We made it. After 3 days of bus traveling we are finally here. Home sweet home is La Carpio. Basically it’s the slums about 20 minutes outside San Jose. Carpio was formed about 15 years ago by squatters from Nicaragua. It’s the poorest of the poor. Our ministry and house is beside the trash dump.. but to leave it at that would give yall the wrong feel. It’s a beautiful trash dump. Which will probably not make since unless you experience it. Our home has the only grass in all of Carpio. God is good so good, we have a soccer field and a basketball court! Ha! Most the day we spend playing sports with the kids and cooking. Believe it or not but I have taken on some of the cooking responsibility, and I love it. We have several different ministry opportunities here, such as bible studies a few times a week with school kids, sports, clinic work and devotionals in the waiting room of the clinic, and we are going to start putting on something for the youth at a local church, also we have English tutoring most days. The last few days we have been doing lawn care around our house… which meant grab the nearest machete and start chopping down grass and weeds as tall as me. I just thought my hands were tough, I got blisters all over my hands. And funny story my hands are so raw I went to give someone a high five and got a blister after we slapped hands! Hahaha geese. I have started what I hope will turn into a deep friendship with the grassman, Enoch. He has a serious passion for Jesus and loves to share his insight. Though there is a language barrier I can usually get the gist of his mini-sermons by his sign language and head nods.
We have had some extremely wonderful encounters with the Spirit in our times of worship. I actually was so filled up one night I couldn’t stop laughing, I now understand why the people in Jerusalem thought the “devout men from every nation”, were drunk. They were only filled with the Spirit. At one point I melt my body melt to the floor and could not move, I loved it. I love being able to surrender to our Lord in worship and allow myself to receive the Spirit. The Lord has really been speaking to all of us this past week, some in dreams, some in visions, some in a whisper, some through one another. We listened to a man of God preach on one of my teammates Ipod the other day and I will share what the Lord spoke to me.
Some or even most people say being a missionary is a sacrifice; or they say “look at all the things you have given up”. My life is no sacrifice, I’m not missing out on anything. It’s a privilege to serve Jesus with my life. A life of walking in the Spirit, hearing the voice of God, healing the wounded or ill, raising the dead, prophesying, and having encounters with the living God… what other life could compare? None can offer such. There is a freedom, an extreme way of life through Jesus that no one can find ANYWHERE ELSE. This freedom exists nowhere outside his Kingdom, its all normal Christian living. Christ has no body here on earth except ours. We ARE his hands and feet. He uses us to do his work, my hands are his to touch the blind, my voice is his to tell the lame to get up and walk. My eyes are Christ’s to reveal compassion and shine a light forth into the darkness of this world. The greatest part is he does not need me, he just wants me. He loves me so much he wants to reveal mysterious and marvelous things to me. He longs to work through all of us. His Kingdom IS coming to earth, and we all have the opportunity and privilege to join the Lords Army. I just love that. I stinkin love that!!! We don’t deserve his unfailing love but he desires to continue to give it to us! HOLLER!!!
Any questions about the ministry here or anything else, for sure ask and I will do my best to get back to ya! Miss and love you all tons tons tons! And im praying for all of you.
On my knees
