per night which hadn't been priorly voiced received head nods all around. Every struggle I've had has been had by most if not all the rest of the group.

Wednesday night, we all felt bad that when we visited the slums, we were thinking, "This isn't that bad." It was that bad. It just wasn't what we expected, which was African poverty. Los Quitos is a thirty thousand person shanty-town run by two organized gangs with drug rings and prostitution. The streets were so unsafe that the staff that were with us told us to remain on the bus.

Here's where my experience diverges a bit. Tuesday night I was not at all looking forward to the visit. I have a hard time going to a place on a mission trip with no real objective to make lives there better. The way I saw it, we were going to observe poverty and to break our own hearts. From my point of view, this feels wrong. Wednesday morning the exact same sentiment (minus the wrongness) was expressed, along with a strong argument as to why this is important. I agreed, but I still was resisting going. I hate to say it, but part of it was my shoes. I bought shoes on the way to visit Denna last December. I don't mind spending too much money on shoes because I wear them virtually every day for a year and a half until the insides are full of holes and causing blisters. Then I spend too much on another pair to abuse. The businessman had said that we shouldn't wear our nicest shoes because we might end up stepping in something icky. Well, I only have my shoes and my flip flops, and I'd rather lose a pair of shoes than have to wash icky off my feet. We'd been expecting to walk around the town. Then the staff member told us that there was a miscommunication and that it wasn't safe. I was relieved (for more than just my shoes). Everyone else was severely disappointed.

During the discussion that night, we talked about it. We felt awful because we were touring a shanty town in a tourist bus, as if they were animals on safari. But it really wouldn't be too much different if we were walking around, twenty-two obvious Americans with cameras taking pictures and walking into shops, talking to people in English. Something struck me about the place, though. People compared the slums to other slums: Derek to Honduras, Kaleo to the Philippines, several to Africa. I compared it to pictures from Hoovervilles during the Great Depression. The difference I noticed was that these people had some hope in them. They weren't broken, despite their poverty. They're there because they think (probably mistakenly) that they have a higher chance at a better life there than where they came from. (A lot of the people are illegal immigrants from Nicaragua.)

My favorite part of the trip was visiting the site of the new building the orphanage's organization has been promised by the government. They were given it five years ago, but have been struggling to get the money. It's a four million dollar building, and they're halfway there. For an organization this large in the US, two million dollars would take very little time or effort to raise. As soon as she told us what that fenced area with trees was for, it suddenly struck me how much healing will happen to that community when this building is built. I seriously can't describe it better than to say the areas where this organization has buildings are like lights in an otherwise dark place. When I get back, I will do my best to get Microsoft to recognize the organization for the GIVE program (though I heard it already does), and then get people to donate to it. Two million dollars. Seriously, it's not that much, and the results far outvalue the costs.

After Los Quitos, we visited one of the organization's day care centers. I was feeling a bit depressed after the slums. I didn't have any real "this is awful" thoughts while there, but just being in the area was disheartening, I think. Among the last things I wanted to do was to be in a noisy cafeteria surrounded by kids who don't speak English. I sat back as much as I could while the soon-to-be teachers of the group hand fed toddlers. Eventually I moved to putting cups on tables. I didn't eat lunch that day. First, the meal was nowhere near my limited palette, and second, I wasn't hungry even had they been serving sloppy joes and banana cream pie. (That was a total exaggeration -- I would have been all over sloppy joes and/or banana cream pie. They might have lifted my mood a bit.)

The night before, I had asked the businessman why there were only 20% new kids each year if kids only stayed one to three years, when 20% would require a five year rotation, on average. Evidently this stuck out to Jeremiah and Bill, and on Wednesday I was switched over to the construction team because the second cabinet would have tricky angles. However, there was some sort of assembly that day in the building with the cabinets, and we switched to other jobs. I took up the brush again.

Wednesday night was our last night in the houses. Saying goodbye to our mom was difficult. She's such a great woman with a larger capacity to love than I've seen in anyone. She's a single mother, the only one in the orphanage, with a thirty-year-old son we didn't meet, and a teenage son, who's an inspiration, of her own, and then five foster boys and five foster girls. I have no idea how she does it.

Thursday we did work. We built an entire shelving unit save the doors, and finished up the one from Monday and Tuesday. I loved working with my group. Monday or Tuesday night I had a lengthy talk with Jane's sister, and Thursday she and I ended up doing most of the cutting for the cabinets. Joe did most of the measurements and design, and the other two members worked primarily on the doors from the first set. The wood we were given was ridiculous. The 2x2's (or that's what we called them; they were 4cm by 4cm) were almost all either bowed or twisted length-wise. With nails, we got them as close to straight as possible, but the next morning, the whole cabinet and twisted a bit. The wall wasn't flat, and half of it had another concrete part sticking out of it, and of course it wasn't parallel with the rest of the wall, nor was the wall parallel with its opposite in the room. Considering all that, I feel we did a pretty good job. Channeling Kaleo, while Jane's sister was doing some hammering, I said "Do it KK!" realizing a moment too late that her name starts with C. (I'm rather slow, so she had to point out the discrepancy.)

