My Torrid Love/Hate Relationship with Costa Rica

At times I struggle to adequately communicate and contextualize our lives here to the folks back "home." How to explain the joy of bringing a smile to a child in poverty, alongside the seething frustration of waiting in 4 lines at the post office for 2 hours to receive a simple care package? How to share kingdom advances next to the daily perils of driving in absolute chaos? How to adequately summarize a calling where we'd rather be no where else than a slum filled with violence and gangbangers eyeing you every time you pass by, wondering if this might be the time they choose to take issue with your presence?

Sometimes I wonder how I can complain about a country with nearly perfect weather year round, and some of the world's most beautiful beaches within a few hours of driving. Other times, I wonder if I can spend one more second in a country where I am ripped off at every turn because of the color of my skin. Seriously, we can't make this stuff up. If you think I'm exaggerating, even the socialized GOVERNMENT sets health care prices that are double for foreigners what they are for Costa Ricans. How to explain to THEM that there are some gringos who AREN'T rich, and that missionaries are some of them?

Then there are relationships: we love some Costa Ricans and fellow missionaries that we've met here, but we hate that some of our best friends and families are so far away. We love getting to know new missionaries passing through, but we hate seeing them go. We still love homeschooling the kids, but we hate the social isolation that it causes here for the kids and our family. Are you getting the idea?

Most times we are reluctant to share the negative aspects of life on the mission field, because we don't want to complain or perpetuate some self-aggrandizing idea that we're martyrs, unless of course we can make it into a funny story afterward. But the bottom line is that sometimes it's hard. And more importantly, no matter how hard it feels, we're always 110% sure that we're where God wants us, which is what gets us through the discouragements and frustrations of day-to-day life in Central America.

Seeing Jessica come to Christ, baptizing Walter at a leader's retreat a couple weeks ago, providing a place for Michelle to live after her mom decided to sell her into the sex trade, being available to counsel a family in crisis, THAT is why we are here. In one short week, we'll be taking 120 kids to camp and bombarding them with love and messages from Jesus for three straight days. Satan wants to distract us with a million tiny irritations, alongside a generous dose of relational dysfunction. But God wants to show us that our comfort is not what's important in this life, and that His kingdom purpose is worth any risk or sacrifice. Who will we listen to?

The quote of this month about being content with what happens has challenged me greatly to trust that whatever happens is from the hand of the Lord. If I really believe that, shouldn't I be willing to let go of my own plans and whatever kind of life that I think is fair for me to lead here, and trust that it is better than what I would choose? So I will challenge myself to allow God to do the hard work of forming me more and more into the likeness of Christ, be it through temporary sufferings or immeasurable and eternal joys.

Happy New Year, friends, Andrea

What is poverty?

It's interesting to see the reactions various people have when they first visit La Carpio, the slum we work in. Besides commenting on the fetid, rotting-diaper smell wafting over the property from the dump across the street, most responses fall into two categories.

The typical response (common for youth groups) is that there should be a sign hung over the entrance that says something like, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here!" These individuals usually leave with a romanticized image of the people they meet, thinking, "wow, what amazing people that can endure living in such a place without adequate food, water and financial resources. They must have great faith!"

The other group is comprised of the worldly travelers, the people that confidently state that they've witnessed firsthand much worse suffering in the squalid slums of Brazil, the refugee camps of Sudan or any number of hellish places tucked into the dark corners of the earth. I can't argue; in fact, I agree, there are worse slums here in San Jose, Costa Rica.

However, the interesting thing for me is that both viewpoints are primarily based in the evaluation of a place and the suffering of the inhabitants--that is, the level of poverty--primarily from the viewpoint of the severity of lack of money and the things that it can buy. Sometimes it feels like the people are on display in a dehumanizing "poverty zoo" for North Americans to observe and photograph.

I've begun to challenge our missionary team and volunteers at New Horizons, where I serve as director, that the lack of material goods, while severe, isn't the real poverty we are confronting. The real poverty is lack of relationships--especially healthy, life-giving relationships that are based on trust.

This relational and emotional poverty stands evident all around us. To a girl, the participants in Andrea's Bible study all confessed that they don't have a single family member or close friend in whom they can trust to share what's in their heart, or what they're struggling with. To a man, the participants of my study fear sharing weakness or need, knowing that the usual response to these things in their community is mockery and attack. So, people live in a mentality of "wound others before they wound you," be it with words, casual indifference or outright lies. This creates a cycle of relational aggression.

