I think I can speak for my whole team when I say that this was a very loving and affectionate week for us. Our topic this week was on God’s fatherly heart for his children. What an amazing week. Jack Kody, our speaker from the States, was a kindly old father of four who really put into perspective how God feels about us. It’s kind of indescribable, really. You’d honestly just have to hear him speak for yourself. This man has such an irresistible passion for his wife and kids. He simply lights up when he talks about them. Basically, he told us all about his relationship with his family, and how much he loved his four grown kids. He talked about how their joy was his joy, and their pain was his pain. His kids were his treasures; he knew them all so well and was delighted in seeing them grow. Jack had hopes and dreams for them, especially his two unmarried daughters.
He kept reminding us that God calls us His sons and daughters. God delights in us He delights in us the way Jack does with his kids. More, actually. If Jack, who is imperfect and a sinner, could feel such a strong affection and appreciation for his kids, how much more could our perfect and holy God feel love for us!
One thing that really stuck out to me from his message was this one story he told. Jack told us this story about how he took his oldest child to work with him when she was twelve. He had a painting business, and decided to invite his daughter to come with him to pain this fence. This was a huge honor, for his daughter, because it was the first time he had brought any of his kids with him to work. Jack showed her how to properly hold the brush and stroke with it. He had his daughter paint a head of him, and he would trail behind her finishing it off. The two of them talked and laughed and hung out for hours while painting the fence until it was finished.
This outing of theirs, Jack said, was not about painting a fence. The fence has to be painted, of course, but that’s not why he took his daughter with him. Jack knew how to paint a much better than his twelve year old daughter. He could do it much neater, much faster than she could. He had to fix all the mistakes she made along the way; she’d put too little paint here, a little too much there, she’d miss a spot, or sometimes a few. If Jack cared about the fence, he would have just done it by himself. Jack didn’t care as much about the fence as he did spending time with his baby girl. He wanted to show her what he did every day before coming home for dinner. It’s the same with God. He has work for us to do, both inside and outside of ourselves. But that’s not His main concern, Jack argued. God isn’t about the tasks; He’s about doing those tasks with us. If all He cared about was the work, He’d use His omnipotence and omniscience to get cranking without us. But He cares more about spending time with us.
Doesn't that take off a lot of pressure?
In a very paternal fashion, Jack took me and my friends out twice this week; once to his favorite ice cream shop in San Jose, and then the next day to go bowling. I must say, bowling with a group of Europeans and Latinos was one of the more hilarious experiences of my life.
Friday was the cleaning day for the whole base. In the morning, my German friend Robin and I helped clean up the carpentry shed next to our hut. The shed is for YWAM’s ministry Casas de Esperanza (Homes of Hope) which is an effort to build new homes for poor families in Costa Rica through donations from various outside supporters. They’re currently working on making the furniture for the last house they built. We have yet to be involved with them, as a DTS, but it was cool helping one of the Costa Rican contractors, Giovanny, clean up the work space. We tossed out all the extra unusable pieces of wood that lie scattered around the shed. After that, we swept up all the saw dust and picked up garbage. When we were done with that, I went into the dinning room to help sweep and mop for a couple hours. I was with my Australian friend Scott, and Costa Rican friend Luis. We plugged in Scotts iPod and listened to this sweet reggae band from New Zealand. Fat Freddy’s Drop. Check it out. You’ll love it. Eventually, I ended up washing off and drying tables outside with my Bolivian friend Phillip. Long day. But really enjoyable. I got paired up with fun people.
So that evening was the beginning of a crazy weekend. To begin, let me educate you guys on some contextual stuff. First of all, prostitution is legal in Costa Rica, for adults over the age of 18. Because of this, it’s completely out in the open. You can walk downtown and see women (and men) working at almost every corner. Many of them choose it, but some are coerced. Just because it’s legal doesn’t meant that every prostitute is “self-employed”; there is a significant number of people who have been forced into it through economic leverage. However, due to the legality of prostitution, it deters much of the crime that we associate with it in the States. If force is used, it is largely financial and not violent.
