Acclimating Forward

Hola de Costa Rica!

Chris here.  I am so excited to be posting my first ever Passport blog!  As you may have already heard, we have safely arrived here in Jaco, Costa Rica.  Myself and Sarah are the co-leaders of the Costa Rica team, and we have been blown-away by everyone’s willingness to experience all that the Lord has for them in this new season of life here in CR.

We are living and serving with Ocean’s Edge here in Jaco.  Our ministry so far has been cleaning up much of the property we are staying at, and helping organize various rooms that include a tool shed and a general storage room.  We’ve had a few smaller teams visit a pre-natal pregnancy center here in town, as well as a Christian youth house.  We are also preparing activities for our weekly kids club and sports camp.  Some of our team members will have the chance to help lead worship at the church we will be attending for the duration of our time here.

The other day we had a time of ATL, which stands for “ask the Lord”, and we prayed-in to what the Lord wanted to speak or show to us.  After this time of ATL, we hit the streets of Jaco with prayer.  Our team is learning how to hear from the Lord through His Spirit dwelling in each of us, and already we have some really powerful stories of seeing God move.  Some of us have been able to build relationships with various locals around the town.  One man in particular is a salesman who runs an adventure tour company.  He sits at his street-side stand for most of each day, and that’s how we met him and have gotten to build a friendship.  Just yesterday we invited him to a Spanish church service that takes place on Friday evenings, and he showed great interest in attending and also getting to meet the rest of our team.  Additionally, some of us have gotten to build a friendship with a man who works at a local coffee shop who is open to hearing more about why we are here and the God we serve.  All-in-all the team is really embracing the intentionality of missional living.

This is such a hard-working team.  At training camp Sarah and I emphasized the idea of abandonment – letting go of the things we turn to for comfort that are not Jesus.  This is illustrated really well through the story of Peter walking on water in Matthew 14.  Jesus called Peter out of the boat and to walk on water with Him.  The boat represents our comfort zone, and Peter was called to leave it and to intentionally put himself in a place where all he had to rely on was his faith in Christ.  We have seen this happen to some degree or another with everyone on the team, and I must say, it’s a beautiful thing!  We have been talking a lot about letting go of our false self, the false identity we put on display to those around us to manipulate how we are viewed by our peers.  At training camp we learned that our true self, or who we were uniquely created to be, is often times covered by a layer of shame, and over that shame is the layer we create as our false self.  Sarah and I’s prayer is that everyone’s true self will shine brightly, and that each of us will continue in the process of letting go of the shame and guilt that many of us walk around in each day.  The Lord has already been answering that prayer, and it’s been such a joy seeing them become vulnerable and allow the rest of us to see them, the true them.

We were talking just last night about how we all have known each other for only a week or so now, and already there is so much unity within our team.  All of us have bonded so well with each other.  Please be in prayer that God would continue to use us in giant ways to leave a lasting impact on Jaco, and that we would be changed and transformed in the process.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you have.

Stay tuned for more!