Hola!!

We just finished week two in Costa Rica! We are partnering with a global organization called Teen Challenge. (The name is a little deceiving though, we aren’t really working with teens). 

Our first night here, we hit the streets of the city of San Jose. We went out walking late at night - everyone else avoids the streets in this part of the city at night because of the danger and crime. For our purpose, it was the perfect time for us to go because the only people we would see are the exact people we wanted to talk to. 

We walked the streets talking to the homeless people. Most all of them, by this point, had drank their night’s share of rubbing alcohol and inhaled enough cocaine to keep them awake. Its their last hope. We heard their stories, their struggles, we prayed with them, saw their brokenness, gave them bibles, and gave them a phone number to call. 

It was hard. It was really hard seeing these people like this, drugged up, fighting, prostituting, living in cardboard boxes, and alone with no hope for a better future. 

That phone number we gave them though… that phone number is an invitation to live at the Teen Challenge base. 

Not all accepted it but some did. There are two centers for teen challenge here that have transformed the lives of many people struggling with addiction. They will take the man or woman in for a year, give them counseling, give them classes, three meals a day, sobriety, a bed with a roof over it, friends who build them up, and they teach them about Jesus. All at no financial cost to them- the only cost is that they have to sacrifice a year of the life they have gotten so accustomed to. 

For some it may seem like a no brainer, but for a lot of them, understandably, it can be a very difficult decision. They sacrifice a year of their life in a very secluded community, living a lifestyle that is so foreign to what they know. Some must leave kids, some must leave families, some cant imagine leaving their drunkenness and this is only the start of the list of their abandonment. This kind of sacrifice is challenging. And when you are staring at the sacrifices you have to make, what has become normal to you, it can be hard (and scary) to see past them and to believe that there is promise of a better life.

When we pulled up to the men’s center (where we are living this month) we met the people who made the sacrifices. We met the people who were on the streets (just like the ones we talked) who decided to make the phone call. They gave up everything they had left and decided to try depending on God. They told us how Jesus has transformed their lives- transformation over just a few days that has lasted many many years. They show us pictures of what they looked like before Jesus and honestly they look unrecognizable. They now have so much Love and Light and Life and Joy in their eyes. 

Ill expand on this later but I hope this paints a picture for what we are getting to witness here in Costa Rica. I‘ll try to share a video with you too but im struggling to upload it. Love y’all

Jackson