Costa Rica is experiencing a drought
of sorts right now. We are in the
heart of the so-called rainy season, where it’s supposed to rain – no, pour – every afternoon for several
hours. But since May when ‘winter’
started, it’s only rained a mere handful of afternoons.
I understand that the U.S. in the midst of a drought too -
one of the worst ones in decades.
Obviously, droughts cause all sorts of problems: food
prices soar, electricity costs increase, cattle
can die… It’s not a good
situation.
In many ways, the last two years since deciding to come to
Costa Rica have seemed like a drought in our personal lives, at least on
paper. Since starting the blog,
I’ve written a lot about some of the difficulties, fears, and trials we’ve
faced:
·
Moving out
of our house (I still cry when looking at these pictures)
·
Kate being sick, again and again and again
·
Facing an ectopic,
infertility, surgery,
misdiagnosis (the doctor I was using when we first arrived uses an ancient
ultrasound machine and misdiagnosed me with PCOS.
He put me on a medication that I took for four months, until the doctor in
Seattle who did my surgery told me what looked like cysts were actually just
blood vessels. This was one of the
most frustrating things we’ve experienced here).
But unlike a real drought, this season of dryness in our own
life has actually produced amazing fruit.
Personal seasons of drought often do.
·
We’ve learned tons
of lessons along the way and grown personally and spiritually in ways we
would have never imagined.
·
We’ve learned to
wait and be patient… for so many things. This has created character we didn’t have before.
·
We’ve learned to live with less stuff. Whenever we move back to the States, we
will make a conscious effort to live with less and practice some sort of
minimalism.
·
We’ve had extra time together as a family. Kate spends as much time with me as she
does with her daddy. This never
would have been the case if we’d stayed in Seattle. I would have worked full time this past year as a 4th
grade teacher. Joe would have
worked too obviously. (Nothing
wrong with this scenario, by the way).
But with this extra time together, we have bonded and grown more than
ever, as a little family of three.
·
We are finally starting to feel at home here in
another country and have a strong handle on the language, although I still
speak v e r y slowly, and have to
conjugate verbs in my head, and based on what we’re now learning in Spanish
class, have to ask myself, ‘does this sentence require the subjunctive
mood?” (a ‘mood’ or verb tense we really don’t have/use in English)
·
We are more hopeful now than we were a week ago
about our future at the Abraham Project and the opportunity for us to help it
become more sustainable. In our
recent Ministry
Update, we talked about the meeting that was going to take place this past
Saturday. Well, it did, and we
feel like it was successful. We
still have questions and concerns that need to be addressed before moving
forward, but we feel like it was a step in the right direction.
With all these things above, and many more not mentioned, we
can easily see God’s work in our lives – the fruit being produced – through
this experience. Joe has this
corny tank-top (yes, a tank-top) that says, “Make It Rain”. Although there are days when it really
feels like a drought, there are many others when we feel and know that God is
‘making it rain’ and we are flourishing. And above all, his will is being
accomplished in our lives.
“For as the rain comes
down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return
there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring
forth and bud,
That it may give seed
to the sower
And bread to the
eater,
So shall My word be
that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to
Me void,
But it shall
accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper
in the thing for which I sent it.”
Isaiah 55:10-11
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