The Costa Rica Mission: Bags of Eggs

Day 20: July 31, 2012

Today was another day of rest. I slept in and then spent most of my day working on Open Connections (my social media ministry project). Christine came home around 2:30 and said hello and then said she was going to take a nap. She hasn’t had these past two days to just rest because she teaches at the school. So it was good that she got to rest for a couple extra hours. In the meantime I helped her out by sweeping the house so that it would be ready to mop.

When Christine was finished with her nap we figured out what kind of food we needed for the week and went into Santa Barbara (a nearby town) to buy it. We spent a while in the store. I was surprised at how busy it was. It was like Walmart in a college town on a Friday night (it’s busy then, in case you didn’t know). It was cool to see how many different fruits and vegetables they offer. There are things that you wouldn’t be able to get in the states. There are some fruits and vegetables for sale that I didn’t even know existed. I laughed when I saw bags of eggs sitting on the shelves. “You’d never see a store selling eggs like that!” I said to Christine.

So we got what we needed for meals this week and then took another bus home. Christine made spaghetti with a really good white sauce with fresh tomatoes blended in and cilantro. And then after that for desert she made chocolate and peanut butter no-bake cookies. They were yummy!

Today was my last day of resting. Tomorrow I’ll be back to work helping out with the team that is supposed to arrive on the seventh. I’m leaving in two weeks from today! It’s gone by so quickly, I can’t believe it! Next summer I will have to do a mission trip or some ministry for the whole summer instead of just a month. But I am glad that I will be returning to Davis very shortly after my arrival and not having to go back to work. Returning to Davis College where pursuing God is the theme will be much easier than returning to Kennywood Park where the theme is, “Funnel cake or fried Oreos?” 

The Costa Rica Mission: Restful Day

Day 19: July 30, 2012

Today was mostly a day for resting. I got to sleep in and get rested up. I spent a lot of the day working on the social media ministry project that I’ve started. I am working on getting more people to come to the Facebook page and I’m trying to draw in a large crowd.

But I was pleased when Megan and Molly stopped by the house around 1:30 and told me that we were going to the orphanage today and I could come if I wanted to. We were meeting at a bus stop around 2:15 so I finished up what I was doing and made it to the bus stop just in time. We rode the bus to a grocery store and then took taxis to the orphanage. It felt so weird because there were only six of us going and we were just going by ourselves, there was no team with us.

There are ten or fifteen children in the Quinta del Angels orphanage. A lot of the children there have parents in Nicaragua that drop them off here and abandon them. We played a game with them first and then Christine taught a lesson and then we did a craft and then helped them to memorize John 3:16 by chanting it and doing it as they jumped rope. While the other kids were doing the craft, I enjoyed playing with a one year old little girl. She was so cute and was full of smiles. Many of the children were full of smiles and laughter. It was baffling to me how children could have such sad circumstances in their life and still be so happy. We were sad to go so soon but I am hopeful that I will be able to go back again some time soon.

Christine and I returned home after the orphanage and began making dinner. Christine went upstairs to do some things online and her computer wasn’t working very well at all. She was frustrated. “Well… my dad’s a computer technician, we could get him on skype and he could talk you through figuring out what’s wrong.” So we got dad on skype and he was able to help Christine. It was cool that technology allows someone from the states to help and bless someone in Costa Rica. He is also looking into getting her a router so she’ll be able to have wifi in the house. Finally we were able to eat dinner and eventually we were even able to get some harmful programs off of her computer and it seems to working just fine again! Hallelujah!  

The Costa Rica Mission: Joy and Fire

Day 18: July 29, 2012

I started the day off with church. During worship, it has been my prayer that God would give me joy in my worship. I have lost so much joy in what Jesus has done for me, maybe that’s because I never really had joy in my salvation in the first place. I know that Jesus has saved me and I’m grateful but I don’t have overwhelming joy in my heart because of it. I started to think about that and I thought about the reality that I was on my way to Hell. I have never really thought about me going to Hell before, because I’ve been a Christian so long. But it’s the truth, I was going to go to Hell because there is nothing good in me. I have sinned and done wrong and because of that I didn’t deserve to nor could I go to Heaven. Without Jesus, I would be going to Hell in eternal separation from God. But Jesus died on the cross for me and saved me, not because I deserved it but because he loves me that much. I take that for granted so often and that’s why I don’t have more joy in my salvation. I have always been saved and known I will go to Heaven, so I wasn’t overjoyed when I found out otherwise because I have never known anything else. But I am praying that God will give me overwhelming joy in him and that I wouldn’t take my salvation for granted any longer.

It was a good sermon from Dr. Daves (one of the missionaries here). He talked about receiving the fire of God. His message was about letting God’s fire refine you and clean you. The fire of God will never destroy but it may hurt a little while it cleans all the dirt out of you. It gave a new meaning to songs that have lyrics about God’s consuming fire. He also talked about God coming through your life like an earthquake and shaking your life and transforming your life. And then he talked about the wind. In a storm the wind will come through and blow the dead limbs off of the trees. In the same way, the wind from God will come through and blow away anything dead or useless in you.  It was a good message and I really enjoyed it.

After church, I spent the day with Christine helping her to clean her classroom. It took us a long time but we finally finished and got it back in order for classes tomorrow! Glory Christian School’s classes start back up tomorrow and thank goodness we get a little break from having teams here. Pastor told us to take the next two days to rest and I am grateful! I’ll probably spend my time doing a research project I started and sleeping in. It will definitely be nice!

The Costa Rica Mission: Couldn't or Wouldn't?

Day 17: July 28, 2012

It was a Saturday so naturally I went with Christine to Cinco Esquinas with Anna and my friend Nataly (Naty). The four of us prayed beforehand and God laid it on my heart to pray for one little boy. There’s a house very close to where we meet with the kids. The house has three kids living there but they aren’t allowed to join us because they go to some other church that won’t allow the congregation to go to any other activities other than those through their specific church otherwise they may be kicked out. So the past few times we have met, these kids have been standing at the gate of their house just watching us. So I prayed for them. I prayed for freedom from the cage their home had become. I walked some distance to get a different group of kids to join us. I was pleased to see when I returned that the gate to that house was open and one of the three kids ran out to go join the group. I later learned that he is just a cousin of the family that goes to that strange church and they let him come sometimes. But in my heart, I felt that God was telling me that door to the cage was open and that was the first step. So I will continue to pray for Daniel, Tatiana, and Marcos so that they can come every week!

After Cinco Esquinas I helped with lunch and then I set to work helping Christine clean her classroom. We had been using her room as a place to lock up any items the teams wanted to keep at the school while we did other ministry activities. And the Victory team had donated tons of little toys and trinkets to use as prizes and those were all in the classroom. So I set to work organizing so that it would be easy to clean and put stuff away tomorrow. I probably enjoyed sorting all of the different toys by type and then by color a little too much. But what can I say? It satisfied my inner OCD and I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit.

