Crossroads - At The Intersection Of Missouri And Costa Rica

Crossroads - At the Intersection of Missouri and Costa Rica

MY GIRLFRIEND DINA is one adventuresome gal! Given the option of financial assistance to pay for a car or a summer spent as an exchange student in Costa Rica, Dina opted for the road less traveled by the average American teenager. Speaking not a word of Spanish, this towheaded seventeen-year-old left her hometown on the outskirts of Branson, Missouri, for Costa Rica—a trip that would alter the course of her life.

Dina’s eyes were quickly opened to the rest of the world when she arrived at the home of the family that she would live with. In Costa Rica, the “middle-class” host family lived in conditions nothing like the home she left in Missouri. They lived in a small dwelling located to the rear of the family’s retail storefront. Their tiny home had no running hot water and only one bathroom for a family of five. Dina wasn’t fazed; she was in heaven. Dina had found “home” in this warm, welcoming family and community.

Dina was a painfully shy teenager when she left home in May, but she returned a confident young woman, enlightened to a world much bigger than her graduating class of one hundred. Today, twenty-five years later, she radiates the excitement and enthusiasm from her youth.

Turning onto the road of adventure set Dina’s life on a course destined for success and fulfillment. This one trip ignited a passion for foreign language and travel, and it opened Dina’s mind and heart to accept people and cultures very different from her own. Dina said, “I can point back to this one decision, made at the age of seventeen, as the thing that has most influenced the person I am today.”

I will praise you, LORD, with all my heart;I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. (Psalm 9:1)

Are you sitting at an intersection where you think you would benefit from an “out-of-this-country” experience? You’re not getting any younger. Turn on your blinker.