If you’ve known me for any amount of time, you know that I grew up in Costa Rica, and that I am partial to that country. I had a great upbringing there. So, when Costa Rica hits the news here in the States, I naturally gravitate towards it. And Costa Rica made the paper this week.

     It was an immigration piece. It turns out that among the many countries the US is farming out its immigrants to, Costa Rica receives 25 a week. And from all over the world. What does a small country like that do with all of them? Well, some get repatriated, but recently they have been released into the general population to mostly fend for themselves. And in this article, the writer highlighted a particular group that is reaching out to those folks.

     As a young boy growing up, we had the choice of two brands of cheese. One was from the company that kind of had a monopoly on milk. Ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, and yes, cheese, mostly came from this company. But then came along this other product called Monteverde (“Green Mountain” in Spanish). It was a little more upscale, and very good, and so I thought it was really cool when my Dad told me, as a teenager, that we were going to go there. Well, that trip was a car ride, a bush plane ride, and then a long horse ride to get to our first destination. Somebody was trying to bamboozle my Dad into buying some incredibly remote land… that’s another story. But we got to Monteverde via the back mountains, and there I found an English-speaking community of farmers, beating back the forest enough to feed cows and make this delectable cheese. 

     These were Quakers. Not Amish. Not Mennonites. But Quakers, who are fiercely independent (fierce is not a good adjective for this group, but descriptive all the same), and deeply committed to their expression of Christianity. Their faith calls them to a simple lifestyle, deep pacifism, and quiet worship. I learned to admire them as a kid. And I still do. Those people, recognized in the article I was reading as Americans deep in the mountains and committed Christians, had opened their homes, their community, their hearts to these sojourning strangers who were rejected by the US, and in many cases their own countries. I found this gesture to be awesome, but not remarkable. I found it to be incredibly consistent with the people I met so long ago (and have visited since – including a Friends Meeting on Sunday morning). I admire them for a lot more than the great cheese they continue to make.

       How does that spiritual go? And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love…. I want to make sure that I am known as somebody who loves the homeless person walking Mizner, for loving the young person who walks through our doors on Sunday, for loving the person with a flat tire on the side of the road and the one fleeing their home country because of one reason or another.

       Jesus modelled that for us. As did those Christian Americans up in Northwest Costa Rica.

Mine is to follow.

Let us walk with each other, let us walk hand in hand…

Craig

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for  one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’  Matthew 25:44,45 (NIV)