Howdy there,
As most of you all know I have been living in Costa Rica for the past 3 months! It has been crazy being here just from all the things that I have learned within such a short time. It truly is a blessing to be here. There are things that the Lord has open my eyes to in my time being here. What I have is not mine, Community and Relationships, Finding Joy, and my relationship with the Lord.
The First is realizing that what I have is not mine. It was and sometimes still is hard for me to remember that what I have isn’t mine. It is all Jesus’. It doesn’t matter how hard or how long I have worked for something it is not mine. Anything that I have on earth is his. I offer it up to him because there is nothing on this Earth that is more valuable than what we will have in heaven. All of our earthly possessions combined are nothing compared to what we will have in heaven.
The Second thing is living in community and building relationship. After living in a house with 53 people for 3 months some might say they are ready to be alone and have some quiet time, but actually it’s really super cool. You really get to know each other really well and you start building relationships with people left and right. I don’t know about you but I love talking to people and building relationship! Relationships are probably the best thing in the world! I mean you have ups and downs but mostly ups. I love having team times with my team especially feedback lol! (A lot of people don’t like feedback, but I do!) In Costa Rica my friends and I have built relationships with people all over the place around town! We have Luis, Jorge, Nicks, and Estaban at Project Abraham! After seeing them everyday it has been hard saying bye to them. They just bring so much joy, happiness, and love to everyone around them with something as simple as a smile. We also see this guy who has a hamburger restaurant in his house and he yells at us everyday when we walk bye, we have the Panadería people who love us.(maybe just because of the bussine we give them everyday lol). We have this corner store we go to all the time called Alan’s store and that is where you can get popsicles, Big cola, chips, or what ever you want for about 100 colones. 100 colones is pretty close to 25 cents. Every Store we go to knows us by name. Costa Rican’s are so intentional. The people that we have encountered everyday for the past 3 months will forever have a place in my heart.
The third thing I have learned is finding joy in everything I do. Sometimes it’s still tough to do, but I never regret it when I choose joy. I learned my attitude towards something is something I always have control over. I can’t control what people say or do to me, but I have the control of how I react to it. For weeks we moved dirt from one place to another. And for a while some of us on my team would just wait for the day to be over. Counting down the minutes till lunch and then till the end of the day. We decided to choose joy and it wasn’t always the funnest thing to do. But the transformation that it made in our daily lives made such a big difference.
The last thing is my relationship with the Lord. Before I would tell myself that I want to grow closer and closer to Jesus. And as I grew closer to him in the areas that I wanted I would get pretty comfortable. Then I would find myself wanting more of Jesus in other areas of my life. I have learned that no matter what we will always be wanting more of Jesus and want to be more like him. I can’t just want to grow in our relationship and take a break. I have to continue to grow closer and build our relationship every day. And one way of doing so is letting Jesus into other parts of my life. Which is something I am still struggling with because for some reason I feel like there is still something I’m clinging to, but I don’t know what. It’s still something that I am working on but I know it will all pan out.
JMJ
-Monchito
