"It was so ugly outside..."

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Written by Eric

One of the things I learned in Costa Rica is that tías are wonderful people. At least the tías that I met were incredible. “Tía” is the Spanish word for aunt and there were some awesome tías at the children’s home where we have been working this week. The tías serve as full-time housemothers for the group of 11 girls housed at this home on the outskirts of San José, the capital of Costa Rica.

Our task for the week was to repaint the whole outside of the home. The walls and iron work needed to scraped and painted, as well as the doors and facia. It was painted 7 years ago when the home was built by a church in Houston, TX, but the regular rains have taken their toll on the exterior. Here is what it looked like upon our arrival.



Bright orange was chosen as the main color of the walls, brick red for the doors and iron work, white for the underside of the facia and brown for the facia itself. The tías chose the colors. They are not exactly the colors I would have chosen but my role for the week was to paint, not really to question color choices! And so we painted! Four days of work by the 10 of us resulted in this:



Orange, red, brown, and white looks great together! What do you think?
On the final day as we were leaving the site, one of the tías was thanking us for the great work we had done and was moved by how beautiful it looked.

A bit teary-eyed she said to us in Spanish, “This home looked so ugly and I want the girls to have a home that feels happy and gives them hope….”

Now before you know what I said to her, you must know that what moved me so much all week as I was working was not how quickly the scraping went, not how well the painting got done, not how much it rains in Costa Rica, not the cows that would walk along the road everyday (once up the road in the morning and back again in the afternoon), not even how incredible the tías can make beans and rice taste each day, but what touched me the most were the smiles and laughter of the girls that were living in the home. These girls had all come from difficult situations but now were safe in a home where they were loved, fed, and encouraged. They giggled, they played, they loved attention, and they loved on us throughout the days we were there.

“…it looked so ugly but now it looks so beautiful! Thank you!” she said.

I said to her, “Your house could look far uglier than what you say it did when we arrived …..but what makes this home beautiful are not the coats of paint on the outside but the love that I see given and expressed inside this home. That is the most beautiful gift that could be given to these children. Thank you for everything you do for them. We love you for that and God does also.”

“Me gusta…Me gusta mucho,” (meaning "I like it, I like it so much") she said as she was hugging all of us.

No matter how the home looks on the outside, this is what makes this home beautiful….