That took most of the day and then I returned home to change out of casual clothes and into nicer clothes and went to the farewell dinner of the dance team that was also here this week. It was a good time and it was cool to see how the trip had impacted the team. Their dance ministry in the past week was very successful and they had over 700 salvations total. So that was really cool. And the food was great!

I had a thought while I was organizing Christine’s room, maybe that’s why I like organizing so much, it’s busy work to keep me from getting distracted but allows my brain to do some serious thinking. I was thinking about evangelism and sharing the gospel, in the states and also overseas. I was thinking about someone who had said, “We could never evangelize in the states like we do here. People wouldn’t listen to you.” And as I thought about that, I thought if it was that they couldn’t or if it was that they wouldn’t, and is that those people wouldn’t listen or is that you wouldn’t tell them? A lot of times we are too scared to share the gospel with people, especially if we’re not on a special event with the specific purpose of doing so. A lot of times the problem is not that we are unable to share the gospel or that it’s not the right time and the person wouldn’t wanna hear it or accept it anyway. A lot of times the problem is that we won’t share it because we let fear or pride or whatever else get in the way. And you never really know if someone would or wouldn’t want to hear what you have to say about God unless you try! If someone is going to leave this earth without committing their life to Christ, let it be because they chose not to believe in him, not because you wouldn’t tell them. 

The Costa Rica Mission: Evangelism

Day 16: July 27, 2012

The started off with the Spiritual Scavenger Hunt. We broke up into teams and we had a list of different things to do. Get a picture of a kid making a funny face, take an awkward family picture, etc. But then we also had some serious things to do, like ask God to reveal someone to you and go talk to them or pray for healing over somebody. The team I was on was doing pretty well. We had found a guy with a cane and prayed for healing for him and we were getting a lot of the goofy things too. We stopped part way through and prayed that God would reveal someone to us that needed to hear from him. When we were done praying, I looked up and noticed two girls sitting on a bench together. But I wasn’t sure if it was the spirits leading or just me noticing two girls on a bench. We moved on and did a couple other things and at one point we even had a lady we had asked for help from come up to us and ask us about the church. We gave her some information and prayed over her, but it seemed as though she was already a Christian and she was just looking for a church. We prayed because her husband had just been in an accident and the other driver had run off so now they have to pay for it themselves. But once we had prayed we departed.

Our group was getting a little frozen treat from a street vendor and I looked back and those girls were still there. Once I had eaten a little bit more I said, “I think we need to go talk to those girls.” The youth pastor of the group, who was on my team, told me to go for it. So I took two translators with me and approached them. I told them I was with a church and asked if I could talk with them for a little bit. They both agreed. Then I knew that God wanted me to talk to them, because as soon as the conversation started the once quiet park was interrupted by three drummers doing a little show. It became hard to hear each other. But I just smiled to myself, because to me it was just confirmation that God wanted me to speak to them because otherwise Satan wouldn’t have put the distraction there.

Their names were Catalina and Cristina. I asked if they went to a church. Cristina goes to an evangelical church and Catalina is Catholic. So I asked them, “If you were to die today, not that I want that to happen, do you know where you’d go? Do you know that you’d go to heaven?” Cristina nodded her head and said that she knew she’d go to heaven. Catalina eventually said yes but she had been very hesitant. I asked her how she knew for sure and she gave the standard answer saying that she did good things. I went on to explain to them that good works aren’t enough. I explained that we have all sinned and that heaven is a perfect place and no sin can be there. Because if you have a perfectly clean room without one speck of dirt, you wouldn’t let someone that was all muddy in. It just doesn’t make sense! But I told them how God loved them and didn’t want to be separated from them for forever so that’s why Jesus died on the cross. Jesus died so our sins could be forgiven and we could go to Heaven anyway. But in order to have that, we have to take the gift from him. That’s about as far as I got before Catalina received a phone call and had to go. Cristina said she had already accepted that gift. I asked her if she thought Catalina had and Cristina didn’t think she had. So before I left, I prayed with Cristina to have the courage and wisdom to be able to witness to her friend. I told her that I believed God had put her in Catalina’s life to be able to tell her about him. I am not disappointed about Catalina having to leave so soon. Because I still was able to tell her about salvation and now she knows. God used me to plant a seed or maybe even water one that had already been planted. I have faith that God will bring someone else along to keep watering and planting seeds in Catalina’s life, maybe that someone is Cristina. But just because I didn’t get to lead Catalina to Christ does not mean I wasn’t used by God.

The second half of the day was similar to yesterday. We went to a park and the dance team from California did some more dance evangelism and we witnessed to people in the park. It was very cool to watch. There was one boy that was sitting near me while they were dancing. He was there for the whole presentation and he didn’t seem angry or bored, he just wasn’t wearing a smile. After the official show was over I noticed some of our team talking to him for a while. I don’t know if they prayed a prayer for salvation with him. But afterwards, when the dance team was just playing around with each other and doing some freestyle dancing games, I looked over at the same boy and noticed he was smiling at them now. I couldn’t help but smile too because it seemed like he had changed, even just a little bit, from before.

The last event of the night was a farewell dinner for the Concord team that has been here this week. We had a good time of fellowship and enjoyed some good food. At the end we gathered together and each member shared about their experience in Costa Rica. Many of them were saying that Costa Rica is a great place and people are so open here as opposed to how people are in the US, and how the soil is fertile here, and how they could never do some of the bold evangelism that they did here in the states because people would just walk away. While I agree that it’s hard to evangelize in your own country and especially town, I felt defensive for the fertile soil that I know exists in the US. There are so many people there that really need Jesus but just don’t know it. And I wanted to tell them, although I didn’t get the chance, that Costa Rica is not this magic place that when you come here, all of a sudden you can evangelize! I wanted to encourage them that it was not Costa Rica or its people that gave them the ability to be so bold in their evangelism this week, it was the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit goes with us no matter what country we are in. It doesn’t end in Costa Rica, it continues wherever you go. And that’s something I need to be remembering too. I need to be as bold and intentional about evangelizing in the states as I am here.

So pray for me to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit leading me and no to doubt myself when I feel the Spirit leading me. And pray that I will be as bold at home as I am here in Costa Rica when it comes to talking about God.

This was our awkward family photo for the scavenger hunt.

The Costa Rica Mission: Typical Costa Rica

Day 15: July 26, 2012

Christine and I and some people from the team went and did an extra activity with the kids from Cinco Esquinas today. They made crowns and taught a lesson. I went with Anna to pick up a family of five kids that lives a little further away. We waited for them to be ready and then helped their mother get the kids to where we were meeting. On the way back, the oldest girl, Delanny, rambled on to me about how people describe her name in so many different ways and something about learning English. We had a good time with the kids and I could tell they really enjoyed themselves.

