I am officially in Costa Rica, and ministry time is here! Our first day they introduced us to the whole company and everything they do for the community. Before arriving I was thinking it would be kind of small since it sounded like there was only a couple volunteers but when we arrived I was honestly very surprised. There are multiple classrooms, a kitchen, fields and courts (to run around or play soccer, basketball, and skateboard), and a playground and daycare center for the little ones. Since this is in the middle of the slums the woman we’ve been working with said that the people in the community describe this place as an oasis. Beauty in the midst of struggles. When we were waiting to hear all the things we would get to do for nine months I was almost overwhelmed by the fact that they were allowing us to have full reign over what we wanted to do. They told us that we will be working with refugees from Nicaragua and we’re going to separate into different groups for the kids, teens, and women. I chose to be with the teens because I really felt like the Lord laid them on my heart. I’ve always worked with kids and had a blast with them on short term mission trips and things like that but I have always…and let me emphasize always, been scared of the teens. There’s no reason for me to be scared of this age group, shoot i’m one of them. But I had a confidence in the fact that the Lord chose this ministry and age group for me and that’s what excited me. I was aware that they were refugees so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about their background but later on I learned that the main ones at risk are the teenagers. So the families are trying to come to places like Costa Rica in order to stay safe. When I heard this I was really excited to meet these families and teenagers, because they’ll be coming to this place that is like an oasis and just have the opportunity to rest and meet other people going through the same things. We are going to be teaching different classes like english and computers and then just having some fun playing soccer or things like that. The heart behind this ministry is just to love on them and give them something to do during the day. We’ll be there Tuesday-Friday every week and then on Saturdays we’ll be helping out with a different program for all the kids in the community. We get the opportunity to start building relationships and talking about the Lord. Since we had been spending most of our time here at our ministry location we wanted to go out into the community to see what real life looks like for a lot of these people. So we went to walk around to invite some of the refugees in the community to come to the ministry, since it’s new and some people just got here to Costa Rica. As we were walking we got to meet some women and their kids. There were eighteen in total that lived in this small room, and four of them had just gotten here a couple days ago. They told us the only reason they made it across the border was because of a woman with an eight month old baby and another woman eight months pregnant. By now we’ve met the teens we’ll be hanging out with and have gotten to play soccer, make bracelets, talk a little and even though it was a kinda difficult at first we’ve all seen that the Lord’s hand is in this ministry. So i’m excited to see all that the Lord does in these next three months! I want to ask for prayers as this ministry continues, and as these relationships form!
lots of love,
Ave
