Volvering to Los Estados

Ah, man. Saying goodbye to 35 people you've spent time with every day for the past 8 months is no small feat. There are instant tears upon just seeing some people with a suitcase. I know I'll see some of them in just a couple of months, but there are still others who I  don't know when I'll see again.

Until the day of graduation, I didn’t think I had any feelings because everyone else was crying and I wasn’t. 

I wrote a note to every student. I didn’t cry. I reminisced on Facebook. I didn’t cry. I repeatedly thought about everyone leaving soon. I still didn’t cry.

But I found out something about myself when my roommate came to me teary-eyed after reading her note. If I see someone else crying, I cry. And I’ve cried and cried and cried these past 8 hours. Half of the Villa is gone. Half of my room is gone. And they just keep disappearing. And I have to wait around until tomorrow morning to come home to the States.

Part of me thinks "who on earth thought to make a program where you're forced to spend every waking moment together, then torture them by making them leave each other?” 

But obviously I see why. I’ve never lived with people my age for more than a few weeks at camp. I never thought I would really feel what leaving a part of myself in another country was like. I've never instantly clicked with people in less than 24 hours. I've never had a family of believers where I see every step of their growing and changing. I've never felt like I could just go to more than one person with absolutely anything. And if you told me I would love 35 people with every personality out there, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Although leaving this all behind in Costa Rica, I know that I have an insane network of hermanos all over the U.S. They may all be 21 and under. They may not have much real life under their belt. They may come across as immature and inexperienced. But I’ll be the first to tell you that the 29 gringo students that I lived with are going to do incredible things; things that I can’t begin to imagine. I have no doubt that good will come because of their love for the Lord.

And even though the closest students are 4 hours away, and the second closest are 10, I know that we will not lose our friendships. We can’t lose what we have in common, which has been my driving force through everyone leaving Costa Rica. 

We have the Holy Spirit connecting us as brothers and sisters, whether we’re on rocking chairs on the same porch or countries on different continents.

Seeking

I don’t have much to say about Costa Rica, other than the fact that I come home in less than two weeks! I’ve never been this excited and sad at the same time, but I’m preparing myself for coming back to the States and seeing everyone and starting college in less than 4 months. Wow, THAT’S terrifying. 

Now for the point of this blog post… For the past 10 days or so, I’ve been really intrigued by Greek and Hebrew word studies in the Bible. If I'm being honest, the MacArthur Bible Commentary and Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance have been my closest companions (along with a couple of my GAP friends who have been patiently listening to me bask in the meanings of words in different contexts; thank you very much). To give you an idea of how excited I am, I’m using more than one pop-out color in this post, which makes it the only one, which is a big deal. 

About a month ago I noticed that I had been feeling withdrawn from a relationship with God. I hadn’t been feeling too different, but I just wasn’t growing or moving anywhere. I was waiting on God to show me or tell me something, ANYTHING, that I could do. And when nothing was happening, I decided I’d just read whatever I came across and hope it motivated me. So about three and a half weeks I went behind the other girls rooms and opened up a Bible that I just got. Our Bible teacher’s wife left a small NLT Bible here for the students when they moved back to the States. I’ve never had an NLT, but I claimed it then and gave it a go. So after I got situated and after a few minutes of flipping through pages trying to choose a book of the Bible, I decided on Psalms. And I opened to a page with a verse highlighted in blue. I read: 

“Search for the Lord and His strength, and keep on searching.” 

Psalm 105:4 (NLT)

In my few minutes of reading this little NLT, I realized that the words would probably be different in my ESV, so I read that version, too, which says:

“Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually.” 

Psalm 105:4 (ESV)

Hmm... Seek. That jogged my memory of another verse that I found last summer and loved:

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)

I thought about those verses for about a week and a half, reading and rereading them, making notecards that said them, seeing how every Spanish and English version of the Bible worded it, and throughout it all, realizing that I couldn’t be a sitting duck waiting on God. I had to seek Him. I had to put effort in on my side, too. Why hadn’t I realized it sooner? I don’t know, but man, I’m glad I grabbed that little Bible in March and went back to the girls rooms that day a month later.

Well, I’ve only used a concordance a few times, once at camp and a little bit here, so I didn’t know much about using one. I went to the shelf and got the giant book. It’s bigger than my head and weighs about as much as a small child. To be honest, it was intimidating just to hold. But I flipped to the word “seek” and was inundated by 128 appearances of the word. I first skimmed down to Psalm 104:5. Both times in that verse it comes from the Hebrew bāqaš, which means to seek, search, look for, call to account, ask for, inquire about. 