 




We went back and ate lunch and then started preparing to go to Heredia city center to do some evangelism. But of course things are never so simple here in Costa Rica. The translators and I piled into the church van with the sound equipment needed for the dance team in the back. We were getting pretty close when all of a sudden we hear a loud thud. It sounded like we had hit something, although we weren’t sure what it was. Well one of the drivers got out and checked it out and apparently part of the motor had fallen off. Even though it was technically still drivable, the engine would have overheated. So we piled out and had to catch a bus into Heredia. The problem is that the sound equipment we needed was on the van and the team needed that to do their dance ministry. So we had to work on trying to get the sound equipment to the park. Then when we were almost ready and had the sound equipment, we realized no one had thought to bring a laptop or something to play the cd on. I’m not sure how that problem ended up being fixed. I just grabbed four or five other girls and we started praying. Satan was trying really hard to make us give up.

But we didn’t give up! And eventually everything was ready. The team from California from our sister Zoe church did a really awesome job dancing. We had a huge crowd! On several different occasions they would bring people from the audience in to dance with them. And one time they got a big group doing the Cupid Shuffle (to the right, to the right, to the left, to the left, now kick, now kick…). I joined in, it’s pretty much the only line dance I know how to do. And I was participating, I just kept thinking about my current situation. Here I am in another country doing the Cupid Shuffle in the middle of a park. I couldn’t help but smile. Afterwards, and few gave their testimonies or just talked a bit. And one of the missionaries with Leaders for Christ shared his testimony with them. The team danced a few more songs. And it was really funny when two drunk men and a dog joined in the dancing as well. I thought, “Only in Costa Rica does a random dog join a dance party.” Afterwards, the other team from Concord tried to go and evangelize with people. It worked out really nicely and we had one girl that we had talked to at the park come to our church service tonight, so that was really cool.

Overall, it was a busy but very rewarding and good day. It’s already been two weeks since I’ve been here! The time is going so fast! I can’t believe I’m already about halfway through the trip! 

The Costa Rica Mission: Relaxing Day

Day 14: July 25, 2012

Today was the most relaxing day I’ve had since I’ve been here. The team had their free day today so that I meant I had the day off! I spent most of it working on getting my social media ministry up and running. I am getting excited about that and looking forward to seeing what God does with it. I got to skype with the family and get a few other things done. I was just starting to wonder what I should do for dinner. And thank goodness I checked my own facebook just in time to see that there was a bonfire at the cabins where the team was staying and if I wanted to go I needed to be to the church at 6… I got the message at 5:40 and it’s a 15 minute walk. So I left the house and quickly walked to the church. I should’ve known  I didn’t need to rush however, as usual we were running on Tico Time (which is anywhere from a half an hour to an hour later than the scheduled time). So even though we were supposed to meet at 6 and leave by 6:15, we met at 6 or 6:15 and left around 6:45.

So we were on our way, five of us travelling in a fifteen passenger van with Derek driving. Keep in mind, to go pretty much anywhere further than fifteen minutes away around here, you have to either go up, down, or around a mountain. In this case we had to go up a mountain. But we were about ten minutes into the drive when Derek realizes he forgot cots for the other team that was doing dance ministry in San Carlos. The dance team was joining the other team tonight and they needed extra beds. So we turned the van around and went down the mountain to get the cots. Two girls got lucky because they had arrived at the church on even later Tico time and would have missed out if we hadn’t had to turn around. So we get the cots and two more people and we’re on our way up the mountain again.

It was a really steep mountain… we were driving a fifteen passenger van with seven people up this really steep hill. Keep in mind, all the cars here are stick shifts… At one point we stalled out because the car was having trouble and I watched a bunch of smoke come up from the hood. Derek pulled over and got out. Also keep in mind, sometimes the roads can be very narrow in Costa Rica, like barely wide enough for two cars. We had to stop on one of those roads. So we were pulled over with our blinkers on waiting for our engine to cool down… in the dark. Thankfully the engine cooled down in like 10 or 15 minutes and we made it the rest of the way safely.  

When we finally got there we had a great meal in the cabins where the group is staying and then we walked down the mountain a little ways for a nice bonfire. One of the workers got the fire started for us but we realized we didn’t have anything to put the marshmallows on to roast them over the fire to make s’mores. There were plenty of sticks around they were just dirty. I asked if anyone had a knife we could  use to just whittle a little off a tip so it would be cleaner. No one had a knife. I was wishing my dad was there, I knew he would have been prepared with a knife for us. But thankfully the worker broke some green twigs off a bush for us to use.  It was a nice night for a fire and it was good to fellowship with others for a while, especially after being home alone all day.

Christine is back too! So it’ll be good to have her company again. Keep praying for me as I seek out what sort of big things God has for me, in Costa Rica but also in the states.

The Costa Rica Mission: Connecting

Day 13: July 24, 2012

My day was supposed to start off with another spiritual scavenger hunt in Heredia. I got to the church at 9am because we were supposed to leave then. But the team wasn’t at the church yet. We waited, and waited, and waited. The school dog Negra was happy to have the company. She kept coming up to me and wanting me to pet her and she kept putting her paws up on my  stomach. She was making me laugh and made me miss my own pets.

 and finally around 10:30 they showed up but it had already been decided that they wouldn’t do the scavenger hunt and instead they were going to do a service project at the school. Whoops! It happens though, everyone is so busy with the team that sometimes we forget to tell everyone what’s going on. I hung out at the church until lunch time and after that I walked home.

It was, of course, raining for the walk home. Thankfully I had my umbrella to use. I was really confused when I saw a sea of umbrellas up ahead coming down the road. There must have been like fifty to one hundred people just walking down the road with umbrellas. When I got closer and saw them following a mini-van that had flowers on top of it, I realized that it was a funeral procession. I tried to stay off to the other side of the road and stay out of their way and not stare. I don’t know what the common courtesy is when you see a funeral procession here. So I open I wasn’t being offensive by just walking past. Hopefully if anyone was offended they could just tell I was a gringa (white girl) and understood I just didn’t know.

I had several hours at home before I had to go back to eat dinner. I spent it working on a new social media ministry I am going to launch soon. I have had many good conversations online with people over the course of the past year or so. I’ve even been able to lead someone to Christ through Facebook. Social media and internet has made the world very small. God has really laid it on my heart over the past couple of weeks to start a more official form of social media ministry. So I spent my free time yesterday planning. I have decided to call it “Open Connection Media Ministries.” My theme is to encourage people to connect openly with each other and also with God. I’m really excited about it and I am excited to see where God takes it! My dream is to be able to instant message and even skype with people in order to evangelize with them. You can help support me by liking the Facebook page when it opens or following it on other social media sites. And pray that God would use it for great good.

