SO much has happened in the last week!!
We left debrief in Jaco Beach, went to the Awakening, and began our first week of ministry here in San Jose, Costa Rica. Here are some updates on all that has gone on.
Awakening highlights…
The Awakening is a conference that AIM puts on every so often where World Race squads who are in the same general area of the world get together and have a speaker, worship, and things like that. It was so awesome for a variety of reasons.
There was an 11 in 11 team, two Gap Year squads (9 months), and our semesters team there. We got to spend two and a half days together at a beautiful Christian camp in the mountains. It seriously reminded me of a Costa Rican version of Camp Geneva mixed with Timberworlf (the Young Life camp). The facilities, food, and staff were so incredible. It was so fun and extremely inspiring to get to interact with the other World Race teams and hear about their experiences so far. I even met a girl from Holland, MI who I had never heard of before which was such an exciting new connection and friendship I am looking forward to maintaining! Some AIM staff came from Georgia and we had multiple awesome speakers, especially Karen Dilbeck. There were such good messages and I was furiously scribbling down tons of truth in my journal the whole time and am definitely still processing most of what I learned.
Some of the highlights were messages about emotions, intercession, a mission hosts panel, Christian dating, anxiety, healing, hospitality, and storytelling (just to name a few), and I got the chance to help lead worship one of the days. There was also a lot of spirit led sharing as people would often spontaneously go up on stage during worship or between talks to say things they felt led to, pray for something, or ask for prayer. My team also grew together immensely over the span of debrief and the Awakening and we have made huge strides in our sense of community becoming a lot tighter. There are a million takeaways and things I could say about the Awakening but I will just share one story.
My leaders had asked me ahead of time if I would be the one from our squad to share a little testimony of what the Lord had done in month one and I was excited to do it. I was scheduled to share on the last night of the conference before our main speaker, Karen, gave her final teaching. Prior to that night I had done a lot of reflecting and praying about what to share and that it would be only what the Lord wanted to use, and I felt prepared to talk that night. Karen ended up wanting to change the order of the schedule and decided to teach first, then move to worship, and in the schedule shuffling my testimony was sort of forgotten about. But it turned out that this was exactly what was supposed to happen and much better than the original plan. Karen ended up giving a really insightful and powerful message that ended with an emphasis on learning to be still. Sort of along the lines of one of my first blog posts, this was exactly what I was going to talk about in front of the big group since learning to practice stillness was a huge thing that the Lord started teaching me in month one.
As we transitioned into the time of worship, my team mentor, Katie, came down to me and apologized about the mix up and asked if I could just share the next morning after breakfast before the conference ended. I said okay, that’s fine but I told her how what I was planning to share related exactly to what Karen had just talked about. She looked at me with the beginning of a smile and a knowing look on her face and said, “Yep, okay give me a minute,” and walked to the back of the chapel before returning to tell me that I should head down during the worship time and go on stage to share spontaneously once I felt ready. Normally this would be pretty out of my comfort zone, but I felt sure that it was what needed to happen and agreed to do it. The first song that we started singing had the lyrics “so much better Your way”, and that was the prompting I needed to get myself to walk down the steps to the bottom of the chapel and wait next to the stage to go up and share.
This whole experience was really powerful for me because I had recently been feeling a little frustrated about being able to hear from the Lord and distinguish with confidence the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But after the whole thing was over and I had gone up and talked, I definitely attributed the schedule switching, message from Karen, specific first worship song we sang, and inclination about what to share and even the specific words I felt led to include to be the orchestration of the Holy Spirit. Two of the girls who talked to me afterward mentioned that they specifically related to this one specific thing I included that had I came really close to leaving out but had kept feeling it pressed to the forefront of my mind and decided to say it, and their words were affirmation that I had heard from the Lord. Another detail was that I was given an opportunity to help lead worship in singing that night, which I would normally be really excited about and enthusiastic to help with, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t my time or place and I declined the opportunity to step up and do it. I know this was no coincidence because instead of preparing to help lead worship that afternoon I had really focused on preparing to share my little testimony and spent intentional time trying to be in tune with the Holy Spirit about it which I think he really blessed. Also, Karen approached me afterwards and affirmed my obedience to the Holy Spirit to share what I did and when, and that was so special to have a little conversation about that with her since she is so wise and someone I really admire.
