Pura Vida!
My team and I have been back at the Abraham Project for a bit now and it literally feels like we’re back home! We have been helping construct apartments for single mothers; we’ve moved cinder blocks, shoveled dirt, dumped dirt, and tamped dirt in the rooms of the homes. It has been tough work but is an absolute blast! Work like this opens up lots of good conversations with the workers and my teammates, and also gives me time to pray while I work. Since returning to the base my schedule has been: Tuesdays off, work at the Abraham Project from Wednesday-Saturday (typically 9-4), Sunday off, and recently our Mondays have turned into discipleship days which have been super fruitful!
Our discipleship days start around the same time our ministry would and carry into the afternoon. The first half of the day consist of teachings and exercises that center around Scripture and what it means to be a disciple of Christ, there is a different focus every week (i.e. listening to God about where we should go/who we should interact with). This past week my team (Relentless) and one of the girls’ teams (Salt & Light) went to an impoverished community to do a prayer walk and put into practice what we just learned. God totally showed up!
It was definitely a bit of a shock for me walking through a community like this: buildings falling apart, pets all over the place eating whatever they can find, animal poop all over the roads, trash scattered everywhere, and there was even piles of trash burning on the side of the road. We would take breaks here and there to talk to locals and/or pray for that specific part of the community and we would ask the Lord what we should be praying about. Considering most of my life my thoughts have been self centered it has been a difficult practice listening to God, however, it has been humbling to see how he can work through that! (i.e. a girl from the squad felt the sewing ministry put on her heart and unbeknown to us that confirmed our coaches prayers which were centered around starting a sewing ministry in that community!). We got to interact with over a dozen people in this community and they were honestly some of the happiest people I have seen, I could see some of God in these people!
As we were walking past dozens of houses our coach, Doug, felt God highlight a woman to him so we stopped and went to speak with her. As we were walking towards this woman I started getting nervous for whatever reason, nerves of excitement. Come to find out this woman was deaf! For those of you who do not know I am fluent in Sign Language and am connected to the deaf community back at home (my grandparents and uncle are deaf, my aunt works at a deaf school, my mom is a Sign Language interpreter, and we have many deaf friends). I got super excited but was also worried because we are in Costa Rica, a Spanish speaking country, and I only know English and American Sign Language (ASL). However, when she began signing to our translator…I could understand her! Praise God! I hopped right in and introduced myself and those I was doing the prayer walk with. The woman’s name is Ana, she was SUPER excited that I knew Sign Language! Her Sign Language was slightly different than ASL and her second language is Spanish so it was difficult to understand some of the stuff she was spelling, but praise God her Sign Language was almost the exact same as ASL! I got the opportunity to interpret a few prayers and I even got to pray for her myself! I prayed for healing Ana, if it was God’s Will her hearing, but I more specifically prayed for spiritual healing in her life. I also got the opportunity to chat with Ana for a bit; she has been deaf since she was a one year old and no one she lives with knows Sign Language, she attends church, and is involved in a deaf community in San José. She was very intentional and not only asked more about me, but also asked more about the group and how she could be in prayer for us! It was such a great blessing being able to meet and communicate with Ana!
On my World Race application I put that Sign Language was my second language, however, heading into this trip I NEVER thought I’d be able to use that to communicate with someone because I just assumed that Sign Language would be different in Central America (as it is in most other countries). I praise God for the opportunity to use the gift of Sign Language to share the His love with a woman from another nation…TOTALLY unexpected! Most deaf people are neglected/ignored and it absolutely breaks my heart, so it brought me so much joy to be able to listen to Ana and share God’s love with her. Signing with Ana reminded me a lot of home and family which brought me joy, but God also used it to really break my heart for the deaf community as a whole.
I know that I am called to ministry and the more I am involved in ministry the more God has confirmed that; however, I have had MANY amazing interactions with people through Sign Language and have fallen in love with the deaf community, and it has been suggested countless times by countless people that I should be a Sign Language interpreter? Do I know what this means? Absolutely not LOL! But I am praying for God to pour me out and use me in whatever way He can use me best. Right now He is using me best in Costa Rica on the World Race, so I will just continue to pray for opportunities like this and I will leave the rest in His hands. Man O Man God is good!
God bless,
Ty
