Week 4

Week 4

Well another week of learning has come to an end. Vanessa Pavely was our guest speaker teaching on “Intimacy with God”. Vanessa is from Costa Rica and her husband Spencer is from Canada with a son named Lucas and daughter Isaballa both born in Kona, HI. They were leading the worship school in HI but while back to visit in Costa Rica, Vanessa was denied a spouse religious visa. So here they are helping out with YWAM and living down the street. Her humility and complete passion for God was so apparent every day. One thing she had us do, besides spending much of the time simply adoring God, was to learn about our different worshiping styles. Jen is inspired by nature and is an activist; on the other hand I am an intellectual that likes nature. (Those of you who are closest too us are probably smiling in agreement with this.) This may sound kind of funny but there are different styles that people tend to feel the closest to God. These are important for us to realize as we live in community and worship with others because it is easy to judge when someone worships in a very different way. All of these styles are precious to God but can also have pitfalls if we use them to judge or draw away from others. The good thing is, is that Jen and I are able to bounce things off of each other and learn from some of our differences and similarities…maybe this explains why we kept all of you outdoors for our wedding! For the two of us there is no better place to worship God!

Over the weekend Jen and I went to our friend Issac’s house over the mountains to a town called Tabarcia. We spent the morning at his church, and then had lunch at his house. A good meal of beans, rice, pollo (chicken), and bananas accompanied. When we arrive at his house we were amazed at the conditions he was living in. The walls were made of randomly sized wood slats which you could see through and large spiders had spun their webs between, the floor was comprised of dirt, chickens occasionally wandered through the house from time to time, and on and on... You can only picture in your head what it was like…and then make yourself imagine a little worse. Despite all of this, Issac continues to realize just how blessed he is. He and his family were so loving and hospitable. They invited us in, hugged us, fed us, and showed us proudly around the place. They have so little and yet when you look at them you see how much they have. We wish everyone who grumbles about being poor in America could meet this family and hear how much they long to help the poor…people who have less than them. Isaac has a true heart that shines everyday and the passion for sharing the gospel is very apparent. We never hear him complain about how little he has, instead he gushes about how much God has given to him and his family. Jen and I have grown to love this guy and today it was apparent why.