Rocky Cape Christian Community

Burial ground at Zapotal, Costa Rica, high on the Tilarán Mountains -- nearly perpetual fog hiding forested mountain peaks in the background.

 
"If you want to see the sun at Zapotal," people told us when we came to know the area, "cut out a picture of it and paste it on your wall."
 
Perched on the very spine of the continental divide -- next to the famous Quaker colony of Monte Verde -- we found the thinly settled Zapotal area always cool, dark, and damp. Skinny cows wading up to their udders in mud, potato plants turning yellow, a one-year old getting a frigid bath with a dipper in a stone sink, these were some of my first impressions of the area.
 
Families of red-cheeked children in raggedy clothes lived in Zapotal and on trails high above and beyond it -- some of which could accommodate ox-carts, others for laden horses and foot travellers alone. Here and there on cleared ridges above Zapotal one may catch a glimpse through the clouds below, of the Pacific coastal plain and the seashore far, far, down. But I found nothing more fascinating there, on horseback, than where one crosses a rudely constructed suspension bridge on the trail to Don Macedonio Badilla's place, to pause at the overgrown site of La Peligrosa.
 
For many years Doña Teodolinda, a little woman with a large family, mostly boys, operated a cantina (local drinking joint) at this spot. La Peligrosa means "danger" and truly the place lived up to its reputation!
 
Small farmers of Zapotal raised sugar cane to feed their cattle, and to press out for "Tapa Dulce," the old- fashioned sugar loaves still made at an ox-powered mill (trapiche) below the village. But far too much of the cane juice ended up as "Agua Ardiente" (fire water) that turned its men into impoverished raving drunks.
 
Doña Teodolinda's family lived under the fire water's curse. Every night a raucous crowd of men and boys gathered around La Peligrosa, laughing, drinking, and brawling while her children lay, often trembling with fright, under meagre covers in the dark. When Doña Teodolinda's daughter grew up, tipsy men started making eyes at her and following her about. She hated it, but felt powerless to stop them. The boys grew up fighting and drinking from an early age. One of them, coming home drunk, got swept off his horse in the river, to slide and tumble nearly three kilometres down the mountainside in the rushing torrent. Neighbours found him senseless and almost drowned on the bank the next morning.
 
On another night Doña Teodolinda made a promise to the Blessed Virgin to hold a Rosario (pray the rosary) at her house. She sent two of the boys to the centre of the village to fetch the Virgin's image. A damp evening as always, and getting dark early (the sun sets soon after six o'clock at Zapotal the year round) the boys got into a muddy spot and slipped. Carrying the Virgin dressed in pretty robes and surrounded by flowers on a little platform between them, they dropped her into the mud puddle and fished her out looking terrible.
 
Doña Teolinda lifted her hands and shrieked in terror when she saw the sight. "This will bring us no blessing but a curse," she wailed, but it was too late to change plans. All the people of the village were coming already. They cleaned up the Virgin as best they could and set her on a makeshift pedestal under the thatched roof of La Peligrosa.  
 
The oldest people of the village began to chant the rosary and everyone quieted down, kneeling and crossing themselves, as the room filled up tight. Unbeknownst to Doña Teodolinda, however, two of the neighbours had gotten into a fight that day (most fights in Zapotal originating from the men's constant extra-marital exploits). One of the men waited just inside the door of La Peligrosa until he saw the other one entering to pray. Then he slashed down on him with his machete and a terrible fight broke loose. Both men, grappling for one another's throats, rolled biting and punching in upon the people. Screaming, cursing, and desperate cries to the Virgin echoed all over Zapotal as the whirlwind of flying arms and legs hit the portal, the lights went out, and the image of Our Blessed Lady, flowers, candles and all, hit the wall with a splintering crash. Blood and glass flew everywhere. The children ran screaming for the cane fields.
 
Doña Teodolinda, beside herself with terror, and convinced of God's curse upon her life, left Zapotal with as many of her children as she could take with her. Far down, on the other side of the mountain, and at the base of Arenal Volcano, she met believers, heard the message of Jesus and gave herself up to him. So did her oldest daughter, and the boys, one after the next -- including one handicapped son, left with a daughter but no wife. By the time we came to know her, Doña Teodolinda was a lovely quiet little grandmother, a member of the Mennonite church at Chachagua, Costa Rica. Through her family's contacts, and through other interest in Zapotal, we began going up to that place for meetings.
 
After a work got established, just down the ridge from Zapotal, one of Doña Teodolinda's sons  -- one of the two that had dropped the image, but who had now become a Mennonite preacher -- spoke to us, and she accompanied us for our first communion service on the mountain. I can see her yet, sitting in the half light by the window, wrinkled and bent, in long dark skirts and a white head covering, the blessing of peace in her smile. A large number of her children and grandchildren serve our Lord Jesus in Central America today.
 
On one of my first trips to Zapotal, after we began to have meetings there, I met Don Tilo Barrantes. A shrewd cattle dealer, and one of the only people there with money, Don Tilo had many fincas (farms) on the steep sides of the range.  On each farm he had a woman living with a flock of children. All the children, it was said, were his. When Don Tilo finally died, over a hundred of his own children attended his funeral, but it was believed he had around 225 all together.
 
With his money, Don Tilo bought himself a private helicopter, a fine house on the lowlands, and travelled to Rome twice to get direct absolution from the pope that would enable him to bypass purgatory altogether! But once again the Lord used a bad situation in unusual ways. Don Tilo gave one of his fincas at Zapotal to his brother and family, Don Ricardo Barrantes. Some of those people also found the Lord. Through them the new work got started and others became involved.

Looking down upon the clouds over the Gulf of Nicoya, from Zapotal, in 1991. From left, Susan Hoover (now in Australia), Margaret and Glenn Bontrager (now in Virginia, USA), Leidy Salas and Arno Dueck (later married, now living in Canada), Keiner and Kenia Barrantes. Keiner married a girl from El Salvador and is now one of the directors of the Mennonite publishing work in Central America. Kenia married Eldon Kornelsen, who served for a time at Waslala, Nicaragua, and with whom she is now raising a family in a new work on the central highlands.  
 
A good number of years have passed since we used to hold meetings at Zapotal and Laguna, just down the mountain from it. No permanent work developed there. Electricity, and with it, the curse of television came to this remote area. The drinking, the immorality, the fighting goes on. Many that once came to meetings or loved the Lord have fallen away, or chosen different routes.
 
But has any good come of it?
 
Could any good come from a place like Zapotal?
 
Ask Jesus who came from a village like it, called Nazareth. Or, when you meet him, look for Doña Teodolinda and her family at his right hand.
 
Peter
 
Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au