Updating 1.0

Alright so it has been forever since I've written anything meaningful. So this week I'll be updating on my adventures over the past month plus.

Back around the beginning of April, I got to lead a Youth Team from Louisville (pronounced Loo-ul vuhl), Kt. Ryan, the youth minister, and I had a great time leading the youth into new experiences with their Savior. I love youth teams cause that's how I got my start in missions, especially here in Costa Rica. And they've been foundational in God shaping me.

We went to Quepos and worked with a church outside of central Quepos. Q has a lot of problems with drugs, since it's a huge tourist dump. It's the last stop before Manuel Antonio, a national park that is beautiful, so it gets a lot of bleed over from the bums that bum around Central America. But the church was wonderful and I knew it would be a great trip from the first moment that I talked to Pastor Wilbur.

Through the week we worked on the church and did some more outreach ministries to bring more people into the church with the goal of them knowing Jesus. The kids were stretched in this area, as was I. It was the first time that I had to go around a neighborhood/community and invite people to come to church. We put on a youth service, a children's activity and a women's meeting. They put on a despedida "good-bye service" the last night we were there. It was a wonderful time to celebrate the work that God had done in all of us that week.

The challanges of this group? The church has a more liberal background, so getting the evangelism side of the trip across was difficult, but not impossible. They were greatly flexible in anything and everything that was asked of them. There were also some interpersonal issues in the trip. And so I'm not spreading anything that shouldn't be spread or ruining the "reps"
of anyone, I'll just say God worked on a lot of hearts that week and is doing a great work in all of them.

The team was wonderful and I'm blessed to have had the pleasure of leading their time down here.

Ah, a little explanation. The click below. A few of the youth, in the weird way that only youth know how to, wanted to express their love for Ryan, their youth pastor. So they told me they'd pay me 5 clams if I put my rump on Ryan and sang the "bum song," made famous by Tom Green. So I did. Still waiting for my dough though... still waiting... still.

Check me out

With the Christ Church team.

Hodge Podge

So I haven't said much of anything in the past month, so I have about everything to talk about...

Tyrel, a good friend from Tulsa, came down two weeks ago and was able to see a lot of the ministries that I'm regularly involved in. He slept on the floor in my room and we lived much in community that week! We got to visit downtown San José on Monday. We spent most of our time in Teatro Nacional (the nation theater) and making a long story short, I got called an idiot by a prostitute. Good day! Tuesday we went to Guararí to help out with the kid's club. He loved it! Wednesday we went on the feeding program. Always a huge eye-opener for the first timers. From there we picked up our rental car, packed up and headed to the beach. After a 4 hour trip turning to a 7 hour trip we got there. Our two days there were completely relaxing, swimming in the pool, playing in the waves, reading and napping were our priorities, oh, along with eating. We got back to San José Saturday night, ate, and got up early to send him to the airport.

Verónica and I have been together now for about a month. We've had to deal with a lot of issues of culture and communication, both stretching the relationship and enriching it. God continues to confirm our relationship.

Freedom in the Spirit

So yesterday I had a very interesting experience. Two couples, four people, came down to CFCI Costa Rica to pray for the ministries and missionaries. They set up times for missionaries to be able to come and get prayer. I wasn't sure if I was going to go, but my GIRLFRIEND (...read below) encouraged me! So what did I do, but sign up!

Remembering my faith heritage-- presbyterian, baptist, covenant-- I was definately a little, um, nervous about having some more pentecostal peeps praying for me. I've just never experienced that! But I was able to get to know them a little bit first and they're wonderfully down to earth people, who die laughing about casting out demons and seeing people fly across the room! They were very pastoral in their prayers and asked what I wanted prayer over. Two things: my calling, that it would continue to form and be clear; and my relationship with Verónica.

They prayed for about 30 minutes, or so. Shared some "words" they received and prayed them over me, one of which was a pastoral calling. Then they brought Verónica back in and prayed for the both of us. It was all very edifying and an overall joyful experience.