After dinner, our church and another church that’s in San Jose had a worship night together. It was a good time. My prayer was that God would set my heart on fire for him. I couldn’t help feeling during my worship that there was something I was missing and I wanted more. But God revealed to me that I was seeking out an emotional high and not the truly deep joy and peace that he offers. My prayer is that I will be more passionate for God and that I will have pure joy in my worship because I am so overwhelmed with him. The harsh truth is that I really like God right now, but I’m still working on loving him wholeheartedly. My prayer is that God would work through me and fill me and overwhelm me with him. I prayed again that God would rid me of myself and replace me with Jesus so that I could see the world through his eyes and have his heart for people. I also prayed that God would do such big things through me that I would be unable to be proud about it because I knew it had nothing to do with myself. I can tell God is going to show me something really big and life changing in the next few weeks. Pray for me as he reveals it to me.

There was a BEAUTIFUL sunset lastnight.

The Costa Rica Mission: Interruptions

Day 12: July 23, 2012

I got to sleep in this morning! What a blessing! I was able to sleep in until 11am which was so nice! I have rarely been able to sleep in at all since I’ve been here. I went about getting ready for the day. I smiled to myself when I thanked God for a lukewarm shower. Hot water doesn’t run out of the showers or faucets in normal places in Costa Rica. There is only cold water. But Christine has something called a ducha which is a shower head that heats up the water for you. The trick is that you have to take very low pressure showers. And the last time I showered I couldn’t get it to work. So I was so glad this morning when it worked and I had a warm shower instead of a cold one!

After serving lunch, Anna and I got dropped off at a bank in Barva so that I could withdraw some more colones. To get back to San Pedro, we rode the bus. I think that was the first time I’d really ever ridden a public bus anywhere before. It’s funny that my first time would be in Costa Rica and not Pittsburgh (my mom is either rolling her eyes or shaking her head right now as she reads this because she’s always made fun of me for not wanting to ride the pat bus). Once I got back home I had a few hours to relax.

I was laughing at myself today because in my free time, I began working on a research project just for my own personal use. I want to do research on speaking in tongues and the Holy Spirit because I have not been taught much about those things growing up. But instead of taking one person’s word for it, I’d rather look at what the Bible says. I could get a thousand different opinions from a thousand different people, but the truth is in the Bible. Pray for me as I seek truth.

I went back to the school for dinner and then from there we left for San Pedro to do some street evangelism. We had a group of guys doing some dancing to draw a crowd and then we dispersed to go talk to people. Me and another lady had two people translating for us that attend a partner church in San Pedro. The girl, Astrid, I had met last week. She is very sweet and I really like her. The guy’s name was Tato. Tato doesn’t look like your average church goer. He has long hair, sleeves of tattoos on both arms, large gauges in his ears, double lip piercing, and a nose ring.  And he was wearing skinny jeans, a graphic t-shirt, and a hat. But when we approached the first girl and started talking to her, he took off and began witnessing to her. I was watching him evangelize to her and I realized that in some ways and in some instances, he could evangelize in ways that I was unable to. He could reach people that thought church was all about religion and looking nice and perfect. He could show people that young people who are into some of the latest styles and things can have a relationship with God too. And even though I couldn’t really understand what he was saying in Spanish as he witnessed, I could tell he had such passion for Jesus but also for the person he was speaking with. He was just a really sweet guy. Just goes to show that Jesus isn’t concerned with your outward appearance, what he cares about is your heart.

After we had talked to two different people, we approached two girls sitting on a bench together. We tried to start a conversation with them but we were interrupted by a middle aged man trying to sell us pens. Astrid began talking to this man instead of the girls. Astrid was talking with this man for sometime and I was beginning to get frustrated because I wanted to get back to evangelizing to these girls. I was really frustrated when the girls left because Astrid had started talking with this man instead and another friend had met up with them. But then the man sat down with us and Astrid explained to me that he was already a Christian but he was very angry with God and with himself because of things that had been happening in his life. I could tell as he spoke with Astrid that he was hurting inside and needed help. I shared with him a little of my testimony, just about how I was angry with myself because I felt very guilty for some things I had done. But God had shown me how much he loved me and showed me that he could fix my brokenness, and I didn’t have to do it by myself. We talked with him for a while and prayed at the end of our talk. He gave us all free pens before we departed.

I didn’t find this out until afterward, but when he had first come up to us, Astrid didn’t miss a beat. She told him, “We can’t offer you money but we can offer you prayer.” He agreed and began talking with Astrid. I immediately thought about Acts 3:6 when the crippled man asks Peter for money and Peter responds, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” I was so concerned about evangelizing to those girls that I would have missed out on encouraging a man who needed to be encouraged. I wouldn’t have realized that God had brought someone who needed to be ministered to right to me instead of me going up to them. I wasn’t willing to be interrupted. But in ministry, you have to be willing to be interrupted because that interruption might be the very person God wants you to minister to. What if Peter hadn’t been willing to be interrupted that day? What if he had just waved his hand at the crippled man and said, “Sorry can’t talk! I have to get to the next place so I can share the gospel!” He would have missed out on ministering to a man who needed healing and Jesus.

Sometimes showing up for a divine appointment means you have to be willing to be interrupted. 

The Costa Rica Mission: Not So Different

Day 11: July 22, 2012

My day started off with church. I’ve decided that one of the biggest differences between church in the USA compared to church in Latin America is that in Latin America, the congregation can actually clap on beat. Pastor Rene has been taking some time off to get healthy and get some rest. So instead we had people from the two different teams share with us. It worked out just fine in the end.

After church I came home and skyped with Karli. She’s a friend of mine from high school that has been such a blessing to me in the past couple of years. She is an inspiration to me because her faith is so strong. Karli is leaving on a plane at 6 am Monday morning for Haiti. She’s going there with her youth group but when they leave to come home, she will be staying. She doesn’t have many of the details yet, but she has told God she would go without all of the details because she knows he has called her to this. I was so glad I got the chance to talk and pray for her before she leaves. As you are keeping me in your prayers, also keep Karli in your prayers. She is living a radical life for Jesus and she needs the prayer as well!

After a nice nap I left for the church again to begin helping out with dinner. I was the only one other than the cooks there to help because everyone else had gone with the team. So I had to try to communicate with these Spanish speaking cooks to see what I could do. It was a little rough but we eventually got the point and got things set up.

