This week I decided to check out some of the things that are happening with children in the United States. I’ve been reading stories from Haiti and several places in Africa, as well as seeing things firsthand in Costa Rica, but do I even know what’s happening in my own country? Well…as I was searching I found an article about a pediatrician who’s been charged with 471 felony counts for the sexual abuse of his patients. Four hundred and seventy-one. That’s a large number. For more than 10 years he has been sexually abusing children, all but one of them girls. Ten years. That is unbelievable to me. It’s really pretty crazy that for ten years you can be taking your child to a doctor, completely trusting him, and all along he is abusing your child. How does that even happen? My mind can’t wrap itself around that.
It’s like I was learning this week, “If you aren’t looking for it, you won’t see it.” If we aren’t constantly aware that our children could be in danger or that there are people out there hurting other children, we won’t see any of it happen. This is so important, especially in the States where everything seems wonderful or easy. We need to remember that bad stuff still happens there, not just in developing countries. It’s in our backyards. I can’t stress that enough. Let’s open our eyes.
If you’re interested in reading the article, here’s the link: Delaware Pediatrician
Posted by
Amanda
3:02 PM
Speaker: Dave Swann
Topic: Project Planning and Development
This week was full of hard questions and inspiring ideas. We were probed to dig deeper inside ourselves. We learned how to ask the right questions and conduct research that will help us develop projects and create change. One of my favorite things about this week was that our speaker came from South Africa and brought me five of my favorite South African candy bars! He was also an amazing speaker, super down-to-earth and full of lots of great insight!
Last September, I took a school for Community Development here in San Jose. I learned a great deal from it and could really see myself using it in the future. This week totally reinforced that idea. I find myself always coming up with different ideas for projects or building on projects that I’ve had in my head for awhile. We were able to see how to use those ideas, write them down, present them and expand on them.
One thing I really loved is that Dave asked questions. Like, “How do you know where God wants you to be?” and “What is worship?” and “How are we going to open people’s eyes?” What does it mean to do these things, to really be a missionary? They might seem like easy questions on the surface, but once you get into them they are tough. I’ve seriously had to evaluate and consider why I do and say many things in my life. But I think it’s such a great approach to things. Each of us have answers to just about everything deep down inside of us, but most of us like to be fed the answers from other people instead of taking the time to pull those answers out of us. We are all “resources” and have tons of knowledge and wisdom about things stored up inside of us. Let’s take the time to ask ourselves questions and really look hard at our answers. Let’s not be apathetic.
Something Dave said this week was that the excuse “I don’t have any personal responsibility,” has killed millions of people. When we look around at issues in the world and hear the stories, but simply say that it doesn’t affect us and not do anything about it…we are killing people. People are dying, because we just aren’t doing anything about it. “It’s not my responsibility,” or “I have my own life to worry about,” or “I’ve made a way for myself, why can’t they do the same?” When we don’t do anything about child prostitution, human trafficking, poverty, child soldiers, violence, racism, gangs…people are dying. This is our responsibility, our call as Christians and as people, really. We are hypocrites if we say we will love our neighbors, but don’t help the ones that are starving to death in Africa or being sold in India.
Another quote from Dave was, “If you’re not pissed off with the state of the world, you’re not paying attention.” If you aren’t seeing what’s happening in the world, you aren’t looking. Things are happening even in our own backyards, but we don’t see it because we are only concerned about our own little worlds. The world is in chaos right now. How do you feel about that? Are your eyes open?
I realize this blog had little to do with development and planning projects, which we actually talked about quite a bit throughout the week. It was all great stuff and we even started planning a bit of the projects we might do in Jaco, but these are some of the things that really hit me this week. I left asking more questions and learning more about my character, God’s character and the world. I think that’s a good thing…
Posted by
Amanda
2:23 PM
At the end of our 3 month lecture phase, we go on to do a six month outreach phase. For my outreach, I’ve decided to go to Jaco which is a beach town in Costa Rica about two hours outside of San Jose. Jaco is basically known for its surfing and prostitution. There is a beautiful beach, but the town is dirty and full of men “looking for a good time.” There is such a mix of wealth and poverty, all in about a four or five mile strip. The main income of the place is tourism, so if you can’t speak English and sell things, you basically don’t have a job. It’s a hard place, a mix of good and evil, and it’s where I feel called for the next six months of my life.
On Friday afternoon, a group of us who are planning to do outreach together set out for Jaco. We spent a good portion of the week observing what was happening there, in order to get an idea of how we could do ministry there. On Friday night, we attended one of the churches there and met some awesome people. After church, we walked down the strip to see what the nightlife was like. It was hard for me not to get absolutely disgusted. I don’t even know how to describe what I saw. There were old men, young men, middle-aged men. They were mostly white, completely drunk and absolutely obnoxious. They were being swarmed by girls prostituting themselves, some sitting around, some heading off in Taxis with the girls. I wanted to punch those men, in all honesty. But God reminded me that He still loves them, which is such a hard concept for me to grasp. He HATES what they are doing, but He loves them and they are broken men who have no idea what they are doing.
