BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s basketball season came to an end in March, but that has not stopped guard Andrea Kelly working toward another cause ? helping the lives of others. Kelly recently completed a six-day missionary trip to Costa Rica where she recorded her thoughts in a journal for LSUsports.net.
Kelly, the Lady Tigers’ leading 3-point shooter this past season, said she has always had a passion for getting involved in missionary work and hopes to be involved in medical mission trips in the future. She spoke to various groups, helped plant churches in Costa Rica and took in the sights of the area terrain.
Below are the entries of her first two days in Costa Rica:
Day 1: April 4, 2009
We left for New Orleans Airport at 3 a.m. and I was running on zero sleep because I was just too excited to close my eyes and miss anything. Our group consisted of only five people total: Pastor James, Ms. Louise, Tiffany, Demi and myself. I developed wonderful relationships with these people throughout the entire trip, especially Demi and Tiffany, and even from the beginning of the flights we laughed and shared stories about ourselves like we knew each other forever!
Our flight eventually landed in Costa Rica at 10:20 a.m., which would have been 11:20 a.m. Baton Rouge time. One of the pastors we were going to be working with throughout the week, Pastor Onesimo and a member of his church Mr. Juan, picked us up from the airport and immediately I recognized a language barrier between us, except for Pastor James who speaks fluent Spanish. However, it was exciting to see how far my four years of high school Spanish would get me through! They drove us to Pastor Onesimo’s house, where his wife had prepared some authentic Costa Rican tamales already waiting for us. As we were driving I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful mountains everywhere I looked. Driving through Costa Rica is like riding a roller coaster. There are steep hills and deep dips at every corner and the driving was pretty aggressive! That was something I had to get used to quick! Once we arrived at the house we had an awesome fellowship and an amazing meal! Our next agenda was to invite people in the neighborhood to our “Big Event” of the night.
The “Big Event” is basically a special thing we did on multiple nights of the trip to gather people in the local area to help plant a new church. It was a very festive event and it included music, free food, free money, eating competitions, dramas, and testimonies. On this particular night, the “Big Event” was held in the neighborhood park and people from all ages and backgrounds came from their homes and jobs just to enjoy the evening. Afterwards, we went out into the audience and prayed for anyone who asked for it or who needed it.
Day 2: April 5, 2009
Good morning Costa Rica! It felt wonderful to wake up and be in the beautiful country that we were in. The view from our hotel window was incredible and the fresh air was refreshing to breathe in.
Today was Sunday so we spent the majority of our day in church service — one in the morning and one in the evening. The church we attended is actually the biggest church in Costa Rica and has about 5,000 current members. It’s called Kingdom Takers Church and on that particular Sunday they held their “Super Sunday” service, which includes their baby dedications, first fruit offerings and communion. The pastor of the church, Pastor Guido Luis, was another close associate we worked with to help plant a church. The services were amazing. Their band was called “Overflow” and they pattern a lot of their praise and worship after Hillsong-United in Australia. Pastor James Pursifull was the guest speaker and gave an awesome message in Spanish.
After the services we were able to meet with the Pastor and his wife and they shared their amazing vision with us about where they see the church going in the near future. They want to see 100,000 members in the church and they are actually building a city called “Ciudad Mana” which will comprise of an education, a healthcare, a recreation, a commerce, and a ministry building. The city is designed to reach out to people.