Costa Rican Realizations

by Janene Wooten
summer intern to The Awakening

While sitting under a tree in Costa Rica and watching the sun sneak through the branches, I began to think about all that went into making that perfect scene happen. The design of the tree, the exact length and position of the leaves and branches, the sun being precisely placed to come through at the angle it did - it was incredible. The thought that all of that was meant for me to witness could not be real. Then my mind drifted to the people I had encountered during my time in Costa Rica...

 I thought of all the children I held and played with, their stories, what brought them to the place where I met them, and I could not understand it all. I also thought about all the women that God allowed me to pray with, their needs and hurts, the words we shared, and the immense impact they had on me. How did all of that come to pass?

Before going to Costa Rica I had been studying in Acts 17:24-27 which reads, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him”.

Thinking, as I always do, that I knew exactly what that meant and needed no elaboration from anyone else, I left that at a very basic level. But sitting under that tree, I was moved to study it further. I read a commentary by David Guzik on the chapter and found a quote that said, “He not only gave us our life and breath, when he brought us into being, but he is continually giving them to us; his providence is a continued creation; he holds our souls in life; every moment our breath goes forth, but he graciously gives it us again the next moment; it is not only his air that we breath in, but it is in his hand that our breath is”.

"He is continually giving them to us”, as in, our life is not just happening when we see fit and how we decide to make it happen. These words really became evident to me while in Costa Rica. God did not just give us life and send us on our way, He is continually working in our lives to bring out His will for us. I think a lot of times, at least for me, we get into the habit of assuming that our encounters are of our own creation, but we are so wrong. The situations and circumstances that we are blessed to experience are because of God’s design.

One of the days we were in Costa Rica we went to a daycare/orphanage in an impoverished suburb of San Jose. At first, seeing all the dilapidated homes and dirty streets was overwhelming, and it was hard to see anything past that. We took the children up to a park on a hill above the city to play some games with them and do our planned program. Before we started our skits and songs, I was playing with these beautiful little girls. As we ran around, racing each other to an undisclosed location, they all turned on me and ran at me. I had become the "end" of the race. 

As all four of them jumped on me, nearly knocking me to the ground, I turned and was taken aback by the sight before me. God had laid out this beautiful picture of the slum where I had been so blind before; all the different shapes and colors of the homes, the people moving through the streets in what seemed like a planned dance, all of it being framed by luscious green mountains, it nearly brought me to tears. I had been so focused on what I could see, so God used these little girls that I had come to help to open my eyes to what He wanted me to see. I realized that what I take from every encounter is only limited by me.

God desires and has planned things for me, for all of us to experience every day and we have to allow ourselves to take part in those plans. The whole time in Costa Rica was one experience after the other of God showing off His magnificence and me trying not to miss what He was giving me. God showed himself off through our whole team as well as the amazing people we encountered. Through every skit, every song, every laugh, every kick of a soccer ball, God was there giving us our next breath of His purpose.