HEY HEY friends & family! I have been in the beautiful country of Costa Rica for a little bit over 2 months! As exciting as that is, it also means that I have less than 1 month until we leave for Cambodia! The days here go by slow, but you blink and another week is over. Each day is packed full with all the different ministries we serve alongside. My team and I have 6 different ministries that we have been working with: ATL (ask the lord), La Cometa, El Tiribi, Zumba, and 2 organizations that fight against human trafficking. Here is a brief-ish description of each one.
- ATL (Ask The Lord): My team and I have this ministry on Monday and Wednesday mornings. We pray and ask our Father what he has planned for us today. Sometimes he gives us a word, or an image, or a feeling. It looks different for each of us. I usually get images from the Lord. Sometimes He gives me random things like pineapple, and other times He gives me images of people. Then we go out into the community, where ever the Spirit leads us. In this I have learned a lot of what it looks like to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. I have learned that the Holy Spirit has so much to tell us, and we are simply vessels asked to carry out His work.
- La Cometa: This ministry is located in a community that is made up of Nicaraguan refugees. La Cometa is a government funded organization we volunteer at teaching classes to men, women, and children. One of the classes we teach is a dance class, which as you can guess, is SO MUCH FUN! I teach jazz to a small group of awesome students. It is so cool that God gave us this ministry, and that he loves to give us things that we love to do. We also teach an art class, and play games with the kiddos. It has taught me that ministry doesn’t always have to look like VBS or church camps, but it can be a lot of different things.
- El Tiribi: This is another government funded organization we get to volunteer at on Wednesday mornings. Here we teach different classes each week. The first month we taught a yoga class and art class. Now we are teaching English (beginner, conversational, and advanced). We get to do this one on one with people. I enjoy teaching this way because you can work at their pace, and teach the things that they want to learn. Last week I got to have a one on one with a women, and taught her how to use Instagram and Facebook to grow her business. How cool is it that God uses skills he grew in me through working at home to help people in other parts of the world!
- Zumba: Saying this ministry is fun would be a huge understatement. My team and I get to take a Zumba class down the street from our house every Friday morning. It has given us the opportunity to build relationship with the women in our neighborhood, and our instructor. It blows my mind that someone can have so much energy, she is truly a firecracker! She does not let us slack, and does a great job at making sure we burn off all those delicious chocolate croissants we get from the market by our house. It has been a great team bonding time, and we get lots of laughs and a good sweat in.
These last two ministries are probably my favorite. The actual names of these organizations are protected but for the purpose of this blog we will call one of them House of Hope, and the other Casa Agape.
- House of Hope: We go to House of Hope on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Here we serve breakfast and coffee to women that are actively working in prostitution. The ages of the women vary greatly between 18-70+. We start the morning off with a devotional, then we pray, and then we give them their coffee and breakfast. The women have been so open to accepting us “gringas” as their friends, and letting us love on them. It is incredibly humbling that God entrusted my team with such a spiritually heavy ministry.
- Casa Agape: My team and I serve with this ministry on Friday nights. We go to the location of the safe house after dinner. Here we listen to a devotional that someone prepares each week, we have worship, and then we pray over the night. Then we load into a 15 passenger van with a Gatorade cooler full of coffee and a box of cream, sugar, and cookies. We drive around down town San Jose and give out coffee and cookies to sex exploitation victims, and homeless people living on the streets. This ministry has taught me a lot about the power of prayer, and what intercession looks like. The lord has given me a huge heart and desire to serve this populations of women, and I hope that I can continue to do work like this in the states at some point.
This is what my weeks look like here in Costa Rica. It’s jam packed and leaves me exhausted and ready for my sabbath on Sundays. I love that each of these ministries are so different form the next. It always makes our week interesting, and gives us something new to talk about. It is going to be so hard to leave this place in a few weeks. That’s all for now, I hope that this gave you all a better understanding of what I have been up to over here!