The apostle Paul addresses this behavior in more than half of his letters. When he calls people to holy living, to live as "children of the light," or to live righteously, he addresses this poverty of relationship. He calls out the sexual immorality, idolatry, anger, hatred, envy and covetousnous of the world and encourages his readers that "in other times" or in the past "you USED TO practice these things."

Typically we read these verses and feel chastised. I know I do when I read about anger or selfish ambition and I feel convicted. But Paul wasn't writing these things only to chastise and reprove, he wrote to ENCOURAGE that there is another way to live. If we live according to the flesh, we'll live in a poverty of relationships, in the horrible poverty of estrangement from our Father, and alienation from those around us. But if we live according to His spirit, we'll have a new way to live, we'll have the option to live in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Isn't this what we all desire at the core of our being? Isn't this the universal poverty that strikes at the heart of our common, shared existence regardless of our financial situation? Aren't we really the same inside with respect to the poverty inside of us? This is the heart of the Good News: that we can be reconciled, forgiven and restored--replacing our poverty with the abundant life Jesus promised.

Lord give us eyes to see past the dirt, the worn clothing, and the tiny shacks to the suffering and poverty inside: lack of a voice, broken families, feeling like a spectacle, oppression, loneliness and isolation, feeling that there is no one to trust or turn to for compassion. These are the primary things the Lord wants to address in their lives, and the things we strive to work with Him in.

Peace and grace,
Seth

Praise God -- Jessica Comes to Christ This Morning!

I write today with a heart brimming over with joy, because another stray sheep has found its way home and joined the flock!

One of my first memories of Jessica, 19-year-old mother of 2-year old Brianna, is walking in on a conversation between her and Callie, a short-term missionary that spent a year with us. Jessica was new to the Institute and explaining that she didn't want anything to do with "church" because she obviously had baggage about past experiences, but that she was interested in God. It was a good moment to encourage her to seek God, separate Him from the church which is made up of messed up people, and that congregating with other believers nonetheless is an important part of one's spiritual growth and journey.

In that moment, I thought, "Wow, she's hungry, but she just doesn't know where to get fed." I immediately felt an affinity for her refreshing honesty about her feelings about spiritual things, her wounds that I could identify with, and her refusal to give up on God by maintaing a seeking and humble spirit.

For those reasons, she was one of the first girls that I invited to participate in my discipleship group when we started in April, and I prayed and prayed that she would come. She has participated faithfully, taking notes, sharing and asking questions and growing in leaps and bounds. She's begun to share about changes she needs to make in her life, obviously feeling conviction in some areas. At last week's bible study, she shared that she'd been experiencing temptations like never before, strange things that she's never wanted before, like going out to the bars to dance. Chio, my Costa Rican discipleship partner in crime, and I encouraged her that Satan was obviously ticked off about her growing near to God and throwing her extra stumbling blocks to try to keep her from Him.

This week during our regular morning devotionals at the Institute, I spoke yesterday about the perfect love of God versus the broken love we humans can give, and Chio talked this morning about the story of Nicodemus and the "rebirth" requirements of gaining entrance to heaven. After the devotional, Jessica went to Chio and said she was ready to be reborn! They prayed together and Chio texted me right away with the good news.

God has done an amazing work in Jessica's heart, and I thank him for the chance to be a small part of it. I share the process as I know it just to share Jessica's story and her steps in coming to the Lord and things He may have used to draw her to Him. But the reality is that it was not our conversations, our friendship, our bible studies or devotionals, or our wise words that brought her to this place, it was all God! We can plant and water, but only He can make the seed of faith grow. Why I don't know, but He deigns to use lamed and weak gardeners to accomplish His purposes, and I am so grateful to be included in His plan for this special girl. Ministry in this context is sometimes brutally discouraging, but fruit like this makes it all worthwhile!

