Hello everyone! I apologize that this blog isn’t going to be quite as long as some, but I really felt God putting it on my heart to share with you all how I am feeling as we are all settling into life and ministry here in Costa Rica. I wrote this blog in one sitting a couple of nights ago when I couldn’t sleep, so I apologize in advance if it sounds a little unorganized or hectic. With that said, enjoy!
These first two weeks here in Costa Rica have been so life-giving. I never realized how much I had been craving good, constant, Christian community until I found myself living with twenty-some other people who want the same thing that I want — intimacy with God and to be used by Him. Before arriving and settling into our new home, getting our ministry schedule was something that I was honestly kind of dreading. I was anticipating a jam-packed schedule that would leave my team and I physically and emotionally exhausted. In a way that turned out to be true, but in the sweetest way possible. Our schedule is packed for the most part, and getting to different ministries require catching a long bus, walking long distances, or a little of both. So yes, ministry has been walking through scary parts of San José to get to a safe house, but it has also been meaningful conversations in a mixture of broken Spanish on one end and broken English on the other. Ministry has been waking up at 5:30 AM every morning to catch the bus on time, but it’s also been hugging and praying with a woman who was selling herself on a street corner at midnight, and her telling you with tears in her eyes that she is hopeful for a better future for herself. It has been helping at an event where women who haven’t showered in weeks or even months get an opportunity to shower, pick out an outfit, get their hair, nails, and makeup done, receive a rose, and leave feeling like their dignity has been restored. It has been chasing someone down in Walmart because God had given me a picture of the shoes that he was wearing earlier that day, knowing He wanted me to talk to him, and seeing in him such an open heart as he told us that he wanted us to pray for him, and allowed us to share with him about who God is and what we are doing here. So yes, ministry isn’t easy. It’s hard in a way that makes you self-reflect, laugh, cry, go places you would have never otherwise been, talk to people you would have never otherwise met, take on responsibilities that push you out of your comfort zone, and makes you ready for bed by 9:30 every night. It is all of this, and more, but the feeling that you receive after the act of giving makes every moment of it worth it. So while I know that this is only week two, and that I will only get more tired, and the beans and rice that we eat every day that taste so good now will start to get old, and there will be days when I just don’t want to get out of bed, for now all I can say is that I am filled with the joy of the Lord like never before, and there is nothing else in the world that I would rather be doing than what I am doing here. I am choosing to embrace this “honeymoon phase” of life and ministry with open arms and an expectant heart for the ways that God is going to reveal himself, not only to the people that my team and I are ministering to, but to us as well.
God is already doing so much here in Costa Rica, and I look forward to sharing with you all as He reveals himself and His will here more and more! Until next time!
-Nicole
