Ok I'll be honest, It's been longer than this 15 hour bus ride to Panama. I've been searching for the past month. I've had my eyes peeled open being on the lookout for the slow, hairy, 3-toed animal that calls Costa Rica it's home; the sloth. Rumor has it that they like to hangout high in the trees but the only place I've seen them is on our 10.000 colone bill ($20).
Although its not my cup of tea to stay sitting for more than 5 minutes, I have a blast on our long travel days to our different countries. Apart from looking for sloths, the window seat gives me the ability to see outside of what I've called home for the past month. This past month we've been blessed to stay in a bilingual school, be surrounded by a wealthy neighborhood & have the capital San Josè at our fingertips.
We've been shielded from extreme poverty.
I'll be honest with y'all. I came on this trip expecting to change lives. To bring the light of Christ to the darkness of communities. To silence the lies that can easily consume a group of people.
I expected to be working in these small villages full of tiki huts that we fly past on this bus. This is what I have a
passion for. I'm not a city girl, never have been, most likely never will be.
God, don't these villages need help?
Don't they need the light?
Doesn't Jesus tell us to help the Less fortunate?
If you want me in the middle-class, comfortable neighborhood why wouldn't you just keep me home?
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Then I hear it.
"You are where you are supposed to be. You're learning what you need to."
It took watching Jurassic Park 1 & 2 to realize what He meant by this. My teammates & I have been delicately placed into our ministries with the intentions of what God wants to teach us. Mike was placed into sports ministry to teach about God and His love through his passion; sports. Kaitlyn was placed as a teacher at a bilingual school so that she could practice what she wants to do in the future; teach English in Spanish speaking countries. Just for the same reason God has placed me in a community that mirrors mine from home. He has spent the last couple months teaching me how to share the gospel in a community that is familiar. A community that I will be spending the next four years in. Although I have a dream and desire to return back to eastern Africa, buy a little hut in a little town & share His love to all that have ears, I now know it's not the time in my life for that right now.
When I return home I'm going to be ready to proclaim & show His love. I'm going to be able to find Him in busy day to day life. He's been using my time here in Central America to prepare me to be the light in my community that otherwise is full of deep, broken darkness. That is why He is bringing me through this. He is training me to be His hands and feet.
See y'all in 6 weeks!
