Oh Costa Rica. I don’t know where to begin.
I’m in love with this place.
This month my team has been on a farm, Mighty Rivers, in San Bosco, Costa Rica. Its been a quiet month. A month full of Jesus calling me higher in so many areas of my life. From my relationships with people, to the way I love, to what it really means to be still with God.
I just wanted to write and give some updates and share some stories from this month. Be warned, I’ll probably jump around some. Okay, maybe a lot.
First of all, this month we have a washing machine! Y’all. I can NOT tell you how amazing it is to have really clean clothes and not just kinda clean, this is as good as it gets from hand-washing, clean clothes. So while I’m writing I’m sitting here washing clothes to pack them back up since we leave in 2 days. Its the little things that bring joy.
So Mighty Rivers, the mission/farm we’re on this month, was founded by a lady named Drusilla. She spent the first 10 days of our month here with us before she headed back to the states to be with her husband. Drusilla was raised in Pennsylvania and was raised Amish. Eventually her family left the Amish community and started a community and religious group of their own and then ended up in Costa Rica many years later to be missionaries and establish their new religious group here. A lot of things ended up happening and eventually their group fell apart. Many, many years later Drusilla became a Christian and has since then started Mighty Rivers mission to love and serve the Christian community in San Bosco. Two of Drusilla’s sisters, Barbra and Susannah, live on the property and run the farm, dairy business, and gardens, although neither of them are part of the mission due to religious differences. If you want to know more stories about any of the 3 of them, I’d be happy to share them with you one on one! Its been great to get to know them this month.
There are a few other people who live here that I’ve loved getting to know and am very sad to be leaving. In the apartment below us live a few indigenous indians, Ema, Roy, and Derbin. They have exuded joy and taught us so much this month. I’ve so enjoyed having them come up and join us for dinner, games, movies, and fellowship. Its the first time on the race that I feel like I’ve built genuine community with the people we’ve been staying with.
Oh back to Susannah! So Susannah and her husband, David, regularly host backpackers at their home, Garden City. While we’ve been here there have been a few people staying with her that we’ve gotten to know a little bit, Kathryn, Jamie, and Storm. Please, please ask me personally about how we met them! We were able to have them all over for dinner one night and then they invited us over for dinner the next. Susannah and David’s house is everything that you would imagine a life sized fairy house to be. Its beautiful and open and colorful and earthy and amazing. Check out my instagram for some photos of it! That night before dinner the conversations we had were so great. For a while Taylor, Elle, and I were talking to Storm as he asked us questions about religion, our faith, and our stories. He was open about not being religious at all but he was so curious. I pray that Jesus will take our words and work through them. After Storm got up to join Jamie in the kitchen, Kathryn sat down next to me and she and I talked for a while. She was asking me questions about my life and as I answered she began to ask deeper questions. She asked where God is in suffering and told me that she had been through some things but that the way the church responded pushed her away from church and God altogether. In talking to her that night I feel like it was the first time I’ve sincerely been able to fully love someone where they’re at and share the gospel with them, through my story, with a pure heart knowing that I can’t save them or make them want Jesus, but just loving them in that moment. Words fail me now thinking about it, it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve experienced.
One of the ministries we’ve had this month is hosting a baking class at the church. I’ve had the privilege of leading it and its been a huge blessing to me and hopefully the ladies who came every week. Granted, the first week was ROUGH, and thats an understatement. I won’t go into detail, but I just got really overwhelmed and had zero control of circumstances and at the end of it, I was ready to pack my bags and head home. The other classes went really smoothly. I taught them to make Pineapple Upside-down cake, sugar cookies, pita bread, funnel cakes, apple pie, and no-bake cookies. Its crazy to me to think that something that I find so simple and everyday is new to these ladies and gives them so much empowerment and provides another means of income for their families.
Back at the beginning of the month, there were two other people staying at Mighty Rivers with us as well. Luis used to work for YWAM in Costa Rica and is now considering taking over local opperations for Mighty Rivers. Liz is a former world racer. I loved getting to spend time with them and hear their stories. Liz had lots of stories from her race that she shared with us and gave us some pretty solid advice too. They ended up being just the first of the people we would host at the mission during our month there. Throughout our time there we hosted several local pastors and missionaries who came to visit and see how they could partner with Mighty Rivers since its still fairly new. Since I did almost all the cooking for our team I very quickly learned how to feed large amounts of people on our very small WR food budget, haha.
I feel like there is so so so much more to tell about Costa Rica. I’ve loved every minute of being here and I feel like it will probably be my favorite country of the whole race.