Thursday night was our best team time. The two staff members I keep talking about gave their testimonies, and then a couple of us did. Testimony in Costa Rica is quite a bit different from what it is in the US. I like their version better. In Christianese, your testimony is just the story of pre-Christ, how you came to Christ, and what differences he's made since then, and it's usually a little prepackaged. People who've been Christians all their lives don't typically have "an amazing testimony," as say my dad did until six years ago. (Wow, has it really been six years?) In Costa Rica, it's an abridged (or less abridged) version of their life's story, where Christianity is a part of that, but also how they met their spouse, how they came to work at the orphanage and whatever else seems important at the time. I spoke that night as well, one because I kind of wanted to, and two because no one else seemed to. It surprised me though, what I said. I talked about how I became a Christian at three, and never really had a defining moment. I talked about my tick disorder and bipolar disorder, and how I've been suicidal from time to time. And I talked about new life, and how that's a new concept I've been throwing around in my head. I wasn't sure how they're all related, but I knew they were. What surprised me is that I didn't mention my parents' divorce at all. Bill's sister talked as well. She told roughly the same story that Bill told two years ago in Jamaica. Back then, I was having trouble keeping all 30 people straight, and I remember wanting to check in again with him about it, but until she started sharing, I'd completely forgotten about it. I felt retrospectively awful about that.

One of the things I liked about Jamaica was that after team time, we could stay up a little late and get to know people better. Between being exhausted and needing to get up at times I wasn't even aware existed, we didn't get to stay up very late. The other thing I liked in Jamaica, and I know this is rare, was that we were almost always one big group working on a single project. In Costa Rica and in Detroit, we split up into smaller groups to tackle lots of projects. I don't feel we got to know each other as well as we did in Jamaica as a result.

On Friday morning, the two staff members debriefed us and then prayed over us in Spanish. They are great women, especially the older one. And the younger one. After that, the cabinet crew finished four of the six doors remaining (also discovering the overnight skew), while other people did work on other projects, worked on making bracelets for the kids, and packed and cleaned. It was kind of inspiring to me to see everyone working on a day with no planned work.

Between work and dinner each of the nights, we played a different sport: first baseball, then soccer, then basketball, then soccer again. While warming up for the baseball game, one of the kids was purposely throwing the ball hard and uncatchable to someone as basebally challenged as I, and one throw hit my wrist and unclasped both sides of my watch. I was ok with this; I'd just go to Fred Meyer's and get the jewelers to fix it for me or something. Usually they do that kind of thing free of charge. Then one of the kids noticed it was broken and tried to fix it. He put the clasp on backwards (not the end of the world), and as soon as I put it on, it broke again. During his second attempt, he dropped one of the pieces in the clasping mechanism, and that was the ball game, so to speak. I might get it fixed, or I might go get myself a nice watch. I liked the watch my mom gave me, but it wasn't as water resistant as it claimed, and eventually I had it replaced with the one that just broke. I didn't like that one as much. I, of course, don't mean to say I was irritated with the boy. I was appreciative that he wanted to try to fix it and nearly succeeded. I'm just telling the story. For the rest of the trip, I've been using it as a pocket watch.

We just boarded our second plane. It was mercifully delayed eighty-three minutes, so getting through customs and grabbing a quick dinner was easy. We ended up sitting next to a (strange) girl at the gate who was from Bothel and actually was going to high school with Joe's cousin. It's a small world after all.

Friday afternoon, we, all the kids, and a bunch of other our-aged volunteers got on two large busses and headed to Bible Camp. They were both overly full and the counselors (called captains at this World Cup themed camp) had to stand, but some of the rows with only two kids invited us to squeeze. One of the kids from my house fell asleep on my lap. He was my favorite kid I think, though he reminded me of my cat in that he's always vying for attention. That can be draining. Our bus got lost on the 40 minute trip, and ended up sitting in traffic for another half hour.

