Inspiration '09

The Latin American Area Conference 2009 is designed to provide a time for all of the ReachGlobal missionaries of Latin America to be inspired in their hearts, challenged in their minds and refreshed in their spirit as they continue to faithfully serve God in their host countries. This year's conference, Inspiration '09, officially began at 7:30pm last night in Punta Leona, Costa Rica. My official kick-off of the conference began at 6:30am when I took my very first taxi ride through downtown San Jose to meet up with the Lincoln E-Free team at their hotel: Best Western Irazu. I will admit that even though I had only been in Costa Rica approximately 10 days, it was wonderful to see some familiar faces. The conference had provided an early bus at the hotel to take us to the resort at Punta Leona - about a 2.5 hour drive. We were told to sit at the front of the bus and have our water bottles ready because the road to Punta is mountainous and curvy and motion sickness is apparently quite common. No joke. We made one stop along the way: Puente cocodrillo. It was a random bridge that overlooks the third most populated river of crocodiles. How cool. I did make friends with one of the smaller crocs (see above photo!).

Punta Leona Hotel and Resort covers over 750 acres of private lush tropical rainforest, pristine white and gold sand beaches, the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and breath-taking sunsets. (I stole that description from their brochure!) There are over 330 exotic bird species (Steve, I'm going to try to get pictures of all 330 for you!), hundreds of fascinating plants and giant tropical trees. The resort is also full of entertaining white faced monkeys, iguanas, short nosed coatis (not quite sure what they are), and many species of butterflies, toucans and brilliant scarlet macaws. And the best part is that we can drink the water! But seriously, the area is beautiful, although extremely HUMID - welcome to the rainforest.

Today was the first full day of the conference, and there was a lot of information shared about the state of Latin American missions within ReachGlobal. It was incredible to experience first hand the process of casting vision within a ministry that I am now able to call my own. I will share more specifics on this in a later blog. The rest of our sessions were on the topic of Prophesy and hearing/recognizing God's voice. This was such a fascinating session because the gift of prophesy is not a gift that is taught much in the Evangelical circle. Nothing crazy weird, I promise. The focus was on building a biblical foundation for understanding that hearing God's "voice" is truly the birthright of every believer. It was a wonderfully done workshop, but now I have quite a bit to process through, and new questions to ask.

Prayers? Yes Please.
I have really been struggling these past couple of days with my ability to focus. I am distracted during prayers, lectures and even my language classes. My mind seem to be always wandering - which is producing quite a bit of frustration. Pray for God to put my mind at rest, for a peace greater than myself, for my mind to be open for God to speak to me and mold me this week. I am so blessed to be able to begin my ministry by attending this conference, and I want to be able to glean as much as possible. Thank you for your prayers.