Most of my blogs will tell stories or talk about what I’ve been learning, but I figured I’d take a few minutes to explain what our living situations and ministry have looked like so far!
Panama: My team and I were in Las Lajas, Panama, right on the beach! We lived in a little 2-bedroom, 1 bathroom house with a kitchen, bunk beds, and running water! Our hosts, Danny and Heather, lived down the street from us. Danny and Heather run ICJesus Ministries and are in the process of planting a church. They host church services in their home, lead a worship night for the neighborhood each week, and run several youth programs in the evenings. Our team helped with set up and clean up of the church services and prepared skits for the congregation. We were able to perform each skit several times throughout the week at the different services and youth groups Danny led in town in the evenings. During the day, we did manual labor. We painted the walls in Danny and Heather’s home where they host services, painted a new sign where the church will be planted, helped Heather organize the supplies donated to her for the school, did yard work (weed eating, cutting the grass, covering pipes with sand, etc.), and harvested lots of merenga, which is a power plant here that’s leaves have lots of health benefits. Heather and Danny also have a heart for an indigenous village 35 mins down the road, called Oma. A few evenings a week, we went there and did a children’s program with the young kids of the village while Danny ran soccer tournaments for the older kids. On Friday mornings, Zack and I went with Heather to the school in Oma to teach elementary-school kids with disabilities. One night per week, we had a worship night with people in the neighborhood and Danny would teach a bible story. On Friday nights we took a ride into town for youth group. We would lead games for them and Danny would give the sermon. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons we offered English classes at our house. One Sunday we held a Beauty for Ashes event which is an event the World Race encourages us to host in each place we visit. It is an event to encourage and empower women in the community and remind them of their worth in Christ. We learned a lot about flexibility because each day looked different and learned a lot about team work when it came to delegating tasks and depending on one another to get a job done.
Costa Rica: We travel as a squad of 34, but typically when we arrive in a new country we are split into our 5 teams and are sent to different locations. However, Costa Rica was an all squad month! We all lived on a ministry base called Ocean’s Edge in Jaco, Costa Rica. Jaco is known as the Las Vegas of Costa Rica. It’s pretty safe during the day, but at night has a completely different feel. Our living space was so cool. It felt like we were living in a two-story tree house! Most of the bedrooms had doors and walls, but the living areas and kitchen were open to the outdoors. All the guys slept upstairs in beds or hammocks and the girls slept downstairs, split up in rooms by team. Hannah, Rachel, and I slept in a conjoining room with 4 girls from another team, and the seven of us shared a bathroom. The base was completely enclosed by cement walls with an electric fence on the top. We had to have a key to get into and out of the base so we felt very safe! In front of the ‘treehouse’ was a pavilion area called the Rancho, where we had morning devotionals, meetings, and our Beauty for Ashes event.
Ocean’s Edge is a multi-faceted ministry that exists to bring people into greater intimacy with Christ and promote positive influence in the community of Jaco. Before arriving, we each took a personality/spiritual gifts assessment online. We were placed on ministry teams according to our gifts and talents. It was awesome to see people use their individual strengths in ministry! Everyone felt like they could bring something to the table. One of the teams was called Playa Azul (Blue Beach), and they were in charge of building a park on the beach for the community. They painted and outlined the park with tires donated by several businesses in the community, built an obstacle course, a swing set, a sign for the entrance, etc. As the team put the park together, they empowered members of the community to help them build it. Even the little kids were helping paint tires. Not only did the team create a beautiful space for the community, but they also planned an event at the end of the month to reveal it. We were all invited to be a part. The mayor came to speak and allowed all the kids to be out of school that day so they could come. The school band performed, our squad did a flash mob, there were soccer games and an obstacle course contest, snow-cones and cookies, and we did several skits to portray the love of Jesus. Another team painted murals on the ministry base. It is currently in the process of being renovated and they’re filling the wall space with beautiful murals. We have several artists on our squad that did an INCREDIBLE job! 611 (the area code for Jaco) was the name of the team with business management/event planning skills. Ocean’s Edge has a platform called #Somos611 (in English, #WeAre611), that exists to empower businesses that have positive influence on Jaco. Although Jaco does attract a lot of tourists for its beach life, it has a reputation for criminal activity, legal prostitution, and evident drug/alcohol problems. Ocean’s Edge works with the positive influencers of Jaco to change its reputation and spread light in a city that used to be known solely for its darkness. The business management team worked with our ministry host, Hannah, on several projects, the biggest of which was a business seminar to empower local business owners in the community. There are over 700 businesses in Jaco, but only 14,000 people. The turn-over rate for businesses is really high so the goal is to help the ones with positive influence in Jaco thrive. Twenty business owners that are well known in the community were invited to come to the event. Hannah and the team provided a workshop on marketing strategies and shared their vision for #Somos611. We invited them to be a part of a movement that will help steer the city toward positivity. My team helped with the business workshop at the event because our ministry this month was to work on building an online directory for all of the existing businesses in Jaco.
