Sorry about accidentally nudging you away from God. I was doing my best, ok?!
This month’s prompt in my daily prayer book is to “pray for the people of Costa Rica to experience God.” Well, they will surely have a MUCH harder time with that because I visited Costa Rica! Oops!
Let me explain.
Previously, I talked about following the seeming nudges of God to attend a spiritual school.
We did some travelling as part of this bible school I attended and went to the POOREST of the poor in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks, where people earned an average of two dollars per day.
We decided we would build them a new church!
Our group was “billeted” in the little shanty town with barely a roof over our heads. We worked earnestly and “for the Lord” by first taking apart, brick by brick, the small one-room building that operated as their local church. An AMAZING aside was that this building was next to the largest mango tree I had ever seen. We would sit in the tree on breaks and eat mangos until our stomachs were so distended and sore we could barely work.
But we continued our work, laboring EVEN in discomfort and sometimes pain because of our distended bellies for the Lord’s work!
Anyway, after much sweat and tears (And winning a few arm wrestling matches against the smaller Costa Rican full-grown men in our group – that’s another story1 and not my best moment – granted), we finally achieved the FIRST half of our goal. We successfully dismantled their existing church to make way for the new building we would build!
Forget about what’s happened . . . I’m about to do something brand-new.
Then we waited, as the new church’s building materials hadn’t arrived yet. We spent a LOT of time sitting in that mango tree, and continued to bless others with our presence despite MORE sore stomachs from continuing to overeat mangos! Sometimes we must endure suffering; however, as we dutifully do the Lord’s work!
The rest of the story (which I don’t WANT to write here but my editor says I have to for “Literary Continuity”) is that shh… the supplies for the new church didn’t arrive in time, and then we had to leave.
So YES!
We DID “help” the most impoverished people I had ever spent time with so far in my life by:
- Destroying their church
- Eating every mango on their largest tree
- Flying back home to our 1st world nations with a wave and a smile.
“You’re welcome! Good luck!” we called out to them!
STOP looking at the people in Jesus’ club.2 (They’re all losers!) Look at Him. He’s the only cool one.
You’ll WANT to follow Jesus on the adventure of a lifetime as He woos you to follow Him, if you STOP looking at his friends and start looking at Him.
Start learning more HERE?
Photo Credit – Oops! by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
1 Yes, I called out and chose the shortest Costa Rican man to arm wrestle with me. Obviously, I picked him because he was smaller than the others, but because of his need to avoid cultural humiliation, he couldn’t decline arm wrestling with a measly WOMAN! (Note that Costa Rica is much further ahead with women’s rights than the red-necked town I grew up in, but don’t spoil my superiority complex!)
Yes, his self-esteem would be decimated if I won the arm wrestling match (I did win), but my “Ego Needs” (as my Psychologist calls them) matter too! I will share THE FULL story of this event another time.
2 Oh! And you’re a loser too, but you’ll figure that out later after reading more of that book. You’re welcome! Good luck!
don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously
Restoring Life 