White Butterflies, White Birds, White Horses – Costa Rica

And this is me in Costa Rica, the one writing you on the first week of year 23…

Hit the donate button above to support the continued transformation of 30 racers and of the locals we are serving, last 3 months are in Panama!

Squad leading has been the most rewarding and confidence building experience of my life, and I have to say I’m dreaming a lot bigger about the rest of my time on Earth loving people and leading them to Christ (my God is big, and what He’s built in me is bigger than I ever thought) 

 

White butterflies

Can you see them floating across the air, and then latching onto a bud

The metamorphosis of a butterfly is a typical metaphor

But it’s the one God’s chosen to use for Gap 23
Flying into freedom, hidden, then being transformed into the image of the Son

Through the long and hard process, my squad stays and through wounds of past and chains of present

The Sovereign Lord works the transformation out, and I’m learning that part is beyond my role or ability

Each so uniquely beautiful, and each as white as snow in the eyes of a Perfect Maker

It’s unavoidable the Father’s delicate hand and the Spirit’s guidance for us

White birds

In the middle of the most divine conversations, those moments frozen in time –

Where your surroundings and the words coming out of each other’s mouths say nothing but His glory –

And you can’t help but be grateful you’re in front of each other –

That somehow our long, windy stories and souls intertwine

for this moment before the Lord,

Often a white bird cascades across the landscape,

the Lord tells me 

I am right here, and this is the center of My Will

For you, and for them

I am well pleased

 

White horses

 Horses resemble freedom 

They are massive, majestic – bigger than us

Especially the white ones speak of what’s beyond this broken world

I look at him through the landscape, and see something pure, reminding me of what’s Heaven 

Even when the pain, apathy, confusion, heaviness and all creates a wall that makes it hard to endure

H O P E

He’s just getting started

 

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Journal entries… 

The water ran down my face as the light rushed into the wrench-run shower and for a moment the sadness of my spirit evaporated and I knew I was truly living, exactly where I’m supposed to be

Praise for heaviness

One of the best days of my life the ocean and quality time and prayers over so many just a little younger than me 

And my job is literally to spend time with God’s beloved that’s cool and do what I’ve been training for 8 years in the Spirit to do. 

It’s like I couldn’t tell what the last week and a half has been until I came back here. Every single one of them impacts me changes me, I love that we’re clay. I love it Lord. I left the people below a more joyful and free and confident and loving person, friendship

Remember what God showed you, your heart offered on a platter, bleeding pouring out. Wear your heart on your sleeve Hannah. I can’t tell you how important this is to me

God’s given me this heart that takes it as responsibility to care for those hurting – so yes Lord I have to release it to you. When they rejoice I rejoice, when they hurt I hurt, and there’s 30 of them! Maybe it’s a little bit what parents feel like. But it’s such an honor. To love hurts sometimes, but there’s nothing better than being known and knowing

 Im weak  

(The woman in the background of this picture had pain her head and back that was an 8. After we prayed with her and her husband in the Spirit, the pain went to a 0! She was sobbing. And then in front of the whole church she shared the testimony of her healing)

The Most Holy of holies is supposed to be protected, cared for, guarded by specific entrusted people in the Old Testament. What do I see in the new covenant? I see the Most Holy to ever be on Earth beaten, vulnerable, exposed, shamed, spit on, betrayed, and abandoned in Jesus. The sin that pierced holiness, pierced Christ’s head. Thorns. Thorns jammed into the Head of Holiness, because of us. We do it again and again as we turn away from God and deny Him, the thorn gets jammed deeper into His flesh. And he’d keep silent and continue to pursue us. He’d give us every chance. And if you don’t take it. That’s on you, not on this Savior with blood all over His face

Aby had a vision for me – she said God has called me to connect with people who are walking through brokenness. As I walk with them, my feet are pierced by the shards of glass. The point is to bleed like Jesus does for us and with us. It’s for love. He’ll turn those wounds into beautiful scars of remembrance by the Healer. 

