Pray for Costa Rica on Sunday, November 17, 2013

Lectionary Selection: Isaiah 65: 17-25

Prayers for Costa Rica:
Incredibly Creative God,
Your beauty and power is evident all around us. We see your thumbprint on the faces that sit near us in worship and your footprint in the neighborhoods in which we live. The prophet Isaiah pleaded with his audience to look for your presence in all areas of life – in family, in brokenness in joy and in nature. Looking with the eyes of Isaiah for a new heaven and earth we can see the new reality for the children of the working poor in Costa Rica, where many have fled their familial lands to the cities only to struggle to find adequate food, education and a safe loving touch. Your reality gives us hope – ushered in by Fundacion de Misiones Mi Tia-Bethel in San Jose and the Cloud Forest School of Monteverde. Continue to empower those caregivers, staff and teachers who seek wholeness for children broken by poverty and neglect, empowerment for women cast aside and oppressed, liberation for those imprisoned by addiction, education for a population at risk and healing for the swaths of earth and creation found barren and scathed by greed and abuse.

God we cannot rightly address you about our marginalized women, sexualized and underserved children, our propensity to cast off the disabled and addicted without observing some of the roots of our ongoing struggle. With violence and environmental destruction as an ever present reality we are beginning to believe that retaliation, first strikes, targeted assassinations and methodical theft of timber, gold, fruit from trees and seas are normal ways of keeping our security at all costs and fueling a global economy that is speeding blindly into our future. It is only with your creative sight and through your powerful grace that we can address both the roots of our current crisis and the impacts.

Inspire us to be a people of delight and joy to see beauty and grace and to expect resurrection every moment of every day. May we open our eyes to your beautiful work and may we move our bodies to join in that work. Lord help us to participate. May we be empty tomb people walking forth with open eyes, hopeful hearts and tired muscles. Amen

Mission Stewardship Moment from Costa Rica: Seeds of Grace
The first grade class was walking down one of the many paths on the 106 acre campus at the Cloud Forest School. Passing between grassy fields and countless tropical trees of varying heights, Milton, the environmental stewardship professor, shared bits of manna to the students as they walked. He pointed his machete toward the neighboring field and shared that this whole area was once a mighty forest with trees tall and strong. People came and used axe and chainsaw to clear the land creating a very hot place in the dry months and muddy area in the wet months. Lost were the homes of the coati, monkey, toucanette, bell bird and motmot. Like so many other places in our country and world this place had no trees. He then pulled from his pocket a handful of seeds, a variety the first graders had collected from another part of campus: ficus, mahogany, and two of the 30 species of avocado represented in Monteverde. He asked the class, “how many of you have gathered these kinds of seeds, planted seeds or transplanted young trees into the earth?” All of the children raised their hands. Milton smiled and said “it was children like you who planted these many years ago” and pointed to the side of the trail that had young, but strong looking trees. Vivian, the student aid, added, “Yes, it was thirteen years ago because my class planted these. I think I planted this very tree” and she touched one of them with care.

It takes a very long time to heal a forest just as it takes a long time to raise a child or heal a broken relationship. The tree can grow with a seed, with compassion, with education and tenacity. We can learn from Milton, Vivian and a group of wild first graders that even those places that seem irredeemable can be replanted with the seeds of generosity and grace. May it be so in your lives and in our church starting today. Starting now. You hold them in your hands and in your heart, the seeds of grace. How will you use them?

(Prayer and Mission Moment by Rebecca & Scott Hardin-Nieri)

Mission Partners in Costa Rica:

More information on Costa Rica: http://globalministries.org/lac/countries/costa-rica/

Global Ministries Missionary in Costa Rica:
Rebecca Hardin-Nieri, a member of Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Ft. Collins, Colorado, serves as a volunteer with el Centro Educacion de Creativia (www.cloudforestschool.org) and is a critical presence with the Monteverde Friends Meeting in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Scott Hardin-Nieri, a member of Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Ft. Collins, Colorado, serves as a volunteer with the Quaker Community at the Monteverde Friends Meeting and el Centro Educacion de Creativia (www.cloudforestschool.org) in Monteverde, Costa Rica.