Reflection: I'm presbyterian and so none of this is in my faith background, but I also grew up in Tulsa, home of Oral Roberts University and Billy Joe Daugherty, with his Victory Christian Center. I don't doubt that God works in these ways and I know that I have a deficient theology of the Holy Spirit and all that He can do. Is there such thing as a baptism of the Holy Spirit that is separate to Baptism? I wouldn't argue that point, but these two couples would. Are tongues important? Sure, but look at the placement of 1 Corinthians 13, as Paul talks about the giftings of the Spirit. Slain in the Spirit? I don't know. I would probably argue though that it is more related to our inability to stand before such a strong Spirit of the Lord, rather than being struck down. I thought about this as I fell back on the couch after standing in prayer. I was guided back, trusting their hands on me that I wouldn't crash against the floor (and the couch was lower than I remembered it!). Was there lightning bolts of the Spirit passing through them to me as they would come back and touch my head? Maybe, but for me it was more of a shock, to that of being barely asleep and someone touching you.

Does this negate their ministry and giftings? No. As I said before, it was joyful and edifying. I think God has a strong ministry for them, but it's not something that everyone has been gifted for. Each of us have our own giftings that God has bestowed on us according to His plan for us and how He's going to use us. I would argue that the most important thing for us to continually seek is His presence. To find ourselves at His throne seeking His grace on our lives. To continue to take up our Cross daily-- sometimes hourly-- and knowing that we are not our own, that we were bought with a price, we are to be living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, our spiritual act of worship.

The Buzz

Man! News travels fast, huh? And well, I promised a few people that I would be posting this news on the web.

Well, I did something yesterday that I haven't done in nearly 5 years. You might want to sit down... I went on a second date. Yep. How do I say this... it was good.

Ah, so the story you ask.

Well for ever since I got here back in July, I've been going to the CFCI office devotional on Thurdays. People come and go. But sometime this past fall, Veronica started going. We talked here and there, but it was nothing. Then this past Thursday I, jokingly, asked why she never calls me? Well by the end of the conversation I walked home with her number. Friday a group of people were going to go to the Jazz Cafe, so I called her up to see if she wanted to go. She couldn't, but we ended up talking for 20 minutes. We decided on Sunday. Sunday we decided on The Pink Panther and just hanging out.

I got to the mall pretty early, so I went ahead and bought the tickets, walked around and checked out some Diesels. I sat down around 5 and waited. Throughout my sitting, a lot of cute girls walked by, but then out of the crowds Veronica appeared and I was, at that moment, struck with her beauty and presence. We grabbed a quick snack before the movie and just talked-- about everything. I paid for the bill, partly cause I wanted too, but also cause I didn't hear the cashier well enough to split it anyway. The movie was hilarious. And the cultural moves were shut down. (I still don't know how to get a girl to take your hand when you've clearly put it on the armrest to be taken!) We ended up going back to her house-- she lives at home still-- and had a great time with her family. I felt really comfortable there, plus I knew her mom from Renacer. We looked at pictures, played pool and just talked.

Monday she called me half way through the day and told me she wouldn't call me that night, because she would get home late and it would be rude to call my house that late. Okay, no worries. When I was heading up to bed, though, I decided that I wanted to call her. The first words out of her mouth were, "OH, I'm so glad you called." We talked and talked. No games were played. We both made it clear that we like each other and by the time we finished talking it had been more than 2 hours. I had taken no notice.

Tuesday we saw each other at a seminar that CFCI was holding. I thought she had something to do, because she told me she was probably going to leave early, but turned out that was only if she was bored! We kinda looked at each other at the end of the time and said, "So, what are we going to do now?" I said let's just go back to my house and hang out, but she said she had a better idea. So we went over to the University of CR, where I studied 4 years earlier, and where she's finishing up soon, before pursuing a Masters in Education in the States. We went to her favorite cafe and again talked, trying to discover who this other person is and why were so comfortable around each other. Our lives and our dreams match up amazingly, something that only God could have put together. How much do we share about how we're feeling? How much do we still try to guard each other's hearts? Where is that fine balance?

