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A Typical Day on Gap Year During COVID-19

After weeks of training at our Adventures in Missions campus, World Race: Gap Year 2020 participants made it to the international mission field at the beginning of January 2021! Each day on the World Race looks different as Racers work with our strategic ministry partners and learn to look for opportunities to share the love of God in day-to-day life.

Today, Mackenzie Tkach and Emma Austin share what their typical day looks as they begin their second month in Costa Rica (with photos from Anjali Joy).

A Day in the Life (Costa Rica Edition!!)

Here’s a glimpse into a typical day in the life on World Race: Gap Year here in Costa Rica. My schedule actually looks a lot different each day, which I love! No two days look the same! Life here is always exciting, and you have to hold every schedule or plan with open hands.

Still, I wanted to give you guys a chance to see what it’s like in this World Racer’s shoes. So I decided to show you what an average Monday looks like for my team. Let’s get started!

5:00-6:00 am | Wake up at your own pace! Some of us get up early to run, workout, make a cup of joe, or have a quiet time with the Lord (or all of the above). Others get up right before breakfast. (Not everyone is a morning person!)

7:30 am | Team Stride is up a little earlier today because it’s our turn to make pancakes! We eat pancakes for breakfast every Monday. It’s a nice switch from Gallo Pinto (Rice and beans, but mixed together) and eggs we have for breakfast the rest of the week.

8:00 am | Now everyone is awake and ready to eat! We also get our temp checks taken by our amazing COVID-19 leader, Nicole, to make sure we’re all staying healthy. After we clean up breakfast, we all make and pack our PB and J sandwiches and apples for lunch. Then, we finish getting ready and spend some quiet time with the Lord to start our day.

9:00 am | Listo! This week, we have morning ministry, so my team loads the bus at about nine o’clock. We make sure we’re all masked up to keep our friends and ministry partners safe. Our bus driver, Alfredo, drives over to pick up the guys because they’re living at another ministry, called Project Abraham, this month instead of at the base. Then, we head to ministry.

10:00 am | We arrive at the Hope Project! After hand sanitizing, greeting everyone, and getting hugs from our “ministry mom” Dona Ceci, we start our day with a group prayer. Then, it’s time to get to work! Today Team Stride is working with the English Club! It’s one of our favorites. We help the English Teacher, Rachel, set up tables and chairs in the dance studio downstairs. (It sounds weird, but it makes a great classroom!) We review the lesson and prepare any activities. Once the students get there, we get to be discussion partners! Basically, we each pair up with a student and just help them practice their English. It’s a great way to build relationships. English Club is so fun and we always look forward to hanging out with the students!

12:30 pm | Lunch!! We eat our PB and J sandwiches and apples that we packed earlier. And we might take advantage of the Wi-Fi at the ministry real quick…

1:30 pm | Back to work! Today we have time to work on projects. When we first started working with the Hope Project, they gave us a list of projects and whoever wanted to could sign up to take initiative on these! Yet another way we get to operate in our talents and passions at ministry! During this time, we get to work independently or together on things like English Club Lessons, sticker and t-shirt designs, or social media promotion.

2:30 pm | Discipleship! Usually (but not always), this is led by our ministry host, Micah. He asked us for some topics we specifically wanted to learn about when we started working at THP, and each day he has been diving into one of those. Different topics we’d had include: testimony time, Kingdom culture, the Biblical church, and addiction. The afternoon ministry group also arrives now so we can take the discipleship class together. 

3:30 pm | Time for the morning group to go! We ride in our little yellow bus driven by our sweet driver Alfredo. The 40-minute drive home is usually a nice space for us to open the window, unwind, listen to music, and talk to the Lord.

4:15 pm | Aaand we’re back at the base! Normally, our team will go straight into team time, which looks different every day. Mondays are our Bible study days, where we read a chapter or two prior to coming to team time, and then deep dive (discuss) what we learned. We’re currently reading through Ezra and Nehemiah at the same time and comparing them as we go!

5:30 pm | Dinner time!! This will almost always consist of beans and rice, a meat of some sort, and a salad! We also can’t forget to add the tajin! Tajin is a lime chili seasoning and it’s SO GOOD! Our team plows through tajin bottles like no other!

6:30 pm | Free time! By now, we’re all pretty exhausted from the day. Now’s our chance to just hang out, play Dutch Blitz, watch a movie, spend some more time with the Lord, take a (5-minute) shower, etc.!

9:30 pm | Most of my team crashes and heads to bed. But if we get caught up in an intense game of spoons or one too many episodes, that can sometimes look more like 12:30. Whoops.

Thanks for coming along for the day! I hope you enjoyed it!

World Race: Gap Year a 9-month Christian gap year program. You’ll serve with our missionary bases and ministry partners in 3 different countries, building community and sharing the love of Jesus with everyone you meet. Discover who God created you to be and how that will impact the choices you’re about to make for the rest of your life. Click here to apply today!