The Father Heart of God

Lemuel just turned one year old last Saturday. Since we’ve gotten here, I’ve been enjoying watching him learn to walk. His smile of joy and accomplishment when he walks from one person to another makes me smile in return. I can’t stop looking at him and smiling. On Sunday he started walking independently for the first time. I was so proud of him! The other day he was sitting in his high chair watching cartoons and I came over to say hello to him, and he reached up for me to pick him up. I was so pleased by his desire to be with me.

Ever since week one, the Father Heart of God has been a recurring theme in our classes. As I look at Lemuel, God’s heart towards us becomes even clearer to me. I’m not even related to Lemuel, and yet, each accomplishment he has fills my heart with joy. Every time he smiles when I’m around, I smile in return. God is like that with us. Our accomplishments, our growth from baby Christians to mature men and women of the word, fill Him with joy and pleasure. When we delight in his presence, he is pleased. He is longing for us to run to him, to stretch out our arms to him and acknowledge our need for him.

Tessa isn’t even one month old yet. When I hold her, I feel such contentment. Watching her mother and father look at her and hold her, you can’t help but see the overwhelming love they have for her. She’s done nothing to deserve it. All she can do is receive their love. She doesn’t even smile or coo in return yet, she’s too little. And yet, their love for her is immense.

God loves us like that. We can’t earn his love. He loved us before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1: 4 says, “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” When he sees us, he looks on us as his sons and daughters, “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6)

Accept your Father’s love as a little child accepts love from their father. Turn to him to provide for you and protect you. Delight in his presence, and know that he delights in your trust in him.

English Lessons

While we’re all together, we’ve been teaching our Costa Rican classmates some very useful survival English phrases.

(Please imagine the following sentences spoken with a Costa Rican accent for the full effect)

For example, we’ve taught Mariana, “Get out, demon, in the name of the Lord!”

And Rebeca has learned, “My heart beats for you”.

Teaching Luis and Manny "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" has still only met with very limited success.

Manny picked up “That’s amazing!” from Scott, but when Breeana had to wear one of those lovely net hats (you know the ones I’m talking about- people in food service have to wear them?) and I sarcastically told her how cute it looked, he followed up with, “oh baby, I ache for you” all on his own.

A different way to spend the evening

Last night, I hung out on a street corner with a few transvestite prostitutes.

Apparently prostitution is legal here in Costa Rica. The DTS team from Denver that's here right now went out last night to minister to prostitutes, and I was invited along to translate. As we drove past groups of women standing on street corners, I began to feel both compassion and fear. There is so much pain and sin in this world. Christ is working through his church to redeem a world where we have hurt each other so much that men lose their identities as men, put their bodies on display, and sell themselves to make a living.

We dropped off our first group of 4 girls- 2 Denver team members and 2 translators- as we continued on, covering them in prayer. As I watched them approach the first group, my fear grew. Not for their safety, but the fear of stepping outside my comfort zone. I worried about what I would say, how they would react to our presence, what they would think of us.

When we were ready to send out the next team, I was half hoping I wouldn't be on it, but I also knew I needed to look to God instead of my fear. So, Elena, 2 Denver DTS girls and I approached the prostitutes on the corner. And you know what? Beginning our conversation was awkward, but we had fun. We laughed together, we talked about food and music, we heard a little bit of their stories. One of them is 23 years old and has been on the street since she was 6. Elena asked if they'd like to get off the streets and they shared that they would, and the difficulties of finding jobs, especially as transvestites.

We didn't end up spending too much time sharing about God's love, but they did let us pray with them before we left. And if I go back again, I won't be nearly as afraid to step out of my comfort zone. Maybe I'll participate more in the conversation instead of just listening. And if I go a 3rd time, maybe I'll be ready to share more about WHY I'm choosing to hang out on street corners instead of going to bed. Each time we go, our trust in God will grow, and relationships will grow. And as we trust God and each other more, that is when we will see God at work.

Sunday in the Park

Sunday afternoon we headed to the park. Okayama park is a favorite of ours, and apparently of many Ticos too.

