What We Do and Why We Do It

I am going to take some time this week to write a little bit more about our missionary foundation and the work we do. This blog has mostly been a place where I processed thoughts and shared my heart, but it occurred to me that there may be some newer readers who are stopping by and have very little idea why I live in Costa Rica or what we do as missionaries here.

If you weren't around in the beginning and are not sure where we live, I shared a little geography tutorial here.

If you don't know our personal story and how we ended up back in the mission field in early 2012, you can read my personal perspective in a guest post at My Crazy Adoption.

In order to say "yes"to God and answer His call to serve him in the mission field in Costa Rica, we founded our family foundation: St. Bryce Missions. You can find much there about our history and our mission and what we do. Our mission statement says this:
                                                              Mission Statement

   Saint Bryce Missions is a lay Catholic association of the faithful  established to aid and serve the poor in foreign mission and domestic evangelization. Faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and under the direction of the local Bishops and Pastors, we promote the rich teachings of the Catholic Church and support the third world missions by serving in lay apostolates such as teaching, evangelization, projects for the poor and helping build church infrastructure. Consecrated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the source and focus of all endeavors of this lay apostolate is the Most Holy Eucharist and devotion to Our Lady. 

Over the course of this week, I will highlight some of the ministry we work we are currently doing in our large, rural parish, San Antonio de Padua de Tayutic. It is a parish that is comprised of a vast geographical territory which includes 18 rural communities and the entirety of the Chirripo Indian Reservation. While our main work in the mission field is the spiritual work of evangelization, we undertake many material works to aid the poor as well. The principle work among those is the construction and renovation of chapels in poor communities. The reasoning behind making this our principle work is expressed today on the foundation's Facebook page: 

Why building chapels for the poor is such an important part of the new evangelization, a great witness to charity and the virtue of hope. Blessed John Paul II said in his Papal Encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" "Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no extravagance devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassed gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first disciples charged with preparing the large upper room, she has felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy of so great a mystery." 

This is our goal St. Bryce Missions: to help build and restore chapels in poor communities. The poor in many cases want a place to honor the mystery of the Eucharist but do not have the resources within their own community to build a chapel. The poor struggle everyday just to feed their bodies and it is part of our duties to help them meet their basic needs for food and shelter. But along with feeding their bodies, they must be nourished spiritually and come to the understanding of the reality of the hope of heaven so they do not despair at the harshness of their lives and fall into many sins. For Catholics, that nourishment is found in the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, and the life-giving grace of the other Sacraments as well. A chapel built in a poor community is a beacon of hope that rises out of a sea of despair that can draw all men to Christ. For very little of our resources simple chapels can be built from materials that will last for several generations. In providing a sacred space where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can take place and the Blessed Sacrament can be made available in the tabernacle, we are honoring Christ and the poor whom Christ loves and desires to be with in His Real Presence. 

This video shows the process and simple design we have created to provide long-lasting, dignified places of worship that will need minimal maintenance over time:

We have completed a number of projects over the last year and a half in the area in which we are working directly, including the chapel above in the indigenous community of Quetzal. All work is funded through donations from sponsors (parishes, groups, families, and individuals) who adopt a particular project and sponsor it.

Last month, our supporters at St. Nicholas Church in Lydia made it possible for us to fulfill our dream of spreading the work of chapel building to other poor areas of Costa Rica, Latin America, and the world by funding the construction of a long awaited chapel for the community of Bella Vista in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. We spent a week visiting with the community and visiting homes to share the joy of our faith and the Eucharistic presence with our brothers and sisters now.




We have a number of new collaborations in other areas we will soon be seeking sponsorship for, but our current priority projects awaiting adoption can be viewed on our funding site. In addition to the Bella Vista chapel above, a chapel reconstruction for the indigenous community of Nimari is fully funded and underway, as well as the Padre Pio chapel in the rural community of Bajo Pacuare de San Joaquin.

Our current priority projects are now the two chapels needed on the island of Chirra in Costa Rica:



There are also a number of smaller renovation projects that can be seen on the funding page as well as information on how you can organize your group to raise funds for a project you would like to adopt. Take some time to look around the site and see if God pulls on your heart to reach out to your brothers and sisters at the ends of the earth and care for the poor by nourishing their souls with the Most Holy Eucharist and plating the virtue of hope in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 13:13 calls faith, hope and love the three remaining, or abiding, virtues:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

And the Catholic Church calls them the theological virtues and the foundation of all Christian moral activity: 

 The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (CCC 1813)

I can think of no better way to act on these virtues and make them apparent to the poor than in your charitable love for them building them a place to practice their faith and renew their hope in the presence of God among them.

