Good Shepherding and Community

This morning at church my pastor greeted me by name! And he did a pretty darn good job of pronouncing it right too. (Not something that ticos do very often.) And he looked me straight in the eye. As a member of an 1100 person church body, it means a lot to me for the senior pastor to know me by name and exude pastoral care in a greeting and a smile. From this and previous interactions, I know that he genuinely cares about the wellbeing of this curly-haired sheep in his flock. I haven't felt that from a lead pastor in years.

And then after church, I stayed around for a while greeting and talking with people I know (primarily from the young adult group). I've been to going to the young adult group the past 3 Friday nights and going out to eat with a number of them afterwards... and am starting to feel like I have a sense of community with them! This is huge! I haven't felt like I've had a genuine sense of belonging and community in a church here for a Very Long Time. We have a text messaging group, and in it we share prayer requests and encourage one another. Announcements and funny pictures get passed around too, but I have already been blessed by the words and prayers of others, and have been able to do the same (even though I don't even know everyone in the group!).

For the last few years, I feel like I have been in a desert...I have felt isolated, alone, like people don't care for me in a very deep or genuine way. I have tried a few different churches and never felt like I've clicked and become a part of the church community. It's been hard. Even painful. As a young single woman living in a foreign country constantly pouring out into the lives of others, it has been very difficult to find a place where I feel like I can get fed and poured back into. And in this culture, I've learned that if I want to get together with a friend, 99% of the time, I have to be the one to take the initiative. Even when I have a scratchy throat and almost no voice, I have to be the one to call for help. It's tempting to be resentful of that. But, I have been learning to just accept that reality and keep reaching out, even when I'm sick and tired of it. The plus side is that it's shown me that when I reach out and open up a little bit, it's going to be a lot easier for the other person to open up a little more with me. And that is a real privilege.

I don't know what my next ministry assignment entails. It may be here in Costa Rica, it may be somewhere else in Latin America. I hate that I might have to leave this growing sense of community, now that I finally have it, but like I said in my Chronicle (please comment if you haven't seen it and would like to), God has been reminding me that I have to let go of everything and trust him alone. He has given me all I have. As Job said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. The name of the Lord be praised!” (Job 1:21). God needs me to entrust him with everything, because he is the Lord, he is the Provider, he will sustain me, care for me, and give me everything I need. Always. And in the meantime, I am rejoicing in and thanking God for what he has given me!