Okay! Finally a little update on the last 3 months! After the lecture phase of the DTS we started out the outreach phase with a week in Puerto Viejo. We stayed in a worked with a local church there, helping out with the services as well as planning different outreach events in the community. The culture in Puerto Viejo definitely has a distinct Caribbean flavour and is also a busy tourist community. There are people from all over the world and made for a really interesting outreach week. Something that’s common all over Costa Rica is the spontaneity and relaxed way of making things happen… we especially noticed this in Puerto Viejo as we kind of took it day by day, asking God how we could get involved with what he is doing there. It is a pretty heavy spiritual environment… most of the local shop keepers don’t really have much trust amongst themselves, let alone foreigners. And so we had the grand task of being a light in this dark place. One of my favourite things we did that week was a prayer walk across the beach at night. We split up into pairs, each pair having a candle that we struggled to keep lit, while we prayed on the beach. Each pair had come up with a prayer point and after a time of intercession, we gathered again to sing and praise the Lord for what He is doing there.
The week after this we traveled to Nicoya, Guanacaste to serve at one of the 3 YWAM bases in Costa Rica. The only staff they have are the base directors plus 1 Tica girl, so it was cool to help out some of our YWAM familia. While we were there we were blessed to join in the ministry and call they have to distribute bibles to every house in Nicoya and eventually all of Guanacaste. This was such an incredible experience. The Costa Rican people here were incredibly hospitable and welcoming, and were so blessed to receive a new bible for free! Some people would be getting out their money thinking we were selling them, others would look at us strangely until we said the words, ‘gratis’ or ‘regalo’ (free gift). We would get invited in and some of the groups were even given meals! The joy the Lord gave us through sharing with these people definitely made up for the intensely hot sun and long days we endured. I’ve never felt more like a missionary in my life… walking around with a backpack and purse full of bibles, practicing my Spanish.
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