Renewal

       These past few weeks have been super busy, thus I haven’t had time to write an update until now. We had a bit of a change in pace two weeks ago when the whole school went to a YWAM Central America Conference in Nicaragua. Instead of having class like normal, we took part in various events over the four days we were there. As well as having lots of free time to relax, there was worship, speakers, and hearing about what the ministries that other YWAM bases are doing. It was a great time to refresh after so many weeks of intensive study. The retreat center where we stayed was gorgeous!

The retreat center - paradise :)

BCC (Bible Core Course) crew

Chilling outside our room

Love these girls!

I really enjoyed meeting people from other bases and experiencing another culture for a few days. Sometimes I can get so caught up with life here at the base in San Jose that I don’t even realize I’m in another country. Going to Nicaragua was a nice splash of cold water that I am here, in Central America and there are so many needs here. It’s easy to become comfortable with people I know in YWAM, but I need to step out and interact with others who are not Christians as well. Equally as important as learning God’s Word is having the opportunity to share it.

      After returning to Costa Rica, we had an intensive few days of learning how to proclaim the message of truth that we’ve been studying. I chose the book of Colossians to study, and throughout the week I did a 45-minute teaching, 15-minute preaching, and a small group Bible study of different sections of this book. For the first one, I started out really nervous and unprepared, but it turned out really well. I realized that I am competent to teach God’s Word! When I have researched and studied the book for so many hours, I have so much knowledge that I want to share with others. And discussing the book helped me go deeper – people brought up questions I had never even thought about. The main themes I talked about in these three presentations were renewal in Christ, living with conduct that honors God, and accepting Jesus as the authority of our life. So good! This was a great experience for me as I learned that I am definitely most comfortable in the small group setting. I feel confident that I could lead a small Bible study in the future. 

       Last weekend, we stayed overnight in a small camp in the mountains for a Reading Away Weekend. During these few days, we spent the majority of our time reading through several large books of the Bible in one sitting. (This is something we normally do every Saturday in order to get through the entire Bible in 3 months.) Honestly, I was kind of dreading all the reading because after a few hours it can get pretty tiring. But even one day, having read for 7 hours, I came away from it so amazed. So many things are in the Bible that I never realized before! For example, I thought 1 & 2 Samuel were boring books with lots of genealogy listings, but there is SO MUCH action and crazy stories. In between reading, we had time to play games and enjoy the nice weather. I loved getting to know my fellow classmates better. And our staff cooked us homemade meals. Mhmm! 

Mountain view from our camp

I got up to see the 5:30 AM sunrise!

      What a wonderful few weeks this has been. Again, thank you for your prayers. It’s wonderful to see how much everyone here (including me) is growing. Only 1 month left of the school. It’s gone by so fast! After this, I will be coming home, and then starting my next adventure, which I will share about in my next blog post. Stay tuned!