[April 25th, 2022] Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
I appreciate that they were looking out for our well-being. To be fair, if I was walking into an area where there were heightened chances of me getting stabbed or robbed, I would want to know. But Max told us we were walking forward anyway.
Have you ever seen brokenness?
Surely, though, you’ve felt it. That time-stopping pang of grief that somehow won’t rid itself from that gaping hole in your middle. The hot burning in your chest up to your ears, and no matter how many hyperventilating cries you’ve had, it just seems to get bigger. When anguish grasps your throat and you can’t seem to exhale the unrest away. Even after that main wave of grieving, there’s still that lingering sorrow.
So you’ve felt it, then?
Despite the knowledge that you have to “get up and get better” you just cannot bring yourself to do it? Despite the help offered to you, something inside can’t bear the thought of doing anything other than laying in bed, despite your screams at yourself to stop this endless exhaustion. Our bodies’ need to experience is hindered, and it becomes a restless mental war with your eyes, brain, body, and soul being wrung through the numb, never-ending cycle.
You understand, don’t you?
It’s okay. Me too.
Approximately two weeks ago, Team Zeal piled into a small, stuffy van to drive five hours from our practically unknown province of Pinshirt to the popular city of San Jose. Our ministry host, Max, decided that street evangelizing would be the perfect weekend trip. We were to go out for two nights, ministering from 9pm-2am, walking down the streets in teams, stopping to talk, pray, and present opportunities for the addicts living on the sidewalks. Our opportunities: Teen Challenge (a rehab center) and Jesus.
And that’s exactly what we did.
We arrived at the hotel, chowed down on some fried chicken, crammed fourteen people in our room to worship and pray, and prepared for battle for two-ish hours. We emptied our pockets of everything: coins, trash, gum, paper. We took out our piercings and took off our bracelets (on the World Race, you have a lot of both), removed our necklaces, put our sock-covered feet in our boots, shoes, and Chacos (to keep the human feces off ya feet), we grabbed our flannels, shirts and sweaters, put our masks on, gave our room keys to the front desk and walked outside to the dimly-lit San Jose streets. Max split us into teams of upcoming Teen Challenge graduates and Racers, gave us our instructions, and with twenty feet of space between groups, we started down the road.
Our teams met many a-people. There were men searching through trash, women standing beside stores with their children, and drug dealers awaiting their clients. Those whose bodies were tired of drinking lay stretched along the side of buildings, unresponsive from too much alcohol. Some people when approached would walk the other way. As we’d walk, we passed men that stood, staring with heavy lust. Some, high as a kite, would sit and sink into exhaustion– others would ramble profanities while others sat and listened to what we had to say. Later into the night, men on the streets would run up to the men in our group (those in the program who had previously lived on these exact streets) and embrace them, crying, “hello, friend! I miss you! Come back to us!” We returned to our hotel around 2:30am with tired bodies and restless spirits.
The next day, Max came to us with announcements for this upcoming night.
We went to eat dinner across the street, worship again, and drank some coffee around 9:30pm to set off down the streets. This time, we went farther up the road. Sometimes we’d pass a large group, and rather than stopping to pray, Max would put his hand out to signal, ‘we’re not stopping to talk here.’ After rounding the corner, and meeting group of four people from Venezuela who ended up accepting Christ (stop. pause. celebrate. pray for them.), Max stopped us a little ways down the sidewalk.
“This part of town is extremely dangerous,” he told us.
This was becoming a well-known fact. Phillipe and Chris, two men that had lived on these streets for years, stood among the group of American women they had sworn to protect, and looked at each other with wide eyes. “We’re going down that street?” We furthered on. The local gas station manager walked out of his store and stopped Max, telling him, “do you know where you’re going? That street is too dangerous for you all to go down.” Two policemen stopped their cars to back up to our group. “What are you doing here? This street is extremely dangerous. Stop walking here and turn around.”
I appreciate that they were looking out for our well-being. To be fair, if I was walking into an area where there were heightened chances of me getting stabbed or robbed, I would want to know. But Max told us we were walking forward anyway. Call it what you will: ignorance to danger or the courage Christ gives, but we walked down that street unafraid. We prayed before we stepped around the corner. With eyes open and heads swiveled, we spoke peace and safety over all of us. We finished praying, looked at one another, and proceeded.
The street was decently bare. The police lights were already flashing, so everyone had retreated to the shadows. We walked up the hill, crossing the street to avoid a flaming mattress, passed a brothel, and watched as quiet men scurried by. We walked farther along to what Max told us was the transvestite prostitute street, and allowed the ladies in the teams to split off. We held hands, prayed, chatted, even giggled with some of them. We stopped at a street where men were delivering truckloads of watermelons (among other things). We stopped in the middle of the biggest drug transaction of the night to ask these men if we could pray for them, and in the middle of their work, few of them said yes. And we went on our way.
Eventually, we make it back to the hotel. We have breakfast, we pack up, we hop in the van and drive the five hours back home.
Boom, end of story.
I could leave my blog there, just to let you all know that a group of women made it through the streets of San Jose unscathed. Maybe the story could have been completely different. God could have used us to cast out demons, heal the sick, miraculously speak their language and be able to tell them about the Gospel through our own mouths. One of us could’ve been stabbed, robbed, or shot. Who knows what those streets have in store on the regular. But none of that happened. Just a night strolling down the city blocks, praying for people, with or without them knowing it.
I know, I know, I would’ve loved to hop on here to tell you all God used me to heal a blind man. I would’ve been so quick to write a story if Kayla had cast out a demon, or if Emily had led a prostitute to Christ.
But none of that happened, so why are there multiple of us posting about the nights we roamed San Jose? Because of two things that were made evident:
We follow Christ, and the streets do not.
And friends, that hurts. There’s a reason I’ve felt this lingering ache in my spirit and knots in my back, and no– it’s not because of the bed I find myself sleeping on.
Bread Crumbs 
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