We got to stay with a missionary family with three overly energized kids that has dedicated their lives to spreading the Truth throughout the mountain little by little through personal Bible studies and disciplship. Being a team of 6 people it was hard at the beginning because we felt like we all wanted to do more than we could. Although it was frustrating it really tested me and taught me how much I measure my Christian walk or effectivness as a missionary on how much I DO instead of who I AM and how I act as God gives me his work. It also taught me a lot about how our ministry has just as much to do with helping and encouraging our contacts as it does helping and encouraging others. Even though we only got to help with a couple Bible studies a
week it was a blessing to really go to a place and do life with a missionary there. Most of the time we are used to going to a place and doing a lot of projects or making what we think is a big change in the community. While those things aren’t bad, I do believe that there is a romantic view of mission work where people think that being a missionary always means doing projects and saving tons of people when sometimes as you live life with people all you have time for is spending the entire day waiting to get your car fixed (time efficiancy is not a popular thing in Central America). God is continually teaching me that things around the world really aren’t that different from home. The Gospel is the Gospel, sin is sin and life is life whether it is the USA, Costa Rica, or the Philippines.
Some of the days we got to go into the town a little further and play some soccer with the local kids. As soon as we spent any time with them I started to see quite a difference it was just from the kids of Nicaragua to Costa Rica. We knew that a lot of people traveled from Nicaragua to Costa Rica to work, but what I didn’t know is that it is almost the equivalent of immigrants coming from Mexico to work in America. This kinda hit as we were playing and one of the kids soccer balls deflated a little. Instead of continuing to play he took it off the field went and sat down and just pouted. He made a pretty big scene as his friends gathered to mourn with him. My first thought was, “Dude this is a brand new soccer ball and it still has plenty of air. Kids in Nicaragua and Honduras would love to be able to play with a ball like this!” I couldn’t really fault him that much though because I know that’s probably what I would have done at his age. This was the beginning of an interesting reality that would kick in even more as we went to our next ministry in Jaco Beach. To be continued…
