Tico Tuesday, May 16th

It's a toy! It's a flower! It's a butterfly!...or some relative of a butterfly. This beautiful creature that I wasn't sure was actually a creature greeted me on the floor of the classroom where I was going to teach the last class on inductive Bible study. At first I really couldn't tell if it was some kind of toy or half flower left from some craft or something, we were meeting in a children's Sunday School room, after all. But wow! How wonderful to realize this was indeed some kind of butterfly-ish thing! The things of nature I see here never cease to impress me. And even after 8 years, I keep on seeing new things. Did you know Costa Rica contains 6% of the world's biodiversity? Have you ever considered coming to visit me? For real? I'd love to have you!

Anyway, moments like that are a great blessing to me. Lately I have been insanely busy--with commitments every night of the week and the days quite full too. There is a lot to be done! Did I tell you we're going to start another series at church this coming weekend?
So, yesterday on my day off I relaxed at home in my jammies all day and caught up on journaling and read a little bit: I'm re-reading "The Shattered Lantern" and it is helping me remember all the things in my life that turn my focus away from God, and my need to slow down, be grateful, and refocus on him. My plate is full, but I can choose whether or not to stress. I still have a loooooong ways to go. But those butterfly spying moments help me reconnect with God in the midst of the busyness and turn back to him. The calendar may be full and the to-do lists long, but I can maintain peace in my heart and not be controlled by my circumstances. God has been teaching me a lot about not being so controlling too...He is so good to me!
May we all keep our eyes open to the beautiful wonders around us and remember God's presence with us! Thank you for keeping me in your prayers!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, May 9th

Welcome to the office of the Executive Pastoral Team (EPE) at church! My desk is the second one in, before the filing cabinet. Sorry it's not the greatest shot. I just wanted you to get an idea of where I have started spending a lot of my time. My desk hasn't been here for long, and the filing cabinet is a quite new addition too. It's so nice to have a space designated just for work! That means I am working a lot less from home now. Unfortunately, the internet cuts out sometimes, which is quite inconvenient, but, that's kind of how life is. I love the view and all the natural lighting we have, though the brightness does make it hard to see our computer screens. It's completely worth it though.

We are blessed to have such a beautiful location for our church. We are blessed to have office space and a church building (and on the same property!)...not something we had a year ago! But we are coming up on the one year anniversary of moving on to our property. It's hard to believe that was almost a whole year ago now! How easy it can be to get used to something like that! I drive by the school where we used to meet every time I go to church now, and much of the time, I totally forget that I used to have to turn in there to go to church! But I'll never forget the first time I went to up to our new church building. The transition from the school up to our building happened while I was in Cuba, so I came back, all impacted from that trip, and it was all I could do to hold back the tears as I drove past the school and went up to our building. It wasn't just "the property" anymore. It was, and remains, the home of Vida Abundante Heredia. We live in a place where we are free to meet and worship Jesus. That isn't the case in Cuba, nor in many other countries. I won't say there's no persecution here (because there is, though not always direct), but I am grateful for the freedoms we do have and the ways we have been able to serve our community better by having our own building. It's incredible how easy it can be to take things for granted, isn't it?
Let's give thanks this week for some of the things we often take for granted! I am thankful for each and every one of you who takes the time to read this!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 25th

Our head pastor Rudy is turning 40 on Friday, so on Sunday afternoon we had a party for him at church. It was a sweet time to celebrate him and have some fun. And of course, you can't have a good Costa Rican birthday party without a piñata! That was hilarious! Latino style, the piñata doesn't just hang there while you whack at it blindly: they move the piñata up and down and send it swinging back and forth so you are whacking blindly at a moving target! It makes for quite a spectacle!
The other thing I wanted to share with you today is totally different: I was reading in Matthew 22 where Jesus gives what is known as the Great Commandment. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." Of all the things God could command us: to give, to sacrifice, to do this or that... the God of the universe who reigns over all could command us to do anything. But what does he command? That we love him! That we love him with every fiber or our beings. That's it! Because of our love for him, we obey other commands he gives us, but first and foremost he wants us to love and delight in him! And we can only love him because he loved us first and continues to love us with the most beautiful, perfect, eternal, unconditional, complete love there is because he is Love himself. It just blows my mind. He is so amazing, so beautiful, so good, so powerful. He is great and holy, and he knows and cares about every detail in our hearts and minds. How could I not love him? Yet how often, how easily I forget... God has been teaching me some wonderful things about loving him and trusting him, but that's all I'll share for now. If you want to hear more, let's skype!
May God continue to teach you more about his love and loving him!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 21st

This past week I had the opportunity to participate in a couple excellent trainings. The first was a week-long conference with Biblical Worldview expert Dr. Darrow Miller. I interpreted for him a couple mornings plus was able to sit in on part of another morning session, though I would have loved to have attended every talk all week. He talked about the need for Christians to adopt and live the biblical worldview. How Christianity isn't just about making converts, but bringing God's kingdom here on earth, how we need to be people of the Book and know and live the whole counsel of God. He gave a fascinating explanation about the impact the Reformation has had on the world and the role of the marital covenant and value of family. North America was colonized through marriages and families. South America was colonized by men who came alone (and then had relations with the indigenous women here). And now look how different they have been! He also discussed the destruction of the family and the lack of dignity towards women and how they are affecting the world on both micro and macro levels. I was very challenged by all this and more.

