Hi everyone!! I’m writing to you from Costa Rica!! I still can’t believe I’m here. It feels amazing knowing this is exactly where the Lord wants me to be. We began ministry training this week, and while I don’t know what my team specifically will be doing yet, I can now give a bit more of an overview of our time here!!
Our squad will be working with the Christian ministry Til He Returns (called The Hope Project here in Costa). This ministry works in at-risk communities in Costa Rica to redefine poverty. Their vision is to (re)shape the identity of impoverished individuals, restore their dignity, and (re)build families.
Til He Returns focuses on four main relationships in an individual’s life – their relationships with God, themselves, others, and creation. In line with these relationships, the programs they provide fall under four main categories – spiritual development, counseling, community outreach, and economic empowerment. The ministry uses asset-based development; they utilize the gifts and dreams of those in the community to build relationships and begin a cycle of sustainable prosperity.
We’ve done training for the past two days to make sure our squad has the right mindset going into this type of ministry. We will begin working with the ministry next week, with half of our squad going in the morning and the other half in the afternoons. We will alternate time shifts weekly, while also alternating having Friday or Saturday off to fundraise, write blogs, or get anything else done that we need to. Sunday will then be our sabbath day to devote to spending time with the Lord.
Til He Returns has numerous programs that we have the possibility of helping with, however we don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing until we get there Monday to start working. Even then, our teams will switch it up however often to give us experience in each of the ministry programs. They run a pregnancy center, have multiple dance classes, teach English, run business classes, teach martial arts, do general community outreach, and many other things. I am so excited to get started!!
So there’s a bit of what our ministry will look like! I only have wifi when we walk to a coffee shop, but I’m trying to stay in touch as much as I can. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can! Right now our plan is to be here until the end of March, and then hopefully we’ll go to another country until the end of May!
Thank you so much for your support! It’s definitely been tough being this far away from home, but the Lord has already done so much during our week here and I can’t wait to see what else He has in store!
With love,
Brook
