Dear Family and Friends,
Thank you for all
your support, encouragement and prayers that helped me get to and sustained me
while in Costa Rica. It’s been a month now since we have returned and I am
still processing all that happened during that amazing week of being on mission
for Jesus. With that, I wanted to take a few moments and write you about some
of the things that happened that your support helped make possible. This truly was a powerful week that God used
to impact those we were able to serve and me and my team as we served.
One of the significant experiences we had was on Monday and
Tuesday morning when we went to a little town called Cot, led by Jacob Folk
(one of our missionary hosts) to do park ministry. We basically showed up to an
empty field where half the team set up games in the field and the other half
went through the town inviting the locals to join us. The draw was to play
gringos in soccer and the winner gets to keep the new ball. Overall, this
didn’t draw as many as Jacob assured us it had in the past. We ended up with
about 8-9 men who seemed a little hung-over from the night before. Not the
crowd I expected. I remember asking God if this was going to make a difference.
But we played soccer, laughed, and encouraged them by losing (not on purpose)
and giving them the ball. Afterwards we gathered and one of our students Jill
Smith shared her testimony in Spanish and Jacob and I shared the Gospel. There
was no response but I thanked God for giving Jill the opportunity to be bold
for Jesus and share her story, something she had never done before. Looking
back now I also see how God was using this day to give us favor for the next
day.
On Tuesday we showed
up again and split up to invite and set up. This time gratefully some children
also showed up along with the same men and few others. After playing soccer
with the men and parachute with the children, we once again sat down to share
testimonies and the Gospel. This time Carl Anderson and Jonathan Ford
volunteered to share how they came to belief in Jesus. But as Carl got up to
share one of the guys said he didn’t want to hear about God and an argument
broke out among the local men. This became quite heated and tense as it seemed
a fight could break out any moment. Some of the children were frightened and
started to cry. For a moment, I thought we should move away and just speak to
the children, but instead I asked the team to start praying. As we were praying
the tension eased and most of the men were ready to listen. The others gracefully
apologized for their behavior and left. Carl then resumed his testimony, and
then Jonathan gave his. After this, Jacob again shared the Gospel and gave an
invitation. Pablo, one of the men who didn’t stick around for the testimony
time yesterday but stayed though it all today, accepted Jesus Christ as his
Savior! We all celebrated with Pablo and Jacob got him set up with one of his
Bible studies. That day we learned a lot of lessons. That there is a real
battle going on for our souls. That prayer is powerful. That when we think not
much could come from a situation, God has a plan if we trust Him and are
faithful. I am so glad we didn’t move away from the battle that day but pressed
in to it with prayer. I was very proud of the students during the park evangelism
for their team work, boldness in sharing, and dependence on God to do a good
work.
Another significant experience, probably the most impactful,
and the favorite among the students, was visiting the orphanage. It was a
blessing to be invited into Casa de Pan, translated House of Bread. The first
day we showed up with a bunch of soccer balls and an excitement to love on and
play with kids. As we rolled in we were met by all these beautiful brown eyes
questioning what we were up to, but as soon as they saw the soccer balls, play
time was off and rolling. While there, we also got to help with laundry; no
small task when
doing laundry for 40
plus kids. Led by Dane, Stephanie, Jill, and Caleb, we washed clothes, hung
clothes and sorted socks, a lot of socks. We found out later we saved their
crew over ten hours of laundry in the few hours we were there. The team felt
good about serving and playing with the kids that first day knowing in the back
of our heads we were at an orphanage. It wasn’t until the next day we were
there, that Melba the “mom” sat us all down and told us the story of how her
family became what it is, that the impact of being at an orphanage really hit
home.
The orphanage started 30 years ago when Victor and Melba
Guzman’s son fell deathly ill, and while in the hospital there was another boy
struggling with the same illness who had been abandoned there. The doctors who
were caring for both boys saw how the Guzmans were with their child and asked
if they would be willing to take the other boy in. They did, the boys survived,
and with the blessing of their other children their home became open to all
children in need. Since then, they have had over 90 children be a part of their
home. Many of these children have stories of how they were brought to Casa de
Pan and the transformation that happens their because of Jesus that would both
break your heart and cause you to praise God.
One in particular is
Anita who was born completely healthy, but when she showed up to Casa de Pan
both of her legs were severely broken, her skull was bruised, and she had burn
marks all over her, results of the rage and abuse of her step-father. Due to
the severe trauma she experienced they were not sure if she would walk
again. Through the power of prayer and God’s
great plan, He orchestrated an American doctor to be at the right place at the
right time. They ended up flying Anita and Melba to New York to have her legs
reconstructed. On a side note, due to the abuse Anita always smiled and did
everything she could not to cry, because if she cried before, she was abused
more. So at one point when the doctor was fastening her braces, which he knows
badly hurts, she just kept smiling at him with tears rolling down her cheeks.
