Student Service Trip in Costa Rica and Overcoming Obstacles
True Nature Education had the privilege of partnering with The National Society of Leadership and Success this past month. 25 lovely students with hearts full of compassion and eagerness adventured to Costa Rica to provide service to the local communities, and in the process had a blast! A student service trip is a fantastic opportunity to broaden horizons and participate in global community service.
True Nature Education works with some amazing individuals in the local villages. One of these leaders is Lindsay Padilla. A Costa Rican native, her mindfulness and guidance always touches our hearts.
Check out some of her insight on shining bright through the storms and spreading this light through service!
“It was a rainy night and I was at home with my two little boys.
No more people there and lots of thunders dancing and singing in my backyard… I love to listen to Mother’s Nature sounds, however sometimes it seems like a different rhythm… Mother’s Nature wasn’t as peaceful as I wanted her to be specifically that night.
So I decided to sit on my favorite rocking chair, with my kids. We played a game, it consisted of imagine us to be sailing, enjoying of the blue ocean and the bright sun… Everything was fantastic until the moment when Andres, my 8 years old asked me if I was scary…
Game over! They discovered my feelings and guess what? I was really scary…
We were expecting to welcome a TNE group next day and the volunteer action already planned was to work on a sustainable farm, a new project that is going to benefit a group of people from my community.
I am not always so dramatic, but Imagine your plans, imagine your dreams surrounded by lots of rain and maybe lightening… I was scary for the moment, for my present and I was not sure about next day, about my future, about our tomorrow…
I was expecting to share my “tomorrow” with people from different places, coming from far away to make a difference and the weather was not the perfect from my perspective.
As soon as I listened my husband opening the door, I felt better, I felt my family completed. My kids went to sleep and we sat on the floor, with a candle.
All the house was dark, but there was a little light… Poor darkness, I bet darkness was not feeling completed because of our little light…
And I suddenly thought of our actions… Sometimes we feel it is not too much what we can do, sometimes we think of the storms, we think of the scary moments, we think of the darkness around the world, but we were born to be a light, to bring light, to make the darkness a little clear. Do we have to limit our good intention because of our doubts about the future? About tomorrow? No!!!
We were talking until our candle decided not to light… And it was a good night, the light is still inside us and you know what? Next day we enjoyed of the sun. No more rain until the moment when we finished our volunteer service… Mothers are known because of their DEEP love and Mother Nature showed us what love means, even during the rain…
It feels incredible to be part of the ones that are doing something, anything.
We have been welcoming too many “lights” from TNE. People that decided to be the difference, to be grateful even for the stormy days.
The stormy days are not totally bad, during the stormy days, maybe you can find out inspiration to be the light that others are needing.
Let’s your light be!”
Shine on True Nature family!
Interested in joining a service student trip? Check out our calendar here! http://truenatureeducation.com/events/
We woke up early, had pastries for breakfast and said goodbye to our friends at the Monkey Sanctuary and Blue Banyan Inn. Bye Bye Tikki!! We headed to the marina for our snorkel/dolphin expedition. We sailed around and found a new island which we have decided we want The New School to settle on as the new Costa Rica base. We are calling it The New School Iguana Island! After finding the dolphins we sailed to the bay off of Manauel Antonio National Park and snorkeled. We were surround by schools of beautiful fish.
We woke up this morning and started the day with a group meditation and some yoga. Following a great breakfast (Jim’s famous banana pancakes) we split into three groups for our morning service project. Some people did worm sorting (monk
Following our service time we drove the windy, bumpy road to the beach. Yeah!!! The beach was fantastic but the parasailingwas magnificent. 
