Costa Rica 2010: The Outreach Begins

Sorry it's been a couple of days since we've posted. We've been going non-stop with training and visiting the community we are going to be serving at. But just so you know, I woke up early (and I'm not a morning person) to share what we've done the past few days.

We continued with training on Friday. The theme here is relationships: Relationships with God, ourselves and others. We've been learning about pride and how to be humble. The cure to all the lies that we tell ourselves is community! We need to love each other to be truly real.

Besides that, the youth have been sharing testimonies. Rachel W. shared hers in front of all 120 people. It was truly amazing and she touched many hearts with her story. Isaac and Elizabeth have also been brave souls to stand in front of our team and share their stories. God is truly challenging the youth to be real with who they are and with who God is.

Yesterday, we visited Vina del Este, which is the church we will be working at. We were given a tour of the church and shown the project we will be doing. We will be sanding, painting and putting windows in their youth center room. Monica, a woman that works at the church told us about the community. One side is a very poor area and the other is a very wealthy area. There are many teen moms and drug addicts and they have a very big burden to help and reach the people. She also shared a prayer request for the church. They gave classes to help the Tikos learn skills they can use to get a job, however, they are not pursuing a job because they have no where to leave the children. The church wants to start a free daycare but they are having difficulty getting approval from the government. Please pray for favor so they can begin this ministry.

We then walked around the neighborhood doing trash pick-up. Costa Rica is not a very dirty country. They have a garbage system and a truck that picks it up, but there is still a small amount of litter. So we walked around with gloves and open hearts to help clean the community. Along the way, we had awesome conversations and prayed for quite a few people. One man in particular shared that he really felt the Holy Spirit as the team was praying for him. Another woman was homeless with 4 children, a widow, and her mother was a drug addict. She needed prayer desperately.

Some of the fun things we've done is go to a Christian Concert. The bands name was Crossover. It was a fun night out and at times it felt like we were at a Spanish Jeremy Riddle concert. It was a great cultural experience. We also had youth group with Vina del Este young adult group. We played an ice breaker game and Marcus, the leader of the group, shared about miracles.

Today we are heading back to Vina del Este to have church, play some futball de cinco, and just spend time with the community. It is the sabbath and we love resting and having fun. Pray we win a game of futball against the Tikos!

Thanks so much for praying for us and supporting us. It's been an amazing and life-changing time so far and it's going to continue to be! We are also becoming more bold to try the different foods they are serving us. So I'll leave you with a little ditty...

Where God leads me I will follow.
What they feed me I will swallow.
By God's grace I'll keep it down.
And I will not frown until they turn around!

Thanks,
Crystal