Hello friends and family! Long time, no blog and I give my deepest apologies for that. These past few weeks have been crazy, adventurous, and filled with a lot of work, work very much different than I expected ministry to look like on the World Race.
For my last two weeks of ministry at Ocean’s Edge in Jacó, I was given the opportunity to work with a small team on a ministry they call Business as Missions (BAM). This ministry is still in its beginning stages so it was really incredible to be a part of the stepping stones to the wildly extensive vision Hannah and the Ocean’s Edge team has for this ministry. The ministry’s mission is to use and provide business related skills and workshops to reach the community, individuals and businesses, as a way to get their foot in the door to show the love of Jesus and share the gospel.
Now I know what you’re thinking, how did you spend the last two weeks sharing the gospel through accounting, showing people how to keep their books, utilize internal audit functions, or do their taxes? This, too, was my initial thinking of how my degree and skills might be used when I first heard of the Business as Missions ministry. The Lord however continues to surprise me in the way He’s using the skills I’m trying to learn and develop to do His work.
Instead of any sort of accounting or business management instruction, our team of four BAM folks spent the last two weeks developing and recording workshop tutorials centered around photography, videography, and social media. These workshops will then be made available to individuals and businesses in the community to learn and enhance their skills in these areas.
I won’t go into extensive details on the making of these workshops but I would like to be real about the struggles and the beauty this project brought. To start, the time crunch immediately felt by this project was very real as we were really only given 4-5 hours each day to work on this. For most of us on the team, giving up our free time and working late into the night outside of our designated ministry hours was required to finish our workshops. At times it was also difficult feeling secluded from the rest of our squad who was out in the community evangelizing, painting the park murals, and the various other projects we had going on.
But the beauty this project brought far outweighed the struggles. As these were tutorials we were developing, we needed content to show as examples as we were walking step by step through the processes of photography, videography, and social media. Collectively we saw this as an opportunity to highlight our amazing ministry hosts at Ocean’s Edge and as a way to give back to them by providing them content to use to promote their organization.
My two weeks on this project was spent putting together a video centered around the mural project our teams were doing in the park and highlighting the heart behind the ministries’ desire for this project, as well as the positive impact it was already having on the community. I’ve only finished my first, beginner level workshop so I don’t have a completed video to share yet but hopefully it will be ready soon, Lord willing I find the time to give it the effort and attention it deserves!
Like I said, it was an honor to be a part of the bigger vision Hannah has for this Business as Missions ministry. With that said, I’ll leave you with a little sneak peak of what’s to come for the BAM ministry in Jacó, Costa Rica. Click the link below to check out the plans for expansion on the Ocean’s Edge property to include a thrift store, coffee shop, classroom for teaching in-person workshops and an open-air meeting space. I’m so excited to see how this ministry continues to develop!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMzFNOk2dk
That’s all for now……. see you soon in GUATEMALA!!! 😉
