A New Way of Life

 I sit on a bench, feet on the table in order to achieve the perfect balance required for this particular slanted bench. Sweat constantly runs down my face and back- it’s hot here all the time, but the humidity is what gets me. 

Beside me sit my squadmates, playing a new kind of worship song. The jungle around us, only about twenty feet to my right from where we sit on the porch, sings with the sounds of birds and bugs alike. The monkeys have fortunately gone into hiding as is their custom during the day; at night they come out and make enough noise to make a late night college party sound like someone has only turned on the radio. 

In front of me is the concrete building that has many uses and names. The chapel, the dining hall, the pavilion- all of these culminate in ‘the place where we meet with each other and the Lord’. The handmade bamboo and rock path leading to it was made in a day last week with the German neighbors we shared the space with. Flags from countries all over the world decorate the porch and inside the pavilion; a hummingbird has even made a nest of the Russian flag. 

Costa Rica is beautiful with all of nature around, even the jungle with its millions of mosquitoes and wasps and other bugs. Just around the corner is a papaya tree and right next to that is a starfruit tree that we can just walk up to and pick fruit off of and eat. There are palm trees with coconuts that we’ve become experts in cracking open to taste the sweet water and meat inside. 

Just down the path is The Jungle, where we are cutting down everything for ministry. The YWAM base we’re staying at has 11 acres of jungle that has snakes, bugs, and plantain trees galore, but in order to build anything on it we have to cut the jungle away. The plan is to build a soccer field and a new kitchen on the cleared land. 

That was our entire first week, as well as a group of Annie, Alex, Liv, Tate, and I building a structure out of bamboo to put compost from leftover food. Everything here is recycled or has more than one use; nothing is thrown away until it can be used no longer. 

This week we went out and did street evangelism for the first time in my life and it was a life changing experience. Instead of seeing people wandering around on the streets, instead of seeing them as strangers, it is easy to see them as God’s people. God’s children. People lost and chasing for something that looks like God but really isn’t. 

And it’s easy for me to feel the Lord’s heart when he says see my people, easy to understand the people when the Lord says know my people, easy to hear the cries of the broken-hearted when he says understand and love my people. 

Puerto Viejo is what has been explained to us as a party town. The night life is a sight to behold with circus acts, bonfires on the beach, people playing music and the sounds of the pura vida life drifting around. But in the daytime, it’s easy to see how people get sucked into the idea of a life that is too focused on things to enjoy. 

The group I’ve gone out with has been offered drugs twice, alcohol more times than I can probably count, and I’ve personally been catcalled many, many times. 

(Although it does get me price discounts on some things on the beach.) 

The culture in Costa Rica is very different from America, as to be expected. A word to describe it is ‘slowed down’, because nobody here is ever in a rush to do anything. When it happens, it happens. Take it slow, take it easy. 

It’s very different from American culture. One woman we met from New York was thriving in her new environment, and she told us she was able to find herself in the slowed down pace of Costa Rica. It also doesn’t help that New York is one of the busiest places in America, but the difference between here and there is so different that I wonder how she found Costa Rica in the first place. 

But right now sitting next to my friends as they strum their respective instruments, as the jungle hums around me and as voices from everyone on my squad are heard from every corner, I can understand the Lord’s calling to a pure life in his presence. Life in him is not complicated. And it’s never hard to look around and see his blessings- especially not here in Costa Rica where hibiscus flowers grow wild and sloths fall out of trees into your front yard. 

Live the simple life. Living in his love is simple and pure because we only have to accept it. This life has been given to us, without cause and without delay. 

Understand His love, in the most simple and pure of ways.

By the way- it says $15,645 on the bar, but I am, in fact, FULLY FUNDED! Thank you to everyone who donated to my missions trip!! Thank you God!!!