Home is where you dwell

We made it to Costa Rica! It’s been a jam-packed week that feels like 3 months. We started at a hostel for cultural training, began navigating a foreign country and language barrier, crammed into the trunk of a car multiple times, learned to chop wood, and have spent most of our days sweating from sun up to sundown. It’s been incredibly rewarding and the Lord has been teaching me some things.

Our cute hostel in San Jose

I haven’t gotten homesick or felt that out of place. I’ve been to other Spanish-speaking countries before, so the language didn’t throw me even though I don’t speak Spanish. Something felt just slightly weird for me though and I couldn’t put my finger around why. The work we do is all new for me, but it’s kind of fun to learn to chop wood with an ax or hang laundry on the line to dry. I kept feeling absolutely great about everything about being here, except I felt far from God’s presence. We’ve had little to no sort of certainty around our schedule, what we’re doing, where we’re sleeping, to unpack or not unpack, it’s been a fight to have quiet time with the Lord. Mix that with the fact that our ministry has been different from how I normally do ministry, and I started to feel a little alien. I didn’t know who God was outside of the routine I had boxed Him in. God is so intentional though. He not only has been showing me that He’s in all of it, in the newness, and that even if I feel far from Him, I never actually am.

Our team taking a quick break from chopping wood (hence the sweatiness)

to take a picture with our host who owns the farm.

 He sent along a sweet woman to show me that I feel most at home when I’m partnering with His Holy Spirit. I met katy*  when we were outside of a grocery deciding on dinner. She came up to us and asked us to give her money because she cares for her sick mother and her son who is blind with mental disabilities. I asked her if she’d want to go into the grocery with me so I could get her food.

*Name changed for safety

I know that if I continually dwell in His presence, I’ll always be home.

She said the guard wouldn’t let her in, but she’d try. She was right, the guard didn’t let her in, and she said she’d just wait for me. I got the opportunity to get groceries for her (with money that a friend had sent me with to use for cool opportunities like this so he gets the blessing of ministering to a woman in a country he wasn’t even in, how cool), pray over her, her mother, her son, and share the gospel with her. That was the most at home I’d felt the whole time I’d been here. Not only was it a ministry opportunity that was familiar to me in the way it happened, but it was also so easy to talk with her and share Jesus with her because Holy Spirit was so clear in my ear.

The street dog that roams around our host’s house. 

I walked away from that interaction, knowing absolutely that it was just as much for me as it was for her. God was showing me that no matter where my feet are when I’m in His presence, I’m home. He’s so kind and intentional in the way He does things. The woman even spoke near-perfect English, so we could easily communicate without a translator. My relationship with God is opening a new door as I learn new aspects of His person, and no matter what challenges I face, I know that if I continually dwell in His presence, I’ll always be home.

Psalm 23:6 “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. “