Back in November, I posted that I’d accepted an invitation to participate as a team member on Tyler’s school’s Costa Rica missions trip – the same trip Tyler went on four months before his diagnosis of leukemia. Tyler had planned to return the following year, but instead died just a week before his school’s team went in 2012. Fast forward to today, and I have just returned from joining the 2013 team in Costa Rica.
If you’d like to see narrated photos about the trip, here is the link. You don’t need a Facebook account to view this album. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201366445143562.1073741827.1246835228&type=1&l=d5d3974a33
As a teen and young adult, I had traveled with teams to the Philippines, a Navajo reservation, and Guatemala, but it had been 27 years since I’d ventured outside my own comfortable culture. After our plane landed and we traveled t the mission house where we’d be staying, it all came back to me – the sights, sounds and smells of a developing country. And the stunning splendor of the mountainous backdrop.
This time, I wasn’t just on a missions trip. I was traveling with some of Tyler’s classmates and with his teacher. I stayed where he’d stayed, traveled where he traveled, and met the people he’d met. This colored my entire experience. Sometimes it made it painful, other times more special.
By being there, I was given the opportunity to walk in his footsteps and share an experience that impacted him greatly. I have to admit that I cried a lot and other times worked hard to hold back the tears. I found myself trying to get into Tyler’s mind, wondering what he thought about certain encounters, only to be slammed with the reminder that I couldn’t ask him, couldn’t discuss our shared experiences.
When I agreed to go on the trip, I’d expected all that – the blessings and the tears. What I hadn’t prepared for was to once again experience the in-your-face kind of God moments that I did. During Tyler’s illness, Ron and I were inundated with event after event that showed God was with us, loving us, by our sides. I remember several times where folks would hand us some money that totaled to the penny an unexpected expense we’d had. I recall phone calls, conversations, letters, gifts, meals, amazing acts of love…
Ron and I continually marveled how in the midst of the worst trauma imaginable, we could also feel God’s presence more strongly than at any other time of our lives. And so it was in Costa Rica. In the midst of abject poverty, despair, violence, and abuse of every kind, I was again able to witness God do amazing things.
To put things in context, I’d like to share a bit about the couple whose ministry we joined while we were there. Eleven years ago, Mark and Meg were a Chicago area couple in their 40s. They attended a Spanish language immersion school in Costa Rica. During the six-month course of study, they ventured out on weekends into the slums of San Jose to practice their conversational Spanish. Frequently, they were warned to stay out of those areas due to the hazards of gang violence and child sex operations. When they realized that both local and foreign ministries were steering clear of the tens of thousands of people living in these dangerous slums, they became more determined to spend time there, get to know the residents, and share the good news of hope in Jesus Christ. When they graduated from the language school, they decided to remain in Costa Rica to minister in the slums.
Eleven years later, Mark pastors Iglesia Nueva Vida in the slum of Los Guido and operates a food distribution center. Having reached many children with the Gospel, Mark and Meg and other members of Iglesia Nueva Vida spend countless hours discipling children. Once they turn 11 or 12, depending on maturity and readiness, they can join the leadership team and start discipleship groups of their own. There were about fifteen kids on the leadership team during our team’s stay, ranging in age from 11 to 18. They spend their non-school days traveling to the neighboring slums of La Carpio and Tejarcillos sharing the Gospel.
It was incredible to see such young kids pumped up, energized and on fire to spread the hope of Christ to others. They face ostracizing, threats and ridicule for their efforts. Like other kids living in the slums, they too go home at night to absent parents, the lure of gangs, the risk of violence, and a lack of food. Some of their parents sell them by the night in the local sex trade, just like many other kids in the slums. The many horrors of their daily lives were very difficult for the teens (and adults) on our team to grasp.
Our team shadowed the youth leadership team throughout our stay. The presence of gringos always created a bit of a stir and drew some crowds. Our kids brought balloons, face paints, sidewalk chalk, and game supplies while the Iglesia Nueva Vida kids sang songs and shared the Gospel. During the school week (it is winter in Costa Rica), we would play with and entertain the children as they entered and exited the food distribution center in Los Guido. The distribution center is open from 11 to 1 each weekday and serves up to 500 children daily.
Due to a shortage of schools in these poor areas, the kids have to attend school in shifts – some schools have two shifts per day; some actually have three shifts a day. Whether they were coming from or heading to school, they would drop by the distribution center for a meal, often their only meal of the day. As a testament to how starved for loving attention they were, we discovered that some of the kids were foregoing their meals just to spend more time playing with or being hugged and held by the gringos.
I mentioned “God moments” earlier in this post. Here are two, of many. On a typical Saturday, the leadership team youth travel to Tejarcillos to hold Bible studies/discipleship groups in the homes of individuals who have accepted Christ. Our first Saturday in San Jose, we traveled with the leadership team armed with bags of food. Each bag contained supplies we had purchased the evening before, enough to feed one family for two weeks.
As we knocked on one of the doors, a smiling woman answered. She was disappointed when she learned the teens hadn’t come to hold the Bible study, but disappointment turned to joy when instead she was presented with the food. She teared up as she shared that the previous day she’d gone to pick up her late husband’s pension check, only to be informed it wouldn’t be ready for another two weeks. She returned home in despair as she had no way to feed her family. That morning, she’d prayed that God would provide a way to take care of her family for the next two weeks. Despite her trials, she was looking forward to the Bible study. Imagine her joy when God answered her prayers by sending gringos to her door to deliver two week’s worth of food!
A second God moment was on our last morning as we prepared to leave for the airport. Our team leader discovered that inexplicably, we still had $3,000 after expenses remaining in our team funds. We presented the money to Mark and Meg, to use for the ministry. They shared that the food distribution center costs $3,000 per month to run, but had been running in the red. They thought they’d have to close it down. Our team’s extra $3,000 would keep it operational for another month. Mark explained he never asks for funds for his ministry. He simply prays.
In addition to these God moments, a meaningful moment for me was when I met with Mark to discuss some of his ministry’s needs. I had been required to raise $1550 for this trip and had ended up with nearly $500 extra. I wanted to donate it in Tyler’s honor. Mark shared that their church had been doing missions work in Nicaragua. They had purchase a property in Puerto Cabezas and were nearly finished building a church there. The church’s pastor had no bibles in their native Miskito language. The extra $500 would purchase nearly 70 Miskito bibles. Tyler had a heart for others finding Christ, and I knew he’d approve.
When Tyler was hospitalized, twice he received packets of letters from the leadership team youth who had met him during his 2011 trip and were praying for him during his illness. Tyler’s Spanish teacher translated the letters for him. These letters actually provided some of those God moments I referenced while we went through the trial of his illness. During my trip, I was able to meet and thank most of the same kids.
This morning, I pulled out the letters to re-read them in the context of having been in Costa Rica. An excerpt from Maria’s letter to Tyler:
I just wanted to tell you that God will always be with you, and remember that THERE IS NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD; be strong. Even though we are far away from you we are supporting you, and we are praying for you and for your family.”
Amazing words of encouragement from a teen in San Jose with no possessions but her faith, to a teen in Maryland with every possession imaginable, but who desperately needed encouragement.
Our God is amazing.