We have no mission but to serve

"We have no mission but to serve
in full obedience to our Lord,
to care for all, without reserve,
and spread his liberating word."
-- Fred Pratt Green

Time has flown by in the 8 months since I last wrote, and to be honest, I don't know why it took me so long to return to this blog and finish what I started. I think in some small part it was re-entry culture shock; I managed to return to the United States at possibly the worst time in history, and found myself struggling to readjust to the pace of life here without the anchors of employment and routine that I needed to keep myself in line. It has been a tough period of acclimation, but I finally feel like I am returning to normal.

Lots of exciting things happened in the time after my last post- things that should've been documented, although they remain so clear in my mind that it feels like they only just occurred. First of all, my Godson Jhemyel Jsharu Jara Murray was born in mid-April. Although she doesn't have regular internet access, Latoya sends me pictures when she is able. He is a beautiful boy, and very large as well. When he was born, he was so light skinned that many people in town believed that he was my son, and that caused quite a bit of embarrassment as I tried to explain in Spanish that I had not been in a relationship with any of the locals.

That's not to say I didn't have the opportunity, though. In late March I began teaching English at CUNLimon, the local university. Being of roughly the same age as many of the students meant that I was frequently invited out to hang out in town with them, and although at times I was nervous about accepting, I can say that I really had a wonderful opportunity to live as a true Limonense during my last months abroad. The experience of being accepted as Tico was something I would never trade, and I still think fondly about the friends I made and the silly things we'd do for fun.

Our students really made remarkable strides during our final months as well, with the girls from Harvest Tabernacle performing a concert in May to their congregation. They performed solidly, and I hear now that they are actively performing in the praise team at church- truly making our mission a reality. They are the first fruits; I can hardly believe that I had a hand in helping them become truly functional musicians.

Even now, it seems like a dream. I relish every newsletter I get from Debbie Suarez (the new teacher) and Sally. Each dispatch brings back memories of the city, the warmth of the country, and a feeling of homesickness I never anticipated feeling. Sometimes the news from Limon is same-old-same-old, but other times it is truly exciting.

Most recently, Sally wrote to tell me of a mission trip she had taken to Tasmapaouni, Nicaragua. She went to preach one service, but Hurricane Ida struck before they could leave the small island community. They spent the whole night gathered with the citizens and praying. In the morning, the village was destroyed but the church had been spared. Later that day, as if the story could be more extraordinary, the small boat they were taking back to Rama capsized and they had to swim back to a neighboring island to wait for help. See what I mean? That's the Moskito coast for you; it makes me miss it, even as I am glad that I didn't go through it.

In the time that I have been home, I have been lucky enough to have Ninfa and Keila visit me. It was a pleasure to show them my home and to have my parents meet two people that had been important to the school and had been surrogate family to me in my time there. I have maintained close contact with some of my coworkers from the call center thanks to Facebook. The social networking site has also helped me stay connected to Ninfa and several other girls I met at a womens retreat in San Jose in April. Isn't the web amazing?

Personally speaking, I have just barely scraped through a tough semester of school, and am having trouble finding the motivation to continue, even despite the lack of jobs available to me right now. I know I need to do it while I still can, but I am often stuck in this world where I'm not really here, nor am I elsewhere. I don't really know what I'm doing, and I have a tough time looking ahead and seeing any real course for my life. I miss not being tied to anything and not getting mail or phone calls. We're too attached to things here in the US, and it's bringing me down!

Well, at any rate, something good will happen soon, because if there is one thing I have learned, it's that God never breaks promises- you just have to continue to put one foot in front of the other and trust that you're walking in his general direction.

Time takes time, you know

Time is an incredible thing. Sometimes I have a hard time realizing how quickly it has passed, but then something happens to wake me up and remind me of that constant progression toward the “next big thing.” This week was a week of those moments, the most incredible of which was a baby shower for one of my dearest friends here in Limon, Latoya.

When I arrived here in July of last year, Latoya either was not pregnant or had just become so within a few days of my arrival. We enjoyed that first month hanging out together and going to the beach, and I was surprised when she chose me to be one of the first people that she confided in when she discovered her situation.

At the time, it seemed like a million years before the baby would be here, and I remember thinking even then that it would strange to be here for the entire span of her pregnancy. I really struggled to wrap my brain around the idea that when I came to Costa Rica she was just a girl, really, and that she'd be a mother before the end of my term here.

