Lis: A Changed Life

One of the things I am doing with FundaVida (www.fundavida.org) in addition to helping with their programming for at-risk teens is collecting and writing stories about kids whose lives have been changed through the holistic presence that FundaVida has in some of the poorest, most violent communities around San Jose.  Below is a story about Liseth, one of the girls who participates in the bi-weekly discipleship program I help lead.  

I'm excited to be joining the other teen program leaders and youth leadership/discipleship kids on a trip to serve the indigenous Bribri people who live in a remote area called Talamanca in the southernmost part of Costa Rica later this month.  It will be a challenging trip, taking kids from the inner-city to experience poverty and need on a whole new level as we serve alongside a local church and nonprofit seeking to provide educational and income opportunities to these communities.  Many lack sanitary living conditions and struggle from subsequent illnesses and malnutrition.  

Please pray for us as we seek to bring hope, light, and tangible assistance to this area, as well as help these young FundaVida leaders better understand that leadership starts with serving.  Our tentative theme is it is better to give than receive (Acts 20:35). 

Lis:  A Changed Life

Pura Vida Newsletter--July 2012

Extra, extra read all about it!  An update on ministry with at-risk teens in Costa Rica!

Pura Vida July 2012

Pura Vida Newsletter--May 2012

Here's the latest edition of my Pura Vida newsletter.  If you would like to be added to my email list and receive regular newsletters, please email me at ali.c.campbell@gmail.com.  Happy reading!

Pura Vida May 2012

There are no coincidences!

Don't you just love that?!  In living a life of faith you know that there are no coincidences.  God says that He knows every hair on our head and every day of our lives.  And on top of that, He's so good!

As I was sitting in church last Tuesday at my young adult group, SuperNova, they were announcing that Crossover (a famous Costa Rican worship band, several of the bandmates lead worship each week at my church!) was going to open for the Jesus Adrian Romero concert on Friday.  WHAT?!  How did I miss this?  (Oh, yeah, I was in the US most of April :)

Jesus Adrian Romero is a huge Christian artist and I love his music, and of course, I love Crossover as well.  My next thought--oh, but I have FundaVida Teen Club on Friday night AND a birthday party for a good friend after that.  Sigh.  Oh well, next time....

So I go to club on Friday night and there are just a handful of kids.  The director, Alvaro, pulls me aside and says, "Hey, what do you think about us going for a drive?  Maybe go to the national stadium and sit on the steps, get some soda, and do our lesson there?"  Great idea!  The kids were really excited about doing something different and fun.  The national stadium opened last year and it is a HUGE deal in Costa Rica.  It was a gift from China and is one of this soccer-loving country's most prized possessions.

As we got close to the stadium, though, we realized it was teeming with people.  Did you figure it out yet?  Yep, you're right--the Jesus Adrian Romero concert!  I, nor Alvaro, had any idea the concert was at the national stadium!  So we got out, set down a tarp and soaked up the music from outside on the lawn as we discussed how a supernatural God does supernatural things in our natural lives and world.

There certainly are NO coincidences with God!  Not only did He bless us abundantly through the music, but it was a great example for the kids of the fact that God is always at work around us and desires to give us good gifts.

The view from outside the stadium!

Exciting announcement--joining the Commission to Every Nation family!

I'm excited to announce that I have been officially accepted to the Commission to Every Nation (www.cten.org) family!  Commission to Every Nation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides spiritual and financial accountability to those serving in ministries around the world! Founded in 1994, CTEN now assists over 450 individuals serving in more than 50 countries as they pursue their own great adventures to bring hope and life to a world in need.  After much prayer and research, I'm excited to join the team at CTEN and believe they will provide me, along with the leadership of the local organizations I will be serving with and my home church in Indiana and local Costa Rican church, with the support and accountability I need to faithfully carry out the work I believe God is leading me to do in Costa Rica.  

For those of you who have been financially partnering with me over the past 2+ years, I hope you will consider continuing to partner with me, as I follow the passion God has put on my heart for youth to know and love Him, and in the process for their lives to be transformed by this love that brings complete, holistic healing for a future free from poverty and violence.

To continue supporting me through Commission to Every Nation, you can make a tax-deductible gift by check or online via credit/debit card:

To give online, go to: www.cten.org/alicampbell and click “Donate” where you can sign up for a recurring monthly gift or special gift. 

To give by check, please send your check made payable to "CTEN" with a separate note indicating you would like the gift to be credited to "Ali Campbell" to:

Commission to Every Nation

PO Box 291307

Kerrville, TX 78209-1307

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at ali.c.campbell@gmail.com.  Thanks for reading!

