Costa Rica Notes

We arrived in Costa Rica Monday afternoon, after uneventful travel. Costa Rica is pretty much due South of Lexington, which seems counter-intuitive.

We settled in and rested a bit Tuesday. Wednesday, I went with our host Vaughn to do street evangelism in a park with some folks from his church. People are more open to talk here than I think they are in the U.S. First person we talked to was Alvaro, from Nicaragua. He is down on his luck, fled Nicaragua as many have. Lost his job, homeless. We shared Christ with him and told him how to get to the Evangelical church.
Next was Byron, who asked for prayer that he could find a job. We talked to him about the Gospel, basically using Ray Comfort's model. I had a translator, so that's why it worked. He indicated a desire to be saved, and prayed; we will see if it sticks.

Then we prayed with Josue, a believer, but dealing with some anxiety and grieving the loss of a relationship. Then I felt led to share John 1:12 with a woman who was ear-hustling our conversation. Turns out she is Catholic. We spoke about the necessity of trusting God, not the church, not our own works... I guess that is why John 1:12 was what I was led to... salvation is by grace, through faith.

Vaughn and his team were dealing with an alcoholic they have met before. They bought some rice for a poor woman and her kids. We ended up taking the alcoholic with us, looking to get him into rehab. Alcohol is a poison wherever you go.

I am all hopped up on the Great Commission lately. More than normal. It started in Hopkinsville, KY a couple months ago. We were at the Mission Engage Event. I am not sure what the speaker said. It was Sherri Morrissey, a missionary in Thailand. Something grabbed me and I started thinking... Jesus died on April 3 in the year 33. He rose from the dead on April 5. 2033 marks 2000 years since His death and resurrection. And 2000 years since His Ascension. And... 2000 years since the Great Commission. "Go into all nations, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded." As I write this, I remember what prompted my Great Commission excitement: unengaged and unreached people groups. An unreached people group has less than 1% believers. Probably the most important thing to me in ministry has been to have been a part of supporting work with an unreached people group who have been taken off the list of unreached because of the growth of their churches. I am revelling in the fact that this people group also has the largest church the church planting missiin we support has ever planted!
An unengaged people group, however, is one which has no believers. The church planting mission Jessie and I support works in a country with more unengaged people groups than any other country. They are initiating a project to reach out to the unengaged peoples in their area of the country. This has me stoked. Jessie and I are ready to sow into this field, waiting patiently for the harvest. The Lord is placing thoughts in my dirtbag mind and longings in my dirtbag heart to see us-- I mean Jessie, me, and you, my substack readers-- sow generously into the work.

A few years back, as I was leaning into being a dirtbag, I realized I occasionally get significant gifts out of nowhere. I decided I was just to be a pass through of these things. I was going to sow them into evangelistic disciple-making. Now, at this point I need to confess to being a slow learner. It took me awhile to move from simply thanking God to praying for Him to send more gifts. I committed to being the pipeline. It took a generous out of nowhere gift a couple years ago to prompt me to pray that God would send the money to support the workers in the harvest field that He commands us to pray for. I don't know what to make of it except to testify that God sends me gifts for the Great Commission and He has prompted me to ask Him to. And lo and behold, two such gifts have come to me this year--well, one is in hand and about to head to the unengaged; and the other gift is on the way. They will go a long way to advancing the Great Commission.

I also want to share this. About 18 months ago, maybe almost 2 years, I met with Sue Eaton, a presiding elder and prayer coordinator. I mentioned needing to recruit church planters, because I could see the opportunities scaling faster than the pool of church planters. She said "let's change your wording. Not recruiting. Praying. For workers in the harvest field." He has provided that, too!

2033 will be 2000 years of the Great Commission. Ponder these words of A.B. Bruce, a Scottish pastor and theologian. His 1871 classic, The Training of the Twelve, is the unacknowledged kick-start of the church planting/disciple-making movement that is currently afoot in the lively parts of the church. He wrote: "the great founder of the faith desired not only to have disciples, but to have about Him men whom He might train to make disciples of others: to cast the net of divine truth into the sea of the world, and to land on the shores of the divine kingdom a great multitude of believing souls. Both from His words and His actions we can see that He attached supreme importance to that part of His work which consisted in training the twelve" (p. 13, Kregel Publications edition). For 2000 years, we have been evangelizing and making disciples. There is nothing particularly special about A 2000 year anniversary, other than that it captures the imagination. The method that Jesus taught works... if you work it.

2033. The Lord may return before then. I may not live to see it. But I am committed to seeing people, especially those who have never had a chance, hear the Gospel. It means preaching to the unconverted to be saved. It means preaching to believers to get involved, to move beyond basic assent to Christian doctrine and Christian living. It means sharing the Gospel when the opportunity arises. It means, like A.B Bruce said Jesus did, attaching supreme importance to training evangelistic disciple-makers to reap the harvest.