WOW… I can’t believe our month in Costa Rica is coming to an end. The day we got off the plane in San Jose and drove through town to our ministry, Transforma, seems like it was just last week. While I’m so excited to meet up with our squad tomorrow and hear all about how God has moved in their teams, I’m sad to say goodbye to the women of Transforma. These women have welcomed us into their homes with open arms wanting to get to know us and love us.
Over this past month we’ve gone into the homes of these women and prayed over them and their families. We’ve watched over their children and led an after-school program. We’ve cleaned the ministry house and prepared/organized supplies for the classes. We’ve painted benches and put together massage tables. We’ve helped out with the administration side of the ministry such as creating newsletters, recording these women’s personal stories, making evaluations and surveys, organizing spreadsheets, and other various projects. One of our bigger projects was creating a video that explains the women’s stories; showing how they are striving to provide for their families while also trying to start up their own businesses. Because of the many different tax levels they have to go through to start up a business they often can’t get very far in doing this. Well we created a video the first weekend we arrived about this and presented it on the following Monday to the government council in hopes to get a law passed that will grant these women a grace period from these taxes during the first one to five years so that their businesses will have a fighting chance and guess what… the law reform was passed two weeks later! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0kcJUxZFYA]
But what’s been my favorite memory of ministry here? Well there are two different days that stick out above the rest. The first is an afternoon I spent with Lydia.
Lydia is the sewing teacher at Transforma and is at the ministry almost every day. You can’t help but smile when she walks into the room. She has such a kind and loving spirit about her. The first thing we were told about her is that she gives the best hugs. The first Friday here, I, along with two of my teammates, went to Lydia’s home to film her story for our video project. What we thought would just take 30 minutes turned into us spending hours with her and her husband eating lunch and listening to story after story about what God has done in their lives. They were very transparent with their past and current struggles and how God has worked through those and brought redemption through all of their brokenness. They both never doubt that God will provide for their needs and their testimonies prove His faithfulness time and time again. Some of the stories Lydia’s husband shared were so miraculous he couldn’t help but tear up when telling us about them. He shared stories of healing, stories of a broken family reunited, and stories of his personal redemption and triumph. The faith that they both carry is beautiful- it’s inspiring, really. In fact, I didn’t want to leave their home that day I could have listened to them all night if I could and I’m sure they would have let us because they had such joy being able to talk about God’s greatness. It’s safe to say that this was my favorite day in Costa Rica.
Then we were given the opportunity this week to go out with another ministry called “Face of Justice” which is a sex trafficking and prostitution ministry. So this past Tuesday night at 10:00pm, 15 of us crammed into a van and we drove around looking for prostitutes. Yes, I’m aware of how unsafe and sketchy this sounds (and I’m sorry mom and dad because I’m sure ya’ll are freaking out reading this…) and in the beginning of the night I would have agreed with you. I was the first one to volunteer to stay back in the comfort and safety of the house and pray while the other girls went out but God had a different plan for me this night and into the van I went. We drove around, passed out coffee and cookies and just had conversations and prayed with these people. I was expecting them to not want to have anything to do with us but it was just the opposite. They just wanted someone to talk to (and of course some coffee). Honestly, this ministry was so cool to be a part of- we weren’t there to judge or even try to convert. We were there to love, to listen and to pray. Many of them asked for prayer for their families and safety. Something I didn’t expect going into the night was that much of the prostitution in Costa Rica are made up of people who identify as transgenders and the stories we heard of how many of them are beaten up, stabbed or shot at is heartbreaking. We ended the night by going into a bar that seemed to be an unspoken brothel. Again, we passed out coffee and cookies to the women but I couldn’t help but have such anger and disgust in my heart towards the men that were in there. However, I was reminded that even the men wanting to buy these women are loved by God just as much as I am. God has just as much love and grace towards those men and the prostitutes as he does towards me- He shows no favoritism. None of us are more deserving of God’s love over another. We are all His children and He created each of us on purpose and with a purpose.
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24
One last thing that I haven’t gotten out of my head from Tuesday is when we were all leaving the Face of Justice house and we were saying bye to the staff that we had worked with all night. One of the guys gave us a hug and simply said; “Adios. I’ll see ya in Heaven” which is something I’m carrying with me as we have to tell the women of Transforma and everyone else we’ve created relationships with this past month goodbye.
Yesterday, our team spent the afternoon again at Lydia’s house where she and a few of the other women cooked us lunch. I was so caught off guard at the end when we started to acknowledge that we are leaving tomorrow and we started saying our goodbyes. We all know that I’m horrible with goodbyes and I’m a crier but it is such a comforting thing to know that these goodbyes are only temporary because “I’ll see ya in Heaven”.