Oh Father I say “God’s beautiful” sitting next to a racer as three silhouetted birds fly across the sunset sky with a moon ring just barely peaking through. You couldn’t see it unless you looked closely. He made me tear that he’d make someone as strong and powerful and wonderous as the racers. It washed over me – God’s so proud. And I got to share what God has brought me through, and it glories him and encourages them to hope. She says it’s such a blessing to have a safe place in you for a squad leader that will see us the same no matter what we share. Heart to heart conversations with the racers are my fav thing 

Her brown hands of generosity only like 11 years old, clasped a necklace of dolphins on me. Her favorite animal her dream to see dolphins and she gives me it after one moment of seeing her. Brita. Lord bless her. I will remember her

I’ll remember that God has joy for me and sometimes to just live and not think. We danced in church today, and it was sooo fun, what beautiful worship to the Lord-I was free and in the moment.

And it would only take one braided mother crying on her knees for me to be moved to mine. Forgive me Father for again losing my focus and the value of exactly who you made me to be. It has to be about you, and only committed to you 

Yesterday goosebumps filled my limbs as I walked a walk of a local who’s daily walk is so different than mine. Smoke rising, chicken wondering, shade of trees, simplicity. I come to life in culture that is out of the norm for me

There’s rural Rio Grande: She was touched by the deaf woman today whose son died at 8 years old. I told her to let God move your heart…We talked about how the people we are living with have so much less; curtains for doors, huge beetles walking their floors. Yet it’s enough for them, and we have learned that all we need is Jesus and others. But in the States, we spend so much energy to increase the comfort we actually need less of.

 

And then there’s touristy Jaco: There was a sanctuary of my body sitting by a pool and bar of people made in the Image, sipping the experience they’ve worked for. Looking into the eyes of a woman’s body they longed for. My racer, in the pool, discusses the Gospel but listens even more to a seeker who is spiritual and has studied all religion. 

 The poor and humble spiritually, circumstantially, physically, familialy that we overlook will be brought high and crowned. So don’t live for what passing  

The swaying luminescent reflections in the pool mock the counterfeit abundant life this environment offers. The crashing roar of the waves wasn’t made that the Image bearers would live for this. Behind the laughs and the lust is a story and a part of my Lord waiting to be revealed as a son or a daughter. May it not be unsatisfied potential Lord

Today we got to know Edith

Edith is a young beauty from Mexico, on her soul she wears welcome and lack of fear. Wisdom and grace.
She works at an orphanage training them in sustainable ways to grow and take care of planting. She says you have these gifts now go use them. She says the people who need help will be placed in front of you. Drew and I share our heart for Jesus and our dreams 

We get to pray for her at the end that she would be served back as she serves so much, get to speak the love of the Father, she’s crying by the end of it sweet sweet tears. She happened to be on this vacation alone, and God gave her a moment to say Daughter, I care so much about you 

I wake up on my 23rd birthday and God tells me do you know how much joy it gave me that day 23 years ago when you were born, when you set foot on this Earth? I was ready for how you would shift atmospheres. How you’d dance and in the air land on ground that shakes and impacts the people around. Do you get it? you dance in this life. You feel it. You You are free and you’re in My Kingdom even when there’s hell on earth  

The day you set foot on this earth my legs trembled at the joy you gave me, if you could see me smile you’d see me smiling cheek to cheek. I want to dance with you for eternity. Look at me. Look at me 

Your name is sought after

Do you know how I see you?

When I look at you I see lights beaming off your face 

Like a lamb in a pasture under the shadow of a tree

As deep at you could go away, the water would be crystal clear like there was no distance, I’d still see you

 

Brook’s vision for me, the next season is going to be step by step obeying the Lord. You may have to carry a lot, it may be hard but it’s super beautiful – it was on either a beach or in the forest. And you might not know why this is the direction you are going, and there might be the unexpected but to trust 

 

They washed my feet and prayed over me for my birthday. So loved, but to receive it I had to first find love and worth in the only place that is satisfactory in the first place, Him