After dinner, I went with the team on some house visits. I have seen the outside of many houses, but I had yet to be inside any of them other than Christine’s house. It broke my heart. This family, a young couple and their baby girl, didn’t even have flooring. The walls were made of patched together metal that is typically used on roofing here. They didn’t even own the house, it was a back room of another house. They don’t even have a bathroom or a kitchen. The living room, dining room, and bedroom are all the same room. And there was one other small room where some other things were stored. The only reason there were two rooms is because they had hung curtains up to divide it. Their home was similar to a large shed in the US. And on top of the very little they had in their home, they have to move out in about a week because the person that was renting them their home was subletting. They need a new home and they have no where to go. They don’t know what they’re going to do.

It puts things into perspective, we get upset when our air conditioning or heating isn’t working. We worry about dust bunnies being visible on our hard wood floors. We get upset when sometimes stains the carpet. We may be less likely to buy a house if the bathroom is too small or if there’s only one in the house. And yet there are so many people in other places that don’t have the luxury of worrying about those things. They’re more concerned about keeping a roof over their heads than anything else, they’re not so concerned about the quality. I don’t realize how blessed I truly am.

The wife goes to church and is saved but her husband has fallen away from the church. We talked to him about Jesus and he basically said that he wanted to get other things right in his life before he came to Jesus and committed. But he wants to set a good example for his children, he’s just not sure he’s good enough to come to Jesus. It’s amazing that even in a third world country, someone who basically lives in a shed has many of the same questions, doubts, and misconceptions that people living in mansions in the USA have. It’s just another reminder to me that we’re all not as different as we think we are.

And that connects with my devotions from today. I was reading in Acts 10 today and it’s the chapter where God reveals to Peter that after Jesus’ death, nothing is considered impure anymore. Peter realizes that God doesn’t show favoritism and now even gentiles can come to Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit because they had been made pure through the death of Jesus.

And that can apply to us today as well, whether it’s someone living in the states or in Costa Rica or anywhere else, God doesn’t choose favorites. We’re all his children and he loves all of us the same. That means that everyone needs to know about Jesus because the gift is offered to all nations. And as Peter also says in Acts 10:42, we have been commanded to share the gospel. It’s not a calling or just something we do if we feel like it, it’s a commandment from God, not an option.

I am enjoying Costa Rica and I am getting a lot of good experience and learning so much here. I am so glad I came. But during the time I have spent here so far, I find that my heart has been aching for the condition of my own country. It’s amazing how God has given me such a heart for ministry in the states when several years ago I was sure I’d be overseas. I’m not sure if this means God has called me to be in the states, but it’s a definite possibility. But no matter where I am, I am commanded to share the gospel with all nations, that means overseas but also the one I was born in.

Isaiah 6:8 “Here am I, Lord send me.”

The Costa Rica Mission: Puzzle Pieces

Day 10: July 21, 2012

Today was a pretty normal day. Our next team from Concord United Methodist Church arrived and all seemed to go well. I enjoyed helping Christine with her weekly trip to Cinco Esquinas. We had a different team help out and it was a lot of fun. It’s so fun to watch Christine with the kids because she is so passionate about it. It’s inspiring. After Cinco Esquinas I went back to the church and Anna and I spent most of the day cleaning an office that had been disassembled so that some construction work could be done while Victory team was still here. After that I helped out with office work and some secretarial stuff like making copies or making corrections, etc. That’s what I spent most of my day doing.

The highlight of my day was my devotions. I’ve been reading through Acts and today I was reading chapter 9. I went into my devotions with the spiritual attack that’s been happening to our church on my heart. I read the story of Paul and the start of his ministry, and the story of Peter healing Aeneas and bringing Dorcas back to life. There were a lot of shorter stories all packed into one chapter of the Bible.

I started thinking about how this might apply to me or to the spiritual warfare we have been undergoing. And I realized that they were all events that God eventually orchestrated together to form one big event. Each of those events were just one piece of the puzzle that came together to make the big picture. And all of those events in that one chapter of the Bible started off in a bad way. Saul was on his way to persecute all of the Christians. Aeneas had been paralyzed for eight years! Dorcas died! These are all really bad things!

But God used all of those bad events and used them for his glory. Saul was converted and became a great missionary for Christ. Aeneas was healed from his paralysis. Dorcas was brought back to life. God had a plan for each of these bad events. They were all puzzle pieces that came together to form the big picture. God does the same with some of the bad events that happen in our lives. When we are undergoing trials and stressful times, it’s important to remember they are all part of the big picture.

After reading Acts 9, God also gave me this prayer for Leaders for Christ Costa Rica based off of the chapter. “God, raise up strong leaders among us. If there is anyone who is paralyzed in their faith and feels stuck, mobilize them and pull them closer to you. If there is anyone who feels dead in spirit, restore life to them. And work all of these pieces of puzzle together for your good.”

The Costa Rica Mission: What a Day!

Day 9: July 21, 2012

Wow! What a day it has been! Okay where to start… I guess the beginning is a good place to start.

I started the day off bright and early by waking up around 5:30 AM in order to be to the church by 6. I was meeting Mrs. Duffy and Anna, Paige, and Molly. Today we had decided to go to the beach. I stopped at the bakery to buy something to eat for lunch at the beach. It was a different one than the one I usually go to and it doesn’t have the names of things in the window. I had a hard time trying to tell this guy what I wanted! Thank goodness there was another man standing right next to me that spoke English and he was able to help me out. So I made it to the church and we were on our way to the beach. We got there without any problems although it did take a long time to get there driving over the mountains, although we did get to see some great views of the mountains. Once we got to the beach we swam in the ocean, which was the perfect temperature and had the perfect amount of waves. There was so much wildlife! The monkeys would come right up to you and try to take your food or other things out of your bag. The raccoons were the same way. I also got to see a neat lizard. As I was laying on the beach of a Pacific coast ocean watching the monkeys in the trees right above me, I thought to myself, “I wonder what all the Pittsburghers are doing.”

Eventually we left the beach and what should have been about three or three and half hour drive home turned into about four and half hours. We were so lost! We got off the highway and were unsure of which way to go. But we were pretty sure we were going the right way because we all were recognizing some landmarks and stores. On our way up one of the mountains we saw a fallen down billboard. When we had seen it the first time we had mentioned it and talked about it and we realized that we had gotten turned around and were heading in the same direction we had just come from.  But that wasn’t the worst of it. I don’t know if we made more wrong turns or if we hadn’t understood the directions we’d been given. But we were so lost and had no idea where we were going! I think we asked seven different people for directions. Finally, after all of that, we made it back to the church.

When I was thinking about a Biblical application for the day I thought of how many people in the world are lost the same way we were on the way home. It’s really scary to be lost! And it’s even worse if you don’t realize you’re lost because you end up moving backwards instead of forwards. We asked seven or eight different people for help. And while none of them got us the whole way on their own, each every one of them helped us take the next step in the right direction. Evangelizing to the lost people of the world is the same way. We may not always get to be the person that leads someone to Christ, but that doesn’t mean that sharing the gospel is a waste. Because every time we share the gospel we are planting a seed, helping them to get one step further to where they need to be, giving them direction. Sharing the gospel is never a waste.

