Updating 2.0

So, to continue my strings of much needed updates, I once again begin again.

Back at the beginning of May I had to renew my visa. I was thinking about not worrying about it, but my visa has to be valid for me to drive here and my parents were coming the second week of May. I decided to go to Bocas del Toro, Panama to enjoy the clear waters and to study up for my talk I was giving that Thursday. After taking a bus to the border, I crossed took a taxi to the water taxi. Took the water taxi to another boat and took that to another Isla Carneros Carneros Island.

There I spent half of the days on the beach and the other half in Colossians 1:15-20. The time there was very relaxing and I had some good food, which is essential to any good vacation. Really good food is essential to a good day, but...

So Wednesday rolls around and it's time for me to head back across. I began by catching the wrong boat, so I had to pay extra for the taxi to the border. I get to the Panama border, no problems. I go to the Costa Rican authorities and they ask me if I have a plane ticket. I do, but not on my person. But I can show my itinerary online. No need, they won't let me in anyway. WHAT? Something to the fact of I had overstayed my visas twice in 12 months and can't come back in to Costa Rica for a year! Umm. There has to be a mistake. We "discuss" back and forth. Nothing. They show me a sheet that has the "law" on it, but I'm not even sure anything was actually printed on it. So after trying my luck a few times, asking to talk to a higher up, and talking to Kellie back in San José, I decide the best thing for me to do is to try another means. Heading back to Bocas was the second half of the day, hoping that I could catch a flight from there to San José directly. Not till Thursday.

I ate well that night and just relaxed. Nothing that I can do to change the situation. In the morning I'm able to get the flight. One hour, minus the time change. We actually landed before we took off. Now I just have to see what immigration is going to do. STAMP STAMP. STAMP STAMP. "Bienvenidos a Costa Rica." YES! But wait, who's this guy asking me to come with him now? Taking my passport, he goes to a back room. Then coming back out asks me if I have a flight reservation. He cuts me off. No, with us, NatureAir. AH, here's my receipt. A few more moments pass and then he lets me go. He was an employee with NatureAir, just making sure I had actually paid for the flight, since I wasn't on his original flight plan. No worries, I had.

Back in Costa Rica, I had two days to settle myself before my parents came. They flew in on Saturday. We spent a day in San José visiting old friends, before heading out to Monteverde, the cloud forest and eventually Playa Junquillal, the beach. Both were great. I had a great time with my family. They were very refreshing to be with and to enjoy some of CR on someone else's dime! They were only here a week though and left on Mother's Day. At least I got to be around my mother for that day.

I spoke that next Thursday. The Wednesday night I sat down to write out my outline and had a really difficult time doing it, so I went to bed still not knowing exactly how it would go. In the shower the next morning, I decided I'd do it in a Bible study format, the group as a whole going through the passage. I started that way, but then changed back to preaching. I talked about how we work in these areas that are called Christ the King and Sacred Family, but were drugs are ruining peoples lives. So how are we different in going in there than other social organizations? We offer these people Christ, through whom these places were created, by whom they are governed and through whom they are reconciled. I felt like it went pretty well and most of the feedback was the same. A recent preacher I heard, analogized preaching with driving a clutch. You just do it till you learn. I finally feeling like I'm driving with semi-confidence I know which gear to go into now.

I'm now preparing for a team to come on Thursday. We'll be working in Guararí with the Transformations ministry, which Ronald runs. So be praying for us. It's a pretty tough neighborhood, so pray for our safety and that the power of Christ would be upon us in all that we do.

Continued thanks for all your support and prayers.

Mr. Lacey

Tyrel is down here for two months. He's been great to hang out with and I'm excited to see his excitement in all that he's doing. Go check out his blog His Glory... His Renown...

XML me

For those who are computationally advanced, there is now a way that I can be on your computer without even asking. Scary, I know. But if you have an RSS reader (Google Desktop, RSS Reader, Firefox) you can copy the site address below so you get automatic updates.

http://rom116.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Enjoy.

Decoded...

In event to "read it" before I "see it" I bought The Da Vinci Code and read it over the weekend, so I can go see the movie as soon as possible. I was in the middle of another book and set that down for 3 days, so I could pound through one of the most talked about books right now.

What'd I think? Well, maybe it's because the other book, Empire Falls, by Richard Russo, is a Pulitzer prize winner, I wanted more. The writing was clever, the story cute, but I found the overall plot simplistic and the characters lacking depth. The situations the characters found themselves in were easily gotten out of and the clues very easy to figure out. I had a lot of them figured out before the characters, especially the last one: APPLE. But it occupied a lot of my time and gave me something to do.

Theologically? One person I had talked to called it heresy. Is that too strong of a word? Nope. It is blasphemous, saying that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene. Plus nearly all of the church history is way wrong, but that's to be expected by fiction. He wrote the book not to be historically acurate, but to make a bunch of money. So what if Danny-boy steps on a few Christians toes? Some of them can't even make up their minds about these issues.

Well, there's books written about this stuff. I'd say just go buy one that talks about Church history itself. Plus read that big dusty leather-bound book that hasn't been picked up in a while. There's the real story. And it will change your life.

Updating 1.5.1

In respect to all the parties involved with the relationship between Veronica and I, I have removed what I had felt to be a respectful, but clear explanation of our relationship. In short, our relationship has ended. It was a great time of learning and joy for me and something that will be carried with me for the rest of my life. I want to apologize for any harm that I may have caused her or her family by my posting and again thank them for the great love and kindness that they showed me throughout our relationship.

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?