Help us by sharing this post, our web sites and Facebook pages with your contacts, spreading the word about who we are and the work we do, and considering if your parish, ministry, community or family might want to adopt a chapel project and work for its completion. E-mail us for more information at stbrycemissions AT gmail DOT com.

**We are often asked about short term groups sponsoring a chapel and coming to participate in its construction. We welcome your group and would encourage you to visit and get to know the community you are aiding, but we prefer to allow local builders to hire workers from within the communities to complete construction problems. It provides much needed work, increases the community's involvement in and responsibility for their project and ensures the work is done according to local quality standards. Thank you for understanding.

Revive, Retreat, Regroup: Or What Happened to January

I have been rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks now how to come back to my space and pick up again, how to explain my January in words. I am rarely at a loss for words, but the events of this month were so, so big. Too big for any words that I have. It was a month of rare grace. And always the grace of God is so much bigger and better than words can express. And the things we experienced were so, so full. A play by play would take me weeks to type out and you days to read. And let's be honest, ain't nobody got time for that. So, I came up with the quick little outline above in the title. That's my month in brief. And here today I tell you the story of my revival:

Blessed indeed are the feet

1. Revive: In the final days of December and first week of January, we welcomed our first ever group of visitors to the mission: a group of young people who had been inspired by Kisses From Katie to seek out a missionary opportunity, a few of their parents and a youth minister, and a group of friars from the Franciscan Brothers Minor.

And my joy shall be in you and your joy shall be complete
A perfect description of these men of God

We had spent a year planning and waiting for their arrival. But to be honest, by the time Christmas rolled around, I was spent. The planning and constant pace life had taken on since the summer had worn me out. I was happy to have company, as I always am, but tending to the details of their stay and keeping life up in the mean time, not to mention trying live Advent and Christmas (I'm sorry to say I don't really feel like I did either of these very well), had me wound up in knots. I kept telling the Lord, "I am so happy to have people visit, really I am, but can't you see that more work is not what I need right now? I'm exhausted. I need revival."

And I will lead you beside still waters. Or raging waters, depending.
Either way, you will be revived. That's how the Lord works with me, anyway.

Well, as it often goes with the Big Guy, He heard my cries. And He brought me just what I needed in a way I never expected. The trip was, in fact, a lot of work and at times totally exhausting. But it also was exactly the thing I needed to revive my missionary zeal, my personal spiritual life, and the sense of community I had been desperately longing for. I hadn't realized how carrying the burden of lack of community had worn me out until I had people around to share my life with.

Thou shalt not pass...I cannot tell you how uplifting it was to laugh with these people,
to experience the joy of walking together with them.

It did me good to see our life in a bigger context. It did wonders for me to see the people we minister to through someone else's eyes. The effect of a long confession with a bit spiritual direction thrown in? In ENGLISH? Like my first warm soul bath in a year.

No words. Just, yeah, this. Brother Faithful is his name.

The witness of the Franciscan friars was, in no exaggerated terms, life-giving and life-changing. But the missionary zeal and perseverance of the young people was the thing that really watered my missionary soul deep down at its roots. They came to do something they dreamed of doing for a long time. They struggled. They got sick. They got tired. They fumbled over language barriers and culture shock. And yet they persevered. Until all that faded away and they were able to reach out a hand, make a connection, and say, "Here is your God. Here is your family. We are here. And we love you. Because He does."

The foot bridge into the indigenous reserve,
where our brothers and sisters still wait for us to come
with the message of love and family and hope and God.

A memory that will stick in my mind forever I hope is us walking up to the door a wooden thatched hut in the indigenous village we were visiting to little meet a little girl. She was in the door way crying. We had waded through mud up to our knees to get there. The rest of us stayed a bit back so as not to frighten her and one young girl from our group, Katie, approached her with a pink rosary in her outstretched hand. She stood in front of that little girl and smiled and waited. And the little girl sniffled and stood and stared. Moments passed and the rest of us looking on began to shuffle in the awkwardness and whisper to Katie to just put the rosary at her feet and leave. Katie didn't budge. And way past the point at which most of would have walked away, her perseverance was rewarded when the little girl stretched out her hand, took the pink rosary and put it over head.

Her. Just her. So worth it.

