Number the Stars

Psalm 147:1-5

¹Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God;

for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.

² The LORD builds up Jerusalem;

he gathers the outcasts of Israel.

³He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.

⁴He determines the number of the stars;

he gives to all of them their names.

⁵ Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;

his understanding is beyond measure.

Tonight, when I got home from dinner with friends, I stopped in the driveway to look up at the stars. They're beautiful, and farther away than I can even understand. God, my great God, created these giant stars that are so distant, and yet still give us light. He gave each and every one of them a name. The universe is so vast, that we can't even measure it, and yet, God can measure it in his hand.

Isaiah 40:12

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,

or weighed the mountains on the scales

and the hills in a balance?

When I think about that, it puts my own worries in perspective. God is powerful. He is way bigger than we comprehend. There is NOTHING he cannot do, nothing that is too hard for him. My worries are revealed for just what they are- sin. Why do I worry? My God has promised to supply all my needs (Philippians 4:19). He has promised never to forsake me (Hebrews 13:5). He has promised to guide me (Psalm 32:8). How do I ever dare doubt that God can or will provide for me? Why do I ever feel the need to take care of myself? God is not even phased by my problem. He is not confused by how to deal with it. He placed the stars in place. He does not need my help for anything, and I can trust him completely.

I watched this video yesterday and recommend it. It begins to give you a glimpse of just how amazing, unfathomable and indescribable our God is. Watch parts 2-5 as well if you have the time.

Flowers of Costa Rica

I love to photograph flowers. They hold still, unless it's windy. They don't complain if you want to take multiple shots of them. And, generally speaking, my camera does an excellent job with close-ups. So, here is a photo book I made of some of the flowers I photographed while in Costa Rica.

Click here to view this photo book larger

What next?

Bogota, city of 7 million

City of the ciclovia, where 70 miles of city streets are shut down every Sunday as cyclists take to the streets.

City of the Transmilenio, an innovative bus rapid transit system

City of Rock al Parque, the biggest rock concert in Latin America

The city where the Lasix technique was invented.

But Bogotá is also a city where an average of 23 families who have been internally displaced showed up every day between 2001 and 2006.

It's a city where 1,886 street children were counted in 2006 and another 3,326 were working on the streets.

It's the city where Formando Vidas is working to change kids lives forever.

It's the city where I'll be headed in February, to join Formando Vidas for the next 2 years in the work they are doing. I'll learn through their Children at Risk school how best to serve children in difficult circumstances. And then, I'll serve them. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me there.

I'm home

I got in last night around 7. It's still hard to believe that the people I spent the last 5 months with are no longer around. I miss them. I also miss Spanish. Every once in awhile I say things in Spanish without thinking about it. I've almost thrown my toilet paper in the trash instead of flushing it several times already. I was seriously grateful for my hot shower with good water pressure this morning. I can't believe the options there are in our refrigerator. I loved being cozy in bed under a mountain of blankets against the cold, instead of waking up to the cool morning air.

Having my brothers and sister around makes it less lonely and difficult than it would be without them. They keep me smiling and laughing with their jokes and compliments. It's so good to see how much they too have changed and grown while I've been gone. I'm so excited that I get to spend more time with them over the next month and a half.

10 reasons I'll miss Costa Rica

We call ourselves “La Familia Rara”, the strange family. After living together 24/7 for the last 2 months, we truly feel like family. We have our own traditions- a song we sing for grace while holding hands, a special DTS handshake, and the way we end prayer times with a group huddle and “uno,dos,tres, JESUS!”. We have our own inside jokes (just say “fuego” and see what happens, or ask one of us to finish the phrase “donde yo voy. . .) We tease each other and sometimes we drive each other crazy, but mostly, we love one another.

Alex- We’re alike in so many ways. We even find ourselves saying the same thing, at the same time, with the same inflection. It drives Alex crazy, but I think it’s funny. She always encourages me, notices when I’m not feeling great, and asks me how I’m really doing and makes me answer. She also gives me great hugs. Her desire to draw close to God, and the ways I’ve seen her work on overcoming her own fears during this DTS are awesome.

Anna- has an infectious laugh and the largest repertoire of cartoon voices and fake accents of anyone I know. As the third youngest person in our group who is also one of our group leaders, she constantly impresses me with her maturity and ability to lead. Her passion for God and to draw others into a passionate relationship with him is a blessing.