I praise God for Jessica's salvation and for the impact that I know she will have as a believer in her family, the Institute, and the community of La Carpio. She is a beautiful, fun, and outgoing person and will radiate the sweet fragrance of Jesus. Please join me in praying that she will continue to grow to maturity in Christ and glorify Him, and that God will protect her during this vulnerable time from the enemy's attacks, in which I'm sure he will be trying to convince her that it didn't count, that it doesn't make any difference, and that her decision will not change anything for her. But we know different...

Joyful, Andrea

The Sweet Aroma at the Entrance to the Garbage Dump

I'd like to tell you a little bit about A., a troubled young man in La Carpio. He joined Seth's carpentry program last year, but had to be suspended because he couldn't get along with the other students, to the point that things culminated in a fist fight with another student. After that, he made himself scarce for a while, but then returned regularly to play soccer.

Several items were stolen from other kids who played with him, and he soon got the reputation of being particularly untrustworthy, which is saying something in a community where most people already trust no one. He has recently told Seth that his parents trained him at age 8 to pickpocket with them downtown, and regularly invite him to partake in drug use with them.

A. has begun to see that living a life of theft and aggression, isolated from others, doesn't taste good. Despite having had no positive parental or moral instruction, he wants to try to change his life. He's starting finding reasons not to hang out at home so that he doesn't smell like drugs, and to stop having such sticky fingers. Not surprisingly, the other kids are finding it difficult to believe and are slow in accepting that he's turning over a new leaf.

Recently, he told Seth what a hard time he's having in trying to change his life. Seth was able to share with him that it's too difficult when we try to do it on our own, but that God can change our lives FOR us if we will trust and allow him to remake us in the image of Christ. It seems that A. has made an earnest appeal to Christ in the past, but felt afterward that "it didn't take" and nothing changed. It reminds me of the seed from Matthew 13 that was immediately eaten by birds, scorched by the sun, or choked by thorns. Without anyone around to encourage and disciple him in his new faith, and with Satan whispering in his ear that none of that would do him any good, and with a hostile environment actively sucking him back down into the mire, is it any wonder?

So now I get around to the connection to the title of this blog. A. recently asked Seth, as they sat on the grass at New Horizons, "Have you ever noticed how it feels different here?"

Seth asked, not sure of his meaning, "Compared to where?"

A. responded, "Compared to the rest of La Carpio. It just feels really heavy and dark walking through the third and fourth bus stops to get here from my house, but once I come in, things feel different, lighter and better."

This is an amazing answer to prayer that brings tears to my eyes as I write it. We have been praying that our mission's property would be just that, a beacon on a hill, a safe and nurturing place among so much dysfunction and violence, an oasis of peace, and a place filled with and protected by the spirit of God. And A., a youth who needs all these things more than many, is noticing!

Interestingly, not long before this conversation, I received a special verse from a group of women who came to do a retreat for missionary women serving in Costa Rica. They spoiled us, ministered to us, and blessed us in so many ways! One way was in giving each participant (there were 50 of us) a special verse from the Lord that was meant for her. These women didn't know me at all, so this wasn't any sort of a compliment or anything that they would have observed about me, but this was the verse that I received:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." 2 Corinthians 2:14

How beautiful is that? I prayed over the verse, asking God to make it true in La Carpio and everywhere else we have the ability to exhibit the "aroma." It makes me laugh, but God is powerful enough to put his sweet aroma right at the entrance to a foul garbage dump (in case you've forgotten, that's where our ministry property resides)! He is great, indeed!

Peace, Andrea

Missionary Kids Make an Impact, Too!

OK, we apologize for being so lame and not posting in so long. Many times I have had a profound thought about our ministry and thought, "Hey, I should write a blog about that," and then just not gotten around to it. This summer has been crazy busy with short-term teams visiting from the States and keeping them busy in La Carpio, so we've been mostly surviving instead of reflecting. ;-) Sadly, I've forgotten most of my profound thoughts, but I have hope that they'll come around again one day and I'll scribble them down before they escape again!

I did want to share some special comments that have been made in the past few months about how our family works, made by folks from La Carpio. So many times we think of the kids of missionaries as people that get toted along by mom and dad, but don't have a specific role in the ministry themselves. Annabel has helped me for a year every Saturday ministering to 8-11 year-old girls, and those girls look up to her and imitate her and want to know where she is if she can't make it one week. She's an obvious example of how missionary kids can serve alongside their parents.

