Pirates of the Carribean

Hello,
After five months I am finished with my DTS but I never finished my blog… I’m sorry. I also know im going to have to keep telling the story of my life changing experience and my story telling expertise will begin to flag. So in attempt to record my last five months I will continue my blog over the next few weeks. 
So I believe where I left off was right before outreach. For the first two weeks we had decided to head to Puerto Viejo as a whole team. Puerto Viejo is a Carribean town that worships Bob Marley and everything hippie. The town is more laid back than the already chill country of Costa Rica.
When we first got to the town we did a prayer walk and saw how many churches there was and how little influence the churches had on the town. We really felt that God wanted us to influence people who can influence peaple and we felt that God wanted us to help unite the churches.
So put those thoughts on hold. When we got there we started doing a lot of manuel labor and did not feel like we were getting anywhere or making an impact. We were sanding the walls of this church we were stagying at, picking up trash around the city only to watch it all come back after a few days, and helping our friend Orlando clean up his restraunt. We started to become disunified and discontent in my opinion. We all felt this disunity and there came a point where we recognized this and unified through prayer and communion. We took all our personal problems and everything that was getting in the way and laid it down before Jesus at the cross. That’s when the fun started.
After this God showed us that all this manual labor and cleaning up the town was not for nothing. It was apart of God’s plan and we had to understand that we were not going to change this town God was. One big thing that happened there was with our friend Casey. He was the owner of an ice cream and coffee shop. We went around the town asking what business owners if there was any way we could help them out for free and that we were a bunch of missionaries. Casey did not understand why a bunch of christian missionaries would want to help a grumpy atheist with his business for free. It turns out we came at a time where he needed the help the most. He had just taken over the business six months ago and had not been able to make changes he wanted and was tired and overworked. His girlfriend was also moving away and they would most likely never see each other again. We were able to help make a new sign for him, paint his furniture and restroom and other small jobs that he would not have been able to do.
After we were able to unite as a team God made it so that we could show this unity to the town. As I said earlier we felt God wanted us to influence people who could influence people, and we felt called to put on a dinner with all the pastors of the city. We knew this was going to be a delicate task there were wounds in the church and some of them did not get a long, however with the help of our friend Orlando God allowed us to get this dinner set up. We had six pastors that were going to attend the dinner at Orlando’s restraunt and he had so graciously agreed to make us dinner. There was six DTS students including myself that had set this all up and it would be the big finale to the amazing week that God had given us so far. We were all excited and ready for the dinner and showed up ten minutes before it was supposed to start. That was our first mistake. We forgot that we were in Costa Rica, not to mention the Carribean side of Costa Rica. We showed up, as I said, and the first thing I notice is that the food is cold and it looks to me half eaten. Then we realize we have no dishes or ice or silverware. We notice this on three separate occasions and I have to ride my bike three separate times to the super market. By this time its around six thirty and I forgot to mention we had no clue where Orlando is. Another good thing is that the guests do not arrive early or even on time because this is Costa Rica haha. I am still freaking out as the guests start arriving, and I turn to God and I say “God this has totally blown up in our faces we are just going to enlarge the rift that is already there, I give up God how do you want this run?” at that point God takes control. The conversation was stale up until that point, Orlando shows up and we find out there is enough food, the pastors turned out to just be hungry and once we get food in there belly the liven up. The coolest thing was at the end everyone is singing old hymns together and saying how they need to do this more often. God allowed us to say in a polite way that was well received how we felt that they need to be more of a force in their community and shining God’s love for everyone to see. I felt like I learned so much from this dinner and God showed me over and over on outreach how you just have to give in to God and that he is in control.
When we left Puerto Viejo we had so many stories. The people in the town had influenced us and God had allowed us to influence them. We were met at the bus stop by many of the people we had worked with over the two weeks with tear. Casey came running out in his pjs, Orlando and his wife were there and some of the pastors as well. It was awesome to see what God has used us to do and the lives we had impacted it was a great start to an amazing outreach.