Well, that time is nigh. Latoya is due early next month, and I am excited to be trusted with this life as a Godmother. This responsibility means a lot to me, as someone who- to my knowledge- does not have Godparents. I have always found it incredible that someone with no relation to a child can suddenly be as close to them as any natural parent, aunt, or uncle. This also puts me in an interesting situation as a godparent who lives in a different country from the godson; I want to be close to this baby and come through for him like a biological family member would, but I'm worried that distance might take too much of a toll

Of course, I probably wouldn't be thinking so much about this if it weren't for the fact that I now have two months before I leave Costa Rica. This time will fly, as the time before it has. The sad thing about this is that it seems like we just got things the way the should be. The house is settled and furnished, the teaching is working out fabulously this semester, and we've finally made a close network of local friends. It's sad to think that we're finally in a place to be our most effective and we only have a few months to enjoy the progress.

There will be others coming behind us, and there may be more moving and motivating stories about the students and the school. I know I haven't shared as many “Chicken Soup for the Soul” moments as some readers would've liked, but there were other things that stood out more in my mind. The honest truth is that this school will likely take a few years before it begins to bear the kind of fruit that we love to pray about and share with our friends, and I'm OK with that because there always has to be a first.

Future missionaries may write about crowded workshops and schedules that are overflowing with activities for their students, but I will remember the private lessons that no one attended and the advertising packets that never made it into the right hands. Why? Because those seeming missteps, along with many others like them, were essential to finding avenues and strategies that were effective. How could we know that taking a private lesson approach would increase our attendance and punctualize our payment system if we hadn't had a mediocre response from what we were previously doing? As we have been told, time and time again, we were the guinea pigs... and the experiment isn't over yet.

In the next two months, I hope to see great strides in my students' abilities. I hope to see a community resolve to hold each other accountable for the success and failures stemming from the programming. Most importantly, I hope to see an ecumenical community that realizes the value of the program and that has a strong passion for sharing it and it's products throughout the city of Puerto Limon. I hope that we have left a healthy plant behind to grow and grow even long past the ends of our lives.

In the meantime, having just come home from spending the evening with LaToya and her surprisingly outgoing baby bump, I will focus on making the most of the next two months and all of the opportunities that arise from them. And maybe, just maybe, when I come back in a few years to visit my sweet godson- Jhemyel Jsharu Jara Murray- there will be something here to prove that the hard little seed we planted has not only sprouted, but has bloomed brilliantly.

The Blog I was supposed to post two weeks ago... Peace, Love, and Jesus Christ Superstar

This week marks the start of my favorite part of the church year. That's right, it's Lent... and I love it. The next forty days, more or less, sum up for me exactly why I am a Christian and I look forward to them every year with an anticipation similar to most people and Christmas.

One of my annual traditions for Lent is watching and listening to the incredible Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Jesus Christ Superstar. I still remember the first time I heard the record, in particularly the scene where Jesus confronts the moneychangers in the temple. I was in third grade, and the record made enough of an impression that when I received my first CD player a few years later, the soundtrack was my first CD.

What I absolutely love about Jesus Christ Superstar is the passion in the portrayal. This is not some everyday tale about Jesus as a happy-go-lucky guy just goofing off in Jerusalem two thousand years ago- from start to finish it is a very serious take on the story that is, at it's core, the reason why we call ourselves Christians. It's raw, it's serious... it's utterly heartbreaking.

I bring up this musical for a good reason this week. Not because it's Lent, or because I want you all to go out and rent the video or buy the soundtrack and follow my holiday routine. No, I bring it up because this week I saw it change someone's life, right here in Limon.

Last week a coworker of mine from the call center invited me to go out and have dinner and go dancing with her after work. I was hesitant to accept- I didn't know what a night out with this coworker would lead to, and I definitely did not want to end up in a compromising position. Yet, at the same time I really wanted the experience of going out with friends like a normal Limonense would do... and so I accepted the offer and went out on the town.

We had a lovely dinner, and eventually ended up in a small club where they were playing old Spanish love songs on the televisions. Of course I don't know any of these old love songs, so I was surprised to recognize the tune that suddenly filled the air. Drea, the coworker I was with, started to sing along and it only took me a moment to realize that the tune was from Jesus Christ Superstar.

Drea, of course, had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned it to her. She only looked at me blankly and said that it was a love song about a man who vowed to fight for his lover. I explained the song, where it came from. I told her about how the original song was about Christ in Gethsemane, and his frustration with God's plan for his death as a sacrifice. This started a very interesting conversation whereby Drea confessed that although she'd been raised as Catholic, she had little understanding of Christ and the meaning of his death. Well, that got me thinking, and the next day I slipped her a copy of the soundtrack for her to listen to.

