Last week my team and I did ministry in Sixaola, Costa Rica. From the moment we stepped over the border from Panama there was a distinct darkness…a thick, thick heaviness. All of us could feel the enemy making his presence known, trying to distract us from the mission that God called us there to do. So we stepped into God’s truth with our identities rooted in Christ ready for battle.
We did not know what the week was going to look like but we did know that God was calling us to be bold, trust Him and listen to His voice. The first night we were there the pastor wanted us to plan a service-which sounded easy enough. But what the Lord was calling us to do was use the POWER OF PRAYER. So we planned an entire service around prayer for specific things-the pastor, the growth of the church/community, sickness, family and spiritual warfare. We were headed down the right track because we know that prayer brings light to the darkest of places and we were confident that we were following the voice of the Lord. Then it was brought to our attention that we did not have a translator for the service and I felt the enemy try to take a hold of that and break our confidence and trust in the Lord. But because we had already rooted ourselves in Christ we knew that that Holy Spirit would lead us…and that is exactly what happened. With God my team leader was able to confidently use the Spanish he knew to speak to the people of the church. God opened the ears of people to hear His words so that we could stand united in the presence of the Lord and pray together as a powerful force. The more we prayed together and spoke truth the heaviness slowly began to lift.
We did a lot of door to door evangelism while we were in Sixaola. This is something that would make me very uncomfortable to do back home but for some reason I felt a peace about doing it here. I truly believe that we had dozens of divine appointments walking from house to house. The people we visited let us into their homes to pray for them, some claiming that they knew we were walking in the footsteps of the Lord. That is when it was made clear to me that God was merely using us as His vessels to speak to the hearts of His children. He was using us to bring His kingdom into a place full of desolate darkness…and in boldness we accepted His call.
The last night we did a children’s service and it was during that time that I felt the joy of the Lord so strongly. Children have a way of getting us to forget the seriousness of life. Children teach us how to laugh and be silly and leave all the cares of this world behind. The excitement that these children got from simply dancing around and learning songs was overwhelming to me. These kids were just so happy that we were there, loving on them and giving them attention that nothing else mattered and it was such a beautiful thing to be a part of. I believe that God uses children to let us experience a simple love and joy. It was clear that they loved us and enjoyed spending time with us just because we were there. The mind of a child is so simple and it is not plagued by the cares of this world and I began to understand what it means to have childlike faith.
By the time we left Sixaola on Saturday afternoon all heaviness had lifted. We had accomplished what the Lord asked of us which I believe was to be obedient to Him no matter how it makes our flesh feel. It was a week full of choices and we as a team chose to put on the mind of Christ. With that mindset nothing that the enemy wanted to do or say could make us walk away from the voice of truth that was leading us.