We began the walk back to the school where we were inviting people to join us for an activity, a shortly after, noticed that this sweet little one was following us at a distance. If we turned to look, she hid. So we walked and let her follow. And then we watched her slowly let her tears turn to a smile. She blew bubbles with us and nibbled cookies and held our hands. And before the day was out, I watched one of the you people hold the cross at the end of that rosary up to her and introduce that little girl to her best friend, Jesus.

Oh how He loves us. 

I learned a lot that day. A lot about standing still in the moment, letting the awkwardness be what it is and waiting, hand outstretched. Waiting patiently for the tears and the fear and the shyness to ebb and the door to friendship to open. It is not easy to build relationships in a culture so different from our own, with a people who are shy and timid and who speak a language totally unfamiliar to me. I firmly believe that all evangelization has to be about relationship, and relationships are always based on trust. And building trust sometimes means that we stand in the doorway and smile longer than we might otherwise do, even when it feels really uncomfortable, until a hand reaches out and touches our own.

Here. This is where I lay down my life and hold out my hand
and wait for the door to open.

That is the revival I experienced over and over again viewing my mission life through the eyes of young people. They knew they only had a short while here. They knew their task held an sense of urgency. They were not going to let an opportunity pass them by. They charged up hills and crossed bridges and stood in doorways. They kicked soccer balls and trudged through mud. They held hands and shared cookies and loved and laughed and shone with the radiance of the life if Christ.

Missionary lunch -- picnic on the banks of the river

And I walked away knowing the supreme privilege it is to be given the chance to live that call every single day, and with a fervent desire to live it with the kind of perseverance and urgency these young people showed me. I got my revival. In the middle of the exhaustion, some new energy was born in me, the Spirit's flames were rekindled, the fire of His love began to glow bright again. And I am so, so grateful that my Heavenly Father knows just what I need and sends it in the most unexpected of ways.

Brothers Felix, Lorenzo and Fidelus play Baltazar, Caspar and Melchior
Epiphany - Yes, that's a good word to sum it all up.
An epiphany of joy.

The story of how retreating and regrouping followed my coming tomorrow. And then February begins to write its own story! I can't wait to see what the Lord has in mind.

Where In the World Are You?

Now that we have been living here in our mission home in Grano de Oro for a while, I'm starting a little series to tell you more about where we live, about our home and life here, about the Church here and the work we are doing at this time and hope to do in the future.  I wanted to wait a while to get our bearings in this new place, and surely, there is much, much for us to learn, but I do feel like we are becoming more familiar day by day with our surroundings. So, are you up for a little geography lesson first?

Costa Rica is in Central America, a group of countries south of Mexico that form the small strip of land that connects North America and South America. In the map below, it is the curving strip of red just above the blue of South America.

In Central America, Costa Rica is located south of Nicaragua and north of Panama.  In the map below, it is light green.

Now for Grano de Oro. It gets a little harder here. See, Grano de Oro doesn't really show up on maps.  Just 20 years ago, it didn't exist. It was all one farm owned by one family which bordered the mountains where the indigenous Cabecar communities of Costa Rica lived in the Chirripo River region.  Over the last twenty years, as the older generation of the family died and the land was split and children married and bore children of their own, a town has sprung up.  Electricity, running water and roads have only been installed in the last 10 -15 years.  When those things were introduced, the town became the entrance and exit point for people traveling in to and out of the communities in the Chirripo reservation lands. There are about forty communities in the reservation, spread out wide and far. Some are as close as 2-3 hour walk or 40 minute drive, others require an hour long drive to where the road ends and then 12-15 hours of walking.  

On the map below, just under the letter "A" in "CENTRAL", you will see a town called Turrialba.  That is the nearest full size town to us. It is about an hour drive. There are supermarkets and lots of places to get good fruits and vegetables there as well as a good number of all purpose stores and pharmacies to stock our house with the little extras. Just southeast of Turrialba, you'll see a town labeled Moravia.  That was the original farm land our town was once a part of. We are a further east of there.

Geographically, we are surrounded by lush green mountains and clear flowing rivers that remind me of the Smoky Mountains to some extend. On an average day with high sun, it is about 75-80 degrees here. In the evening, the fog rolls in off the mountains and the nights and morning can be down right chilly, 50-60 degrees. 

Even with the cooler climate, we are still surrounded by tropical beauty, with hydrangeas and bougainvillea in full bloom at all times, banana, plantain, avocado, and a host of other tropical fruits growing in our own back yard, and lovely bromeliads adorning the branches of our trees.  

