Five Days in the Jungle

Last week, my team along with another one of our girl’s teams and our guy’s team had the crazy opportunity to travel across Costa Rica to a mountain village called Talamanca to do ministry with the indigenous people who live there. This is gonna be a long one, but some CRAZY COOL GOD STUFF happened so it’s worth the read, I promise. 

When I heard that my team was going to be going into the jungle for a week, I was expecting to be off the grid for sure, but the reality of just how off the grid it was honestly surpassed any expectation that I had. On Monday, we left our base near San José around 4:30 am, and arrived in Talamanca around noon. The bus that we were traveling in took us to the base of the mountain where the Talamanca base was located, and dropped all of us off. Half of our group was picked up by a small white pickup truck and taken to the base while the other half of us started to hike to the base before being picked up halfway. We had about an hour to eat lunch and get settled before we left for our first house visit. We were told by our ministry host Diego that it would be kind of a long walk, but little did we know just what we were getting into. For a while we were walking on a dirt and gravel road, but a few miles in we took a hard left turn off the beaten path and finished the walk on a muddy path through the literal jungle (I’m not even joking, we were sinking in mud that was probably 5 inches deep. It was insane). Seven miles later we found ourselves at Jorge’s house. Jorge lives in a small, handmade house, surrounded by a freshwater spring, coop for his chickens, pigs, dogs, and geese. Before we had left, Diego had told us not to be discouraged if Jorge wasn’t home when we got there, because there was the possibility of him being at work and no way to contact him to see if he was home. As it turns out, this was good advice, because Jorge wasn’t home. The Lord was really working, because there wasn’t a single complaint, and we ended up having a worship service in Jorge’s yard, just us, God, and the chickens and the ducks. As we were worshiping, I was overwhelmed just thinking about  how good God really is. He sent us to Costa Rica, to send us to Talamanca, to send us to Jorge’s house, when Jorge wasn’t even home, just to give us the opportunity to fill his home with the Holy Spirit’s presence and pray over his life. It really put into perspective how much God loves each and every one of us. 

The next day was filled with house visits in the morning, and in the afternoon we had the opportunity to run a church service at Abundant Life church, one of only a handful of Christian churches in Talamanca. There were maybe 10 pews in the building, but it was such an honor to serve the community of believers in this way. Our group read scripture, Madison shared a testimony, I shared a message on faith, and our musically-talented squadmates lead a worship service in spanish (y’all know who you are, and y’all rocked it). Afterwards, the church blessed us with a meal cooked over a wood burning stove, and we headed home for the night.

Wednesday was another day full of house visits. We were told that the first woman we would be visiting was named Angela. Angela is an older woman with eleven children, one of whom had recently passed away. Her home is incredibly remote, an farther trip than even Jorge’s house was. Angela’s testimony is a hard one. Because Talamanca is so incredibly remote, witchcraft is still widely practiced. To give some context, the Christian church there has only been established for six years. Angela’s mother was a practicing witch (for a lack of a better word). She would perform animal sacrifices for other people, and even sacrificed one of her own children (one of Angela’s siblings) as part of a ritual. Angela heard about the Lord some years ago, and turned her back on her mother’s religion to give her life to Jesus. Her children are professing Christians, including one of her sons that we had the opportunity to meet during our visit. At 21 years old, he is the man of the house and provides for his mother, his siblings who live at home, and his sibling’s children, all who live under the same roof. Even in a season of losing his brother and feeling such a huge weight of responsibility, you could see the hope in his eyes that the Lord has given him, and he welcomed us into his home with open arms. Our group had the opportunity to encourage this family with scripture, music, and words that the Lord gave us to share with them. You could see the pain on Angela’s face throughout the visit. I have the gift of empathy, and sometimes the Lord allows me to feel what other people are feeling. The pain that radiated from her was so intense that it brought me to tears. The bright spot in the whole situation was that one of Angela’s children had just had a baby. We got to pray over this 22-day-old infant and her future. The Lord took a member of their family away, but he gifted them with a new life to bring new joy and laughter to the house. 

That night, my team had the opportunity to lead a youth group for the teenagers in Talamanca. We played games, had a time of worship, my teammate Britt gave a God-breathed message, and we ultimately got to just hang out together and enjoy each other’s company. It was so cool, because it reminded me so much of youth group back home, and all of the good memories I have from the countless Sunday and Wednesday nights there. 

Thursday morning began bright and early at 3am with an hour-long prayer walk for the church in Talamanca, as well as for the persecuted church around the world (apparently November is the month of the persecuted church). We had the rest of the morning to go back and catch up on sleep before our other girl’s team lead a women’s event for the women in the community, and the men’s team lead activities for younger kids in the community. Our women painted nails and washed feet, Tati shared her testimony, and our guys got to play with the kids for a couple of hours while my team split between them to help where we were needed. Diego shared with us later that day that three women from the women’s event accepted the Lord into their lives that day!! THANKS GOD!!

That night we got to attend another local church service before waking up bright and early the next morning to clean the base and head back to our home in San Jose. Since then, I have had a lot of time to reflect on God’s goodness throughout that week. I’ve been thinking a lot about how it says in Psalms that the Lord knows the desires of your heart. I saw this so much that week. I saw a poison dart frog day one. Fun fact, poison dart frogs have been my favorite animal since I saw a picture of one in my first ever science book. I never thought I would have the opportunity to see one in the wild, but God allowed that to happen for me. I had been missing going on hikes at home, and I can’t even tell you how many miles I got to walk over the course of our time in Talamanca (probably more than I would have asked for if I’m being honest). When we weren’t walking, we got to pack into the bed of a small pickup truck and ride for miles, just laughing together and talking about how crazy life is. Riding in the bed of a pickup truck is one of my

all-time favorite things to do. When I was little, my brother Alex and I used to ride in the bed of my dad’s pickup truck on the backroads of our mountain, and those are some of my favorite childhood memories. He even blessed us by allowing us to see the fruit of our labor by seeing three women come to know Him that week. I am still so incredibly blown away by His goodness and by how much we felt His presence that week. God is on the move, y’all. 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much. I ask that you keep the people of Talamanca in your prayers as most of them are living day-to-day, relying on good weather to grow food to feed their families. Most of them have no plumbing or electricity, and most importantly, most of them don’t know the Lord. Keep the churches there in your prayers as they are the few laborers in a plentiful harvest season. The people of Talamanca are incredibly generous and kind people despite their circumstance. The Lord loves the people there and wants them to invite Him to sit on the throne of their heart. Lifting them up in our prayers is a beautiful way to serve this remote and forgotten community of people. I will never forget my time there, and I know that the Lord has big plans for the people there. 

If you have any questions about my week in the jungle, feel free to shoot me a message. I’d love to share more about what I experienced and how the Lord is moving! 

Until next time!