I can’t believe it’s already been one month! I wanted to make a blog about the difficult things that have happened in month one, and the cool things that God has been teaching me! 1st thing I wanted to talk about was the living situation!
Going from living with 5 people and having your own bedroom to 53 people and 7-10 in your bedroom is something that has definitely been hard to get used to. I would say the hardest thing is getting alone time. my favorite thing is you never get bored lol. The reality of 53 people living together and everyone getting used to the climate change, is that getting sick is Real. Unfortunately, My immune system isn’t the strongest, so the 1st couple weeks me and a few others had a sinus infection. Our God is a God of healing and through prayer we are blessed to be feeling better! Something that my squad and I have been blessed with, is our beautiful backyard view and the beautiful cool rainy weather! Here in Costa Rica, it is cool in the mornings, hot in the afternoons and freezing in the evenings(which is amazing for me because it reminds me of the bipolar weather back home haha). My favorite thing to do is after ministry, I’ll come sit in an eno, feel the cool breeze while I close my eyes imagining the cool October days back home. Lately the memory of the corn maze has been making me really happy! Carving pumpkins and watching the leaves change while drinking a pumpkin latte is something I will very much miss this season, but the rain and greenery here is something I’m 100% falling in love with. All in all I would say that our living situation is something We’re so blessed for and we are learning more and more about each other, ourselves and the Lord everyday.
The next thing I want to talk about that has been difficult but cool this first month is the culture/Language barrier. Imagine living somewhere and everywhere you go you get looked at, and not only looked at but sometimes whistled at, yelled at, honked at, etc…! Let’s just say that at 1st it was funny, but by week 2 I was ready to walk down the streets and look like everyone else. Something the Lord has been showing me in this situation though is patience. We came from the states to live in a place where white people don’t really live, so yes we’re going to show attention. It’s honestly taken me this month to truly understand the patience of the Lord. Somewhere else the Lord is showing us patience is the language. Going from always hearing English from everyone to only hearing English from the same 53 people has been hard. Going to Walmart and not being able to have a full on conversation with the checker has been SO difficult for me. The Lord is truly showing me patience I thought I already had haha! The culture shock and language barrier has been hard, but it’s truly a beautiful thing. It’s so beautiful how even though we don’t speak the same language, a smile can still make someones day. How even though the culture is so different, how beautiful the difference in our cultures is. How we speak differently and live differently, but how God loves his children all the same. Such a beautiful thing!
Next I want to talk about food and the reality of it. Food is something we all love and I’m sorry but if you don’t love food you aren’t human(jkjk). Hopefully you’ve read my blog “Beans and Rice”, but if not, you should go read it because it touches a lot on this subject. Something that I want to touch though is weight. Now I’m not saying “dang I’m fat”, but I’m also not saying “being on the World Race is helping me lose so much weight”. The reality of it is, as a women you will more then likely gain weight/stay the same, while being a guy, you will more then likely lose. The reason why is because both are eating mainly carbs based on the culture, but The difference is that most women go to food for comfort and to help with hormones, while men eat a lot, but work it off when doing manual labor. Through this God has really been teaching me my beauty and worth, not the worlds. I am so blessed to have the body I do, and I will continue to seek Gods truth about it.
Last but not least, I want to talk about my ministry and the beauty of it. Our ministry has taught me many things, but the thing I would say it has taught me most, is how God can not only use us to teach, but teach us in the process. Being at our ministry has given me a hunger for Gods word, a hunger for these kids lives to be changed and a hunger for growing. Knowing Gods word and actually living by his word does wonders. Scripture gives you a taste of Gods truth and the more you read and live by it, the more you hunger for it. Being with kids that have so little, yet they act like they have so much, is teaching me the real beauty of a child like faith. The relationship my team and I have grown with these kids in such a short amount of time is crazy. If the Lord has showed me this much already, I’m beyond excited to see what he teaches me in these next 8 months.
Even though this 1st month was full of a lot of struggles, it was equally full of a lot of beautiful truths. The Lord is so good and so intentional with his people, and how cool that us as christians are his chosen people! I want to encourage anyone reading this to start really digging deep in the word and in your relationship with him. Being his chosen people is not something we should be taking lightly. I pray this generation realizes that. God is so good and if we start craving his word and the truth, we will be unstoppable disciples.
