I’m going to tell you a little story. In this story, I’ll be using some expressive analogy so please allow some artistic license if you will. My purpose is to update everyone on the current happenings for the Nest ministry in Costa Rica, but also to explore the state of my own heart in the process.
For the sake of this story, the Nest land will represent my heart. Chicho our local builder will be God, my wife Karina will be the Holy Spirit. I told you ...analogies.
Trees and jungles and mountains will be areas of my life touched with sin, or if you like, hurts, habits, and hang-ups. The main river in Talamanca is called the Tulire and it will represent faith.
It’s been nearly five years ago now that Karina came home to California from a trip in Costa Rica with an Esther Movement women’s ministry. She described in a gentle way a vision she’d received there, but I could tell under her calm exterior that a nervous excitement had taken hold of her. Slowly over the course of a couple of years, she finally got me to come down to Costa Rica, and cross the river Tulire to witness the land she was hoping to acquire for the purposes of The Nest.
The land itself was up a mountain, overgrown with heavy jungle bush, and it didn’t look like much to me. But she saw its great potential. And so with much prayer, counsel, setbacks, and miracles, early this year the land has finally been claimed for the Nest. A secure perimeter fence has marked out its boundaries and its shape has begun to form the plan of what will go where.
Enter Chicho, a quiet, humble man, short in stature, but brimming with sinewy muscles and hands that look like they’ve held the wisdom won through wars. Chicho took Karina, myself, and our Nest team back into the land shortly after we’d secured it. With a thoughtful gaze and a listening ear, he absorbed what our vision of the Nest would be with its shelters, common household, kitchen, classrooms, gardens, and so on. He looked up into the trees, describing the movement of the sun and the patterns of weather through the seasons. He said with some calculated tree cutting, and chopping back the jungle undergrowth, the best of what the land could offer would flourish.
And so trusting in his skill, and having seen what he could do from previously visiting other homes he’d built, we turned the work over to his capable hands.
As I write this story, Chicho is actually on the land, with his boy's church youth group, putting up the foundation poles in place for the main common house of The Nest. He has also brought many women of his church together to fashion the traditional palm frond thatched roofs. We’re so excited that Chicho is building the Nest in the BriBri way. It’s a place for the BriBri after all, so it brings harmony to the project to have it built their way, and by their own hands.
And so there lies the Nest and my heart under construction. Learning to let God move in and clear out the things in my life that hinder the growth and potential that He sees in the jungle and rubble of life. To be honest with you, it’s a daily practice. The art of letting go. God has a plan for my life and He often only shows me the next step and asks for trust through faith in order to accomplish it.
For Karina, myself, our Nest team, and all our supporters it’s been a wonderfully, fearfully, fun journey of faith so far. This is actually happening, folks!
So what’s next for The Nest under construction?
We lean not on the material possessions of houses and things, but on the hearts and souls of the women and children that will someday soon gather here in the Nest, to be nourished and held safe in the hands of a loving Father.
As always, if your heart is moved by the work and progress of the Nest mission, please pray for us and send your support so we can continue this construction momentum.
With a grateful heart,
James Beach