YWAM has a ministry called Freedom Street, which builds friendships with the prostitutes of San Jose. It is not an aggressive initiative; their main objective is actually not to fight against the sex industry. Its purpose is to show love to prostitutes by forming relationships with them that highlight their value outside the ability to have sex. Tuesday and Saturday nights, a team goes downtown to hand out free coffee to the prostitutes and hang out with them during their down time between clients. Before any students can be involved, however, we have to come to several trainings and participate in some prayer nights on behalf of the men and women Freedom Street serves.
Friday night, we went downtown to pray outside the largest brothel in Costa Rica. It is the Hotel Del Rey, located in the heart of the city. It is known around the western world as prime real estate for getting beautiful women for a decent price. There is evidence so suggest that one could even pay for a child prostitute at this hotel. Like I said before, human trafficking is still a very real problem here. Many Americans and Europeans come to this place to get laid. The clientele is, curiously, composed mostly older married men in their fifties and sixties. Although, I did see a father take his teenage son into the hotel and come out with two young women. It was such a strange sight to see. Many of them would walk up, briskly, like a dog with its tail between its legs and their eyes downcast. They knew it was strange. What would some rich old gringos like them possibly be doing in such dangerous part of town? They knew they were being sketchy. We were hoping to get into some conversations with them. I never did, but others were able to.
So there we were, praying on the corner of this intersection. In front of us was Del Rey, with its throngs of lovely young ladies and perverted old men. To our left were the drug dealers, and to the right were the mobsters and the pimps. Here and there were cops roaming around, not really doing anything useful. We were praying for the women in the hotel, and the men coming for their services. We were praying that the women would know that their value is not in their bodies, and that they’re worth more than a one night stand. We prayed for the men, that they would be satisfied with what they had. We prayed for their marriages. We prayed they wouldn’t require this kind of thrill. It was dark, you guys. Really dark. Darker than when we went to feed the homeless at the park.
Watching all this was such a thought provoking experience. There’s a huge supply of women to meet a demand of hungry men. Why, though? Why is there such a high demand? Why is it necessary to have this kind of business available? Why is the supply so bountiful? There’s so much brokenness to behold. Women thinking that their only option is to sell their bodies. Men not valuing their marriages, and men seeing these women as objects. Something is seriously wrong with this picture, wouldn’t you say? I was praying specifically that God would fill these voids with Himself. Satisfaction and wholeness in the name of Jesus!
Now, as we waged silent war on the perversion and corruption of downtown San Jose, we in turn received some quiet retaliation. Our bodies were safe, but our minds and hearts were being attacked with vengeance of the spiritual forces surrounding the practices in front of us. A lot of people were feeling extremely depressed afterwards. After a couple hours of praying, I started to get a panic attack. My chest tightened up and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was getting light headed and even nauseas. It was just so strange; I wasn’t worried about my safety, I wasn’t freaked out by what I was seeing…I just started feeling horribly afraid and my body was spiraling into terror. I’m really sensitive to the spiritual. It can be extremely overwhelming.
Unlike other similar experiences, I decided to turn to my friends around me and ask them for prayer. They laid hands on me, and I’d feel fine. Completely fine. When they stopped, I would be swept back into the panic attack. So I would go back to them, over and over again to try and pull myself out of it. They’d lay hands on me, and I would feel okay again, but as soon as they stopped my chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe anymore. Jenny, from Germany, told me just to call on the name of Jesus. What? I thought that’s what I’ve been doing. She told me just to say His name, because it is powerful. He’s already with me, so just acknowledge that truth. So I did. I closed my eyes to pray, and I just said His name. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. JESUS!
The cool thing about being sensitive to the spiritual is that I can not only feel the presence of demons, but I can feel the presence of God, too. When I feel His presence, I get chills. Excitement washes over me. Every hair on my body stands on end. I feel alive. When I called on the name of Jesus on the corner, I felt His presence just like that. It was a like sunshine through the clouds. There He was! There He was! My chest loosened up and I could breathe easily. My stomach stopped churning. I felt like God took my face in His hands and just told me “I’m right here. I didn’t go anywhere.” Cool. I guess we can carry on, then, can’t we?
I wish I were that casual about it. I actually started crying and reciting spoken word as we prayed for the streets. God is so cool. Even though I didn’t see His light shine on the corner, I was able to see it shine on me. I’m looking forward to seeing Him in action.
