Hello friends and supporters!
Today was the first day of our very busy weekend, as we led the first day of VBS here at Mundo de Fe, and went to Pijije again to evangelize and attend another church service. As usual, we started today with a devotion led by myself. The devotion was about giving ourselves to Christ. During the devotion, team members were asked to think about things preventing themselves from giving their lives completely to Christ and something that they would be willing to give up to Christ. After devos, we ate some delicious gallo pinto for breakfast. Although we have eaten many variations of this meal for breakfast and other meals, it always tastes delicious. When we all finished breakfast, our team, along with Pastor Rommel and his daughters, started off the 24 hr prayer for Nicaragua with a quick 20 minutes of prayer. There is currently a lot of tension in Nicaragua due to the war between the oppressive government and the rebel forces, leading many people to seek refuge here in Costa Rica. I hope that you all would keep Nicaragua in your prayers.
While we were praying, a few kids showed up at the church for VBS. After introducing ourselves to the kids and playing a short game of hot potato, we started off the 3 hour VBS session with some worship. We sang “Making Melodies” and “Jesus Loves Me” in Spanish with the kids. During the 3 hour session, Caroline shared a lesson about Jesus and the Samaritan woman, and Anthony shared a lesson about Jesus feeding the 5000. We also had the kids make a well using marshmallows, pretzel sticks, and graham crackers.
After VBS ended at noon, we ate some delicious soup for lunch while watching a quarterfinal world cup match between Russian and Croatia. Following lunch, we quickly packed some dress clothes for the service later in the day and drove to Pijije. When we got to Pijije, we met up with the people of the church there; the church is called Cristo Rompe Las Cadenas. Soon thereafter, we were split into groups, given evangelism materials, and sent out to evangelize to the nearby neighborhoods. During evangelism, it was encouraging to see the positive response from the people. Many of them even had prayer requests and asked us to pray for them and their families. Something interesting about the church is that it was only founded 2-3 years ago, so many of the local people didn’t even know that it existed. In our evangelism, we told them that we working working with the church and passed out cards inviting them to come to the church.
After evangelism, we were told that the people of the church wanted us to sing 2 slow worship songs in English during the service. This was only an hour before the service. In Costa Rica, things are more event orientated instead of time orientated like the in the United States, so not knowing many things until the last minute has been a trend of this trip. The songs we chose to sing were “What a Beautiful Name it is” and “Amazing Grace”. I played the guitar, Timmy played the piano, Chris played the Cajon, and the rest of the team members sang. Despite our limited practicing time, I thought that we played very well during the service. After we opened up the service with worship, Pastor Augusto and other members of the church continued with a very fast paced style of worship. The way that they worship and shout out things like “Praise God” and “Yes Lord” during the worship and sermons really impressed me. I could really see God working through the people from the church. When we finished singing songs, Timmy and I gave testimonies, then my dad, Charles, gave a lesson. At the end of the service, Pastor Augusto blessed us as we left and gave us gifts (Costa Rica scarfs). He also told us that he wished we could come back in the future and see the fruit of our work in the community. Although we only spent 2 days with the church in Pijije, I felt that we created a strong bond with them and it was really tough to say goodbye to the people of the church. After the service, we ate dinner at the church, then returned back to Mundo de Fe to get some quick sleep before starting our shift to pray for Nicaragua (12 – 9 AM).
Since we are nearing the end of this mission trip, I would like to thank everyone who has supported us financially or through prayer. Please pray that we will continue to be in good health and that we will have a save flight home. Also, please pray that our time here will continue to positively benefit the church and local community after we leave.
Dios los bendiga (God bless you all),
David