JT- is such a servant leader. His humility and habit of being the first to volunteer for anything we need inspire us all. JT’s ever-optimistic predictions of what the next day holds (5 star hotels, catered food, swimming pools) always keep us laughing. JT is so hungry and willing to grow spiritually and has grown so much during this DTS. He and his wife are also expecting their first baby, a son, in April!

Katie- is generous and loves to share. She’s a Bible scholar- her love of learning and digging deeper into scripture and the things of God make me want to read more non-fiction. Katie is honest about her own struggles in ways that encourage me to be more open. You can also always count on Katie to make you laugh.

Lito- is a really good listener. As our only male leader, and the fact that he’s known for being serious and reflective has earned him the position of the honorary “father” of our family. He also has a goofy side though and I love the way he’s able to not take himself too seriously.

Luis- We all expect him to be an evangelist or a Pastor. Luis impresses us with his natural preaching ability, and the way he can approach perfect strangers and easily start a conversation about God. His smile never fails to make me smile in return and his craziness makes us all laugh.

Manny- is my biggest help and encourager with Spanish. He’s not afraid to correct my mistakes, but he also notices when I’ve learned something new. I love talking to Manny- he’s really animated when he tells about something that happened to him, and he’s always willing to listen to my stories. He’s really striving to hear and obey God’s voice.

Reanna- is everyone’s little sister. I love her exuberance. Her Panamanian phrases and excitement over little things make us smile. The freedom she has when she worships God and her love of prayer and willingness to pray in public encourage me to be more like her.

Rebeca- reminds me of a princess with her femininity and grace. She’s always friendly to everyone and has an ability to make people feel loved. Her desire to serve God is evident in her life, and as the youngest member of our group it’s really encouraging to see someone so young who is so dedicated to following God. I can’t wait to see how He uses her.

Rossela- is the wisest one in our group. She is good at giving hugs, encouragement, comfort, and advice. She loves to rejoice with us. Just being around Rossela makes me happy. We love to teach her new random English expressions like “gee golly” and “let’s blow this popsicle stand” so we can hear her say them in her amazing accent.

Free Hugs

This past week we've spent in Monteverde, a tourist hotspot in the cloud forest of Costa Rica. If you've heard about Costa Rica's ziplining tours, this is where they were born. It's also a good spot for tours of coffee plantations and hikes to see some of Costa Rica's amazing biodiversity.

We're not here as tourists though. Being a gringo in a tourist town, but not being there to do the usual tourist things is a bit unusual. In most of our other destinations the local church we worked with had our time booked with church services, youth activities, school presentations, and manual labor projects. Not so much here in Monteverde. We've had our fair share of church services and activities with the youth, but there is also a lot of time to be creative and reach out to the locals and tourists.

The downtown center of Santa Elena (where all the tour booking offices are, as well as more restaurants, bars, bakeries, hostels and internet cafes then I've seen in one place before) is very small, so we decided to make it our center of operations. One day we split up into groups and picked up trash. Another day we brought along a guitar and sang praise and worship songs by a fountain. Several people came over to talk to us and a guy named Chris from California even took a turn with the guitar and played "Better is one day in your Courts" for us. We started giving out free hugs too, which opened doors for more conversation.

While we were singing and hanging out, we noticed all the taxi drivers just watching us and decided it would be fun to do something to bless them. So, Friday night we cooked a big batch of rice and a pot of beans, and Saturday morning I made gallo pinto. All of us went into town, to give out gallo pinto and more free hugs. The free food opened lots of doors for conversation. There was a group of university students there interviewing foreigners for an English exam. I got to chat with one of the girls for quite awhile and shared about what we were doing and why.

The plan for tomorrow is to bake cookies and then pass them out with the gospel message in a bag. We're excited that people have noticed us and are talking about what we're doing. They're curious, and open to know more. At youth group on Saturday evening one of the girls told me that her Mom's friend, who is a taxi driver told her Mom about the group giving out free pinto. Pray that as we go back on Tuesday and Wednesday we'll be able to share the gospel een more clearly, and that people who have seen our practical ways fo loving them will be ready to accept God's eternal love for them.

Some of my favorite photos from outreach in Talamanca

Sunday, October 4

Today we officially started outreach. At 7 we were at the river loading all our luggage into a dugout canoe to start the trip to Shuabb.

Across the river and up the hill we waited for the tractor to come pick us up and drop us off at the church where we led the church service at 9.

Monday, October 5

We helped out around the church this morning, then Rossela and I headed over to the elementary school to see if they needed any help. They didn’t, but we enjoyed meeting the teacher and students.