We returned to the church and had to get right to work! Victory team was having their farewell dinner which ran late. We had another team coming in around midnight and another coming in tomorrow. There was a lot that had to be done in order to prepare for them. We were finally getting ready to leave the church and we gathered in the lobby getting the last few things done. Pastor Rene was there too and he was complaining of being really cold. He was even shivering! David, somebody else involved with the ministry, had warned us a couple days ago that Pastor had been complaining that his forearm really hurt and his chest felt tight. So when we saw him shivering like that on a night that really wasn’t too cold we all started to get concerned. He made it to the car and that’s when he started shaking, not just shivering. He got out of the car and he was kind of bent over holding his head and chest. We got out of the car and laid our hands on him and immediately began praying for him. I could feel his shaking body under my hand and was really concerned. It got to the point that he could hardly stand with his own strength. He was also holding his chest and moaning a bit. He had said that he knew it was spiritual attack.

We called the medic to come and in the meantime we all prayed together while we waited for them. I just kept remembering my own sickness and how God had healed me then. I sang the lyrics of Healer by Kari Jobe over and over again and prayed for complete healing for Pastor Rene. Eventually the medics showed up in an ambulance and took Pastor Rene into the ambulance on a stretcher to examine him. During this time we kept praying. “Satan, you have no place in this place or in this man’s body, in the name of Jesus Christ the son of God, I command you to leave this place!” I prayed. Eventually the medic came out and talked to Pastora Elena. She came over and told us, “They say that his heart is fine. They said it is stress but we know it’s spiritual.” He had basically had an anxiety attack. They gave Pastor some relaxers and sent him home with Pastora. Pray for Pastor and his family but also for all of the team with Leaders for Christ Costa Rica who are going to have a very busy and stressful week this week. But I just keep reminding myself that Satan is a really sore loser, so if he decided to attack our leader in such a way as he did tonight, he must really want to stop this week from happening. I guess that means God has some really big things planned.

Some of the team is meeting tomorrow morning at 10 AM to pray for this week and we will also be fasting for a period of time. Keep us in your prayers. Pray that Satan would be too scared to set foot anywhere we are going because the power of God is so strong within us. Pray that all of us would be protected from spiritual attack. And pray that things would go smoothly and it would be a stress free week!

The Costa Rica Mission: Forgiveness

Day 8: July 19, 2012

Today was a fairly empty and yet relaxing day. I didn’t have to help with breakfast this morning so instead I got to sleep in a little. But I still got up around 8AM. It was weird to have so much free time in the morning! But it was also nice. I cleaned my room up and got a few others things done. But I also took the time to read my Bible. And it is so interesting to see how God took the theme of my devotions and related it to much of what was spoken on in church tonight.

This morning’s devotions were in Acts 7. It’s the story of Stephen being stoned. What struck me most about the story is Stephen’s willingness to forgive. Often times we as humans encourage grudges or bitterness for a while if it seems reasonable. For examples, someone killed your son, yeah you have a right to hold a grudge! Someone raped your daughter? Of course you have reason to be bitter! Someone broke into your house and robbed all of your valuables? You take your sweet time forgiving them! We have tricked ourselves into believing that holding grudges, if the reason is legitimate enough, is okay! We are also under the impression that it takes a lot of time to forgive someone who has really hurt you. But let’s look at the story of Stephen again.

Acts 7:54-60 “When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep."

Stephen forgave the people murdering him WHILE they were murdering him! He didn’t need a few years to hold the grudge and work on forgiving them. He forgave them for their wrong in the midst of them doing it! Would you be able to forgive someone for killing your son while they were stabbing him? Would you be able to forgive someone for raping your daughter while they were doing it? Would you be able to forgive someone for robbing you while they were in your house taking your stuff? Probably not… not by yourself that is.

There is one very important part of the story of Stephen to take note of. In Acts 7:55 it says Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit. He had the spirit of God in him and living through him. It was not by Stephen’s own power that he was able to forgive these people killing him. It was the spirit of God in him, helping him to do this, the same spirit that was in Jesus when he cried out for God to forgive those crucifying him. Forgiveness is really hard and is a process and takes a long time and it’s easier to be bitter… when we are trying to do it by ourselves. Forgiveness is a lot easier when you let Jesus fill you through the Holy Spirit giving you his power and strength to forgive unconditionally.

I struggle with forgiveness. I mean I really struggle with forgiveness! I have been hurt a lot in life, and often by people closest to me which can hurt even more. I have reasons to hold some grudges and be bitter. But I don’t want to hold them anymore! Tonight at worship God really laid it on my heart that in order to love on the people here in Costa Rica and other places in the world, I need to love the people that have hurt me as well. Part of following God’s will for my life, as shared in the sermon tonight, is being able to love. That means even loving the people that have deeply hurt me.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Let’s see… love is patient… yeah I’m not so good at that. Love is kind, not only to friends but also enemies… yeah, nope. Love does not envy or boast… not my weakest areas… not my strongest either. Love is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, not easily angered… yeah I’m not too good at those either. Love keeps NO record of wrongs… no grudges, no bitterness, no anger because of the past. The Bible doesn’t say, “When not given a reason to be otherwise, love is patient, kind, doesn’t envy or boast, isn’t proud, dishonoring to others, self-seeking, easily angered, and doesn’t keep records of wrongs.” Love is all of those things IN SPITE OF what other people do. That means loving people, even the ones that have hurt you, with all of those same qualities listed in 1 Corinthians 13.

But I can’t do it on my own, I need God’s help. I need his spirit dwelling in me and working in mighty ways in my heart. I need his spirit to defeat my own sinful desire to hang onto the grudge and to forgive instead. There’s no way I can forgive others on my own, it’s too difficult, too radical. Like Stephen, I need to have Jesus working in my life and through my heart in order to forgive in a radical way.

“God, get rid of the ‘Lindsey’ in me and instead replace me with Jesus.”

Forgiveness, Matthew West

The Costa Rica Mission: Being Thankful

Day 7: July 17, 2012

Our first activity of the day was going to a home for the disabled called Manos Abiertas (Open Hands). We spent some time there with the residents. We made balloon animals and gave them hats and let them draw on some dry erase boards. Mostly we just spent some time playing with them. One of the guys was completely decked out in balloons. He had hats and arms full of animals and swords and necklaces and anything else he could possibly have. He was so fun to watch because he was having a blast. Being there was sobering for me because I just kept thinking that if I had not been healed of my brain infection three years ago I could be in the same position that they are. But working with disabled adults is hard for me, I’m not as skilled with them as I am working with children or teens. But it’s good for me to do anyway because it stretches me! I was heartbroken when one of the residents was just standing there. I asked her about the balloon animals she was holding and she threw them down. I picked them back up for her, but when I looked into her eyes it was like I could see how frustrated she was. At that moment in time she wasn’t just a resident with a disability, she was a real hurting human being. I could see that she was having all of the same thoughts I have, she just can’t communicate them in the same way. It reminded me to be thankful that God healed me from my mental disability and that I am now able to live a normal life.

