What’s up folks! Long time no blog (sorry bout that). Since you last heard from me, I have left Malaysia, moved to Costa Rica, and am now living in the heart of the jungle. I’m gonna go ahead and apologize for the random collage of thoughts that this blog is going to be. So much has happened in the last month and I have so many Jesus stories that I am just bursting at the seams to tell. Lets back up to the end of Malaysia. After a ROUGH month for our squad, we gathered in Kuala Lumpur for two days to look back on all the Lord did in the past three months and thank Him for it, as well as prepare our hearts for the months to come. WOW God showed up big for us in Asia. I saw Him build unlikely friendships, heal broken bodies, and deliver His people from the darkest of evils. For the sake of the length of this blog, I’m just going to link my teammate Amanda’s blog about God delivering a woman from an evil spirit! It is such a sweet story and one of my favorites.
https://amandacasillas.theworldrace.org/post/streets-of-penang
Fast-forward to Costa Rica!!!!!!!! Never knew how hard I would fall in love with this country. The people here are some of the most passionate creatures I’ve ever met. They carry a sense of purpose and whimsy for life that America thirsts for so deeply. Last week I sat in a plastic chair under a metal pavilion in the middle of a lower class neighborhood surrounded my twenty or so young people dancing, screaming, crying out and on their faces for their King. Never have I EVER seen humans so freely and truly worship the Lord.
I am now living at a Rehabilitation Center for Men of God who were previously drug and alcohol addicts. When we arrived here, we had about a 1/2 mile walk through the mud that opens into a field with two houses. One house is this modernized, solar-powered that our host family, Max and Tara, live in. The other house is this giant, three story bamboo house that 14 muchachos live in!! While the men are here, they are learning what it means to become true disciples. They are denying themselves, picking up their cross, and following after Jesus. Max shared with us how cool it is to have eight women living here because besides his wife, these guys have never seen what Godly women look like. They respect us, honor us, and treat us like treasure. Each day for lunch and dinner we make the trek across the yard and over a creek (via a sketchy log) to the bamboo house to eat with the guys. Before each meal, we go around the table and each say a bible verse that we’ve memorized. It’s super sweet to hear these men spitting the Word in Spanish. When I say these guys are in love with Jesus, I mean HOLY. These guys are IN LOVE WITH JESUS. Basically the way the program works is each month, God provides the money for them to be able to live there and be discipled. If God doesn’t come through, they go home. So when these homies pray, they aren’t saying some scripted, rehearsed prayer. They are crying out to God, sometimes for hour on end, for Him to provide for them. I learned a lot from these guys. They brought back a sense of urgency and passion to my walk with Jesus that I so deeply needed.
While we stayed at Max’s, we would go out mostly every day to nearby neighborhoods, go door to door with bibles in hand, and talk to every person who would hear us out. We would ask about their families, if they had a relationship with Jesus, and just share some stories about how we met Jesus. We would listen to the Holy Spirit and what scripture He was laying on our hearts to read and then just pray over them! My favorite part? Every. Single. Time. we went out, Jesus showed up. I watched as people would start to weep as we prayed over them. I watched people who had grown up in a religious institution feel the presence of God for the first time ever. I watched my teammate explain to a 10 year old girl, Yulezka, who this Jesus is and how He loves her and came to earth to die for her sins so she could be with Him forever! I held Yulezka’s hand as she asked Jesus to come into her heart (with tears streaming down my face of course) and be the Savior of her life. I watched an elderly woman who used to be a witch sit down at our Christmas lunch and tell us her testimony. HOLY COW!!! Before this week, I’ve never lived out “sharing the Gospel” in such a literal way, but it’s the only way I want to live now.
In other news, Christmas this year was definitely now my typical cheery, cozy, busy Georgia Christmas. Nope. A couple days before Christmas, I was pooping my brains out. Ah, Montezuma’s revenge. Nothing like it. Also, my team hadn’t had time to buy each other gifts, so Christmas morning we watched our host family open gifts. It was hot outside. Honestly, I woke up kinda sad. I missed my family. I missed the sweetness of Christmas morning, of waking up and giving each other gifts. BUT if there’s anything I’ve learned since starting this adventure 3 and 1/2 months ago, it’s that every single moment, every breath is worth being savored. I’ll never get another one like it. Yeah, this Christmas felt a little bittersweet, but chances are I’m gonna look back on my jungle Christmas next year and miss the sound of my teammates laughs or the sound of reggae Christmas music coming from the kitchen (because that’s the only thing we have downloaded). So instead of pitying myself and dwelling on all the things I missed, I decided to just be present. To love the people in front of me. To become aware of the breath coming out of my lungs. A breath I didn’t deserve but received nevertheless.
I’ll never forget the Christmas I spent eating tamales and hearing testimonies of some of the sweetest men I’ve ever met. Men who used to walk in addiction, violence, and darkness. Men who have tasted and seen His goodness and are never going back! If there’s anything this Christmas reminded me of, it was Mark 2:13-17. Jesus, sitting at a table, surrounded by sinners. He didn’t eat with the self-righteous and arrogant, but the lowly. He ate with the tax collectors, prostitutes, the outcasts! This Christmas I am reminded that He calls us to do the same. He calls us to eat with the people that may give us a bad reputation. To be friends with the homeless man and the widow and the witch. And what a joy and honor it was to sit around a table this Christmas and eat some dang good tamales with the people who have walked through some CRAP, but are now walking in life. So I say, INVITE THE DRUGGIES AND THE WITCHES AND THE ALCOHOLICS!!!! Let’s stop disqualifying people from being disciples and invite them to have a seat at the table. Just like my sweet Jesus does.
Also, a little shoutout to my fam and friends. Those crazy hooligans packed a vacuum bag full of Christmas gifts in my pack when I left in September just so I could open it on Christmas morning. Man, it made my day!!! I truly love my people. They know how to love me well. I can’t thank Jesus enough for them.
My sincerest apologies for the randomness of this blog. Pinky promise I’ll be posting on the reg more often!! I’ve still got some stories I want to tell so I will probs be posting another blog in the days to come.
Happy New Years Eve, loves. I pray Jesus shakes you to your core this year and tethers your heart to His. Thanks for readin’!
In love and gratitude,
KT
