“Who me? Really?”

“Sin City? What possessed you to want to stay there?”

Jacó, Costa Rica boasts a range of intimidatingly natural beauty by day. The exotic flowers in bold red and orange hues. The mountains stretching across the dark sandy beaches. The colorfully painted smoothie shacks along the coastal streets.

As my team and I go into our fourth week here in Jacó, the “darkness” that covers this beach town after the sunset has become more and more difficult to ignore. Often if we mention our new hometown, others respond with a look of confusion, wondering why we are staying in “Sin City” willingly.

Our daytime ministry changes on the daily. Some of our days have been spent serving the local pre-natal center, local kid’s clubs and camps, building relationships with those experiencing homelessness, packaging beans and rice for local families, cooking for church programs, fixing up the youth center, and more importantly, building relationships with local business owners and families that we meet as we walk into town. Every walk, purchase, or conversation we strike up has a deeper underlying purpose as my team and I strive to live with the same intention as the surrounding culture: relationship focused.

At night a few of my female teammates and I choose to walk into town, prayerfully asking the Lord to place people along our path that are stuck in darkness and bondage. Many times we walk outside of the local casino hotel that is known as the “hotspot” for girls to be stuck in prostitution. Taxis stuffed full of men, often times American, pile out and boldly walk into the bar area where an abundance of young women in painfully high heels and body-tight dresses stand outside of hotel rooms, in a rehearsed tone whispering “Want to come in baby?” What is painful to understand about sex trafficking and prostitution is that while some women are forced into it, others willingly choose it without a second thought that they might be worth more.

My favorite moments have been those where we strike up conversations with these women outside of the casino hotel, beginning with sometimes a silly question about a good haircut place, and on most occasions, because of their overwhelming kindness, ending with their phone number in our contacts and a plan for a future ice cream date. (Other conversations spiral a bit out of your control and you end up promising a woman that you will get a nose piercing with her.)

This Valentines day the girls on my team chose to give away roses to any women in town that we felt God had pulled us towards. As two friends and myself made our way past the casino we found ourselves talking with some of the ladies outside. My friend Madalyn was beaming with joy after a conversation with a young woman, but as she went into further detail, sadness came over her as she told us the woman’s response to her floral gift. The young woman, turning her head behind her to ensure it was really she that was receiving this gift spoke out saying, “Why are you giving this to me? I am not worth this.” Those words crushed each of us as we stood in disbelief, that these young women assume they are unworthy of even small kind gestures, let alone love itself.

As we made our way back home that night I gave away one of my flowers to a young store owner that I had passed in town several times. Each time I had passed her she had a solemn look on her face as she stood outside in the hot sun, watching over her store. As she was closing her store that Valentines night, I fearfully approached her, with 100 worries plaguing my mind. “What if she thinks this is not genuine?” “What if the language barrier creates extreme awkwardness?” God’s love pulled me towards her in courage, as it tends to do when I am stuck by my own limitations, and I used my broken Spanglish to tell her that the flower was for her. She looked side to side and pointed at herself, “For me? Really?” Her response was just as crushing as that of the first young woman, because of the same underlying pattern; disbelief of self worth.

Though deep down we crave to free each of the women we meet from prostituting themselves, we know this is something that is no quick process, so we strive for a goal that may seem less significant, but truly has an incredible impact on the hearts of these women. We strive to, over the next two months, just let these young women know, whether in prostitution or not, that someone actually wants to be their friend with no-strings attached, that they are lovable, and that they have the capacity to be so much more then money made in casino hotel room or a little souvenir shop.

Because God is moving in such big ways here in Jacó, my team is also facing some spiritual warfare following each of them. I would love for you all to pray that any doubting, shame; regret, worry, etc. would not consume our hearts and minds as we bring the Lord’s freedom and love to Jacó. I ask that you please also consider praying for the women stuck in or actively choosing prostitution, the men who nonchalantly purchase women for pleasure without conviction, and the overall darkness surrounding Jacó.