A team of seven from Ocean City had to reschedule a return flight from a charitable mission to Costa Rica, but the group was otherwise unaffected by the eruption of the Turrialba volcano last week.
Residents near the mountain were evacuated and the Juan Santamaria International Airport in San Jose closed for a day as a plume of ash and smoke filled the sky.
But the Costa Rica Mission from St. Peter’s United Methodist Church was a couple hours’ drive away from the volcano when it began to erupt. The group had been scheduled to fly out of San Jose on Friday morning but left instead from Liberia in the northwestern part of the country on Thursday afternoon, according to Carlo Calle, leader of the mission.
The volcano has coated large parts of the country in ash, but nobody has been injured and no lava flows have been spotted.
Calle said a local group that included Jennifer Bowman and her daughters, Caroline and Katie Bowman, Leah Davies, Clarise Fazzio Stell and her daughter Ariel Stell carried out a full week of mission work.
Their efforts included planted an environmentally sustainable garden for school children in the hills above Parrita on the Pacific coast and helping to rebuild a lifeguard tower on the Nicoya Peninsula.
Part of their mission, Calle said, is to teach new trade and business skills in a region where the traditional fishing industry has been decimated and where girls often are taken into prostitution at a young age.
Calle, owner of Calle Construction in Ocean View, is the founder of the Costa Rica Mission for Life.
Calle has been traveling to Costa Rica with small groups and hopes to build a permanent mission and working farm in Esterillos Oeste.
See the Costa Rica Mission page on Facebook.
Part of the ministry will be to take groups of surfers to do mission work and also to take advantage of some of the best waves on the Pacific coast.
The mission last week included a zip-line outing for fun.
The locals were pretty nonchalant when the volcano began to spew ash and smoke, Calle said, and he was resourceful enough to make new travel arrangements to get everybody home without delay.
