Our week began with the sounds of dogs barking non-stop well before the dawn of day. Little did we know this would be a sure sign of things to come for our team in the days ahead. Each day we boarded a bus at our Hotel Las Fresas at 6:20am and headed to the ministry for breakfast at 7am. By 7:30am we were off on another bus, to either the construction site or to a school for Vacation Bible School. In the late afternoons, we packed 187 food bags each day consisting of rice, beans, corn meal & milk, which we delivered door-to-door, and wrapping up our days by 5:30pm. We worked hard, putting in a good ten-hour day, fortunately we were blessed with perfect weather the entire week. Our team of 10 people from Christ United Methodist Church joined a team of 13 people from Collierville UMC on this mission trip.
The construction project was on 2 dorms the ministry is building which will provide lodging for 80 people for mission teams in the future. It was incredible to see what our 2 teams accomplished over the 4 days: putting down flooring on one of the dorms and putting up exterior walls on the other dorm. But the main work -- where we experienced the joy of being the hands and feet of Jesus, was walking through neighborhoods handing out the food bags and praying with these families.
Over the 4 days, my family along with 3 others which included 2 on staff with Rice & Beans who served as our translators, shared the love of Jesus by offering a gift of food and prayer with 150 families (in total our team from CUMC shared 300 bags/prayers; and the group from Collierville shared an additional 450 bags/prayers). We saw different levels of poverty each day, but they all had one thing in common: they all warmly welcomed us into their homes and gratefully embraced our offer to pray with them. Family, "mi familia", was the most common prayer request and many asked for prayers for work. Their strong, unquestionable faith in God was an encouragement and blessing to me. Only one family out of the 150 we met declined our invitation to pray with them. On 2 occassions we encountered Costa Ricans wearing a "Memphis" shirt -- in fact, one woman was wearing a Christ Church Memphis 2017 VBS shirt! I sensed this was one of those "God winks" moments. And just a subtle little reminder from God that it's a small world.
A funny little thing happened after our 2nd day of serving -- well, not exactly funny, rather something else to take us more out of our comfort zone. We arrived back at our hotel Tuesday night only to discover there was no running water to take a shower that night or in the morning. We were all disappointed in not having this comfort we all take for granted -- and how quickly we forgot how the people we just served that day may sometimes go days without food or water. I believe God wanted to give us a truer experience of what it is like to live without what we would consider a necessity. And, my earlier reference to the dogs barking being a sure sign of things to come...
I also believe God had something to do with the tremendous number of dogs we encountered in our paths while delivering food. I know God works through trials and tribulations, and He is certainly interested in helping my daughter Nicole overcome her fear of dogs by forcing her outside of her comfort zone on this trip while providing her His protection through it.
As I am reading through the Old Testament, I ran across this verse, Deuteronomy 10:12-13, during our trip which answers the question I often ask, "What does God expect from me?"
12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the Lord’s commands that I am giving you today for your own good?
