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.