All this to say, by the power and love of the Great Physician, along with the
doctors and support of the Guzmans, when we met Anita she was walking, jumping,
and freely expressing all the ranges of emotions.
There are many more stories like Anita’s that are connected
to the Casa de Pan that touched our hearts that day. After hearing all these
stories our students went out to play with a new perspective. We were all still
playing and serving as the day before, but you could tell there was something
beautifully different going on in our hearts. We were all blown away by the
power of prayer, love, and that God is a gracious, adopting Father. That night
we read together scriptures like Ephesians 1:4-6 and Romans 8:15 and the truth
that we are adopted into God’s family took on a whole new meaning. Those days
at the orphanage were so impactful on us that our students put together $100 of
their spending money as a gift to the orphanage to help with the daily needs. I
was impacted and encouraged by the work of God in the lives of our teens.
One more significant
experience our team had while on mission in Costa Rica was our visit to the
Basilica in Cartago. This was an eye
opening experience for our team that made us angry and sad over the perversion
of the truth and the enslavement of a works based religion. The story of the
Basilica goes that many years ago a peasant girl led by a light found a little
Madonna statue carved out of black stone in the jungle off a path on a large
stone. The girl then took it to her hut as her treasure. The next day it was gone
and then found back on the large rock. This happened again the next day so she
took it to her local priest for safe keeping and he too experienced the same
disappearance back to the rock. This happened, so the story goes, four more
times. In their thinking this was not a coincidence. They then decided that
Mary is declaring this statue and sight sacred.
So they went to work to build the church to enshrine the sight and
statue. Yet three times an earthquake destroyed the church they built. Thinking
this was not a coincidence either, they decided to move and build the church
six blocks away, which you can see, the ruins of the original sight today. The
Basilica is built it has been declared sacred by the Catholic Church, and with
the Black Madonna (La Negrita) enshrined behind the alter. It has become a
place of great significance to the people of Costa Rica as well.
On every Aug. 2nd
people from all over Costa Rica and beyond make pilgrimage to the Basilica, to
pray and hopefully receive a miracle from Mary. With this, to earn favor with
Mary and show their devotion they will make a deal with her, that if she would
grant them their miracle they will crawl on their knees the final distance to
the alter. They say they use to put glass on the courtyard to make it that much
more of a sacrifice. Even while we were there, people were going down the
center isle on knees. This along with the pay to light a candle, pay to
confess, pay to take communion boxes, made us burdened over the lack
understanding of the free gift of grace.
One image from the Basilica that stuck with our team was a
manikin of Jesus in a glass coffin, bearing the wounds from the cross, but also
bloody scraped knees to possibly reinforce the people’s pilgrimage. This
brought up many questions about why they would enshrine such a thing. We are
thankful that we have a God in Jesus who went through much on our behalf, but
is very much alive and not in a coffin.
While the church was
beautiful in architecture, stained-glass, and with all its gold, it seemed
empty and ugly by its glorification of Mary and what seemed like a lot of
idolatry. From the Black Madonna to all the statues and shrines to saints and
the prescribed prayers to them our students started to grasp the destructive
power of idolatry. All this to say this definitely was an experience that
helped us to know what we would be up against in explaining the Gospel and the
local people’s possible hang ups with it if we were in Costa Rica for greater
lengths of time as missionaries. It also helped our students think about their
friend’s possible hang ups with the Gospel as they share it back home. Some
other thoughts we took from this was the importance of relying on the authority
of scriptures, as one student asked, “Don’t they read the bible, or do they
just follow tradition and what the priest say?” Going to the Word the next
morning we did a Bible study on Ephesians 2 that resonated in our hearts, and
at the same time reinforced from the day before our heartbreak over misbelief,
and burdened us for the people of Costa Rica to know the amazing grace of
Jesus.
There were many more
experiences and encounters that God used to grow our faith and show us His
desire for all to know Him but in my reflection. I thought these three were the
most impactful. Overall, I was so encouraged by the team and their willingness
to be used by God. Their boldness, their openness to be stretched, and their
trust in Jesus blessed me. God showed
them that He has a calling for each of them and can use them and wants to use
them in little and big things to bring others to Himself and advance His
Kingdom. He also reinforced this in my own life which I am very grateful for.
Thanks again for being a part of what God is doing in and
through our High School ministry and making this trip what it was through your
prayers and financial support. If you want to hear more or have questions about
the trip please contact me. You are a blessing to me!
By His Grace,
Brain Woolard
