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.
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