After Manos Abiertas, we ate lunch and then headed to another community to do some evangelizing and playing with kids. We had a TON of kids! If I had to guess how many there were I would guess around 100 to 150. And we were all playing and teaching in this small cul-de-sac in a neighborhood. We were very close to an area that was run down and similar to the community we had been to before. But some houses further up a hill in that area were a lot nicer, while ones down the hill were in pretty rough condition. This area was called Guacima. We had a hard time controlling all of the kids! Unfortunately we weren’t as prepared as we should have been and I had to keep telling kids that we didn’t have anymore gifts for them and that they needed to share with each other. I was impressed with how grateful these kids were just to have a bracelet or coloring book or bouncy ball. Those little things caused them to form a mob around us! That’s how thankful they were for those things.

During our time there I tried to help one lady on the team understand what a little boy was saying to her and vise versa. We found out that this little boy’s name is Antony. He just kind of stole my heart in a way, I could just tell how sweet he was. He was doing a lot better at sharing with the other kids and he was glad when we gave him a New Testament in Spanish. At one point when we were sitting on the grass talking with him, he pointed at the ankle bracelet that I had made with the Lakeshore youth group during the 30 Hour Famine and said that he liked it. I worked on getting it untied and then took it over to him a little later. “Recuerde siempre que Jesus te ama, y yo tambien. (Always remember that Jesus loves you and so do I.)” I said. He just smiled and nodded at me and said thank you once I had helped him tie the bracelet around his wrist. Later I got a picture with him and he told me he wanted to be a pastor someday. Pray for Antony and children like him that have these desires, pray that he will have the resources to pursue dreams like this. A bracelet, so many kids in the United States would look the bracelet over and go straight for the phone in my hands instead. But Antony was grateful to have the bracelet, he didn’t need anything else. He was thankful with the little I had given him.

From the Guacima neighborhood we headed over to a church for a service. And wow was their service different! First off, they are renting the building they are in. But in the states we wouldn’t have even considered this building worthy of renting to have church. It was just a big empty warehouse type thing. They didn’t have a big wooden cross in the front or fancy pews and other gold decorations. They didn’t even really have walls on one side of the building. They had a portable sound system and they didn’t have a worship team. But for everything that they don’t have they make up for in spirit! I was a little worried about worship when I heard CD’s playing, but my goodness! By the end of the worship time most of the people there were dancing and shouting out together. It was convicting to me, because churches in the United States often base their quality of worship off of how good the team is, not how good their God is! We could all learn a big lesson from the people down here that have so little and yet have so much more joy in the word of God than we ever express in our big comfortable churches in the States. Even though their conditions weren’t the best, they were thankful anyway.

 

It’s been a week since I’ve been in Costa Rica now. I can’t decide if it’s gone fast or slow, I think it’s been a little of both. As I am experiencing other churches and customs I have developed a lot of questions and I am re-evaluating some of my own opinions. But my prayer in the long run is that God would reveal truth to me. Pray for me as I seek this truth in Costa Rica. And pray also that God will continue to give me his heart and eyes for the people here.

The Costa Rica Mission: Jasmina

Day 6: July 17, 2012

The started off with me helping with breakfast. We had pancakes this morning and they were very good. Right after breakfast I went with the team on a “Spiritual Scavenger Hunt.” We broke up into groups of five or six and took translators with us. We had a list of things to accomplish like take a picture with six kids, find ten pieces of chewed gum, trade something fairly useless for something of value, find a clump of pigeon poop, or get a copy of yesterday’s newspaper. But it also had some serious things like pray with someone for healing or go and talk to someone you feel God is leading you to.

We found an older lady with a cane and asked her if we could pray for her. She said she had a lot of pain in her right leg and that there had been a time where she couldn’t walk at all. So we prayed for continued healing. I smiled during the prayer when I looked down and saw that her husband that was with her was missing part of his pointer finger. It reminded me of my own grandpa all the way back in Nebraska. Once again I was reminded that we aren’t so different after all. When we were finished praying the lady smiled and said that her heart was happy now. As we turned to leave I noticed a lady in a blue shirt and blue ball cap uniform watching us. She was handing out flyers in the park. We looked around to see how we might complete the next task and another girl in my group was saying she felt like we needed to pray with someone in the area we were in. I looked over at the lady who had gone back to handing out flyers and really felt like we should talk to her but the group had started talking to a guy with a bicycle. But he said he already had Jesus in his heart and he didn’t have anything in particular we could pray for him about. “Well I guess he wasn’t the one,” one of the girls said as we walked away from him. “Let’s go talk to that lady over there,” I said, “She was watching us really intently when we were praying for healing.” So we approached her and started talking with her.

While translation was a little rough at first, she was basically asking for prayer for her son who is prison in Nicaragua because someone had framed him. We asked her about her relationship with God and she said she had been in the church but had walked away from it because she had strayed from God. The other girl in our group shared parts of her testimony with her and encouraged her that God loved her no matter what. “Have you been hurt by the church?” I asked her. “Yes, very much,” she responded. We continued to encourage her that just because people in the church judged her doesn’t mean God is judging her in the same way. We asked her if she wanted to recommit her life to Christ and she was hesitant at first because she thought she had to go to church to do it. But we told her she could do it right there. We prayed for her as she recommitted her life to Christ. When we were done she reminded her about praying for her son, but that time she led us in the prayer! Afterwards she asked for information about our church and we gave her directions and she gave us a phone number. This woman, Jasmina, broke my heart. But I was so glad we were able to go and talk to her. I hope to see her in church on Sunday.

The Costa Rica Mission: Perspective

Day 5: July 16, 2012
Today was a nice relaxing day for me. I still woke up and had to help out with breakfast and later had to help with lunch. But then for most of the other activities that day, since I wasn’t scheduled to go and help, I would go home and rest instead. It was good to have a more relaxed day. I even had the luxury of being able to take a nap! And it was good to Skype with Mom and Dad for a while. 

