Home, Sweet Home

First week back has been filled with the whole spectrum of emotions. It is a bizarre feeling to be torn between two places incredibly close to my heart. In Jax I have my family, my friends, and my RCC Church family; in Costa I have what has come to be my family, new friends, and the Celebración Church family. One of the hardest things about being back is realizing that while I have changed dramatically in the five months I have been away and I feel completely different, I don’t stand out. Nothing in my outward appearance separates me from the thousands of other light skinned, light haired, and light eyed Americans around me. I am so accustomed to being externally different from everyone else that it is strange for me to walk into the grocery store and blend in with everyone else. Even though I feel different, and act a little strange because I marvel at how small the coins here are, no one is going to assume that I am any different just by looking at me. Yet, even though I look the same as everyone else here I feel so different. I wish that I had more descriptive words to explain this weird state of “not belonging.”

I have also really been struggling with the drastic change in my day to day life. The average day in Costa, not that there is ever really an ‘average’ day there, is an adventure filled with tangible GOD moments. Unfortunately what I have been doing is expecting (a dangerous word, I know) for GOD to show up in the day to day in the same kinds of ways that he does in Alajuelita. I have been walking a lot since I have gotten home through neighborhoods trying to find people to start conversations like we would do in the barrios in Costa Rica and no one is outside. I can walk the mile to my school and back and pass one headphoned runner and a biker, maybe. I have just been aching to feel used by GOD here. Through a long conversation I had with my Dad GOD really revealed to me the self centered aspects of my frustration. First of all, who am I to say that GOD isn’t using me within my own family and friends? Just because it doesn’t feel like Costa Rica does not mean that GOD is not moving in my own life here in Jacksonville. It became blatantly obvious that what seemed like my righteous frustration with GOD’s absence was really my inability to get past my rigid expectations of what I wanted to see GOD do through me while I am here.

However, GOD is so good. Right after coming to terms with all of this my Dad and I went to lunch where we learned that a friend of ours was in the hospital with a bone infection. Ultimately we were able to visit with him in the hospital and pray with him at the end. I cannot explain what an incredible experience it was for me in so many ways. First of all I think it may have been the first experience like that in the States where I have spontaneously arrived unannounced to a place with the intention of getting past the awkwardness and asking to pray with someone. Secondly, it was so incredible because I got to see my Dad do just that; and we got to do it together. Way cooler than I could have ever imagined it in my mind.

“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4): a widely used and even more widely abused verse. However, I truly think it applies so perfectly to this situation. My desire was for GOD to use me; I wanted nothing more than to do crazy, radical things for GOD and was impatient to do just that. But I was also putting GOD in a box by telling Him just what I wanted those crazy, radical things to look like and when I wanted to see them. When I finally began to surrender my own preconceptions and just take delight in the fact that He is using me in ways that I cannot even see (which is really so cool to think about), His desires lined up with mine and an incredible opportunity presented itself. I encourage anyone who is praying for opportunities and situations to be Christ to continue to do just that with an attitude of surrender. We cannot begin to fathom the situations that GOD has planned to put in our paths and attempting to dream them up in our own minds just creates a mess. That doesn’t mean we should be inactive and just wait for something to happen. Opportunities present themselves all of the time and we just dismiss them; action is required as well.

Thank you all for your continued support while I am serving GOD State-side in Jacksonville, FL. I will be back in Costa two days after Christmas with my sister who will spend a week there. I am so excited about everything that is still going on with 6:8 and cannot wait to be back. Check out the blogs of anyone on staff by clicking on this link http://gammagefamily.blogspot.com under “People we love” to find out more about the amazing things GOD is doing in Alajuelita. GOD BLESS