Dr. Miller gave a great explanation on the need to abolish the separation between the sacred and the secular (that division is why people tend to put missionaries on pedestals). I also loved his analogy of how Sunday church gatherings are like halftime in a football game. The players come in off the field, refocus, strategize, listen to the Coach, regather strength, and get ready to head back out onto the field for the rest of the game. Like I was saying last week, we can't just sit complacently. Christians are God's team, his workforce, his hands and feet in the world, and I don't think I have ever felt more of a need to repent for corporate sins the Church has committed. It has been such an enormous, powerful force, there are innumerable things in history attributed to followers of Christ. I'm not saying Church has been perfect: It has committed atrocities in the past, and it is doing a lot of good today, but I think there is so much more we can and should be doing. We are to be known for our love, not for being bigots and/or hypocrites. Speaking of not being bigots, the other seminar I went to was about homosexuality and the Church. I'd love to tell you more about that too, but this is plenty long enough already.
May God use us to be salt and light in this world and may we do everything out of love for him and others,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 14th

When I moved into this apartment in October, I said I would get to know my neighbors. I'd met my upstairs neighbor when I came to look at the apartment and managed to meet the ones next to me somehow (perhaps because our doors are right across from each other--although I didn't realize they had another son in addition to their strong-lunged baby until a couple weeks ago). But, there were still three other apartments whose inhabitants I did not know. It was getting to the point of embarrassment. Then, I decided enough was enough. Shame or not, I would introduce myself to my neighbors. And then the series at church was about to start. Suddenly, I really had no excuses. So, armed with oatmeal raisin cookies (like a good gringa) and fliers to invite them to the series (with a brief note with my phone number on the back), I went door knocking and met a young couple, a family of four who actually left their old church and started attending mine in January (who knew?), and a woman who is 8 months pregnant and I'm pretty sure she lives alone. It was very nice to meet them, even if just briefly. I can even tell you all their names, though I almost forgot one.
For all too long I've been very good at living in the bubble. In college it kind of drove me crazy because it was so hard to get out of it, but at the same time, the bubble is so cozy and comfortable, it can take a lot of motivation to get out and be intentional in showing the love of Jesus to people who might not know much about him. I don't know if any of my neighbors came to church this weekend, but the ones who weren't home when I dropped by came knocking to thank me and I definitely feel more of a sense of warmth with them now.
I've been sensing a lot of nudging from the Holy Spirit lately to be more intentional about reaching out to others. Complacency is not ok. God has been so good to me, how can I keep him to myself? It takes effort, it takes getting uncomfortable, but the joy I felt at just getting to meet my neighbors and show them I care for them--and seeing an opportunity to reach out further to my pregnant neighbor--was sweeter than those oatmeal raisin cookies.
Thanks for keeping me in your prayers as always. Lately I've been desiring them more than ever, so please continue to intercede for me! You are always welcome to write to me and let me know how I can pray for you!
With gratitude,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 7th

"You're going to have your small group at 9 o'clock in the morning?!?! Is anybody actually free at that hour?"
"Actually, yes. There are quite a number of people who can't attend a small group in the evening due to work schedules or having classes at night, or being elderly and taking medicine that makes them sleepy and ready for bed at 8:30pm."

I didn't get a pic of my small group, but here's a rainbow!

I've had this conversation multiple times over the past few weeks. In the series we did last year, I realized what a need there was for at least one morning/daytime small group, and figured I could do something about it. It works well for me too, because this way I am free to visit small groups in the evenings. It worked well for me to start a new group because unfortunately the one I had last year ended up fizzling out. So, instead of having a group for young women, I decided to open it up to everyone and an incredibly diverse bunch of people signed up. Actually, so many signed up, we may have to consider multiplying sooner than later. If everyone sticks with it, we'll be about 11 people, and a) that's getting a bit big for a small group and b) that many people don't fit very comfortably in my living room. Our first meeting on Thursday was delightful though! We took some time to start getting to know each other and I am really excited for what God has in store for us.
This Thursday we'll have one more meeting to bond and build trust with each other before we dig into the series my church is starting next week, "gods at war." This series (based on the book by Kyle Idleman) is about the idols of our heart. It invites us to take several weeks to consider how pleasure, love, money, power, and self seek to occupy the throne of our heart instead of the rightful King and ask him to remove those idols so we can live for and worship him as we ought--and as he deserves.
As you can see, this series is going to be quite confrontational. Please keep my church and all the small groups in your prayers as we enter this time of corporate self-examination and repentance. May the Lord transform us and glorify himself immensely in and through us!
Thank you so much! May God bless you and transform you to be ever more like Christ as well!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, February 21st

Tuesday greetings to you!

This past Saturday we had our first meeting of the year of Vida Abundante Heredia's core leaders. This is a key space in which we have some fun and games but also receive vital training and information to pass along to those involved in our respective roles and ministries. I was given the microphone for a minute to make a couple important announcements about the small group facilitator training retreat we're going to have this Saturday and our series that starts in two weeks, "gods at war."
This year we are going to have three training retreats instead of seven different training sessions (like we did last year). I'm excited to see how the training retreat goes. I think my team and I have put together some good stuff and I look forward to helping them get a better idea of the value of small groups, how (and why) to delegate responsibilities, and provide them with some valuable tools for analyzing and improving spiritual growth. As the series approaches, I'm also working on recruiting new small group leaders and members, making sure the database and all the sign up sheets are up to date, selling the materials for the series, making sure I have enough volunteers at the small groups stand to help sell the materials, figuring out my own small group, and more. And this Friday I happen to be teaching from John 5 in young adult group. I'm feeling a bit swamped, but trying to stay on top of it all and do it all as unto the Lord and not for men (as Paul put it so well in Colossians 3:23).
I covet your prayers in this busy busy time of year. Please pray for me, but also the rest of the pastoral team at church and the rest of my church. I know of many people dealing with cancer, depression, addictions, marital struggles, etc. This is why we cling to Jesus. He is Hope and Life in the midst of our brokenness. And helping others know him is what all of this is all about.
Thank you so much for journeying with me and for your constant support!
Love,
Carrie