Initially I thought she'd take it home and forget about it, so imagine my surprise when she came in to work a few days later and immediately embraced me. When we had break time, she pulled me aside, thanking me over and over again for introducing her to the musical. As it turns out, Drea has a very difficult family situation- she has two brothers in jail... one for armed robbery and the other for murder. As it turned out, the music touched her deeply... deeply enough that she took it to the prison and played it for both of her brothers. She told me that her oldest brother had wept as he listened to Christ's trial before Pilate, and how he had begged her to bring the disc again next time she visited.

As if that weren't enough, she then proceeded to tell me how it had changed her view of Christ. “I didn't realize,” she said, “That he was just a man. He was just like me, or my friends... he wasn't some guy that just went along with the plan. It hurt him to do what he did.” Then she really surprised me, as tears came to her eyes. “Somehow,” she whispered, “that makes his death mean a whole lot more.”

Of course, this is just the beginning for Drea. We have talked a lot since then, and I guess what is really important is that this experience has unlocked the possibility that she might someday accept that she is worth the sacrifice of Christ; she's on the way to changing her life profoundly. I don't know what will happen from here for her, but I will do my best to encourage and strengthen as I am able.

In the meantime, I have rented the movie at the local rental place and can't wait to sit down with it, like I do every year, and give thanks for a sacrifice that is still continuing to redeem two millennia later.

Round three...

So our last week of "vacation" has come to an end, and I must say that it was an exciting week. In fact, it's been a pretty exciting MONTH so far. We started with the choral workshop I mentioned in the last blog, which was a huge success. Steve Gray had everyone joining in and singing their hearts out, and we were pleased to see more than 30 men and women from several different churches every night during the week, despite the worst weather and flooding we've had in months.

This week has been relaxed, just a little time to gather our wits and materials about us before we start the final trimester of our year. This time around we're trying something very new- extra long private lessons that introduce theory simultaneously. We discussed the problems that had been plaguing us and came up with a few major problems that we felt were holding us back: not being able to get all of the students together at one time for class, students coming to class and not to their lessons, and students waiting too long before registering (causing them to miss several lessons and start behind.) So after some intense brainstorming we decided that the private lesson strategy was perfect for us... students are not held back by their class, they get their lessons in without having to make a separate trip to the school, and they can register at any time. Let's pray that this will see immediate results.

Beyond the brainstorming and lesson planning, I've been buried nose-deep in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Call her the Jane Austen of fantasy, but the books are good and have inspired me to dust off a few projects I had started before Christmas, including some short stories and vignettes about experiences I've had here. I even have a few more exciting things to write about, after Roman and I took a day trip to Cahuita National Park on Friday. Yes, the clouds parted and we walked the three or four mile trail through the park, amazed by the Howler monkeys and vipers we were able to see up close. The best part of the trip, however, were the Spider monkeys that were fearless in their pursuit of our Bo-Kita crackers. I am not likely to forget the little guy pulling on my shorts, begging for a cracker. Of course they don't settle for one cracker.... if it's attainable, they'll take them all. In one hand.

The week wrapped up with the celebration of Valentine's Day, or as they call it here (and my sister- or any fan of the film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai- will appreciate this) "Friendships Day." Although the holiday was Saturday, everyone waited until Sunday to celebrate, and the party started at church. I offered my rapidly growing skills as an organist for the service, and the sunday school classes and children's choir put on a brief program and gave out candy. Then Pastor Herta gave an excellent and charming sermon about understanding love. But there was something else she said that struck me, and it had nothing to do with the day or the celebrations.

No, when Herta approached the pulpit to give the welcome and announcements, mentioning the obligatory invitation to attend our music classes, she stopped and said something stunning.

"I am 80 years old," she said... and we all knew that she was taking a few years off the number, as she likes to do. She was serious, though, so no one even giggled.

"I am 80 years old," she restated, "and I direct the choir, play the organ, and preach. Every Sunday. No one is preparing to take my place. Not one of you. We have the classes in our own neighborhood. Sign up and learn the organ. Use your gifts... I won't be here forever." She let the silence settle for a moment before quietly murmuring "thank you" and slowly settling back into her seat.

She raises a very good point, and one that seems to come up frequently in our discussions on the state of the church, especially in the case of the Moravian Church in Costa Rica. I raise it here because we see it everywhere in North America as well, and in particular in the Moravian Church... no one is waiting to take up the torch. We talk all day long about which worship styles will change the trends, or what hip new song we should add to worship in order to lure people in, but the reality is that we're losing people because the programs that keep them fed by our congregations die with the people who inspired them.

