Still I will praise You...

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9). I want to start with this verse because yesterday was a difficult day for me. In my world, in my thoughts and my ways, I am crying out why? But, I cling to this verse in the midst of it, knowing that thankfully GOD accomplishes his divine purpose in ways that do not always make sense to the feeble minds of man. Two days ago the team here this week began to fix up a house for an elderly crippled woman in the Celebración Church family. Not only did the team itself raise funds in order to complete the project, but the entire Celebración congregation generously donated to the cause as well. The team spent the day cleaning out the house (which was quite the job seeing as it has been inhabited by the sheep that live on that particular hill) painting it, and making it ready for Gloria and her family to live there. They prayed over Gloria for healing and spread the love of Jesus through their selfless acts. Later that very night Gloria was admitted into the hospital and passed away early the next morning. The suddenness of her death shocked her family, the church congregation, the team, and everyone on 6:8 staff. I cannot say for sure on behalf of anyone else, but I was definitely asking GOD Why? Why now? However, despite the ideas or plans that I had in my head for Gloria, she is in heaven now, free of pain and completely restored. Gloria is healed and I thank GOD for that.
There is the sweetest kid named Jorge who volunteers at Celebración Church: he is so full of joy and has a huge servant’s heart. So when we visited his home yesterday and heard a little bit about his story I was asking the very same question I had earlier. Why GOD? Why such an incredible family? Jorge lives with his grandmother, Esperanza, and his alcoholic father in a house that was condemned by the city after the most recent earthquake. The condition of this house would rock your world: there is no wall in the kitchen and the kitchen floor consists of occasional two-by-fours and giant holes revealing the 8-10 foot drop to the ground. Two of their bedrooms are have holes so large that the beds fell through during the earthquake. When it rains water leaks in from the sides of the house and pours down from the pieced together tin roof. His eighty plus year old grandmother has to navigate around the missing floor boards and is forced to sleep sitting up because the bedrooms are unsafe. The amazing thing is that Jorge and Esperanza (which very fittingly means Hope in Spanish) have incredible faith and they pray wholeheartedly for GOD to miraculously provide another house. When confronted with such genuine trust in GOD I am so humbled. As we sang a song later that night in worship that says “So I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on/ There will be an end to these troubles but until that day comes/ Still I will praise you/ Still I will praise you” I thought of the struggles of those two families. One who is grieving the loss of a loved one and the other who is trusting in you to provide a way for a new home. In the midst of these struggles, we will praise you LORD. We don’t understand your timing and we cannot comprehend your ways but we do know that you are good. Thank you, LORD, that your thoughts and ways are higher than mine.
Please continue to pray for Rigo as well as for the families of Gloria and Jorge. Thank you so much. GOD Bless.

Becca

GOD has been revealing so many things to me during this trip so far. Without fail, every day I learn something new about His character, His word, His truth. What astounds me, still, however, are the ways in which He chooses to teach me. Spencer gives a message that has become known as the ‘take up your cross’ talk to every group upon their arrival in Costa Rica. He follows Jesus’s example in Luke 9 to explain that in order to completely devote your life to living for Christ, one must be willing to be uncomfortable, inconvenienced, and unpopular. Ultimately, Christ commands: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his self?” (Luke 9:23-25) Everyone is encouraged to take a literal wooden cross necklace as a constant reminder of our own crosses that we must bear each and every day that we live for Christ. Because Spencer shares this incredibly powerful message with every group, last night was the sixth time I had heard it, and the third time in the past two and a half weeks. What was so amazing, though, was how entirely new GOD made it for me. All of yesterday Rachel and I had been discussing something that was on our hearts and Spencer’s message spoke directly into that. Even though I had already heard those very words a week ago it was so pertinent to what was going on inside of me at that very moment that it just clicked. Rachel and I both turned to each other in the middle of the sermon just grinning—giving each other the ‘wow GOD is awesome’ look.
I had the opportunity earlier today to spend some time talking with a “huffer” named Rigo who frequents the streets of Alajuelita. Rigo soaks rags, gloves, anything with absorbent properties, in paint thinner to inhale the toxic fumes and live virtually on a perpetual high. While most of his conversations are quite humorous sadly due to his addiction, today I saw a glimmer of his true heart and the tragedy of his situation. It began, after I gave up convincing him that I do not have black eyes or blue hair, when he asked me if I believed in GOD; I couldn’t have asked for a more direct opening. When I responded he asked me to specify which god I believed in. When I began explaining that there is only one true GOD and only one true way through GOD’s son Jesus Christ because he already died to save our sinful world Rigo began to shake his head. “No,” he said, “You don’t understand. I am an addict.” He pulls out his old identification cards that he still carries in his wallet to show me the physical changes that have occurred since his addiction. “This is my life,” he opens his hand to show me the soaked cloth, “This is my passion.” This time I shake my head. “No. GOD is so powerful that he can save anyone. It isn’t too late.” As I prayed for him I just cried out for GOD to give him supernatural measures of strength to turn his life around, to throw away the rag and never go back to it. I prayed that he would know how much Jesus loved him and that he could truly accept the Jesus already died in order to forgive. Although he left with the rag in his hand, he also left with tears in his eyes. Even though he returned joking and insisting that he has green eyes and all of the gringos (Americans) have black eyes I pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to work in his heart. I would love it if you would like to join me in praying for Rigo. I will let you know how he is doing the next time I see him. GOD BLESS.
Becca

