Although Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and a good percentage of the “Tico” people are seemingly contented with their lives, 16-24% of the people in this nation live with significant poverty in their lives. Yesterday our Missions Team visited one of the poverty stricken areas to minister to the people there, and to see what we could possibly do in the future to assist the church and ministry there. 

The community we visited is known as Cantar.  It is a very small community consisting of 48 families (probably 250 people), and in the center of the community is a church that is overseen by Pastor Mario Obando and his wife Ruth.  Mrs. Ruth led us up and down the streets of Cantar, introducing us to people and helping us get into their homes to minister to them.  We were struck by several things.   One, all of the people already knew and loved Mrs. Ruth, which means that she had previously visited every home in the community (something that we want our Life Groups at Celebration to do in the near future).  Two, there were children everywhere, even though the nearest school was certainly in session.  Many times in poorer areas children don’t go to school regularly or at all because their parents see no benefit in their doing so.  The belief of the parents is that their children will simply do in the future what they do – work on a coffee or sugar cane plantation or stay home and bear children – and so they don’t encourage their children to become educated.  By the way, in our interaction with these beautiful and sweet children, we found them to be very smart and quick-witted, and they had had sparkling personalities.  We all had children picked out that we would have loved to have brought home with us.

The third thing we noticed is that the people were very warm and welcoming.  They not only greeted us warmly, but they also invited us into their very small homes.  Then, when we visited the people’s homes, we saw the abject poverty they live with daily, and were reminded of how blessed and fortunate we are to live in the United States.

Our world has over 6 billion people.  It is estimated that 2 billion of the people around the world live on less than $2 day.  Some of the people we visited would probably fall into that category.  Their homes were very small structures.  Those who lived in wooden structures had big holes in their walls and lots of space between the wall boards, allowing wind, rain, insects, and other things to come into the homes.  Most of these types of homes had no electricity or indoor plumbing, and therefore the people had to transport their water and bathe in the creek, and they had no restroom facilities whatsoever.

One of the ladies we visited was the worship leader of the little church in Cantar.  She and her husband and three boys live in a “100 square foot one room wooden house.” In that one room is the bed she and her husband sleep in, a small sofa, some mats for her boys to sleep on, and piles of clothes (there was no room for any furniture).  There were also some cooking utensils, and a very tiny stove to use when cooked inside.  We also learned that her husband is addicted to drugs and alcohol, so she and her boys rarely have any income whatsoever to utilize to improve their lives.  This is a woman who lives in a seemingly hopeless situation.  But as we conversed with her through an interpreter, we heard her share about her love for the Lord and her faith in the Lord.  Then, as we were concluding our conversation, she sang a song for us in Spanish, a beautiful song that we used to sing as a church years ago, titled, “God Will Make A Way.” The words of the song are, “God will make a way, where there seems to be no way.  He works in ways we cannot see.  He will make a way for me.  He will be my guide, and hold me closely to His side.  With love and strength for each new day, He will make a way.  He will make a way.” The Bible says that God is pleased with the faith of His people.  The Lord is obviously pleased with this woman of God, and so we blessed her financially.  Please pray that her husband will surrender his life to the Lord, so that he can have the peace, joy, contentment and victory that his wife already has (even living in her 100 square foot wooden home).

At the end of the day, our Missions Team put on a big event for the children of the Messenger of Hope Church and the surrounding community.  Toni Collins and David Sprague led the way, as we interacted with and ministered to the children through games, singing, Bible stories and craft-making.  The gospel was shared with the children in several different ways, and many of them prayed for Jesus to become the Savior of their lives.  At the end of our time together, we had ice cream and cookies, the breaking of a piñata and the distribution of lots of candy, and then we ended the time with the fun-filled activity of water balloon tossing (it seemed to be the first water balloons most of the children had ever seen).  At the end of it all, the mothers and grandmothers there thanked us for ministering to their children and Pastor Godwall deemed the event a very successful ministry time and outreach for the church.

Today we will have some leisure time, before we go to minister to recovering alcoholics and drug addicts at a Recovery Church.  Please pray for our protection as we go “canyoning”, and please pray that we still have money left over after we go souvenir shopping.