I'll divulge some more information about her. Veronica Gutierrez is 22 years old and has grown up in Costa Rica her whole life. She spent a month or so in Virgina when she was 15. She gave her life to Christ when she was 12. She has brown hair and brown eyes (I'll get a picture up soon). She makes me laugh even when I've only had 4 hours sleep. She challenges me in my faith. She's worried about me, because I'm trying to grow a beard with a long goatee in the style of Charlie Hall, but knows I won't be growing my hair out. She wants to go to grad school in the States and isn't sure she is going to return to Costa Rica afterwards. She's flippin' awesome.

Questions?

Almost "Coming alive"

Right now I'm frustrated. I've been typing out my post about my team that I led nearly 3 weeks ago now and I have been trying to post up some pictures too. Through all of it, the pictures won't post how I want them to and the sweet story that I had about my time with the team is lost. Some where in cyber space I guess. Being as vast as actual space, at least digitally, recovery ain't happen-en, as we like to say in the Southern half of the Estados. So I'll write some other fleeting thoughts as I begin to reconstruct my last near-post to satisfy your desirous pleas for information of my life.

Second change of subject: (I'll leave the juicy stuff for later in the week.) I was able to have a day of "recovery" if you can call it that between dropping the Troyers off at the airport and going on another mission trip. It was an internal one, with as many ticos as gringos. We went to the Guaymis on the Osa Penisula in southern Costa Rica. I can say this about the trip-- it was the worst mission trip I've ever been on. I'll qualify that statement. Mission trips are good (period) They have this quality of building relationships between the team and those whom you are serving. This is good. They are a proclamation of the Gospel, in word and action. This is good. So naturally the mission trip was a good thing. But in all the mission trips I've been on I found this to be the worst. "Why?" I read on your forrowed brow.

A couple of reasons.

It wasn't organized. Now I'm in Latin America, so I naturally use that term loosely-- but it still wasn't organized. The call was placed a day in advance to alert the peoples that we were coming. This resulted in a few complications. The worst being that we weren't able to trek into the Reserve to spend the night there, so that we would be ready in the morning. Of course God works all things to His good, right, so it wasn't a huge blow out, but it caused a headache for a couple of hours.

The second reason was I just got off of being the "lead" of an awesome mission trip. How, what? Okay. I organized the whole 13 days of the previous trip I was on, I took on a lot of responsibility. And God sustained me through it and allowed everything to be awesome to His glory. But this trip I was a participant, I have no problems with this, except I was treated as a child by one of the leaders. There was a drill sergent attitude present in this individual. For ease, we'll call this person, um, Smith. I spent the night at Smith's house, cause we were to leave at 4 am. I figured 30 seconds to put on my shirt, shoes and socks-- in that order, it was 4 am. Then 2 minutes for the brushing of the toothes, plus another minute to repack my bag and get down stairs. Now that's like 3 and half minutes. So I decide I'll get up at 3:55. I have some spare moments, if needed. The bus actually got there at 3:57. I've put my shirt on and then I get "THE BUS IS HERE. EVERYBODY GO. COME ON..." I was being treated like a child. That's cool if I deserve it, but at this moment I didn't. Unfortunately, it didn't end once in the van/bus and for the next 11 hours traveling south, the drill sargent drove from the backseat for me and was overtly abrasive. We worked great together on Saturday when we were ministering, but then on the way home it was the same thing. I was amazed.


Well, enough venting. And I do thank you for that. The mission part of the trip was pretty cool. Saturday morning we loaded up an old Land Rover and piled in to head the short trek into the Reserve. I became a pharmacist for the day, when I wasn't scouting the area for the team I'm taking there in June. I filled baggies with drugs that I have no idea what they do! It was great. I'm excited about the team that I'll be leading there. We'll have a lot of work to do, but it'll be great. The experience gave me a picture for what we'll be able to do, plus a connection to the people.