Tuesday, October 6

Everyone here is so generous. They’ve brought us so much fresh fruit- bananas, plantains, pejiballes (the orange looking palm fruit in the front. They taste a bit like squash), lemons, and mamones (the prickly red fruit).

Wednesday, October 7

We left this morning on the tractor again. It was sad to say goodbye to the children we had made friends with.

Andy and Randy.

Thursday, October 8

Today was our free day. We went into Bribri to use the internet. Bribri is the biggest town around, and it’s not that big.

Saturday, October 10

There was extra time today for devotions and worship.

Today we went hiking to a waterfall with the church youth group.

Greetings from Bribri!

I´m writing from an internet cafe in Bribri, a small town in Talamanca Costa Rica. This part of Costa Rica is an indigenous reserve. We´ve been on outreach for about 2 weeks now. For the first 4 days we were in Shuabb which is a little community in the jungle. To get there you walk from Bambu (a town where the only phones are payphones and cell phones) down to the river. You pay a guy in a dugout canoe to take you across the river. Then you walk up the muddy hill to the road. If you´re lucky, you´ve talked to the guy with the tractor and he´s there to take you to Shuabb. Otherwise, you walk 4 kilometers to the village. We walked once and took the tractor once.

In Shuabb there is an elementary school with 19 students, 1 full time teacher and a teacher who comes once a week to teach Bribri, the indigenous language. There´s a small church and a lot of jungle. People´s houses are pretty spread out, some along the ¨main¨ road (only traffic I ever saw were the tractor guy and one motorcycle. I´m pretty sure you can´t get a car in there), some farther back on trails in the jungle.

While we were in Shuabb we spent the mornings helping with church projects- cleaning, repairing, and putting protective sealant on wood beams. We also started helping a guy in the community build a house, but had to stop since his beams weren´t cut yet. The afternoons we hid from the rain, rested, and planned for the evening. Each evening we were there we had an activity we invited the community to. The first night we had a movie night and showed The End of the Spear. The next night we had a children´s program and played games, did our favorite drama, and sang songs. We even got the adults to participate in some of the games. The last night we geared our program towards adults and had Katie share her testimony and broke into groups of men and women to share. However, Rossela and I took the kids out and played games and sang songs and told the story of David and Goliath by the light of 2 flashlights, so I don´t know exactly how it went.

The evenings with the community were really fun. We had about 20 people each night, a lot of families came back each night. It´s a very warm, welcoming culture, but the people in general are pretty shy. We couldn´t get the kids to anwer any questions during our children´s night activity! I think the Bribri culture in general is more punctual than Latin culture, which surprised me. People started showing up to our activities 15 minutes early and I think everyone was there by the start time. People kept bringing us gifts of food. Pejiballes (palm fruit) are pretty tasty. We also got a lot of mamones, which are like lychees. Bananas grow all over the place and we had 4 bunches by the time we left (bunches meaning the whole giant thing that growns on the tree). We had fresh oranges and lemons too.

Today we left Margarita, another small community, but not as indigenous or jungly as Shuabb. We spent 6 days there, working with the local church. We helped with several church services, did programs in 2 local elementary schools, helped with some work projects at a school and the church and hung out with the local kids and youth. The highlight of our time there for me was hiking with the youth from the church to a beautiful waterfall deep in the jungle. We had lunch there and went swimming in the pool at the bottom.

We´re spending the next couple of days in Volio, helping at a Mennonite church. On Monday we´ll head back to San Jose for a few days and I´ll post photos then!

Thank you for your prayers and giving!

Would you give me a soda?

Today was our last day of lecture phase. On Sunday we will begin a 4 day team-building challenge camp in the jungle, and then our outreach begins. During outreach we will be serving for 2 weeks in Talamanca, in an impoverished community. We'll be partnering with existing ministries, going into elementary schools and working with the Red Cross, among other things. After that we will head to Jacó, a beach town that also happens to have one of the highest rates of prostitution and child trafficking in the country. We'll be working there with youth from a very poor neighborhood along the river that feeds into the ocean.

Our outreach will take us to several more locations in Costa Rica over the next 2 months. There are 10 students in our group and an estimated group cost of $8,000 total for 2 months of missions for all 10 of us. We have half the money raised already, but still need around $4,000. Five of our students are Costa Ricans. Monthly wages here are around $200 and minimum wage is roughly $2 an hour, so for them, raising $800 is a much more difficult task than for those of us from the United States. Their friends, family, and churches don't have as much to give.

