The Bario is called Verbena.
It was the first place I served God in Costa Rica.
A place that left me heartbroken after one glance, now holds my heart.
It's horribly impoverished, filled with Nicarauguan refugees.
It is unlike anything I've ever seen before.
Tiny sheet metal castles, with tiny winding alleys and pathways covered in trash and excrement.
Seemingly neverending, it twists, tangles, and piles up higher and higher over this hill.
A tragically free prison.
Full of shoeless children and husbandless women.
6:8 Ministries, who we have been helping this month, goes there to do a feeding every saturday.
It's rather important because for most of the kids there, that feeding is their only meal that day.
After my first visit to Verbena I cried out to God.
My spirit was so low, and my heart so burdened.
I didn't know it but He was about to turn my entire perspective around.
The next time we went there I observed these trees that surround the entire Bario.
They are tall and strong providing shade, and they produce a strikingly beautiful orange flower.
The blooms fall from the tops of the trees and covers the ground at Verbena where most of the kids play.
I have no idea what they are truly called, but I call these flowers Costa Rican rose petals.
If they were actual roses they would look so out of place, but these are equally as beautiful and look like the beauty you find all around in Costa Rican.
God showers this place with Costa Rican rose petals so these precious children of His can walk on flowers.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I no longer see Verbena the same as I did that first day.
I see it as beautiful, and full of people that God loves.
Cherished people that God created and intended to be loved.
So that's what I did.
Loved them.
And I too got to walk on His Costa Rican rose petals.