On Saturday, we sat down with a lady who had been working with the prostitutes for the past couple years. She gave us some ideas for how we could work with the women, because everyone on our team has a passion to help women out of prostitution. One thing she said really stood out to me. Prostitution in Costa Rica is legal, so one of my classmates asked how many of the girls in Jaco are forced into it and how many do it by choice. Her answer was, “Does it matter? They all need help and none of them do it by choice. They might not be forced into it by a parent or pimp, but they were abused as a child, in poverty or some other circumstance which forced them to that place. None of them want to do it.” It’s so true. She told us a lot of the women will stand across the road from the bar and look for every excuse not to go over there until they run out of excuses. Something has led them to this place and I just want to bring hope to them, that there is something better, they are valuable and have a purpose.
On Saturday our school leader was out surfing and overheard a conversation between an older man and younger boy. The boy was asking advice for how to have a good time here and meet the local girls. He didn’t want the prostitutes, but to meet tourist girls or girls from the area. The older man was telling him, “Just pay the extra hundred bucks, take a couple girls up to your room and have a good time. That’s what they are there for.” He was urging him to just use the prostitutes. What do you do with that?
I’m still not sure, but I do know that we can do something. Outreach there is going to be hard, but worth it. Our team is strong and full of love. We are so ready to get things started there, build relationships and change something. It’s going to be great, but now I need to start preparing myself for what’s about to come.
I feel like I am now obsessed with researching. I am constantly reading articles, finding new websites, looking up YouTube videos that will keep me more aware of what's going on in the world and what people are doing. It's crazy, but so good. I think if we all took a little more time out of our day to focus on what's happening around us, we would be shocked and amazed on what we were missing out on.
Anyways, with that being said...just wanted to share a couple of websites and some links to some videos that I think would be really cool for you to check out.
This week we are talking about project planning and development. I think one of the best organizations that I've found who are working towards transforming communities is World Vision. When I thought of World Vision before, I thought the only thing they did was "Sponsor a Child" programs, but they do so much more. In fact, their website can almost be overwhelming because they are doing so much! While they still do child sponsoring, they also do disaster relief, awareness programs, and have found creative ways to get everyone involved in what's happening all over the world.
Another organization I was thinking about this week was Invisible Children. They are simply storytellers working towards ending the war in Africa. They make documentaries, rebuild schools, provide scholarship for children, among many more things. I think what I love most about this organization is that I can identify with them. They went, saw the need and knew they needed to do something about it. It's awesome that they are using their documentary skills to raise awareness about what's happening. I think that media has such a huge impact on people and also has the ability to make people feel something. It seems to me that people in the world are becoming more and more desensitized to the horrible things happening all over. They forget that real people are hurting and forced to face terrible situations for their entire lives. In our Western culture, we are free. We forget that most countries in the world don't have that luxury.
Anyways, what these organizations are doing is pretty cool and you should definitely check it out!
Also, if you're up for watching some videos you should follow these links:
Eight Dollar Hot Dog
Modern Day Slavery
Global Forum on Human Trafficking
Speaker: Rick Allegretto
Topic: Servant Leadership
We teamed up with the DTS (Discipleship Training School) this week and held classes together for lecture on servant leadership. I feel like this is an area that I am constantly learning about and trying to apply to my own life, so it was nice to be able to focus on it for the week. We started out by talking about our attitudes and how we face situations. Our attitude has the capacity to alter the outcome of every situation and can also affect and change the attitudes of others. This is especially true when you live in community like I do. We are around the same people every day, all day long and it is very easy for attitudes to affect each other. Another thing we discussed was the people that influence us and the qualities and characteristics we see in their lives that make us look up to them. Generally we saw the same characteristics in all of the people we admired and most of their characteristics could be drawn from the fruits of the spirit (love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). These are all actions—things we can put into practice.
In the middle of the week, we had a night of worship and God totally wrecked my heart. I was sitting there, thinking about different situations in my life. I was thinking about what my life would look like in the future: marriage, kids, traveling. I was thinking about how I wanted to love others more, how I wanted my love to change people. I want to just be a simple instrument in the hands of God, loving people and bringing them hope. And then I felt like God said, “Would you give your future up, your hopes, marriage, kids, traveling, in order to see people’s lives changed through your love?” I basically crumbled to the ground. I think I spent an hour there…just thinking, crying, praying. I want to serve others through love and I want people to know the enormous love of God, but was I willing to give some stuff up in order to see that happen? I don’t know, honestly. It was hard. I argued with God for quite a while. I always pray things like that, such powerful stuff like, “God, I want to give you my everything. Use me to show Your love.” But man…do I know what I’m praying? That’s so intense. Anyways, I feel like something changed that night. I don’t know if I actually gave those things up to God. I do still desire those things so much, but I know God is good and I’m content in Him. I think it’s a process, I mean life is a process…but slowly, surely God is giving me a bigger heart, more capacity to love and more wisdom. It’s pretty cool, I think. So I’m really hoping He will teach me how to be a servant leader as I walk into my future. I want to get to the place where others are really more important than myself and where I’m not selfishly putting my needs before everyone else. Again…it’s a process. But it’s good.