During lecture phase we read a book called Daring to Live on the Edge. It was about money and missions. One of the things that stuck out to me was the question, if you were at your friends house, would they be willing to give you a soda? Of course, the answer to that is almost universally yes. Their point was, that in support raising for missions, you just need a core group of friends who would give you a soda if you came to visit, who are willing to support you faithfully for just that amount.

So, that is what each of us is doing. We are all asking our friends, "Will you give me the price of a soda to support our outreach?" If every one of our friends gives a dollar, we'll be close to reaching our goal. Would you please give a dollar, or more if you feel led?

When you Confess with Your Mouth

I just finished reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan (I highly recommend it). The book provided a lot of food for thought. One of the things Francis says in his book is that lukewarm Christians are an oxymoron. If people claim to be Christians, but are not following God whole-heartedly, than they are not really Christians. That’s a hard statement to accept.

I was thinking today about that statement and comparing it with what the Bible has to say about salvation when this verse came to mind: “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9). At first glance, it appeared to be a simple task- believe, acknowledge, and then salvation follows. There doesn’t seem to be anything about whole-hearted following. But then I thought a bit more about the first statement- “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord”. I think that today we’ve spiritualized the word “Lord”. We’ve given it a Christianese meaning somewhere along the way, making it a synonym for God or divinity, and we’ve forgotten what the word originally meant.

In John 13 Jesus says, “you call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am” (v.13) Here Jesus is using the word Lord in it’s traditional context. Your Lord was your master. He commanded and you obeyed. In Medieval times, the lord controlled all that his serfs could and could not do. What he asked for, they gave without questioning. When he commanded them to follow into battle, they went without a choice. In Strong’s concordance, the Greek word used in Romans 10, Kurios, is defined as, “he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord, the possessor and disposer of a thing, the owner; one who has control of the person, the master.”

When we confess Jesus as Lord, we are not merely acknowledging his deity. We are swearing fealty. We are promising obedience. We are surrendering our wills and agreeing to follow where he goes. Have you truly confessed Jesus as your Lord?

The New Property!

We’re moving! The word on the street is that we will be moving on or before September 20. YWAM San Jose is buying and remodeling an old coffee processing plant. The building is really quirky and fun, and the property is large with a banana grove out back, a river out front, and a bamboo wall along one side. There’s also what looks like a pool that used to be used to store coffee beans before they were processed.

On Wednesday night almost everyone from the base went over to pray for the new property. We prayed, sang, and then took out our crayons and markers and got to work on the walls. We covered the drywall that the guys had just put up with scripture promises. It was so encouraging to walk around and see God’s word written everywhere. Once the walls were more or less covered, we stuck around to help a bit. My contribution was helping to hang drywall. I put in a grand total of 6 screws. Don’t laugh yet. They’re using metal support beams, so I had to drive the screws through the drywall and the metal beams and it was hard work. I was quite proud of my accomplishment.

On Friday night we all helped move heavy machinery from the current base to the new property, and then stayed to play sardines. We had so much fun, but let me tell you, walking through a dark banana grove in the dark is scary. But, now that I’ve done that, I think that I won’t find the property nearly as intimidating. Of course the dark crawl spaces and the pits underneath the floor with grates over them are still a bit scary, but hey, they certainly make the building interesting.

Poas

Yesterday we took a trip to Volcan Poas. It’s about 2 hours away from San Jose, up in the mountains. The air temperature got colder and colder as we went up. Just 10 km. away from the park, we stopped at a souvenir/snack shop by the road and bought some of the reddest sweetest strawberries I’ve had in a long time.

We thought we were going to freeze when we got out of the bus, so we decided to walk to the crater as fast as we could. The day was very grey and overcast, so we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to see the crater, since we heard that it’s often covered by clouds after 10:30, but when we got there at 11, the crater was clear. It was such an amazing site. The water temperature in the crater is about 104 degrees, and the air temperature was probably close to 50 (we could see our breath when we left), so there were clouds of steam rolling out of the volcano.

After admiring the volcano for awhile and taking a ton of pictures, we took one of the trails through the woods. The woods were actually a little bit spooky. It was dark and overgrown and foggy. But there were also a lot of neat plants- giant fern trees and bromeliads and other plants with giant leaves.

We ended our day with a trip to the coffee shop, where the hot chocolate I drank was super yummy, and warmed my freezing hands.