Costa Rica was one of the most incredible months of my race so far. My team and I had the opportunity partner with Teen Challenge and live on a Teen Challenge base for the month. Teen Challenge is a 12 month program for drug addicts to seek and find recovery and restoration by being provided with beds, food, work, and intense discipline and discipleship in how to walk with a relationship with God!
It was absolutely amazing getting to see the lives of these men and women changing radically in just the short amount of time that we were apart of their lives. It was beautiful to see there hearts for God and the ways that God moved and worked in their lives, transforming their character and the way they live. Seeing the transformation in their lives just gave more affirmation of how real and amazing God is.
Most of the students in Teen Challenge in Limon, Costa Rica, are people that have come directly from living on the streets and consuming drugs, into the program. So one of the most amazing things we got to do was evangelize on the streets and pull people off the streets to be apart of God changing their lives in Teen Challenge! I will never forget the incredible joy and tears that I had when we had the opportunity to pull someone off the streets in Limon and then that joy multiplied when we had 12 men and 1 women come off the streets of San Jose!! The ways we saw God work and move were like nothing I have ever seen before.
I really loved this form of evangelism because there was no beating around the bush. Everything was extremely direct and to the point and we were able to offer them a solution to their hurt and that solution was absolutely incredible because it was Jesus!! They genuinely were transformed by the power of God and that was something that only God could do.
Walking the streets of San Jose and offering people hope in Jesus was a radical experience that gave me a taste of what it means for our hearts to break for what God’s heart breaks for. There are people living in brokenness, without hope, and we have this hope that is a sure and steadfast anchor of our soul and it’s almost selfish to not being sharing that hope with others and showing others that the only true hope we can have is through Jesus Christ. God is transforming lives, and we are just his vessels for making it happen.
So I want to encourage you to ask yourself how you can be living daily to share the hope of Christ with those who don’t have that same hope!
If you don’t feel like you have that hope then guess what? You can! Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.” One of those things is hope, we just have to seek Him and seek His word to find it!
We are so blessed to have HOPE ??God bless you & your team for sharing it????
Thank you for sharing the power and hope found in Christ. I pray that this will serve as a stone of remembrance for you as you continue through the Race and throughout life. He is the real transformer!
These are encouraging words. May we take the opportunity this Christmas to share the hope that those in Costa Rica have found in Jesus.
You and your team may miss home this Christmas, but thanks to the work you are doing, many other for the first time will find an eternal home.