Right now, we are in the dry season, and it is quite easy to get around town on foot and to get to neighboring towns and villages by car. Once the rains return in June and July, things will get a little more complicated.

For now, we are just enjoying getting to know this place. I hope my heart never stops skipping when we curve our way through the mountains and I catch that wide open glimpse of the lush mountain side, or when I look up and realize that we are at the top of the range, with nothing between us and the sky, or when I walk our dusty roads and glance to my left to see the clear rippling waters of the river bubbling over its smooth rocks. I hope that no matter how familiar this place becomes, I always stop to look close at the flowers beneath my feet, the lightening bugs dotting the bushes in the evening and the clear expanse of millions of stars overhead at night.  

When God created this magnificent sphere of earth, He was already there, in the person of Jesus, commanding His disciples to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth, and in order to ensure that we would listen, He bestowed an extra helping of beauty of those ends.  I will forever be grateful for this great act of love.

Unforgettable

This week we have had our friend, a priest from the States here visiting us.  It has been a busy week, but a good one. Ministry is picking up in pace quickly as the priests introduce to more and more aspects of the work they do here and the need for additional help.

Last Sunday, we hosted a fiesta for our community in Grano de Oro after Mass. It was to honor the youth of our community as they begin a new year of school and catechism, but all were invited to attend.  We provided food and drinks, built an incredible bonfire and introduced the concept of s'mores. There was music and a clear sky full of stars.  We roasted most of the marshmallows for everyone as the fire was so hot it was nearly impossible to stay close to it for very long.  I handed roasted marshmallows smashed between cookies and chocolate to my new friends and smiled at their appreciation.  In one dark corner sat a mother holding her baby and her small son.  They were Chirripo, indigenous visiting town to buy, sell, or begin a longer voyage to another city.  The indigenous people are very shy with us, rarely talking to us or even making eye contact.  But this mother had joined us with her children that night and I wanted to make sure that she had her taste of the goodness that is s'mores.  It was dark, so I leaned in closely to ask her if she had already had one. Her baby slept peacefully in her arms as she sat rocking back in forth in the light of the fire. And as I began to speak and  I saw her face in its flames, I smiled wide. There she sat, face happily covered in sticky marshmallow and cookie crumbs. And she smiled back at me, wide and lively, as she shook her head yes.  She had tasted the goodness. And so had I. I pray I shall never forget the sweet joy I felt in that moment.

I pray too that that night that mother felt remembered, appreciated, cared for. That all of our community felt that. For is it not the longing of every human soul not to be forgotten? And isn't it easy, when we suffer with our day to day cares, to feel all alone in the world. Even in a house full of people or with our arms full of baby love, we can feel forgotten and alone.  And even more common, right there, in the center of our church, we can feel like no one notices us.

Yesterday, Padre Johnny came to our house early in the morning. We loaded up into his truck, the back full of happy boys, and headed up into the mountains to the indigenous villages closest to our town. The two priests of our mission are responsible for ministering the entire Chirripo reservation, thousands upon thousands of acres of mountain land dotted with small communities of people, our brothers and sisters, wanting to be remembered. They minister to some 40 communities, all of which lack proper chapels to gather for worship.  They walk for hours every week to visit, to baptize, to say Mass, to tell our brothers and sisters that they are not forgotten, that they are remembered by their church.

We stopped to visit one village and look at the land that a member of the community is willing to donate for the building of a proper chapel.  A man approached and introduced himself and we began to chat.  He was so thrilled for our presence and begged for us to help them.  He told us of their need for a chapel, of their need for help with ministering to their youth and the people of their village. He looked straight into my eyes as he told me of his fear that as his people lose their faith, they will lose their culture and their history.  My heart ached to do something right then and there.  I held his hand and listened. I promised that we would be back. I invited him to our home. I asked him to invite anyone in his village to our home.  It didn't seem enough.

He asked me not to forget them. Not to let the Church forget them. Oh, kind sir, if only you knew.  My heart is marked indelibly with the memory of that conversation. The blue sky, the mountain view, his hand in mine, his face lit with zeal for his faith, for his community, and his voice begging not to be forgotten.

God has not forgotten his people tucked away at the ends of the earth. He has charges us with the responsibility of bringing them His love. Oh, that we can find a way.  Please pray with me for the indigenous communities here and for their needs. Please pray for priests and missionaries to serve them.  Please pray for us to be able to find parishes who would be willing to help build their chapels.  And in their honor, today, find someone who needs it and make them feel remembered, special, loved.  Perhaps the end of the earth could be right there in your own home, your own office, your own church today?