But I think ALL missionary kids have a profound role in the ministry of their parents, regardless of their age or ability to engage in formal "ministry," and here is the proof: when you spend a lot of time with people as a couple or as a family and they come into your home, they notice how your relationships work and begin to comment on them. Several times in the past months, I have heard things like:

• "Your kids don't really fight with each other, do they?"


• "So, your husband helps you around the house?"


• "So, you don't think you'll ever get a divorce?"

Now, let me say that the first isn't entirely true. Of course, our kids have their moments of irritation with each other. But to people who come out of a community where siblings view each other as competition for VERY limited resources (of love, food, attention, toys, etc.) and they have to fight and scrap for every ounce of those things that they feel they are entitled to, our kids' relationship is nothing short of revolutionary.

We are being watched very closely to see how husband and wife respect or tease each other, how parents respond when their children do something they don't like, and how children react to each other in varied situations. These things are as important as anything else in our ministry, because they give testimony to the love of God that unites us as a family, and show what we preach to be real. Please don't interpret this as bragging about how we've got the perfect family and have it all together, because that's not at all my implication. It's just that we as a family have a unique ability to witness with our relationships and be an example to others of how God intended a family to function, and how it can be different from the dysfuntional situation that they may be in.

Missionary kids also heroically make sacrifices so that their parents can help others. Our kids give up some of the time they should get with their parents without complaint so that we can be in La Carpio helping other kids. They've made themselves meals when we've been delayed or both of us have had to be somewhere together. They've shown maturity and grace in having kids in their home that can be difficult to manage, destructive, or hard to get along with at times. I hope never to abuse this generous disposition and make them feel that "they lost their parents to the Lord," and pray that we will always carve out time for our own family and not let ministry take precedence over the well-being of our own kids (a struggle, I might add). But for now I think they understand that doing the work God has called us to is worth some hardships.

So you see, our kids have an integral role in our ministry, and I'm proud of the impact that they are having on families in the community through their behavior and their own pursuit of God and desire to serve others. When other kids see them and want to have what they have inside of them that makes their life so much more peaceful, they've done a great job for the Lord!

The Weak Prey on the Weaker

This past month has been a good illustration of the roller coaster highs and lows of our ministry. We've seen depravity and sin, but in the midst of it, glimmers of hope and joy as well.

This past month brought sad and discouraging news to the community of La Carpio:

• A new student at the Institute of Life, where Andrea teaches Monday and Friday afternoons, made a serious attempt at suicide when she jumped from a 300 ft tall railroad bridge that spans a nearly dry river full of huge rocks and boulders. Angie had made at least one previous attempt in November before coming to us. The socialized health care system gave her a psychiatric appointment in April. After spending three weeks talking in my class about the tongue and how we use our language to reflect the beauty or ugliness we have inside of us, some of my students threatened her after school one day and told her never to come back because she was different and they didn't like her. She obviously has other problems going on as well, but cited this as one reason she made the attempt that day. Miraculously, she survived, though her lower right leg was injured so badly that they had to amputate it at mid-shin.
• Two days ago, a woman was shot and died in the street in front of at least one of her daughters. A neighbor woman had been jailed as a result of this woman's complaints to the authorities. As revenge, the jailed woman's son made a homemade gun, waited for the neighbor woman to come home, and shot her in the head in cold blood. This woman leaves behind three daughters, now motherless and even more vulnerable. The daughter who witnessed the shooting and death had just heard a message earlier that day from another of our missionaries about how to have the peace of God rule in your heart.

It's so hard at times to see up close and personal that the normal human reaction of people (without the intervention of Jesus in their lives) is to hurt, steal, be selfish, kill, and when one feels poor and oppressed, find ways to impoverish and oppress others. It's stark and ugly, but it's the truth. In a community this hardened, it's much harder to put on the rose-colored glasses and imagine that we can be "good people" without God. You see 2 types of people: those who want to drag everyone down with them into destruction, and those who have found God and the strength to fight what's happening around them. There isn't a lot of in-between.

It's also evident that Satan oppresses these people by trying to invalidate the very truths of God that are coming to them from the mouths of missionaries, to steal them away like the birds who steal away seed from the fertile soil so that nothing can grow in the parable. "Say what you want to hurt others, it really doesn't matter...," "There can be no peace in your life in these circumstances..." It's a very real form of spiritual warfare intended to keep this community in darkness and chaos, and it can be discouraging at times to those of us who are trying to keep throwing out the seeds.