Becca

Los Anonos

These past couple of days have been pretty crazy as we have been down in an area severely affected by the torrential rains which caused massive flooding and mudslides throughout Escazu. Los Anonos is a neighborhood of houses stacked precariously on the side of a hill leading down to the winding river. The government has been trying to encourage the people to leave Los Anonos for years because of the issue of safety during the rainy season and even closed down the neighborhood school in attempts to force families with children to move into areas within close proximity of a public school. However, the choice of location for the families of this community is due to the fact that close to all the employable members of each family unit work for minimum, or less than minimum wage in the case of illegal Nicaraguan immigrants, and have no other choice but to settle in one of the most dangerous areas. The main drag is almost a semi-circular shape as it follows two major bends of the river. With the 72 hours of non-stop rainfall those homes located along the curves of the river were most affected as the water flew around the bends, taking down whatever was in its path. Even the families on the opposite side of the street had a three to 4 foot deep river in their homes. To make matters worse, three houses in entirety and parts of others were taken out by a mudslide that swept across the mountain late Wednesday night.
The first day we went into Los Anonos was absolute chaos. Everyone was trying to salvage whatever they could from their inundated homes by lugging refrigerators, beds, stoves, scrap metal, etc. up to higher ground. What a paradox it was that they were surrounded by the raging river water and they were sweeping, hauling, or shoveling muddy water from out of their houses but had no clean drinking water. Luckily a few houses on the other side of the river did have running water which allowed everyone without to haul buckets, bottles, cups, etc. back to whatever they had left on the quebrada side. I have never seen anything like it. To say that it was overwhelming would be such an understatement but I don’t have adequate words to convey the devastation in any other way. All we could do was stop and pray: for opportunities to help, for peace for the families, for hope. We, in collaboration with two other organizations with a presence in Los Anonos, began serving gallo pinto and hot dogs in the closed down school. Looking for other ways to be useful we helped carry water down to the very end of the stretch and started carrying loads of people’s belongings back up the opposite direction. The guys hauled an entire refrigerator from the very last house on the street all the way up an almost vertical flight of stairs. The families we met absolutely astounded me with their faith. In the midst of losing everything, the first thing they would tell you was how merciful GOD is to spare their loved ones. I talked for a while with one family that came for food at the school whose entire house was eaten by the landslide the night before. With the very clothes on his back and three soggy passports Jose said he was just so thankful that his family was safe. His four year old son, Dilan, told me that all of his things were inside of the mountain but that it was ok, that they are going to try to go back to live on a farm in Nicaragua. So many others, though, don’t have anywhere else to go.
And that is the problem. The ministry of health has forbidden us to serve food in the school, permanently cut off electricity and water, and sealed off the bridge connecting the two sides of the river in order to force everyone to find other places of residence. A huge majority of the people either don’t want to leave or have no other option but to stay. Many of them won’t even leave their houses just to walk to the school for food in fear of being robbed of whatever they managed to save from the flooding. With this situation we are praying about how to be the most helpful and how to demonstrate the hands and feet of Jesus in the best way. I don’t really know what to say except pray. I feel so helpless when I walk into people’s houses whose kitchen was replaced by mud from the mountain and parts of the house above them. I don’t know what to do when a woman tells us she is sleeping in the foot of muddy filth that the river brought into her bedroom. But GOD promises “I will give you every place where you set your foot…No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:3,5). GOD is in Los Anonos right now, he has claimed it as His. He will not abandon his children there. I just have to cling to that hope and pray like crazy.
We need your help! Please make a conscious effort to keep everyone affected in your prayers. If we want to make a difference we need an army of prayer warriors and funds to provide for the physical needs of these families. If you would like the opportunity to give financially to the relief efforts of 6:8 Ministries please go to their website www.68ministries.com. Thank you all and GOD BLESS.

A very Happy Halloween

Typically Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays; however, I definitely had the best Halloween imaginable and want to share it with everyone. Every week now we visit one of the sweetest women I know from a very impoverished area of Alajuelita and dress the diabetic wound on her foot. Without the proper medicine or diet to treat her diabetes her body has been unable to heal itself after receiving a nasty dog bite more than two years ago. She lives in a one room shack at the very bottom of a long, narrow, steep alley. With her pronounced limp she is able to hobble to her immediate neighbors' house but cannot even reach the main street without assistance. The really crazy part about sweet little Maria is that she is an ex-witch. Her relationship with 6:8 actually began through her neighbors, Jose Antonio’s family. Whenever 6:8 went to visit Jose Antonio, a severely handicapped seven-year-old who is a walking testimony of the power of prayer, they would bring Maria food. At that point, Maria practiced witchcraft and was openly antagonistic towards members of the local church. On the last day of a clinic hosted by a Celebration of Jacksonville medical team Maria showed up to receive treatment for her foot and ended up receiving Christ. The transformation in her life is absolutely incredible, as anyone can see from even briefly meeting her. We continue to bring teams down to be blessed by Maria's smile and to bless her with food and medical treatment.
Last week during our visit we invited her to come to church with us. She gave us the infamous Costa Rican response: “si DIOS quiere…” ( If GOD wants, or GOD willing…) but we decided to take our chances and we showed up on Sunday morning with new shoes for her, a couple of guys to help her up to the street, and the trusty funi (the ministry station wagon) waiting to bring her to Celebración Church. After waiting quite awhile for Maria to change and to check and then recheck everything in her house she emerged dressed in her Sunday best and ready to make the climb up to where we parked the car. Slowly but steadily, with the help of Anton, Mike, and Wilburt, one of the men from the Refugio, Maria made it to the car and to church. Once at church I was overwhelmed by the welcome Maria received. A few older women in the congregation came over during the break to introduce themselves and sit with her, exemplifying what a church community should be. My all time favorite part of the day, however, was during worship when Maria stood up about halfway through and began to sing along. I cannot explain what a powerful moment it was for me: I was standing next to an ex-spell caster, on the day of Halloween, worshiping our Heavenly Father. What a cool GOD we serve that he can redeem and bring glory to himself in such an incredible way! "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). So, hands down best Halloween I have ever experienced. Gloria a DIOS 

Becca