The perfect example is a certain youth fellowship program at a church here in Limon. Someone had a brilliant idea to get the youth together and do special activities. While this person was in charge of the program, it grew and grew. Eventually the person in question had children of her own and a full time job that prevented her from having the time to committ that she once had. Ideally, it wouldn't've mattered... someone in the group would certainly know the ropes well enough to keep the group going. Sadly, however, when she quit the group dissolved. Now there are no youth at all in the congregation, and when the people sit around and talk about how they need them, no one is willing to get the program rolling again.

Are we like that? Comfortable to sit back and let someone else do all that they can without even offering assistance? I hope not. What if we were the solution to our own problem? We all know that there are programs or services that keep our churchs alive, and we worry about how they will be sustained in the long run; I know this because I served on the boards, just like my parents do now.

That said, I plan to get my organ-playing rear end in gear. Who knows when a skill I have may be needed to sustain my church just a little longer? Miss Herta knows all about that.

Happy Friendships Day, everyone!

Home, sweet home!

Well, I'm back from a nice visit back to the states. In case you were one of the few who wondered where my updates were, that's what happened. I went home to North Carolina. But, now my vacation is over and I am back in Limon once again... and I'm happy. Almost as soon as I arrived, I felt that familiar feeling of welcome- like I was coming home. Even though I was sad to leave North Carolina, seeing the city of Puerto Limon once more filled my heart with great joy.

At the moment, we are midway through a choral workshop that has gotten us really energized and excited for the third trimester. Steve Gray, the choir director at New Philadelphia Moravian, is leading our local brothers and sisters in an informal choir. We have participants ranging from 4- 84 years old, and everyone seems to be enjoying the mix of traditional hymns, anthems, and praise choruses he has introduced.

We are also seeing a variety of participants from several congregations- all different in their worship styles and characters. This seems very significant to me, as the Moravian church in Costa Rica tends to be exceptionally conservative. Through the tunes Steve has gently introduced, our good old fashioned Nicaraguan Moravians are joining in on praise choruses that are new and exciting. We're bridging gaps here that haven't even been acknowledged in years. It's a true miracle.

So, be in prayer for the exciting ministry of Steve Gray as we continue to prepare for a community concert this Friday, and pray also for the excitement of this choir to carry over into the final trimester... our "home stretch." And thanks again for all of the prayer that has gotten us this far!

In Memory of Carlos

Well, friends... this morning, approximately three weeks following being attacked by several neighborhood dogs, our darling little Carlos passed away.

It had been touch and go all week... his wounds had begun to deteriorate over last weekend, and although he was active and eating, the wounds were not healing as they should´ve. We began noticing a variety of creepy-crawlies bothering him, and this week I decided to go back the vet for an antibiotic spray that had an insect repellent as well as a larvacide in it, in hopes that treating Carlos would prevent anything from getting into his wounds.

I was not prepared for what I found when I treated him with the medicine. Let´s just put it this way- I have decided that when I return home I want to study to become a doctor. Lately I had been wondering if I had a strong enough stomach to handle the task. Well, what I saw when I sprayed the material on his back gave me all the proof I needed to know that I could handle whatever medical school could throw at me. It was then that I suspected that our time was short with our baby.

After thoroughly cleaning the wound as directed, and discovering that his tail was no longer attached to his body, I simply cradled him in my arms, wrapped in a towel, for about an hour. I knew we were faced with a difficult path. If Carlos survived, there would be no telling what we´d have to do to keep him healthy in the long run, and if he died we would have nowhere to bury the body. Also, considering that I was due to leave for the states in a few days, I recognized that something conclusive needed to happen before I left. So I prayed, initially for his survival, but as I held the tiny frail body I knew that death would be a more gracious end for my little friend. So I prayed instead that the will of God be done, but quickly.

Yesterday, when I checked on him, his wound seemed to have scabbed over, and although he was weak, he was still eating. This morning when I opened the door, I was astonished to see bodily fluids all over the room, and poor Carlos weakly pulling himself toward the door. I knew, but didn´t want to believe, so I prepared a bucket of mop water with the intention of cleaning the floor and preventing any further pests from invading. When I returned with the bucket, he was curled up and coughing. I knew it was the end, and woke Roman. Then I returned to the room and held my kitten´s head , petting him until I knew for sure that he was gone. I told Roman, who came to see the body before I could pack him away, and Sally- our dear friend Sally- sent her husband to pick up and bury the little guy on their beautiful ranch overlooking the ocean.

Through it all, I have maintained my composure. I think it is mostly because I knew that we couldn´t care for him if he had survived, partially paralyzed. Also, I think it as a lot to do with the fact that I had already grieved over his loss when he was first attacked. Now all that remained was the formality of waiting for his death and making sure he was sent off properly.

But he is missed. And will be for a long time to come.