Thank God that He gives us glimmers of hope that enable the people in the community, and those of us serving them, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, like these highlights:

• A team of friends from KC came on a short-term missions trip with Perception Funding. They spent a week loving on kids by distributing 200 pairs of shoes, toothpaste, toothbrushes and Beany Babies; painting; building a skateboarding 1/4 pipe for our skateboarding ministry; making lunch for 30-40 boys each day; repairing rundown nets and fencing that was damaged in a landslide earlier this year; and beading and playing soccer and other games with the kids that participate in our ministries. They blessed us as a family, and our ministry "kids", tremendously with their energy, hard work, and commitment to serve in the name of Christ.
• Kids "earned" a pair of shoes by collecting a bag of trash from the property (trash blows in off the garbage trucks and from the landfill next to our property, and the kids throw trash down too). I got misty seeing some of the kids first pick out shoes for their parents or siblings before they found some for themselves.
• A very hard-hearted young man in Seth's discipleship time admitted after participating in a devotional that he didn't want to be there before, but that God had touched his heart about his motivations for serving and where his heart is right now.

Please pray with us that these glimmers would grow into strong midday rays, mighty works of God that transform this community from the inside out. Because when He gets inside people, there's always change on the outside for the better. Only He can make things like mercy, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and kindness rule in La Carpio, or anywhere else in the world.

Peace, Andrea

Unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power

On Monday, January 31st our family waited in line for about an hour and a half to pick up our "cedulas", or resident visa ID cards, from immigration. In some ways, this was a momentous occasion for our family and a significant milestone in our journey as missionaries--the culmination of more than two years work gathering documents, having them translated into Spanish, chasing down stamps from various government offices across San Jose, all at the cost of several thousand dollars (thank you to all who gave!).

We could've hired a lawyer to shepherd us through the process, but I guess we were itching for a fight and thought we'd be good stewards and save two or three thousand dollars by going it alone.

As we left immigration that day, I didn't feel as exuberant as I'd hoped. Something was bothering me. You see, we turned in all of our documents back in April of 2010 and were told that we could expect our visas within a month. We had completed all of the requirements to gain residency, but during the next seven months we were lied to, ignored and mistreated.

Twice I had to take the chairman of the board of directors for Christ for the City in San Jose with me to immigration to get past an imaginary hurdle. Eventually, a Costa Rican friend of ours intervened and talked to a friend of his at immigration. Within a week, we received formal notification of the approval of our request for residency. Three more mysterious, maddening months would go by before we received our visas.

Reviewing all that had happened in my mind, I realized that what was bothering me and had taken the joy out of us finally receiving the cedulas was the fact that I felt totally devalued by the entire process. I was treated as less than human because I am a foreigner, and they had the power and I did not (the title of this post is Webster's definition of oppression). For someone growing up in one of the richest counties in North America, this was not easy to swallow.

But gratefully, I realized what a gift it was. That fleeting bitter taste of injustice in my mouth didn't taste so bad when I compared it to the cruel exercise of power that the young people in La Carpio live under daily. I realized that it was a gift--that temporal taste of oppression, was a glimpse into what it must be like for people in poverty.

I believe the root cause of poverty is spiritual. The non-poor oppress the poor for monetary gain, taking advantage of their lack of power or resources to subjugate them, which is sinful and unjust. Likewise, the poor often manipulate, lie and cheat their peers in order to try and survive. There is very little romantic or holy about poverty in a slum like La Carpio.

An eight-year-old girl told Andrea and I this weekend how her mother locks her in a small room for hours so the mother can go out and drink. This young girl loves to go to school, to flee her mother. She wanted to spend the night with us, but without her mother's permission, we had to refuse her.

Through the prophet Amos, God told the people of Israel that they would be exiled for oppressing the righteous and depriving the poor of justice. He rejected their sacrifices and ceremonies, saying he preferred that "justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a swift-moving stream."

We know there's no hope for the people of La Carpio except the kingdom of God. Please pray with us that the kingdom of God, and justice and righteousness, would roll on like a river through this slum.

With hope in Him,
Seth