Then I scanned my finger down to Jeremiah 29:13. That’s where I got excited. The first “seek” is the same Hebrew word, bāqaŝ. But the second one is different... Number 2011. It’s the word dāraš. It means to seek, inquire, consult, ponder, investigate. 

So I tried reading it like this:

“You will seek, search, look for, call to account, ask, inquire about me and find me when you seek, inquire, consult, ponder, investigate me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)

I can’t be idle and just expect God to do all the work in this relationship. I have to get off my seat and dāraš Him with all I’ve got so that I will bāqaŝ Him! I have to ponder Him. I have to investigate Him. And I have to consult Him. And all that searching will make me look, ask, and inquire about Him in my daily life. 

I don’t know if you think it’s as exciting as I do, but it got me really pumped up to keep looking at words. Since then I’ve looked at a lot and learned so much more than I ever thought I would. When I see a word that might have multiple meanings, I usually drop everything and get the concordance to look it up before I forget. I’ve even picked up a little (and I mean very, very, very little) bit of Hebrew and Greek along the way! If you have a lot of free time and a concordance, I will warn you of one thing: If you start, it’s hard to stop. There’s so much to learn from the original meanings of words in the Bible. It’s still blowing my mind! I love it!

That's all I got. I didn't try too hard on this post, so sorry for the grammatical nightmare that it is. If anyone wants to have concordance parties this summer hit me up. I got no plans.

Hotel Del Rey

*note: this is long and not the usual feel-good post*

Ellen:

There’s a big pink hotel in downtown San José. It’s a little hidden from the main road, but it’s still near the heart of downtown. Its colonial architecture and the quaint park nearby make it seem like a beautiful place for tourists of all kinds to stay (you can check out their website here. In the park people read, musicians perform, dogs play.  And nearby Hotel del Rey seems like a sleepy old hotel, like most do during the day. 

But let me tell you something. Come nightfall, Hotel del Rey is anything but beautiful. Once it’s dark, business begins. The crowds of people in the surrounding brightly-lit bars somewhat disguise the darkness of what Hotel del Rey is. A brothel. The largest in Central America, in fact.

“Hotel del Rey” in English is “Hotel of the king”. King with a lowercase “k”, not King with a capital “k”. Because the king of that hotel is not our King.

“In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4

Hotel “of the king” breaks our capital “k” King’s heart. Hotel del Rey is ruled by this king of the world and it does not have the light of our King Jesus. You can feel the darkness as you near the hotel, even when you’re in the park (you can read more about that below in Kelsey’s section).

I heard about this hotel and what goes on inside in the fall from a local ministry called LightForce International (more info about this ministry is below in Christy’s section), but I hadn’t seen it. All I knew about it was that it was somewhere downtown and it was pink. I had completely forgotten about it until about a month ago when we were headed to La Carpio for ESL. I turned around to ask my friend something on the bus and I saw it. And it was huge. Last week I finally remembered to look it up. I didn’t know what to search so I just typed in “Hotel del Rey San José Costa Rica” into the search bar. Near the top I saw a website with hotel reviews so I went with that one. 

I’ve never had to do hotel research before because my parents always take care of it. But now that my eyes have been opened to the complete publicity out there, it’ll make me think a lot before booking a hotel. I read this link: TripAdvisor's reviews of the hotel. Now, before you click it, I’m warning you that you will read things that make your jaw drop. It’s absolutely sickening to read what men are so proud to post. Single men, married men, ignorant men, lost men. There are a few negative reviews about the service and bills, but there are no complaints about the brothel part of their stays. A few people didn’t know it was a brothel, but they stayed anyway and didn’t care. Upon reading all 72 reviews, my heart sank. It still hasn’t risen back to the surface.

  It’s a known fact here that gringos come to Hotel del Rey for the sole purpose of sleeping with a prostitute. They walk in, pay for a room, have a few drinks, and choose a girl. Sometimes they take them on a date to a bar or restaurant next door. Gah, just typing that made me sick. I think what I hate most is that all but (6-8) reviews are in English. All but (6-8) reviews are from gringos. Men from the United States. Men from my country. That kills me. Someone told us that the hotel was really busy for a few nights last year when Obama came to Costa Rica. Apparently Obama stayed in a different area, but Hotel del Rey was packed with our politicians. Isn’t that something that people deserve to know about? I think so.

