The deep, deep Costa Rican jungle that is!
A team of racers and myself journeyed into the no-where jungle. Two busses, a boat, and our trusty feet later, we set eyes on our new church home. Excited to be there, we began exploring our unfamiliar crib. We thought we were gonna rough it in the jungle, but we found a small slice of paradise instead. Okay, maybe it wasn’t five star but we did have a roof over our heads, running water 68% of the time, electricity, a toilet, and beautiful people who were delighted to cook for us.
You see, we landed in a BriBri village called Namuoki (my best spelling guess). We were told that we were the first gringos (USA people) to ever set foot there. The “village” had about four houses near the church building, the rest were a muddy, why didn’t you bring your botas, trek away. We tried the slimy fruit off a cacao bean, a fuzzy, cotton candy like dry fruit called guaba (not guava haha), fresh coconut, and so many varieties of plantain.
Ministry wise, we got to move a lot of dirt out back, lead two church services, host a women’s night, have a youth event, and participate in a Sunday school. We also got to do house visits and have intercession time. I even shared a testimony fully in Spanish! We washed the feet of the hard-working, village women and reminded them of their worth. We struggled and giggled through broken English and translation difficulties. We sweated our complete guts out moving tierra from here to there, learning the value of hard physical work. Only having your muscles to do the heavy lifting is so humbling and fulfilling at the same time. The whole time I was praying for a waking up of the quiet, emotion-limited people. I am confident that Jesus was shared and light overcame.
The racers and I laughed, cried, worshipped, played cards upon cards, got stuck speaking in accents, crawled up a rushing river on our bellies (true survivalists hehe), played paranoia, hot seat, and sing your best voice. It was a beautiful “this is what good community is” refresher. It was the sweetest for me to see the racers discover what deeper, sweeter community looked like.
A young (20) and very kind man, A, made us heart seeds with our names carved into them. It was so evident how pure and untainted A’s heart was. A stark contrast to what I often see and experience in young, guarded, hurt people. It was so clear that he just wanted to be friends and “play” with us. He taught me how to play who can find the coke bottle filled with rocks first in the rushing river game. I felt like I was 8 again but like in a good way. He was also so quick to help, even if it meant carrying a big pack while on a horse. My heart has been mulling over who this man is the past couple days. He is a human, a pure one. And I think I am still picking up more tid bits of what human is meant to be.
Also, it’s fun because at the beginning of all this Holy Spirit whispered “you still get to be a child too”, like you are still my child. I am His child over His SQL. And days/moments later, I ran into the jungle and experience youth like freedom.
Steven, our super dope host, said at the beginning “I hope we leave this house singing.” Well, actually it was in Spanish and that’s not what he said word for word, but that’s my translation. And our prayer was answered, we left full, really full. It’s really cool how kingdom can be built anywhere on this planet and you can commune with Christ’s body literally anywhere. Rad idea God, big fan of it!
The jungle was a raw, childlike, beautiful, light human experience. Human is human is human. How can we be more human, more alive, believe more in His love?
Grasping what pura vida actually means and I am really about it!
