Costa Rica Part 2

Leaving our new family in Costa Rica was very difficult but I am so grateful for such a hard goodbye. 

If anyone doesn’t believe in God, in His love, in His comfort, in His healing, in His power, in His active presence, in His Holy Spirit… all that person would need to do to believe is come spend a few weeks at the teen challenge base in Costa Rica. What we were exposed to over this past month cut deeper than words or logic could explain. (I encourage you to read my last blog to get a better idea of the teen challenge organization we were working with).

We can read in the bible about how the life of Jesus transformed so many other peoples lives. 

Think of Jesus’ disciples, ordinary people who listened when Jesus simply said “Follow me” (Mark 1:17). The outcome of their lives depended on how they responded to this call of someone they really didn’t know. They were left with a choice, stick to the life they had made for themselves and what they knew or leave their plans behind and do whatever Jesus said. 

For me personally, I always knew about Jesus and that He could still transform lives today but I didn’t really want a different life. I didn’t want to give up anything to Him. I believed in Him but I didn’t “want in” to a christian life, I just “wanted in” to heaven. I didn’t believe that living a life of following Jesus would be better than the life I could create for myself.

This month we got to see people make the decision to “leave everything and follow”. And we saw that when someone lays down their entire life to follow Jesus (not just an hour and 5$ on a sunday morning) radical transformation results. 

We went out on the streets, talked to the addicts and cried with them. We brought some of these men and women back to the rehab center with us. We saw what it was like for someone to experience their first few days sober (in years) in a loving and supportive community. We watched people grow in their character and identity with God. Learning their worth and stepping further into unconditional love. We watched the impact two vs four vs eight vs eleven months in the rehab program made. We saw people sacrificing their entire life to God while enduring incredibly hard things. We saw people worshiping the goodness of God with everything they got because of how he transformed them. We got to see families reunite and relationships begin to mend. We got to see people graduate from the program. We saw them get jobs and build up beautiful families. We got to go back out on the streets with the graduates to invite more people to come get their lives transformed. This is only the start of all we got to witness-

Most of these men and women tried breaking their addictions before. At other programs, on their own, some tried once, others countless times. They were very insistent that nothing worked…until they had given it to God. It seems whoever spends time here, whether addict, leader, or missionary, has had their life changed in one way or another. For me, it really showed me the beauty and power of leaving behind my own desires in life and instead following Jesus. 
sending love and prayers!! (also if anyone is interested in reading a good book, I’m currently reading “the cost of discipleship“ by Dietrich Bonhoeffer… its really good)