There's too much to write about when it comes to camp. I wasn't one of the captains very often. I was on staff, and mostly worked in the kitchen. The way they had presented it was "creative team" and that we'd be setting up activities. That wasn't quite the case, but it was still fun. Meals were the best times for me. I loved all the dashing around trying to fill 130 plates in a matter of minutes with seven people all occupying the same space, then moving plates that were in reserves up to the front so they didn't get too cold. After the first meal or two, we added another parameter, meal size. Small kids got very small portions, bigger kids got medium, and captains got huge ones. I think the best part of being on staff for me (semi-jokingly) was that after everyone had eaten, we got to fill our own plates, so I didn't have to get stuff that I wasn't going to eat anyway.

We were so drained at the end of each day that team time was severely diminished. People were burnt out on the first day of camp. I burned out on the second day. Mission trips are sprints to missions' marathons. Sprints for more than a week are difficult. It was kind of interesting to see how different people reacted to burning out. Some got emotional. Some slept a lot. Some cut themselves out of activities and such. I forsook God. On my average day, I think I think about God fairly frequently. On mission trips, it's a whole lot more frequently since I'm around people who like to talk about him and who pray. When I burned out, I completely tried to rely on myself. It didn't go too well.

On the first evening of camp, one of our group's favorite kids, whom we would see just wandering around from time to time, found a very large frog (they were common), picked it up by its arms, and flung it Mario-Bowser style yelling, "¡Viva feliz!" The captains couldn't keep a straight face long enough to scold him.

It was a very structured camp with close to no free time. I think the only free time was immediately after meals, which was also medication time. Gringo (green-go) (us, as opposed to tico) captains really just followed the kids around since we didn't really know what was going on. There really wasn't much disciplining either, and the kids seemed to know where the line was. Every now and then, one would act out and a tico would step in. The rest of the time, we were huggers and jungle gyms.

The activity yesterday was sort of a multi-station obstacle course, but the main event was the mud pit. Almost everyone, everyone who wasn't running one of the other stations, was forced in, and covered head to toe. In the first station, spinning in a circle around a pipe and then trying to shoot a goal, I fell after shooting, and skinned my knees. I hope the mud didn't have anything in it my immune system can't fend against. When the pictures get posted to facebook, perhaps I'll link a few. Scott, by the way, is an amazing photographer. He, his girlfriend Justine, KK, and I were the main gringo staff members. The tico staff members were mostly much older than us.

At the end of each night, we all went to the stadium. There they recapped the day with pictures, and sang some songs. One night they played a Moses movie or something. I was feeling crowded and need to be alone for a bit, so I'd left before that started. Last night, though, they all said goodbye to us. The presentation and subsequent hugs must have gone on for thirty or forty minutes. A lot of the kids, and most of the gringo counselors were crying. To my surprise, I was swarmed. I didn't realize I had even been noticed by some of the kids that latched onto me. After all the hugging, one of the girls from my house came up to me and I carried her a bit. Then she told me that since her mom wasn't there to say goodbye, I should call her. That wasn't really feasible, and Jane and I had said our goodbyes to her already, more than once. We'd also written letters to her, though they hadn't been translated yet when we'd left. I hope the letters bless her. I told the girl to tell her my goodbye for me.

I didn't get emotional during the event. I don't know if I kept my distance or what. Not to be morbid, but it felt a lot like Justine's funeral (actual Justine, not aliased Justine). There was a lot of weeping there, too, but I felt surreal and almost happy. I have about eighty more people to get to know in heaven someday. Justine (aliased) was the other gringo that I noticed wasn't in tears. I can't speak for her, and maybe she felt as the others did, but she's the other one that is more business-minded, and less teacher-minded.

Today was pretty uneventful. I count that a plus. I had been looking forward to dropping by Swood's place between the airport and home, but because of the flight delay, I think it'll be too late. Plus I stink like nothing before smelt. I feel bad for the dude next to me. So now I'm looking forward to a nice long bath, some reading, and tomorrow, a clean shirt followed by my mom's place and kitties.

I've decided I really hate being infatuated. I can't think straight, can't act myself, seem unable to break out of my need for approval. It gets in the way of real relationship with the girl, and it gets in the way of my relationship with God. On top of that, I can't really evaluate the merit of a potential relationship with the girl objectively. I find her attractive because I'm attracted to her.

That need for approval, though, I feel is the most disturbing. I fear I'm projecting my lack of a father onto this helpless (in this area) girl. That's not fair, nor healthy. When that approval is granted, as in the case of Denna or Fey, well, I don't know. It actually seemed to go pretty well. But in both those cases, it had nothing to do with me earning the approval. They just liked me before I could attempt to impress them. My mating feathers are ugly and dim-witted. I'm only attractive when I'm confident and not trying to impress, or at least, not trying to leave that kind of impression. Even when I'm confident, I like to be funny, and that's a sort of attempt to impress. I just care less about the results, and thus am more confident. Rinse and repeat.

I need to shave.