Domingo de Ramos

You sweat in El Jardin. You fidget and sweat some more. You ponder the metallic taste on your tongue, wonder if it's a byproduct of those daily pesticide-spraying planes over the banana plantations.

Part of my job is to help visitors to see the reality of many living in Costa Rica. Now that I've lived here for six months, I'm more familiar with the work of the church and it's communities. But I wonder how visitors view places like El Jardin. Are they annoyed by the heat? The dust? The badly paved roads and the lack of air conditioning?

Do these discomforts mar our experience? Do we "have the experience but miss the meaning"?

For Palm Sunday, or Domingo de Ramos, the kids in El Jardin reenacted Jesus' entry into Jerusalem - one child as donkey, one as Jesus, the rest shouting "Hosanna!"

After awhile, you embrace the sweat. It feels real. Not sterilized, in the way our services at home can sometimes feel. Perhaps Jeses wants us to get a little dirty. A little messy. Feel the dust and the dirt and the Earth. Like a man riding a donkey into town.