I continued researching Hotel del Rey, and unfortunately I only found worse things. Among those was this Costa Rican website called Tica Secrets. I thought I may have finally found the site disapproving of it, but as I kept reading, I found I was wrong. And I kept being wrong. There wasn’t anything exposing Hotel del Rey in a bad light. It’s all portrayed as positive. Here’s another link to an article about what Hotel del Rey is all about. 

This is what people see on the Internet. There are tons of brothels all over the world, but the majority are secret. But Hotel del Rey isn’t some underground effort. What goes on there is 100% public. And those reviews are taken into account and followed by countless men visiting Costa Rica.

I think most Costa Ricans are ignorant to the presence of the hotel, and if they know about it, I can’t find many efforts to stop it (Besides LightForce. Read on in Christy’s section to find out more about it). And the gringos that know about it are the thousands feeding it and the few working against it. This blog post is a compilation of the four of us who went to see the hotel up close on Friday.

Kelsey:

As Ellen said, four of us went to Hotel del Rey on Friday. Lisa, Christy, Ellen and I walked from the bus stop through the park in downtown San José. Walking through this park toward the Hotel, the closer we got, the more you literally felt the presence of darkness. We stood across the street for a few minutes looking at the building. We saw only men. Standing in the door ways of that building and the surrounding ones. The surrounding buildings consist of casinos, bars and restaurants that we had read about on the internet. We could point out the businesses and say, “that one has good food that he brought one of the girls to” or, “He brought three girls from that bar back to his room in the hotel”.

The four of us stood across the street from the hotel in front and surrounded by the casinos and bars. Broken. Broken for the broken hearts. Surrounded by darkness. Surrounded by lost people. Surrounded by emptiness crying out for fulfillment. 

And we prayed.

Speechless, I opened my mouth to pray, but no words came for a few moments. The presence of darkness, Satan’s foothold on that whole place was remarkably tangible. We felt the pressure of it on our chests.

But, we stood there together as one body of light in the darkness. Crying out to God for the empty men and women that were behind the walls and barred windows. Fitting, that the windows are covered and barred. These people are trapped. Like a jail. In chains. In bondage of the desperation for a Savior. We prayed that God would rescue these people, tear down the bars and walls of their hearts, open their eyes to see that their ways of life are going to leave them unsatisfied. Empty. Wounded. Hurt. Yearning. Searching. For something more. For both sides: For these precious women to see their value and worth. For them to see there are other ways to make a living. For them to come to know their Creator, to experience true love and fulfillment. For these lost men. For them to think about the consequences. For them to value these women and the other ones in their lives. For them to come to know Jesus. (You will read in Lisa’s section how hard it was and is for us to love both sides of this).

We asked God to take these places out of business. To show Satan that he has no power over Him. Jesus has defeated the grave, death itself. He has defeated Satan. Jesus is The King. He has reigned, He reigns right now and will reign forever. The TRUE, Holy, Just, Sovereign, Righteous King Jesus has already won the war. It hit us that the name of “Hotel del Rey” that “Hotel of the King” is not the hotel of the real King. OUR KING. The things happening in that building and in that whole area break the True King’s heart. We asked God to show us if there is anything that we could do to fight this. God have given us the opportunity  to learn about and become friends with some of the people from LightForce International which you will read about in Christy’s post. 

Lisa:

As you can gather by now, this whole injustice completely sickens us. Once my eyes were opened to the blatant perverseness of Hotel Del Rey, it seemed my eyes were opened to other darknesses that surrounded me as well. There were nights my chest was so tight praying for this broken world it was hard to breathe, nights resulting in endless tears realizing what was going on in these girls’ lives as I slept comfortably in my bed, nights of angry prayers to My Father as I was confused and incapable of seeing His big picture-because there is a big picture. So, after God sorted my emotions and gave me refocus I as well as the rest of us were faced with the question: What is a righteous reaction to this, and as the Body of Christ, how do we respond? The response part of this will be found in Christy’s section (yes, it’s next, we’re done alluding to it). After talking to Life Force’s Anna Carrol, we received a realistic perspective, one that isn’t as hopeless as we make it seem.

First of all, we’re called to take every thought captive in obeying Christ. If we go about this completely emotion driven, we will get burnt out and therefore be ineffective in our ministry. But getting involved in other people’s lives means you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable to an extent. Cry for these lost broken people, yell at the injustice of it all, but return to the conclusion that God is Sovereign over all things and our flawed human perspective will not grasp His eternal, all-knowing one. I can yell at God all day asking “why?” and nearly drive myself mad, or I can step back, breath and ask Him to steady my heart and give me His eyes.

