Hello friends!
There is a little to catch up on since the last time I wrote, and things have been VERY eventful for me. After a short, but much needed and amazing visit home over Christmas am am back in Costa Rica. This time around I am not here as a student (in the official sense), but as staff on the base of Youth With A Mission. I say that I am not "officially" a student becase I believe that I am entering to one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. I am working with the Discipleship Training School and this is the biggest leadership role I have yet taken on in my life. How do you learn to lead others? Praying, doing it, making mistakes, and being humble. There is not really a school to teach me all that I need to know, but I'm in this to learn and to play my small part in lives being changed by and for Jesus Christ. We just completed the first week of the school and I am already seeing God move in huge ways. The students have come with very open hearts. They are hungry for something more; They are hungry from truth. We have talked about relationships in this first week of class and I have already seen them being challenged and also even transformed a little more from who they were when they first showed up. I have enjoyed this time of getting to know the DTS students and I am very excited and expectant for the 5 months ahead of us!
As you may know, there was a 6.2 earthquake here last week and we are certainly a little shaken up from it. I praise God that we were not effected at the base! Pretty much the downtown San Jose area stayed safe, but some of the surrounding towns near Volcan Poas were hit for the worse. Hundreds of people are misplaced from their homes. Over 20 have died. Buisnesses and strawberry farms have been destoryed, so the people have no economic resourses. This is a great tragety! Please continue praying for God's grace and restoration. We have sent several team to go help in this situation adn it have been very needed. Most of all, people are desperate for hope.
This weeked, I am taking a team of the 15 DTS students plus 5 staff and 7 other volunteers to go the the town of Poasito and help however we can in this situation... practically and spiritually. Pray for God's hand to be in this and that we would move in his love and power.
Thank you so much for reading this and keeping me in your prayers. God have been so good to me and I really can't praise him enough for all that he is doing!
2 comments:
HI anna great blog! I've been learning so much about hope lately. It seems that every where i turn hope is needed; i need it, people around me need it. We can have a hope that help will come, that our lives will some how be put back together. I have a hope that my son will be returned, that he will heal, that he will be able to trust us again. I have a hope for his life that he will love and find love, that he will have a life charactorized by joy. These are good things to hope for. But hope by itself doesn't bring peace. The problem is that the circumstances of Daviance's life, his past, his present and his uncertain future really require me to put hope in an almost hopless situation.
then i look at Joseph; the circumstances of his life should have left him a hopless wreck, immoblized by despair, yet he florished wherever he was.His hope was not that someday things would get better. His hpoe was not that the cosmic scales of justice would balance out in the end and that the injustice he experianced would be somehow made right.Joseph's hope wasn't even in what God could do for him. Not even that, in the end, God would avenge all the wrongs against him.
Joseph's hope was God Himself! He is the God who is with us, the God who loves us. It is God who is our light when darkness floods in. Jesus is the light that lights the heart of men. Jesus saviour!
Sometimes the bravest thing I can do is hope! Hope in jesus is a certain hopr that brings peace.
how did the volunteer work in Paosito go?
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