Day 14 (7): Love and Weddings and Tacos and Connections and Plans

We made tacos today. They were spicy. 

I did run this morning! Not very far and not very fast, but I ran, so... that's something I reckon. After my run, I spent some time working on 1 John 4. It starts out with an interesting and very strong injunction against false prophets. I wonder what the apostles would say about our theology and stuff today. Have the heresies changed all that much, or just put on new faces? Random thought. Moving on.

Sheryl and I were on breakfast duty, which was fun. After breakfast we had worship, which was lovely. After worship, the Lagos invited us to their home for coffee and second breakfast. We got to have some really good conversation with them about our plans for the rest of the trip and the CDI and H@ngout and also sent a lot of gifs and things to each other on WhatsApp. It was a good opportunity to connect more with them, which is always welcome. Their apartment is such a peaceful place and just invites good conversation.

After a while, we headed back home and joked around and had fun for the afternoon. Sheryl went to investigate the ends of our bus route and met some fun people and found some cool places. Matthew checked in with family and friends. Katie and I had a mini, mid-trip meeting and figured some stuff out. Katie also met one of our neighbors, and invited him to come worship with us and connect to the church (we are slowly gonna meet the whole neighborhood with our morning worship times). It's amazing how small, deliberate actions like a friendly conversation can lead to connections that lead to life change. Pray for Andres and Rodger and Jose and the lady who said hi to us, but hasn't joined us yet. It'd be really cool if we could see people connect to the church here through our everyday interactions. 

Lagos is leaving soon for a wedding and MTD in Indiana, so Ana will host us. Again, their pace of life is hardcore, but I was really impressed by how they took this weekend (between her being gone and him going) and rested and invested in their relationships with God and with each other. I loved watching them just being together today. We got to listen to and offer input on Lagos' message that he'll be sharing at the wedding. It was a beautiful and powerful connection between marriage and the gospel. He talked about the depth of love that God has for us; that even though we deserved his wrath, he died for us so that we could be reconciled. And now he promises to never leave us or forsake us. I believe that commitment precedes and lays a foundation for intimacy, so God's eternal, infinite commitment to us allows for an infinite, eternal intimacy with him. Since we know he'll never leave us, we can allow ourselves to be fully opened to him. "Perfect love casts out fear," is how 1 John 4 says it. We don't have to be afraid and can allow ourselves to be fully known and fully loved by God. That's a beautiful truth and marriage can provide a beautiful picture of that. Also, since people are imperfect, marriage includes a built-in opportunity to show Christ-like love and display the gospel by living a lifetime of forgiving one another, no matter what. Sounds hard. Actually, sounds almost impossible. I guess there's another place that marriage points us towards the gospel; we can't do things right without God's help and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

So...all that to say: I love how gospel-centered the Lagos' hearts are. It's what's needed to make H@ngout work, make ministry work, make marriage work. 

This week we will be at the CDI Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Wednesday we will go to Heredia. Tuesday and Thursday nights we will have and help with the H@ngout time on Zoom. Sometime in their we're going to record some worship music in Spanish for their church service Saturday night. This week, our primary focus with the CDI kids is being consistent and taking things a little bit deeper with them. Our time here, though longer than usual, feels so short for interactions with kids. I don't want to be another inconsistent figure in their lives. But, that connects to our hopes for the students from H@ngout as well. The plan this week is to start putting out the invitation and challenge to the students to start helping at the CDI. If we can get them involved next week as an intro, and then move towards them taking over in the weeks after that, there may be some really good connections that get fostered. We also want to start moving towards asking the H@ngout students to help plan the H@ngout Zoom events. Lagos and Ana have been doing a great job building community with them, but my hope is that increasing their ownership of H@ngout will increase their buy-in and be a step towards a generation of student leaders.

I think this week will be the turning point, so please, please be praying for us!

PRAYER:
- for us to see students from H@ngout come help at the CDI

- for us to see students from H@ngout take responsibility for their own community
- for the people in our neighborhood to come to our morning worship this week
- for the people we're meeting to connect to the church here
- for deeper discipleship with students and kids

Pictures:

Matthew inspects a tree. Probably bugs on the tree. He knows a lot about plants and birds and bugs

Lagos and Ana making coffee and crepes for us. What hosts, what a team.

Matthew doing pull-ups. 12 to be precise. That's a lot.

Tacos for dinner.

Logo for H@ngout

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