For outreach this week, a group of us went to Casa Viva (the Foster Care organization). They were holding a meeting with all of the Foster parents, so during the meeting we took care of the kids and held a program for the older children. Becky and I were in charge of the babies and we ended up having five of them. I’m not gonna lie, it was a rough night. Becky and I both had headaches and it seemed that we always had at least two crying babies. Some of the staff was there helping us out, so that was good. There was one little girl who was all smiles the whole time. She was constantly blowing me kisses and seemed to enjoy anything that was happening around her. Her smile definitely blessed me in the midst of all the crying and headaches. Everything went great with the older kids. They played some games, colored pictures and had story time. Overall, it was cool to be able to take care of the kids, but still a bit hard.
Here's a picture that one of our classmates, Daniel drew for Becky and I:
Posted by
Amanda
2:20 PM
As I was browsing through Relevant’s Reject Apathy magazine this week, I came across an article about a man doing “Apartment ministry.” I thought it sounded kind of interesting so I checked it out. Basically, the article is about a middle-class man who works with kids in low-income apartments. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says in the article, but it actually really hit home with me. One of the things the man talked about in this article was his struggle between living his comfortable life and working with the poor.
Something I have constantly struggled with is this very issue. Growing up, we were never rich. Money was tight sometimes, but my parents really provided for my brother and I. We had a great childhood, a wonderful house and enough food to fill our tummies. If I were living in Indiana right now, I would have a job, a car and would probably be working towards a degree in University. I have all of those things at my fingertips, yet I’m living in San Jose, Costa Rica, sharing a dorm with five other girls and working with kids at risk.
Still…I struggle so much. I work with kids that have NOTHING. Even though I live in a community and don’t have all the comforts of home, I still have 3 meals a day, a comfortable bed, a computer and a nice living area. How is that fair? How is it fair that so many are living on less than $1 a day, but I can still lead a comfortable life and don’t even think about it or give thanks for it every day? We leave the base, hang out with these poor kids for a couple hours and then drive back to our nice, comfortable home. To me, this seems wrong, but I don’t know why. I can’t seem to justify anything in my head.
God called his disciples to go spread the Gospel and not take anything with them. They lived in poverty, they were rejected, and they were thrown in jail. Basically, they weren’t comfortable. Jesus wasn’t comfortable. He was even homeless. Should I live like that? By faith, following Jesus, without my comforts but trusting Him to take care of me. It would seem a lot easier to minister to the poor if I were one of them. But what does that look like? Like I said, it’s a constant struggle in my mind. Any thoughts?
I feel like as Christians and as missionaries, this is something we should take the time to think and pray about. We need to ask God if our “comfort” is getting in the way of our purpose. We need to pray for the poor and those that are living in conditions where they don’t have the chance to live a good, easy life. We need to pray for those who are working with the poor and working for justice, that they will have the grace to understand and empathize with those they are working with. Lastly, we need to be thankful, every day, for what we have been given.
If you'd like to check out the article, here's the link: Apartment Ministry
Our topic this week was servant leadership. At one point during the week, our speaker mentioned Mother Teresa. To me, Mother Teresa is the epitome of a servant leader. The woman gave up her entire life to love and minister to the needs of the poor and sick. She was humble, full of love and truly cared for others. She spoke up for justice and said she was "a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." I admire the way she gave up her life for God. She let go of having material possessions, having a husband, or a nice house and a car. Instead, she devoted herself to love. This is a beautiful thing.
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. Mother Teresa
As I was thinking about this, I also remembered some more people who are showing others the same heart as Mother Teresa. In Philadelphia, PA, a man named Shane Claibourne started a community called the Simple Way. About three years ago, I read a book called the Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claibourne (highly recommended!) and it totally changed my life. The Simple Way is a community of people living in the ghetto, who spend every day loving their neighbors, helping the poor and loving Jesus. They are also incredibly involved in social justice issues. They have an after school program for children in the neighborhood and are currently working on building a garden in their community. I would definitely recommend checking them out and the things they are doing!
If you would like to check out what they are doing: The Simple Way
Another person that I was reminded of is a man named Brandt Russo. I learned about him last year as I accidentally stumbled across an article about him in Relevant Magazine. Brandt was leading a fairly normal life, lived in the States and loved Jesus...but he knew there was something more. So, he gave up everything that he had, purchased a bus and started driving around the States, living and helping the poor. He's lived on the streets for a year and has been jailed for trying to bring about justice. God has taken him on such an awesome journey and it's cool to read about. His mission is to love, to bridge the gap between the rich and poor and to meet the needs of the poor and neglected. He also began a t-shirt company called "Can't Ignore the Poor." The proceeds from his t-shirts go to help those in need.
If you would like to read more about Brandt's vision: Where's Brandt?
Or to check out his T-shirt company: Can't Ignore the Poor
Love God...Love others. This is what it's all about.
