Return from Costa Rica

I got home from Costa Rica a little over an hour ago. It was a very fruitful trip. I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I typically went to bed around 10 or eleven and went to sleep without any trouble. But then I would wake up at 5:00. Twice I had to get up at 4:30 AM to make trips (one out to the West coast to a daughter church and also this morning in order to get my plane).

Having made this trip, I now have a better idea of what I’m going to have to do to create an atmosphere in which the apprentice missionaries can be trained. Incredibly, the Costa Rican churches have no strategy for evangelism. When I asked them how I could train my people in evangelism, they asked me to help them develop a strategy they can use. I feel like I was able to be helpful to a number of people and to help the church keep moving in the right direction.

There are some very good things happening in the church. Within the last two years the gospel is being understood–at least more deeply, and in many cases for the first time. The parents of the couple I stayed with have been heavily involved in church for 40 years. But it was just two years ago, through the ministry of MTW, that they understood the gospel. Since then they have retired, and decided to move to the area where a daughter church is being planted. That church has struggled for a long time. But since they arrived, they have been sharing their new found faith, and there have been many conversions.

I’ve been asked to speak at their annual conference this January on the topic of Revival. It’s a very strange situation. Here are some of the details:

1. The churches that MTW is working with are part of a larger “Federation.” This larger body tends to be very legalistic. The churches we are working with have sent people to help them understand the gospel, but one of the people they sent–I’ll call him Mr. X– has done more damage than good. I have the feeling he himself doesn’t understand the good news or Reformed Theology more generally, and so his insistence that they get rid of legalism and take on “Reformed Theology” sounds to them like an imposition. And in truth, it’s probably just another kind of legalism.
2. This Mr. X somehow became president of the Federation this year. He’s the one who chose the topic of Revival. And he picked the passage.
3. Most people in the Federation don’t like the word “revival” because the Pentecostals in CR use it all the time to refer to a working up of the emotions.
4. The church hates the word “revival” because it sounds to them like the typical working up of emotions that the Pentecostals do in Costa Rica. And they use the word “revival.
5. Mr. X’s motive seems to be to use the Conference to persuade people to accept Reformed theology–to get them to change their minds.
6. Most people in the Federation don’t really want a theologian of Reformed persuasion to speak at the conference because they are tired of Mr. X–and he represents Reformed Theology to them.
7. I didn’t know all this when I accepted the invitation to speak. So pray for me and for the churches. I am actually looking forward to the opportunity, although there are a number of things that could be used by the evil one to keep people from seeing Christ.

New Church on the Coast

Rodney and Moisés

Daniel and Natalia, Athael and Andrés

Bible Club

Women's Meeting

Maribel and Moisés

Sunday morning we had breakfast on this porch (Maribel's sister's house) on the coast

Daughter church on the coast

(Note: None of the people pictured in this post is Mr. X.)