Answered Prayer?

I just recently finished working with a group of Juniors and Seniors from Mennonite Educational Institute (MEI) in British Columbia, Canada. They came down to Costa Rica during their Spring Break and for about two weeks. There were nearly 30 of them including their leaders, but we split them into two smaller groups and I and Denia, a Tica that used to work with us, led the group out to Shiroles, Talamanca. Shiroles is a small little town without even one traffic light (or stop sign for that matter). And that's okay, cause no one would obey it anyway. But Shiroles is a small town located just next to a large river, also close to huge plantain fields that the majority of the town works in, and practically in the jungle. It's a lot of fun if you like hot, humid weather. I enjoy visiting there...for a week...sometimes. Denia is from there, so it is just going back home for her. However, the majority of us North Americans, tend to find ourselves way out of our comfort zone. It's out on an Indian Reservation in the southeastern part of Costa Rica right next to the Panama border. Life is very different there.

The water was supposed to come on every other day. Sometimes it didn't do that. There was a large water tank over the bathrooms that provided some water when the public water wasn't running. Fortunately it was earlier in the year that we went there. Last year I went later into the rainy season and there were tons of bugs. This time, I just got eaten alive, but I didn't see the bugs. Last year, I got eaten alive and I saw the bugs that were biting me everywhere. Okay, maybe a little exaggeration, but it's close. Another thing I learned this year that I didn't know the first time I went to Shiroles was how to rewear clothes. It is so hot that you are constantly changing clothes. I managed to only change my work shirt once during the 6 days we worked on the work project. I just wore the same socks and shorts the whole time. As much as guys joke about only wearing what smells the least putrid sometimes, that's really what it came down to on this trip. You hung your clothes out after you wore them, and the next day, you wore whatever smelled the least. Two days we ran out of water so we improvised for showers. The one day guys went to one part of the river while girls went upstream and we all literally bathed in the river with soap and shampoo, although I don't know how much the soap really helped. The other day it was raining, and if you stood right under the edge of the roof there was sufficient water for a shower. All the guys got out in our swimsuits and bathed.

We did work some too. We dug the footers or trenches for the foundation of a new church building. That got nice and muddy, but the Pastor and his wife both were incredibly thankful. There is another group out in Shiroles this week that has been continuing the work we started.

I could write 100 pages on the trip and the experience, but let me get to what I wanted to share. God really showed off for us on this trip, which I think was one of the highlights for me and for the youth as well.

We worked on the church and did the digging from about 8 until 12 for the first three days and then tried to start by 7 or 7:30 for the last three days until about 11 because the hottest times of the day were from about 11 until 2. And to work in that heat is just brutal. The amazing thing that God did for us was to answer our prayer, literally every day, by bringing the kind of weather we asked for. Each day, one of the youth would pray for a particular kind of weather. They prayer for a sunny day, they prayed for a cloudy day, they prayed for a rainy day, they prayed for partly cloudy, and each day, that's exactly what the weather was. You may not think it a big deal, but when you have to dig trenches in the hot and humid weather, it is a real blessing to have different kinds of weather.

God also answered our prayers in very unusual ways as well. There was one guy who was Korean, but his family had recently moved to Canada. He attends MEI, but says he is not a Christian. He is still trying to figure out if he really believes there is a God. So he prayed four specific prayers to challenge God to see if he really exists. I wish I could remember all of the prayers. I believe one day he prayed for the weather, and as I mentioned, God delivered. Another day I think he prayed for the chance to walk through the jungle and we got to do that after a church service one afternoon. The final challenge and strangest of all, was this. On our vacation day, he challenged God to make someone get seriously hurt on the trip. Guess what! During our white water rafting trip, we took a break along the side of the river for snacks and to rest. There were some small rapids that you can ride through with just a life jacket on. So everyone took turns jumping in and riding about 50 yards down river with just life jackets on. However, there was a huge rock jutting out just on the edge of the rapids and if you jumped too far into the rapids you got thrown against the rock. The guides leading us told us just to toss ourselves in and ride down. So that's exactly what Nick did. He jumped as far as he could in...and got slammed against the rock. He got shaken up, but the top part of his hand hit the edge of the rock and the skin split open all the way to the bone. Needless to say he couldn't continue on the rafting with us. One of the guides took him to a local clinic and the doctor had to put in several stitches to get him all fixed up.

So God will answer our prayers. He won't hurt someone if you don't like them and He won't do absolutely whatever you ask, and from my experience He doesn't always answer what we want even if it's done with the right motives. But if you are sincerely seeking God, and asking Him to demonstrate His power, He will prove it. So if you really are trying to find out if God's real, ask Him, and He'll show himself to you.

Not Forgotten

I went down to La Cuenca yesterday with DeLynn. La Cuenca literally means "the basin" in Spanish and that's basically what it is. Located behind a new modern mall, the biggest symbol of prosperity and wealth in Heredia, lies The Basin. La Cuenca is an impoverished neighborhood made up of squatters from Nicaragua and the poorest of Costa Rica. No one actually owns the land there, but there is a huge neighborhood of tin shacks. It is down in a basin of sorts where a filthy, garbage filled stream runs through. It's not your typical stream though. It's not big enough to be a river, but it's up to 10 feet wide in some places and about 10 -12 feet deep. It's really more of a cavern where the stream doesn't fill it up except during the rainy season when it overflows and all of the trash spills out into the plaza area in the middle of the neighborhood. Many people don't have work, the average family has about 5 kids, and there seems to be no hope. Women will baby-sit for a whole day for the equivalent of $1.00. Drugs are a problem there as well. Skin diseases are common among the children because of the garbage and dirty water in the neighborhood. Many of the people are immigrants from Nicaragua (many of them illegal) and they cannot tap into the social health care resources. Those that are legal citizens do not have the money to do so. Many cannot even send their kids to school because they need money for uniforms and basic school supplies that they can't afford. Most Americans would never even dream of visiting a place like that, much less, to live in a situation like that.

But I've been there lots of times, so why do I say anything now. Well, because even in a place like that, I found hope, and people willing to help these people. Christ for the City, International is a ministry that works right in the middle of this neighborhood in the bottom of the basin. Chad and myself, both interns of Pura Vida, have helped with the Kids' Club that CFCI hosts. This is also where I have been teaching English. But the leader of CFCI is named Ronald. He is a Tico who has a tremendous heart for the people of La Cuenca and desires to do everything he can to help them. DeLynn and I spoke with him yesterday about his desires and passions for La Cuenca. He is currently one of four people that help with the Kids' Club once a week and do other things throughout the week to minister. He has all sorts of ideas, but his biggest desire and passion is to provide things that will support the people in La Cuenca and gain them the opportunity to get out of this neighborhood. He told us he wants to serve and improve their physical, economic, and spiritual health. His biggest passion that he is working on, is to provide a feeding ministry that will serve up to 1000 meals at least three times a week. He has the resources to start the ministry, and the heart for it as well, but he would not be able to sustain it just yet, and he won't start it until he knows it will be a consistent ministry. Talking with Ronald yesterday, I could see the passion in his eyes. His body seemed to ache and demonstrate the sorrow he felt for the people and the passion he has for serving everyone in La Cuenca.

I am amazed at how mighty a God we serve. God has not forgotten even these "forgotten" people who are struggling to survive. The amazing thing is that you can't see the struggle in the faces of the kids. They still have fun and still laugh. In the parents you start to see a little bit of the loss of hope. But God hasn't forgotten, and He is giving people like Ronald a heart for the people of La Cuenca, so that no one is forgotten. Because God has put people like Ronald in La Cuenca, I know that God will be faithful to provide whatever resources they need.