My Wants, His Desires

Helllooo everyone!!! Day 4 of being in Jaco, Costa Rica + it has been such a fun time so far. We are currently finishing out our quarantine before we start ministry but are working around our ministry home and neighboring park doing some work there. God has been teaching me a lot in the past 4 days but mainly that His desires for my life are so much greater than my wants. He’s been showing me what it looks like to live in such an intentional community and also give myself grace in knowing that I don’t have to participate in it all as long as He has my heart. He’s been pushing some deep stuff out of my heart and I’m so thankful that he’s put some really close friends into this season of my life to create a safe place to share. And He’s also been humbling me in some hard ways but funny ways- here’s 2 quick stories. 

1. Travel day. My first and only time flying prior to this trip was December of 2019. Long story short, we missed our connecting flight and the shuttle driver broke the wheel to my luggage. Fast forward to a couple of days ago I told God I really didn’t want to be the last person to get their ticket/bags checked. Well I wasn’t last but I was close to it and it was super stressful trying to make it to our gate in time. But obviously I did make it (and instead of towing along the little broken luggage bag like 2019, I carried around a 49 pound bag on my shoulder and probably a 15-20 pound carry on bag on my back) and it made for some fun laughs on the plane.
2. Prior to ministry we all filled out a little survey saying what we wanted to do, what we didn’t mind to do and what we weren’t really interested in. I was fine doing anything except I told myself I really didn’t want to do manual labor (I know what you’re thinking). Our ministry host was never able to read our surveys but instead we volunteered for what we wanted to do. I volunteered to help clean the neighboring park because fresh air in Costa Rica and I thought it sounded pretty easy. It turned out to be some of the hardest work that me and 4 other gals completed. I’m talking about moving broken wire fences, finding an old concrete basketball court under grass and dirt and cleaning all of that off and completely digging up flower beds with 100 year old weeds (probably being dramatic but we legit had to take a machete to it).  Long story short, it was HARD and it was HOT. But through being totally uncomfortable God gave me such a sense of gratefulness. Grateful to be doing the hard work. Grateful that even though God could do it all on His own, he chooses me to be a part of the process and in the middle of it be blessed. 

So there ya have it! Currently today is ATL (ask the Lord day) and He told me to help finish some things at the park and then spend some time enjoying His creation at the beach. So I’m writing this blog doing just that- thanks God!!

Pura Vida,

McKayla