I share all this feeling somewhat self-conscious because I don’t mean to make it seem like it’s about something I did out of my own power that I think was cool. But rather my only intention in including this story is to emphasize how God is really good and works in cool ways, and the Awakening really encouraged me in my ability to acknowledge the prompting of the Holy Spirit and how thankful I am for that. And this was nothing that I did, but something the Lord was kind enough to include me in and use me as a vessel for his purposes to encourage some other people and share some of what he has been teaching me.
First few days in San Jose…
We arrived at the AIM Base in San Jose on Wednesday afternoon. All I can say so far is that I really love Costa Rica. There is just something special about this country. I love the “pura vida” life. Debrief was really fun because we were in a touristy beach area of Costa Rica, the Awakening was great because we were in a pretty part of the mountains, but being here in San Jose I am starting to fall in love with the people we have met, their culture, and the city where we are living.
The base is a large house with tons of bunk beds and big spaces to gather, complete with a chalk wall in the living room, a spacious backyard, and the sweetest cook named Xinia who comes to make us dinner every weeknight. We are really enjoying this space. Our base mentors are Kevin and Ana who went on the Race a few years ago, got married, just moved to Costa Rica a month ago, and we love them so much already. They are super fun and kind, have huge hearts, and a good sense of humor to deal with and invest in our goofy team of 14 girls plus two leaders. They live nearby and come and visit the base often to check in on us.
We are partnering this month with Conexión Ministries which is a local organization here in San Jose. Beth and Brian are Alabama natives who have been in Costa Rica for about 10 years running this organization and raising their children (now in college), along with Jherson who is the funniest, kindest, most musically talented Colombian guy who we have already adopted as our team dad. On Thursday morning, our bus broke down and our ministry hosts had to come and pick us up and be our transportation instead of Alfredo our bus driver. This was actually a huge blessing because we got the opportunity to spend a ton of time the past two days riding around in Beth’s truck and Jherson’s van just seeing the city as we went from location to location hearing all about their lives, ministry, and Costa Rica as well as just building relationships and sharing laughs together. We would not have gotten the special opportunity to spend this extra time with them had we been able to use our bus. Thursday night we even convinced Jherson (dad, aka papi) to let us stop for ice cream on the way home from ministry. He and Beth are so much fun.
Something I like already about our ministry here is that most of the days are really different from one another and we are going to have a lot of variety, which keeps things exciting. The first day we helped a family move from two apartments into one house after their brother passed away in a motorcycle accident. Yesterday we got to go to a church and put on a block party for the kids and families in the neighborhood complete with a bouncy house, trampoline, nine square, face painting, and the whole nine yards. It was really fun, and we got to work together on this project with teams from Mississippi and Nicaragua who were staying at the church on a mission trip. Today we are going back there to play with the kids and help with a medical mission where families can come and receive free medical attention. It is specifically aimed at Nicaraguan refugees who are here in result of fleeing the political unrest in their country. We feel a soft spot in our hearts for these refugees especially after spending a month in Nicaragua and hearing first hand stories about how people have been affected by the crisis there. Many of the refugees are blacklisted by the government for supporting protests and would be killed if they were to return to Nicaragua or hunted down if the government was made aware of their whereabouts. These people have a lot of fear and we have to be careful to make them feel safe and unthreatened. Many of them are unwilling to share their names and are afraid that their picture might be taken. We hope to ease their uncertainty and give them some love and encouragement.
That was a LONG update, and I don’t even feel like I captured half of what I got the chance to experience the past week. But hopefully that gives a bit of insight of what we are up to currently. Overall, I am just very excited about all I’ve been learning lately, where we are at right now, and what this month has to offer! Thanks for reading.
Love, Jordan
