For the month of July my team was placed in Los Guido, Costa Rica where we worked with Christian Light Foundation. During our time there we had the opportunity to work with so many beautiful children at the ministry’s feeding center, do some cleaning projects, spend a couple days doing manual labor, and participate in the church family at Iglesia Nueva Vida.
My mission for this particular month was simple—invest in relationships.
It was month 7 of my Race and I really didn’t want to fall in the typical struggle that most Racers experience around this time of “checking out” and starting to think more about home and post-race concerns than about the actual ministry and people right in front of me.
The few two weeks were rough, and I failed miserably at my “relationships” goal—not only with the people I met and worked with in ministry, but with my team and the other team we were paired with as well.
I felt like I was constantly fighting to stay present, but I was daily losing the battle. For that first week or two, I thought a whole lot about myself. My worries, my doubts, my anxieties, my concerns, my struggles, my plans, my desires, my needs, my future, my decisions, my friends, my family, and my life.
Which are all fine things to think about. But I had put myself in a box… and I wasn’t too concerned about letting anyone else in, let alone leaving that box altogether in order to love and serve the people around me.
About halfway through my time in Costa Rica I began getting to know a woman named Rosa.
Rosa and her family lived on the church property where we were staying for the month. Her husband was the caretaker of the land, and Rosa volunteered most of her time working at the ministry’s feeding center. Two of their children, Memo and Diana (ages 18 and 15), also lived there and became friendly faces that we saw each day.
One evening I found myself wandering up the hill and sat down on the bench outside of their home to play with their 2-year old grandson, Fabian. Not long after, Rosa joined us. Then her husband Juan. Then Memo, and then Diana. Before I knew it, 3 hours had passed and I found myself falling in love with this incredible family.
The beautiful Diana!
I couldn’t believe I had spent almost an entire two weeks just saying hello to them and missing so many wonderful opportunities to get to know and love this family. That night, I made up my mind that I was going the be all-in. We only had a week and a half left in Costa Rica, but I couldn’t go one more day living in my box of selfish ambition and vain conceit. I didn’t want to miss one more moment of the beautiful joy and love that radiated from the people of Costa Rica. I didn’t want to spend one more day living with 12 other women on my squad and not knowing their thoughts, hearts, dreams, and desires.
And so for the next 10 days I loved people more deeply than I ever thought possible. I sat and talked with them, shared my testimony with them and listened to theirs, played soccer, volleyball, jump rope, and card games with them, shared the gospel with them, prayed over them, taught them, learned from them, colored with them, danced with them, wrote them letters, laughed with them, watched movies with them, read scripture with them, challenged and encouraged them, and loved them unconditionally with my whole heart.
The day I left, I hugged Rosa and her family over and over again. Goodbye had never been so hard… and for the first time on my Race, I cried leaving my new home and my new family—and I don’t regret even one minute of those last 10 days.
My Costa Rican mother, Rosa!
As I go forward into these last 4 months of the Race and beyond, I don’t want to waste one more minute of this beautiful life I have been given. Each day I want to continue to be shaped into the image of Christ— one who is selfless, abounding in love and grace, joyful, patient, forgiving, steadfast, faithful, and whose purpose and identity are found in my Heavenly Father.
And I am praying the same thing for each of you who are reading this right now! Knowing Jesus and accepting His love changes lives and hearts… And I pray that each of you would find that to be true in your own life.
“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” –Ephesians 3:16-18