During some of my free time today I was sitting on the balcony of my house. I noticed a neighbor man saying something or other to somebody. I don’t know what it is about language, but it can be such a barrier between people! In that moment I realized I was looking at that man almost like he was an alien, or like he was completely foreign to me. I realized I’ve been seeing a lot of the Ticos that way. I don’t just mean “foreign” in the sense of having a different skin color. I mean he seemed like a completely different species in some sense, he seemed almost unusual. I started to think about why that man and many other people seem so foreign to me just because they speak another language. I know that they are people just as much as I am, but it’s so hard to remember that when I can’t understand what someone is saying or why someone is doing a certain thing. My prayer is that God will not only give me a heart for these people, but that God will give me HIS heart for these people. I don’t want these people to just be a face in the crowds of Costa Rica. I want it to hit home that these are real people just like me. There’s nothing unusual about them, they’re just different. But they are exactly the way God created them to be. It’s all about perspective.


But later in the day, after dinner, I went with the team to go do some evangelism. Originally we were going to go a park, but it was dark and the park is known for being dangerous at night so not many people were there. Instead we relocated to a plaza outdoors in San Jose. One of the staff members had some of his friends doing hip hop dancing so that we could attract a crowd. Once we had a lot of people, the team split up and started talking and attempting to evangelize with people there. I didn’t do any evangelizing myself, although Christine was able to pray with a young man. So that was good! She seemed confident that he understood what she had told him. But what really struck me about San Jose was all of the homeless people that would just come right up to you and ask for money. I’m used to seeing homeless people in the city. But the ones I’m most used to aren’t so bold as to come right up to you asking for money. But what was even more of an eye opener was that there were children walking around to us trying to sell things like coloring books or other things to try to get money. Children! I wonder if I will ever truly understand how blessed my childhood was compared to those of so many other children around the world. The only time I ever sold anything as a kid was when I set up a lemonade stand at the end of my drive way for fun! I never had to try to sell things in the middle of the city to strangers because I needed to make money. It helped me to get some perspective.


I guess a lot of things in life or in this world all come down to getting some perspective.

 This is my house in Costa Rica. That's the balcony I enjoy sitting on when I have free time. Many of the houses have bars in front of them like this because theft is such a big problem here.

This is a stop sign in Costa Rica, I just get a kick out of them, maybe because it's different.

The Costa Rica Mission: Learning

Day 4: July 16, 2012

I got up bright and early and got ready to walk to church. I made sure I had my umbrella, because as usual it was raining. I helped set things up for breakfast and made sure everything was where it needed to be. A lady and her daughter came into the rancho where breakfast was being prepared. This lady greeted me in Spanish and I did my best to greet her back. Then I heard her speaking in good English to another team member. She then said something else to me a little later in Spanish and I was having a hard time understanding her. I apologized in English for being out of it and not understanding. She was confused, she thought I was a Tico! She thought I was the daughter of the woman that was cooking. I guess I’m glad I blend in rather than stand out. It wasn’t long before it was time for church to start.

Everything was translated into English because so many of us are from the US. Worship was pretty cool. The Ticos are so much more excited during worship! There was no holding back from many of them. The pastor of the Victory church mission team gave the message and preached on the Holy Spirit and its importance. It was definitely a very different church service than I am used to, and not just because it’s in a different country. But it was still good and it will help me to learn more about other churches and customs.

After church, we rushed off to a small restaurant with the team. We all ate there and I enjoyed practicing some Spanish with a girl from the church, Nati. She also speaks English so it was helpful to practice with someone that understood my mistakes and helped me correct them. Like when I said, “Voy a Texas en enero de dos mil once.” She said, “Fui? Fui a Texas?” Then I realized that I had previously told her, “I go to Texas in January of 2011.” Oops!

After lunch we hurried to “Zamora” which is a pretty rundown area. The Costa Rican government made the people there move their homes so they could make them nicer ones but the government isn’t helping them to rebuild the homes the people had to move. But the houses seem to be made out of anything the people can find. I didn’t think Christine’s house was super nice, the walls are pretty thin and it’s a small house with a lot of ants in the kitchen. Not to mention the only way you can have a hot shower is if you keep the water pressure really low and you can't flush toilet paper, you have to throw it away. Compared to a lot of homes in the USA it’s not a very nice house or place to live. But compared to some of the other houses I have seen, it is a really nice house. After all, it has tiled floors and a fence and electricity and running water. I guess it all just comes down to perspective.

We took the team there to start making relationships with the people in that area. Some of played with the kids for the hour and half that we were there. Others went door to door to get to know the people and there were even some salvations. We played with sidewalk chalk and did hopscotch and four square. We had jump ropes and balls to play with the kids. We had bubbles (burbujos) for the kids to play with too. “Es un regalo?” One of the girls asked me wondering if it was a gift. “Si, es un regalo pero necesita compartir con los otros chicos.” (Yes, it’s a gift but you need to share with the other kids.) I had fun just walking around and blowing bubbles and taking pictures. It started off that there were more team members than kids. But it wasn’t long until the kids outnumbered us.

Since we had a limited number of translators and many of them were playing with other kids, we often had to try to understand what was being said to us on our own. What was really cool was that I got into a situation where I was the only one in one area of the place we were playing that spoke some Spanish. So I was translating at one point! Yes! You heard me right! I, me, Lindsey, was translating! I had practiced saying, “El otro grupo viene la proxima semana.” (another group is coming next week) to a guy that was standing there with the kids. And it just so happened that some of the members of the Victory Team wanted to ask him some questions.

“How are you?” someone asked.

“Como estan?” I asked him and the woman standing next to him.

“Are these girls your daughters?” a woman asked.

“Sus hijas (Your daughters)?” I said pointing to the little girls.

“No, son mis sobrinas. Soy sus tio. (No, they’re my nieces, I am their uncle).”

The conversation continued and some of the team was asking him questions like what his favorite kind of music was. He told us that he was a reggae singer but he sang only for Jesus. He even had business cards and he passed them out to us. Then he sang us one of his songs. It was really cool. I translated for about five minutes or so before I got stuck and needed help. It was definitely a confidence boost for me. I really enjoyed Zamora. I can’t wait to go back next week with our next mission team that’s coming.

After Zamora we went back to the church to have dinner and then get ready for the free movie night the church was hosting. We all started by playing games outside the church. We had free temporary tattoos and other ball games going on. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far through our movie. The projector kept overheating and shutting off! So we called it quits on the movie and improvised. Christine did some goofy songs with the kids in the front. They were songs like Father Abraham and others with the same concept. Then the Victory Team put on a drama and one of their leaders gave a little gospel presentation. So I think everything still worked out. Plus everyone got free popcorn and drinks. It was definitely a good reminder that you have to be prepared for anything in ministry!

So that’s pretty much day 4. I have to be up bright and early again tomorrow morning to be back at the church to set up breakfast! So it’s off to bed for me now. Until then!

 Me with some of the girls I had been playing with.

 This is one part of Zamora.

All the children had fun with the bubbles.