The park doesn't get much less busy in the evening. Around 7 a group of 20 or so of us- San Jose DTS students and staff, Denver DTS, and Belize DTS went back to the park with a guitar. We prayed some praise and worship songs and sang together. There was another large group of young people hanging out under a large tree listening. Finally, someone from our group got brave enough to go over and say hello. Turns out they were from a church and came over and joined our group. A few of them took turns on the guitar and we all praised the Lord together, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, and sometimes in both. It was a beautiful time.

Things I love about Costa Rica

So many things here in Costa Rica are a constant reminder of God’s creative power.

The sunsets

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1

The mountains

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and Earth.” Psalm 121:1&2

The flowers

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.” Matthew 6:8&9

Fresh fruits and vegetables

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind. . . and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:10&11

The kids on base

“Children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” Psalm 127:3

“Jucumeros Misioneros Ilegalmente en San Jose”

Today, we were pulled over by the police.

The day started out innocently enough- we went to the Salvation Army to serve breakfast to the homeless. We pulled up and my face broke into a smile as dozens of people, who remember us from yesterday, smiled and cheered to see us back again. A short woman steped out of line and rushed to Scott, hugging him hard around the stomach, as whistles and catcalls broke out all over. Scott said, “I’m doing the dishes today, have to stay away from these women”.

Inside I got the job of serving hot dogs

after Lito piled gallo pinto on the plates.

I passed the plates off to Kendra who added a Danish,

and then Alex and Reanna took care of milk, spoons and serving

while Anna and Chove washed dishes.

We decided to sing, and when one of the homeless men left singing “todopoderso”, we thought we should keep it up. Somehow though, our bilingual versions of Mighty to Save and Blessed be your Name were interspersed with much less inspirational songs-We are the Pirates who don’t do Anything, the barney song, Los Pollitos, and Pin Pon (those last 2 are Spanish children’s classics).

Half way through serving, Lito disappeared for a few minutes to repark the car, which for some reason wasn’t supposed to be on the street. When we left to go back to the base, Lito explained, “chicos, we have to take a back way out of San Jose and avoid the town center.” I’m not sure on all the details, but apparently to cut down on congestion, street traffic in down town San Jose is limited according to the day of the week by license plates ending in a certain number, and we somehow forgot that info before leaving home today.

So, we prayed we’d avoid police detection, and set off down back roads, only to run straight into a police roadblock. Lito took off his baseball cap, pulled out his passport, and showed it to the police, while explaining ever-so politely that we were a missions group just returning from feeding the homeless, we’d forgotten all about the license plate restriction, and we were doing our best to avoid the town center. Please, forgive us. And, the officer handed back his passport, and let us go! We cheered as we drove off- God might not have made us invisible, but he gave us grace in the eyes of that police officer and we made it home without another incident.

(The title of this post means “YWAM missionaries illegally in San Jose”. It was the joking headline one of the girls imagined for our little adventure today)

A day at the beach

Today we went to Jaco. It’s not the prettiest beach in Costa Rica, but it is the closest. We left to catch the bus into San Jose around 7. After a local bus ride and a 15 minute walk across town we made it to the bus station to buy our tickets. We got there about 5 minutes later than we should have, since there were only 3 seats left on the 9am bus. So, we took 3 tickets for seats, and 3 standing tickets (which aren’t even discounted), and waited some more to get on the bus. We had 3 seats in a row across the back of the bus and managed to squeeze 4 of us onto them for most of the ride. The other 2 took turns sitting on the floor and standing. It was supposed to take about 2 hours, but traffic was horrible in the city, and it took us closer to 3 before we got to the beach. It was so worth it though. The water was warm, the waves were fun without being fierce, and the day was warm but somewhat overcast so I didn’t completely fry.

While we were there we met up with 2 other DTS students who left on the 7am bus, and then with another group of YWAMers who did the children at risk school in San Jose and are doing their outreach in Jaco now. Actually, it’s really cool because they spent the first 3 months of their school outreach in Colombia at Formando Vidas, which is where I’m planning to be in January, so it was good to hear a bit about their experiences. They loved it there.

We enjoyed the waves and the weather and hanging out together on the beach, then went back to where they are staying. It’s actually a Christian Surfer’s organization that works on building relationships in the community and reaching out to surfers. We had dinner together, and then headed back on the 6 o’clock bus. Now we’re all tired, happy, and a bit pinker than we were this morning.