One God, two stories!!

Two cool God stories ….

    God moved so much in our month in Jaco. The tangible evidence of this is that half my squad decided to get baptized and step into deeper intimacy with the Lord. I was going back and forth if I wanted to get baptized or not. I wanted my yes to be the right timing and having the right heart posture. My friend Libby told me it should be a cry out for the Lord and saying all I want is to be Yours each and every day.  That spoke so much to me. It showed me that who am I not to say yes, and even if I’m not as far as others on this journey I want to walk with Him and grow and walk out who He has chosen me to be in this world. That very night our squad had a worship night and the song “All the poor and powerless” was sung. There’s a lyric in it that really touched my heart and what I wanted to do with the Lord’s love the rest of my life. It was “Go on and scream it from the mountains, go on and tell it to the masses.“ I screamed it at the top of my lungs that night and truly felt the presence of the Lord in that moment. For this reason I got the tattoo scream it from the mountains on my body as a reminder of what He has grown me in and done for me over this race and what He will continue to do afterwards as well. 

I am walking in the Lord’s love now. He has showed up in so many different ways after my baptism. One particular way was super similar to part of my story. Every Friday we did a thing called surf club. Here we played with kids and taught them how to surf. I played soccer with them and built sand castles. Most of them spoke English so I got to know a lot about their lives and hear how they learned to surf. Let me tell you, it was crazy how good these kids were at surfing!!! It made me wish I grew up in Costa Rica.

  One of the last days helping at surf ministry, they split it up to only half the squad going… and I got chosen. I was excited to be able to see all the kids one last time. I met this girl that was 6 years old. I sat down with her and we build a castle. I tried asking her name but she wasn’t responding. She kept giving me signals on what to do and making mumbling noises. I was very confused on why she wasn’t talking but then it hit me… this behavior was very familiar to me. I had a sense of what was going on. I started conversation with her mom and asked her if she had Apraxia (a disorder in the brain and the nervous system where a person is unable to do tasks and movements when it is asked, even when these tasks and movements are understood). She told me that she was diagnosed a year ago and that she has been going to speech therapy. She created her own language by using signals. I was so stunned when she told me this because I had this disease when I was younger and still have some lasting effects of it now. This disease caused me not to be able to speak until I was four. I only used sign language with my parents. My parents thought I was never gonna be able to speak and one day I just started. I still struggle with reading sometimes and understanding the first time something is being said but besides that the Lord has healed me from it. I have never met anyone else with this disease and I was able to give her hope and tell her my story and how I have dealt with it over the years. It was so cool to see God move through the whole thing and see how God chose me to be at ministry that day because He knew I needed to meet her. I was able to bond with not only the kid but the mom as well.