Hey y’all! For my second blog post, I thought that I would share a little bit about what our weekly ministry looks like here in Costa Rica to offer a glimpse into my new daily life!
Our “work week” starts bright and early on Monday mornings. After devotionals and breakfast, our whole squad divides and conquers to have the base deep-cleaned by9am. Last week, my team and I were in charge of cleaning the outdoor bathrooms, which includesthe toilets and showers. We also had to clean the common areas of the house, as well as the room that my team shares (it’s crazy how dirty a room can get in just a week when it’s shared by seven girls). After the base is looking and smelling considerably better, we sit through sessions referred to as “activation classes”. In these sessions, we get spiritually refreshed by listening to Bible teachings and hearing testimonies from our base elders, a couple who have volunteered their time to pour into us and encourage us through Christ. After sessions, our whole squad has time to process and practice what we have just been taught.
The rest of the week, our team is helping with a couple of different organizations. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, my team and I catch a 30 minute bus ride into downtown San Jose to help human trafficking victims. After a long (and confusing) walk, we arrive at our ministry, where we work with women between the ages of 30-80 who are involved in active prostitution. We sit with them while they have their bible study, serve them coffee and cookies, and try to communicate with them through horrible Spanish and charades. Seeing these women let their guards down, even for a short time, is an incredible thing to witness. For a few minutes, they aren’t considered less than and they aren’t seen as objects, they are simply seen as themselves— and you can see how much this truly means to them.
On Wednesday mornings, my team has scheduled ATL time, which is an acronym for “Ask the Lord”. Our team spends time in prayer before walking around the community listening for who or what God is asking us to pray for. Last week, my team spent our ATL in a Walmart praying for strangers. At first it seemed scary, but God led us to pray for people who turned out to be so receptive to what we had to say. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons we walk to the slums (a Nicaraguan refugee settlement) and teach classes to the people of the community. The building that we are teaching in is simply a recreation center, but beneath the surface it is much more than that. This organization was created with the intention of keeping the neighborhood kids busy and out of trouble. In this community, there are literally no job opportunities for the children growing up here—there are a handful of “stores” which are really more like front-yard garage sales than businesses. The only thing that brings a sustainable income here is pushing drugs, which as you can expect only leads to more poverty, as people who don’t have enough money to buy themselves good groceries spend the little money they have on drugs. The government hopes that by offering fun after-school programs for the kids here, they will come to see that they have potential beyond drug-trafficking and can obtain a bright future by staying in school and out of trouble.
We finish our ministry for the week on Fridays with a Zumba class and street ministry. In the mornings we attend the class, where we dance and talk to our instructor and the ladies in our class. Our instructor loves us, and insists that we take a picture with her every week. At night we ride a bus back into downtown, where we meet up with more volunteers and pile into a small van. We drive until we see a human trafficking victim standing on the side of the road. Two men and two of us from my team get out and offer them coffee, cookies, and prayer. Usually the women are glad for a break and will gladly accept our offer of hot coffee, and talk with us for a while. You can tell that some of the women are even reluctant to end the conversations, because it means that they will have to go back to work. Most of them don’t speak English, so I usually stand there and struggle with translating everything in my head. Despite the language barrier, myself and my team are learning that smiles, eye contact, and respect are universal languages. Most of our interactions on the streets of San Jose end with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which is how Costa Ricans say both hello and goodbye to their friends. Getting home after midnight at the end of the week can be exhausting, but the work that we are doing is equally rewarding.