Second, it’s important while tackling any darkness to build a solid foundation of the goodness of God. A lot can read past this rather quickly thinking, “Of course I know God is good.” But do you? Seeing one human take advantage of another, hurt each other emotionally and physically while pursuing a selfish degrading life…can we gaze upon such a godless world, one that at times appears to have no light and the end of the tunnel, look up to the heavens and proclaim “You are a good God”?

Yes. Through His Holy Spirit we can. God is a God of grace, a God of justice, a God of mercy and love and is ready and willing to work in any way He sees fit to receive the most honor. Stories from encounters on the streets have encouraged us, as through the ministry of His servants people are being exposed to the light, and God is being glorified.

And thirdly, in dealing with the “Johns” or the buyers of sex, and the pimps-what about them? In my flesh, I despise these men and women(women run a lot of brothels as well). I am frustrated and angry and disgusted. No way can I love such people. And this is where it gets crazy, because we as the hands and feet of Christ are called to do just that. Love them. They are just as broken as the women they buy and sell. It’s a cycle of brokeness, a cycle of de-valued people seeking fulfillment in a temporal pleasure that will not last. Anna compared it to MSG, how its consumed with the intention to satisfy but does no such thing and leaves the consumer wanting more. So it is with this lustful trap. These men, picking a woman and taking her on a date fills them with a false sense of value, because in some area of their lives, (past abuse, marriage, family) they have been robbed of their value. A surprising note was that a portion of these men are past war veterans, men going through divorce, or men that were bullied in school. And here’s where we take heart. This cycle of brokenness doesn’t intimidate our Savior, and it shouldn’t intimidate us. We walk as victors in this world, Christ defeated death and in fact reigns as King. Love with the same abandon Christ did as he hung there bleeding on the cross for the sin we were once slaves to. Walk in that truth, and continue to speak of the truth that is setting people free.

Christy:

Ok, so here is the part about one of the ministries here working in Costa Rica to help these broken people. One thing Anna said about the Johns here is, “Hurt people hurt people.” If that is true, and it is, then the opposite should also be true. Healed people heal people. Now, no one is whole or healed without Christ, and He is the true healer. Healed people are the Christians that have Jesus’ Holy Spirit working through them. The true healing comes when He decides to make it happen. He is good. He really is, and He loves the men and the women. Light Force goes out at night and gives these men (yes, men sell their bodies too) and women coffee and cookies. They love them right where they are at. If someone shows interest in getting out of that life, they help them. They send them to a psychologist and help them find jobs. They give them a place to stay and offer them love. They also do many more things that I just don’t know about. You can find their information here. To support them can be as little as buying your coffee from them (it is good Costa Rican coffee), but you don’t just have to support them. 

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44

Those are the Johns, pimps, and brothel owners. Broken humans in need of a savior.  

“You must also help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” 2 Corinthians 1:11

Pray. Never stop mentioning these women and men in your prayers. Pray for the ministries. Pray for the  prostitutes. Pray for the johns, pimps, and brothel owners. Pray, pray, pray. But don’t just pray for the ones in Costa Rica. This is a global epidemic. A sickness that has been happening since the beginning of time and happens right in the United States. In Denver, pimps make close to $50 million a month, while in Atlanta, GA it was reported that sex trafficking brought in about $350 million dollars last year. Pray. 

This plague of their minds starts from devaluation. Just like the johns are hurting men from totally different backgrounds, these men and women have been devalued. They have been told they are not good enough. They walk into school, they get judged and devalued. They hurt, and they think this is the only way. Give the people around you value! Just like Light Force goes to the prostitutes where they are, we as Christians must love people where they are. When you see someone who does’t look “presentable” to you, love them anyway. We don’t know their story, and if we devalue them without knowing them, we are continuing the cycle of brokenness. Jesus made friends with the prostitutes. Maybe He was thinking of His lineage, and Rahab the prostitute He came from, who saved the spies in Jericho. Obviously God finds value even in the lowly. Love the unlovely. Stop prostitution before it happens. Anna asked us, “Who is socially awkward, withdrawn, bullied?” Love them! They have lost their value. Jesus wants to use us so that He can restore it in Him. 

Also, know the government and laws. It is extremely important to know what is going on to help these people. Look into children’s groups for prevention. Volunteer at a homeless shelter or rehab facility. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. Educate your children. Pornography feeds this evil industry, and many kids start viewing it at the age of 8. Know what is being viewed and educate those around you. Share this post, and/or more importantly, share the link to Light Force’s page. There are many things you can do to help eradicate this. Remember, God is good, and He loves these people more than you or I do. There is hope in Him and Him alone.