The people on my team were placed on it because of our interest in writing, editing, photography, story-telling, etc. Ocean’s Edge launched a website called jacobeachinfo.com where they advertise for any business that contributes to a brighter Jaco. Our team, JBI (Jaco Beach Info), got to go into the local businesses to get to know the owners and hear their stories. The first time we met the business owners, we did a quick introduction and then set up an appointment to come back later in the week to interview them and take pictures if they were interested. Not a single business owner turned us down. They were all so friendly and many had inspiring stories! I LOVED being on this team. We connected with so many local people, got to build relationships with them, and share our vision of a re-defined Jaco. Whenever they asked why we were doing this for free, we were able to point it all back to Christ. When we weren’t at appointments with the businesses, we were working on updating the website with pictures, write-ups, and directions to each of these places. One of our team members focused on the behind-the-scenes of the website doing SEO work. Basically, he coded each description and picture on the website with keywords or phrases that people are most likely to use when they do a google search. For instance, when someone types in “best burgers in Jaco” into a search engine, the idea is that one of our restaurants would pop up with the link to Jaco Beach Info. Eventually the website will have a blog with a featured business each day, telling the stories of each of the owners as well. This is a project Ocean’s Edge has been working on for a while, so it was helpful to have a team come in and help them cover as much ground as possible and update the spreadsheet of who we have reached.
We served on these ministry teams during the day and had our evenings free to cook dinner and have team time. For clarification, my team is still the same set of people it was at the beginning of the race: Hannah, Rachel, Zach, Zack, and Dylan. However, in Costa Rica we didn’t necessarily do ministry together because we were broken up into ministry teams according to our skill-set. The evening gave us time to re-convene with our normal teams, make dinner together, and talk about our day. We also had night ministry once a week. On Wednesdays, our ministry teams only met until noon and we had the rest of the day to rest before night ministry began at 6:30pm. A few of the guys on the squad would go to feed the homeless at this time with staff from Ocean’s Edge. The rest of the squad would break into our teams and it was an “Ask the Lord” time to figure out where we should go. It was a chance to shed kingdom light into a place that completely shifts to darkness after the sun goes down. It felt very spiritually heavy on the streets after dark. Before the race I think I’d be really nervous about taking on the streets of a crime-ridden city after dark, but each night before we went out, we prayed for the spirit of protection and clothed ourselves in the armor of God. We’d pray out loud as we walked. I felt covered in the peace of the Holy Spirit and it was evident He led us each where we needed to be. I have some really great stories that came from night ministry that I hope to blog about soon!
Nicaragua: Surprise! Another all squad month! All 34 of us are together again living at the Adventures in Missions base about 3 miles outside of the city of Granada. We live on a BEAUTIFUL 70 acre farm next to a volcano! No pictures can do it justice. We feel very safe because the property is gated and we have an armed guard at night and 6 Rottweilers. We sleep in rooms with bunk beds and have running water! The past two months we’ve grocery shopped and cooked ourselves, but this month our food is prepared for us which has been wonderful. We’ve been here for about two weeks now, and it has absolutely flown by!
Our hosts, Scott & Jen Esposito, run a ministry here called REAP Granada. It is evident that they have invested so much into this community. They’ve built a community center in Granada where they host prayer meetings, worship nights, Bible studies, and children’s programs. It has been fun to engage with the community whether that be out evangelizing in the neighborhoods and inviting people to events, running children’s ministry, feeding the hungry, or going to the hospital to pray for families. REAP has made it a point to unite the local churches here which has been especially beneficial in this difficult season for Nicaragua. Eight local pastors and their churches work together to reach out to the community and have a unified church service once a month where all of their congregations come together. Last Saturday REAP hosted an evangelism conference and all 8 churches were invited to be apart. Our teams have been spending time with each church and its been wonderful to get to know them. On the farm, there are soccer, softball, and kickball fields that the community uses frequently. On any given Sunday, there are up to 1500 people here participating in or watching games! Each game starts with a short teaching and prayer. Our squad has gotten to participate in Sports Sunday, whether that be by playing in the games, giving the message, or investing in the locals that are there to watch.
Each day is structured with mandatory quiet time from 6am-7am, breakfast at 7:30, and then morning ministry from 9-11am. At noon we eat lunch and then afternoon ministry starts at 1:30ish and goes till about dinner time. Our teams are on rotation through different ministries/events going on. So while one team is out evangelizing in the community, another may be doing manual labor/chores on the farm, and another may be leading a children’s program at the community center. Three to four days a week, my morning ministry is dog training! Rachel has been my lucky assistant! There are 7 dogs on the property; a golden, 2 full-grown Rottweilers, and 4 Rottweiler puppies that are about 6 months old. Six months old is the perfect age to train a dog because they are like little sponges that absorb everything they’re hearing. I have absolutely loved this. There are several little kids running around the property because their moms work on the property. A couple of them have jumped on board with us to dog train and I’ve loved getting to know them. It’s been a great month so far with lots of stories I hope to share soon.
This is little Ida! She was one of our favorite kiddos at Oma in Panama.
Omar (on the far right) attends Heather & Danny’s church. One afternoon we went to his mother’s house and helped her with house work and yard work because she had been in a lot of pain recently and was unable to work.
This is the team sitting on our front porch with our host dog, Rex.
Our JBI ministry team in Jaco
This was the invitation to our business seminar!
Giving Sammy a bath 🙂
Our friend Ann, from the Cocal pictured with us at the Beauty for Ashes Event we had in the Rancho.
Stay tuned on Facebook for pictures from Nicaragua. It’s difficult to upload pictures to blogs and the internet is really rough here so this is all I’m able to upload right now. Thanks for reading this lengthy post! I hope it makes you feel like you’re on the journey with me 🙂