Saturday I caught up on some homework for lecture. I also got to chat with lots of people back home, which was incredible. That night we received training for identifying human trafficking. We were given various questions to work in to our conversations to see if anything sketchy is going on. This would be a helpful tool when we go out to hang out with the prostitutes, in case we run in to anyone who is not choosing to sell themselves.
Sunday night was pretty wild. We went downtown, again, but this time to wash the feet of the homeless and provide basic first aid for any wounds they might have. YWAM got a donation from the Salvation Army of fifty pairs of shoes and socks to give to the people we would come in contact with, too. We split up into three teams and went to some of the most dangerous parts of San Jose. My team went somewhere near the Red Light district, as the bottom of a little hill where a few men were sitting on the sidewalk. Our Costa Rican leader and driver, Paola, asked them if we could wash their feet from the driver’s seat. They were surprisingly receptive. We got out of our van with our buckets and sponges and got to work.
I thought this would be more awkward, but it felt so natural. I started with a man named Carlos, who was from Cartago. Obviously our similar names were an instant connection. He was really nice, and kept thanking us for coming to the street. I told him that my Spanish was limited, but I wanted him to know that God loved him. Amen, he replied. Carlos had the most delightful smile on his face as we chatted and got his feet scrubbed. When I asked how I could pray for him, he told me very plainly that he had a drug problem. After drying his feet, I put my hands on his shoulders and prayed for him. He held his hands out palms facing up, clearly longing for the Lord to meet him. His face was so peaceful; he just took in what was going on with such thankfulness. Of all the beautiful things I’ve seen in this country…the mountains, the trees, the ocean, the birds, the sunsets…this man’s grateful smile was perhaps one of the most breathtaking.
Someone brought over some new shoes and socks for Carlos, and dressed some wounds on his arms. Apparently, he had a job collecting garbage and that’s how he got the cuts. I’m assuming his drug problem kept him on the streets, though. While they took care of him, I went to another man to wash his feet. He was older, and had a thicker accent I couldn’t understand very well. I started washing his feet, and my other Danish friend Peter was planning on doing some first aid when all of the sudden I heard some commotion to my left. We looked over and saw two of the homeless guys rolling around on the ground and beating each other up about one hundred feet away.
Paralyzed with a homeless man’s feet in my hands, we started to pray aloud. The other homeless guys, who we already cleaned up and gave shoes to, started breaking up the fight and shielding those students who were too close to the brawl. One of the guys fighting pulled out a knife, and Paola immediately yelled at us to get in the van. We had to abandon our stuff and get away from the fight. I reluctantly left my new friend with his soapy wet feet on the sidewalk.
How discouraging! We were having such a cool time, and these two had to ruin it with some silly argument. I sat in the car and watched, feeling slightly defeated. The other homeless men broke up the fight and sent the two belligerent drunkards away. As they yelled out profanities and threw bottles at one another across the street, the remaining people came to our car window and began apologizing. Carlos and another man gathered our stuff we left on the sidewalk and handed it to us.
The guys talking to Paola affirmed our visit to them, saying that they knew why we had come. They knew we were from God, they said. Carlos told Paola that he could see the love in our eyes, and was so thankful for our help. Another man said that the reason why this happened was because the devil knew God wanted to bless them tonight, and he wanted us to leave. They were not discouraged, though. They praised God that He sent us to them with shoes and socks and soap and water and bandages. It was too dangerous to stay any longer, they said, but they assured us that we had done what God called us to do.
The other teams had pretty crazy experiences, too. Some debriefing and prayer were most definitely required when we got home.
Praise Reports
-God kept us safe this weekend, despite the craziness that ensued around us.
-I feel like my eyes are being opened to some really harsh realities, and I feel like God is stirring a new passion in me for the brokenness of the world.
-I got to spend some time catching up with friends and family, which was really refreshing. I got to see my brother on skype, who I haven’t seen in two months.
-I’m up to $800 in support for Peru and Bolivia. $1550 more to go!
Prayer Requests
-Please pray for protection both physically and spiritually. Obviously, there are some risks in ministering to the people we are seeking to bless. There are also, clearly, forces that want to stop us from what we’re doing.
-Pray for this coming weekend, when we go backpacking to Panama. Pray for divine appointments and for opportunities to bless the travelers and backpackers.
-Pray for God to provide the rest of my finances.
Please send me and email, or call me on skype! I miss you!
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