Here's some more pics:

Some Guaymis waiting medical attention.

The group.

I'm pharmacy-ing. Is that a word?

This is Sarai. She probably keep me sane the for the weekend. She's eight and her mom goes to the church that we slept at. Her brother, Nataniel, her and I played for hours Friday night and then this picture was taken when she came to church on Sunday. I was going to bring her back to San Jose with me, but there wasn't enough room in my bag!

Quieter Moments

I had to post this very much in the moment.

I have been blessed with a lot of wonderful friends in my life and each of them have their own special qualities that endear me to them, but today in the wee hours of the morning, when I should already be tucked away sleeping, I found myself on Mr. Rude's blog entitled Practice Resurrection.

While Josh and I have had an interesting friendship, I'd say he's one of my very closest friends at Seminary. I say interesting because we're kind of opposites. For example: Josh's idea of the perfect New Year's Eve is sitting in a snow bank in Minnesota alone looking at God's starry creation and hearing the faintest "beep-beep" as his Timex notes the passing of another hour, while my idea of a great New Year would be having all my friends over with lots of great food and beverage celebrating with a big countdown and noisemakers to ring in the New Year. Slightly different.

But I think this is also why Josh has enriched my life. He calls me to things which I am not normally drawn. He gives me a fresh perspective. I see Josh as a quiet wisdom. He has taught me, more than anyone else at the Seminary, the importance of the quiet. The power that God rushes in during the quieter moments. Something that I know I need more of.

Struggles

It seems like most of what I've been writing recently have been towards the negative "get my butt in gear" kind of messages. But this may be but another.

It has been real difficult for me to come back here and throw myself into the work that has to be done here. I had, as I've described it, too good a time at home. While I'm not trying to make excuses for my less than exemplary work effort these past few weeks, it has made me think.

I've been preparing for this team I'm leading since I got down here, doing so much a day and taking my time preparing for their arrival. I only have a few more things to do before they get here tomorrow evening. If you know me well, this may seem like a huge difference in my life and truthfully, it is. I'm prone to procrastination. I don't know if it's genetic, but it has run through me for quite a while now. This preparation that I've been undertaking has been against my normal ways of doing things. If this was a paper I had to write at North Park, I would be just starting on it, hoping to finish with a decent work in the next 36 hours I have to write it. It would get finished after working furiously, in about 48 hours and then I would turn it in for an average grade, some where around a B. But here instead I have about 8 hours MAX work to be done and that includes packing, buying some food and withdrawing an uncomfortable amount of cash.

It's also given me a lot of time to thought as to what my heart desires when I eventually get out of ceme... er, seminary. Missions? Not at this juncture. My heart is tugging towards the Church. To be a pastor, mentoring, discipling and encouraging. To equip others to give their lives over to missions, bringing people into worship of the King of kings, that their hearts might be united with Christ and His purposes in their lives.

But for now I must realize that God has placed me here for such purposes as these. And so I concentrate on what He has given me in the next months of my life, specifically the next hours. Pray that this team would come with open hearts and hands. Pray that their would be a revival in this community, Boruca, where we are going. Pray that those coming would not see their missionary-status ending at the end of this week, but that they would carry what they have learned back with them to the States and live missionary lives where ever God places them.

Emerging...

This is for all my NPTS friends-- it's a little rant-y.

I've been sitting on my butt for most of the day waiting for the pastor of the small, rural Costa Rican Four-square church where I, a young Oklahoman, raised Presbyterian, Baptist-ically formed, and Covenant-ly trained, am about to take an Ohio-based Mennoite church team to call me. The rest of my preparation for the team means getting my finances in order, which I can't do until the sheet is explained by someone who has yet to explain it. Both of these things need to happen before I can do anything else.

So I've spent my time: reading Seminary books that I didn't read when they were required-- actually enjoying them; watching MTV Latin America, showing year old shows from Laguna Beach: The Real OC, otherwise known as a bunch of rich high school kids spending their daddy's money and making big deals out of nothing; memorizing Colossians, Paul's plea to an emerging church not to live by the cultist pressures and restrictions placed on them by both those inside the Church and outside-- an interesting read for those denominations who continue to argue the homosexual position.

