I always thought blogging would be so much easier than it has been, sorry for the sporaticness of my blogs! I am making a new goal of blogging minimum of twice a month from now on (but hopefully more) so here is to hoping you will hear more updates from me.
We are arrived in Costa Rica a week and a half ago. The first couple days of our time in Costa Rica was spent in the gorgeous city of Jaco. Jaco is a beach city and our lovely logistic ladies of I-squad found us a stunning hostel that overlooked the Jaco beach. Basically this time is set aside four times this year where the whole squad will come together and just spend a few days together processing and de-briefing what life on the race has looked like so far. During this time our squad mentor and squad coaches fly out to meet us and partner with us to help us figure out what has been working, what hasn’t been working, how God has been working, how we have been doing and more. This time was beyond excellent. Spending time with my whole squad is always such a treat and getting to hear all the crazy stories of ministry that happened all over the country of Panama between the 40 of us was such a testimony to how good God is. After our few days of de-brief we headed to San Jose with the whole squad because the month of October is ALL SQUAD MONTH. Likely the only time this year all 39 of us (including squad leaders) will live and do ministry together for a month. Our ministry location is located in a city right by San Jose called Los Guidos and our ministry contacts are actually from my home church back in Naperville, IL. God is crazy! (Meg & Mark Kuzda’s for those of you who go to The Compass).
Ministry this month is going to be unique for us.
Our squad is living in a place called “the Finca” which is basically a warehouse that is used as a feeding center 7 days a week for the local kids, but we pitched our tents inside and are calling it home for the month (while still being a feeding center at the same time). We are living in one of the most dangerous slums in Costa Rica. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. I am going to be honest and raw with you all about what that means for a minute and ask you don’t turn to fear.
Living in the slums means you are right in the heart of some serious city destruction. We can’t really leave the area where we are living because pretty much everything outside of the Finca is extremely dangerous. At night sometimes we can hear gun shots happening. The spiritual warefare is real here too. Spiritual warefare is an area that if you know my heart you know I am passionately NOT for. I love fighting all things spiritual warefare because the devil is stupid and has no place or authority. It’s new and unique for my squad to walk in this stuff, but it has been cool how God has used some of my past experiences to help create an atmosphere of faith and hope.
My team’s ministry for the month is…. *drumroll* prayer. The other five teams are spread out between a few different local schools and working at the feeding center, but the only required or expected ministry to come from my team of six on a daily basis is to be praying and interceding for this city, for our squad, and for our ministry hosts. We are literally handed an invitation to see God move in ways we have never seen before. One of the things I am most excited about this month is my team is really pressing into the prophetic and seeking out what does God’s voice sound like and how can we distinguish God’s voice vs. our own voice or the enemies voice. This is something we are all so excited to walk into deeper intimacy with our Father and be able to walk in confidence with.
Something that will be tougher about this month of ministry is that we are not spending time with people in this community as much as we did in Panama. Since the area by where we live isn’t safe, we shouldn’t really be spending much time outside of the Finca, only seldom to catch a bus or quickly pick up something from a local shop. I can tell the enemy is going to try and attack my team as our month starts to get monotonous and repetitive feeling. But even on the days where we are tired to always press in, even if it is first from a place of obedience, to trust and believe that God will stir passion in our hearts and birth new prayers in our quiet places with Him. We are going to have to really fight for this though. We are going to have to fight for this city- for redemption for the people of Los Guidos. We are going to have to fight against fear- we were told that not even the local churches in San Jose will come to Los Guidos to do ministry because of how dangerous of a place it is. Part of what we will be praying for is that fear to be broken off of people and that Los Guidos is known as a place that carries the presence of God, nothing else.
My squad needs you to partner with us this month. If you are reading this blog I need you to ask yourself if you believe in the power of prayer. Do you believe that prayer can transform a person or a city? We do and we are crying out to God everyday for Him to move in this place. Partner with us and press into this- believe that when God says His Word will not turn back void, that He means it. He cannot deny who He is or what He has spoken over us. He is trustworthy and good.
