Day 1 in Costa Rica
Today, twenty-three people from The Journey left the Philadelphia International Airport for Costa Rica. It is exciting that a church our age and our size has this many going to another country to serve God and share the good news of Jesus Christ. I want to ask you to pray that each and every member of the team will see, hear, and experience Christ the next nine days. This is truly my biggest prayer request.
You may think that it is more important that the people of Costa Rica see, hear, and experience Christ and that the team be ready to share Him. However, if our team is not experiencing Christ then this trip easily becomes about us and not Him. Our motives, work and strength easily become self-focused, self-centered, and self-powered. I pray that God shows each team member things that they may be putting in front of Him and He transforms each person more and more into the likeness of Christ. Some may need to be broken of things in their lives, others may need to grow in trust and dependence on God, others may need their relationship with God to be refueled to burn brighter and stronger. Please pray that God moves in a very real and powerful way in the lives of these twenty-three people and that His movement doesn't just last for a week in Costa Rica, but they come home changed forever and that never burns out.
I will be praying for you too as you prepare to go out in your community and BE the church on Sunday. Realize that you too are missionaries to our world and community. God can and will do just as much in and through you as those who left our country. Don't skip this opportunity to go out and experience God by serving others and sharing the hope that you have that comes from Him. I look forward to hearing the stories of what God does in our community through you. We look forward to sharing in the next few weeks what God does in and through the team going to Costa Rica. You too need to keep focused on Christ so you can see, hear and experience Him.
We will try to send an email and/or post on the website a little daily "journal" of our trip. This all depends on our access to internet service to send something back. We will try to have a different person write each day so you get to experience this trip through the eyes of different people on the trip. We vary in age from 9-65. Some are families, some are single, some came as a family, some travel with family at home. It's a diverse group, which is exciting.
Have a great week and a half and I look forward to worshipping our God with you on Sunday, July 11th. Let us go and serve the risen King!!
David Pearson