Miracles

I have a couple of really quick amazing stories that I would like to share. The first is the miracle of a little boy named Jose Antonio. Due to an infection that spread to his brain as an infant, Jose Antonio spent the first five years of his life in bed unable to walk, speak, or respond to stimuli of any kind. This was the condition in which 6:8 met Jose Antonio. They began bringing teams to pray over Jose and his family and saw Jose Antonio’s condition miraculously improving to the bewilderment of his doctors. Over the past two years I have seen him begin to respond, walk, and now even talk. We spent over an hour at his house blowing bubbles and watching his reaction to these crazy floating spheres he had never seen before. What was the most exciting was to hear him exclaim “POP” when a bubble exploded by the end of the day. Yay GOD!
The team was also constructing a house for a family of seven in an area called Juan Pablo. After spending the whole week with them as they mixed and poured concrete, put up the frame, and finally the roof, it was quite an emotional time when they were able to present the family with the keys to their brand new house. The gratitude that radiated from the faces of each of the family members was incredible. You could definitely see GOD in the entire situation. More stories to come… Thank you for your support!

Hello everyone! Greetings from Alajuelita. I want to fill everyone in on what has been going on this last week. This has been a week full of firsts. As of this Sunday, this has been the first time I have been away from home for more than two weeks. This was my first week living with an amazing roommate and not my family. I have definitely been experiencing a taste of true independence for the first time as well. Instead of calling it independence, though, I want to call it true dependence on GOD.
This past week there has been two other interns not including myself working with the teams. Rachel, my roommate, is a twenty year old student at Santa Fe. Although I have only known her for about a week, we have already become so close. It is funny how sharing these experiences together has allowed us to bond in such a short amount of time. She challenges me with questions about the Bible and I know we are both growing in our faith together. The guy intern, Danny, will be a sophomore at a Bible college in Tulsa, OK. The three of us get along great and have such a good time. We have already had some interesting ‘intern bonding’ experiences. The day after my family left for the States, I walked home in a torrential downpour of a storm to find the sky light in the laundry room of our house leaking. By the time I ran back down to get help, the entire house was covered in ankle deep water. As our first official intern test, we spent the afternoon sweeping out and mopping up the intern house lake. GOD was so good though because nothing was ruined, we had fun throughout the whole ordeal, and it makes for a great story.
The current team here is a group of high schoolers from Mandarin Presbyterian Church of Jacksonville, my family’s former church. They have torn down a house in Juan Pablo in order to entirely build a new one for a family of seven, bumped out walls in the church to make room for Sunday school classrooms, as well as participated in various 6:8 Ministries. I have been touched by their compassion and empathy. I could see their hearts break for the people when we took them to the river community in Aurora, the poorest of the poor who live in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Alajuelita. River front property, unlike in the United States, means that trash and sewage from the homes above flows down through their streets, and often homes, into the filthy river below. During the rainy season the water level rises to a point where the houses are partially submerged in that water. In addition, the entire neighborhood virtually sits on a giant mound of trash. Although I see these conditions now on a regular basis, my prayer is that I do not become hardened to the suffering of these people. I desire a heart that weeps with those who weep and mourns with those who mourn, not one that is calloused by the routine of constantly witnessing such extreme poverty.
As I prayed more and more for sensitivity and compassion I turned to GOD’s word in search of answers. In the face of such travesty, how can I possibly do anything at all? In this quest I have become both acutely aware of my inabilities and awestruck by the greatness of GOD. I think this verse in 1 Corinthians really explains what I have been feeling. When I am feeling inadequate I can remember it is through GOD's awesomeness that I have any strength to do anything. "But GOD chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; GOD chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; GOD chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being may boast in the presence of GOD." - 1 Corinthians 1:26. I am loving it here. Continue to pray for me and the entire ministry. GOD Bless.

Week 1

As I have just completed my first full week here in Alajuelita I cannot believe it has been seven days since I said goodbye to my friends, my church family, and my home. Part of me cannot believe it has only been a week because I already feel so at home here. The community where I am living, a safely guarded complex called La Antolina, houses most of the 6:8 staff from the US. Four other American families live right down the road (actually right down what seems like a mountain to a Florida girl) from me and have graciously opened their homes to whatever I have needed. They have let me borrow everything from pots and pans, to internet connection, to a washer and dryer. I am so excited to be a member of the 6:8 family. While that part of me feels like I have been here for a year already, another part of me cannot believe how quickly the week has flown. Time seems to fly by here at a different speed than in the States. Kids are content to just sit in your lap and color for an hour straight without thinking anything of it. With my days being scheduled less by the mandates of a clock time seems to float by; I wake up, go about my day, and the next thing I know it is already dinner time.
I want to give everyone a little glimpse of what an average day here looks like for me. We have daily staff meetings at 7:30 at the team house (which is about a ten minute walk from my house) and then I go out with the team to do a morning ministry project. We normally return to the team house to eat lunch house before going back out into the community again for the afternoon. After having a little free time before dinner, we eat and then worship together and hear a short message. Today is really the first day since my arrival that there has not been a team here, so I cannot really say what a typical off day for me will look like.
GOD has already been doing amazing things. I have gotten to reconnect with some of the kids that I love and visit some of the places that are closest to my heart. Despite what an amazing first week I have had, I am struggling to write this blog. I don’t know what stories to tell or how to explain them in a way to adequately glorify GOD. I just wanted to quickly let everyone know how I am doing here. GOD bless you, and thank you all for your prayers. More exciting GOD stories on the way.

Becca