I was urged to memorize Colossians in particular at the Passion06 conference I attended two weeks ago now. The conference was specifically targeted at college-aged young people, most of whose parents probably payed for their trip (I'm not judging because I'm included). Sometimes as much of an American Eagle fashion show as a worship conference, it was one of the most refreshing times I've had in my life. My question is why?

Maybe it was those with whom I went. Piling into the car I really only new one person well-- my sister, Laura. Tyrel, a good friend of my sister's, whom I was still getting to know, and Lacey, a friend of Tyrel's, whom I had met just 4 minutes before. We all grew closer and were able to draw out the best in each other throughout the week, encouraging each other through spoken means and otherwise. We ate together; we worshipped together; we were stretched together; we joyed together.

Maybe it was the worship. David Crowder*Band, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, and Charlie Hall are some big names in modern worship. With a mixture of newly arranged hymns and cutting-edge arrangements, they were able to engage a mass of 18,000 young people to lead them in God-exalting worship. I lost myself several times throughout the week during the worship. I felt closer to God being engaged in a worshipful experience not experienced on a regular basis.

Maybe it was the speakers. They dropped the hammer with people like John Piper, Beth Moore and Louie Giglio-- people who swim in the Word of truth; those who exhalt God, not their own agendas; people who speak of suffering; who speak of feasting on the Word; who push even those not called to professional ministry to live lives of excellence glorifying God where ever they are called.

And maybe that's where the difference came along. Not in the fellowship, worship or teaching, but in what was taught. Living a life of excellence. That really grabbed on to me. Have I been living a life of excellence according to Colossians 3:23, 24? Am I "working heartily" as I sit here on the couch where I have been for the last few hours, watching TV and reading books that were required to be read a year ago? Is my life a "living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1)?

Turning the Corner

It has been a while since I've written, so I'll try to sum up the past two months succintly and give a preview of what I'll be doing in the months to come as I turn this corner to the second half of my time in Costa Rica.

The last month or so that I was in Costa Rica before I went home, I spend most of my time bettering the office. We needed to do some painting to make the place presentable to teams when they start to come early this new year. I also learned how to dry wall a wall, which was something I enjoyed learning to do very much actually.

I headed home to Tulsa the 16th of Decemeber, where my family met me at the airport before we began eating. Boutique chocolate, homemade cookies, Christmas crown roast; it was all wonderful! I spent a week in Tulsa getting my Christmas shopping started and ended, before we went through Kansas for my grandfather's birthday, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We returned for our immediate family's Christmas the 26th. One of the most amazing things my mom made my sister and me was a book on the 12 days of Christmas with the reasons why she loves us. She put too much work into it and it showed-- it was beautiful.

I spent the new years with my parents, before heading out to Nashville on the 1st with my sister, Tyrel Lacy, and Lacey Leifeste for the Passion06 conference. It was a wonderful week. David Crowder* Band, Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Charlie Hall and Christy Nockles were all there leading worship. Louis Giglio, John Piper and Beth Moore spoke. It was a wonderfully refreshing time to grow with friends and the Lord.

We moved Laura back in at the ChiO house at OSU and I got to be upstairs! I left Tulsa two days later on Tuesday. I've been trying to get back into the flow of things here in Costa Rica. It's been somewhat difficult after having such a wonderful time at home.

I have a team coming down the 28th of January. I have a lot of prep work to do for them with finances and reservations.

Prayer Points:
1. Pray for my transition back into Costa Rica, the culture, the language.
2. Pray for the Troyer team and their time in preparation and here.
3. Continue to pray for my advancement in the Lord and the knowledge of Him.

Thank you so much for all your support, prayerfully and financially. With a few added gifts over the break, I became fully funded for my year down here. Praise God.

Grace and Peace.