Illegal Immigration--not just a problem in the US

This is the second in my series on organizations I will be helping with in this new season of life and ministry in Costa Rica.  For the first blog, scroll down to the entry directly before this one about FundaVida.  Now, I'd like to introduce you to New Horizons, a project by Christ for the City International in La Carpio, a largely immigrant community in San Jose.

La Carpio is a squatter community in San Jose, surrounded on two sides by a river and on the third by a large landfill, that arose in the mid-1990s at the height of Nicaraguan illegal immigration to Costa Rica.  Around 40,000 people live in the 1 square mile of La Carpio with an average of 6 per "home."  Most of the residents in La Carpio do not have titles to their land and live in houses constructed of scrap metal and wood with exposed cement or dirt floors.  Over half of the people living in La Carpio are undocumented immigrants from Nicaragua (the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere) and other Central American countries.  The majority of its residents live below the poverty line and opportunities for work are few.  Those who do find work often work for a third of the pay a Costa Rican would receive with none of the social security and medical benefits Costa Rican workers receive in jobs such as construction, waste collection, and as maids. It is arguably one of the poorest, most violent slums in Costa Rica.

Below are some pictures of La Carpio:

One of the organizations fighting the cycle of poverty and violence in La Carpio is Christ for the City through their New Horizons project.  New Horizons has a plot of land at the end of La Carpio where there is a huge field for recreation, outdoor and indoor meeting areas for youth events and educational opportunities, two computer labs, and much more!  

There is no high school in La Carpio and so many kids stop going to school after 6th grade because their families either can't afford to send them to a school outside of La Carpio or they just don't.  New Horizons offers a systematic way for kids to move through high school by taking classes in each of the materials they need to pass and then taking the tests to pass them.  The idea is sort of like a GED.  I may help by teaching English through the Institute.  Learning English is one of the fastest ways for teens to rise out of poverty because it opens up a wide variety of job opportunities, even without any other formal education.  

Additionally, there is a great need for mentors for teen girls who have grown up in neglectful or abusive homes and are often sexually active by age 12 or 13.  There are opportunities to form relationships with girls through a Saturday recreation and bible study program, teaching Zumba (which I became licensed to teach in the States), and/or small group discipleship.  

Here are some pictures of the Saturday program I was able to volunteer with recently:

To read more about New Horizons, Christ for the City and the two American missionaries I will likely be helping out (Andrea and Seth Sears), please visit their blog:  http://richinfaith.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-in-la-carpio.html

Also, take a look at this video made by another missionary who works with New Horizons.  He has an amazing skateboard outreach to teen boys, as well as computer program that is providing real and tangible opportunities to learn skills to get better jobs!

Bringing HOPE to at-risk youth in San Jose

As promised, here is a closer look at FUNDAVIDA, one of the three organizations/causes I will be working with in the future here in Costa Rica.  The majority of my time/focus will be with FundaVida, I believe, and I am excited about the work they are doing with at-risk youth in three very high risk, poor communities around San Jose.

Here is a short video about their work.  It is a little older, but the newer ones are not in English just yet.  So sit, back and enjoy this introduction to FundaVida:

Click HERE

There are a couple areas in which I will be helping with FundaVida:  teen outreach clubs, English tutoring, and mentoring/discipleship.  While I am still just getting to know FundaVida, I've been volunteering now for about a month, I am still figuring out exactly what my role will look like.  I do know, though, that I will be helping once a week in two different communities with their teen outreach clubs.  I am also doing English tutoring in the third community they work in once a week.  And I will be helping with the discipleship group of student leaders for the teen clubs, and hopefully starting my own individual mentoring/discipleship with teen girls that grows out of relationships formed in the teen clubs, and as I help get some dance outreach going as well.

Through volunteering the last several weeks there are a couple things I have discovered about FundaVida, its leaders, and the youth:

• All of the leaders come from VERY rough backgrounds.  They have dealt with abuse, addiction, family dysfunction, and pain in intimate ways over the course of their lives and they can speak from personal experience into the lives of these kids.
• All of the leaders are wise and have unique gifts for working with youth.  I am excited to be joining an established group with great leadership!  They have really taken me under their wings.  The director, Eladio, said he has been praying for a female to come alongside and feel the need for a female leader in the two communities I will be focusing in, and when I called him to inquire about working with them, he felt very clearly that I was the answer to that prayer!
• These kids are not only dealing with REALLY serious issues in their lives (abuse, drugs, violence, family dysfunction), but they are so open and ready to be loved and looking for change--a different way of living life than their families and friends.  The harvest is RIPE!  

I can't wait to share more with you in person, hopefully, next month when I am in Indiana, but in the meantime, please check out the pictures below and visit the FundaVida website (particularly the pages on the NEEDS of these communities.) (For English, choose the "EN" button at the top right hand side of the screen.)

Below:  Me with some of the other youth leaders of the teen clubs at a retreat in the mountains.  They are starting a new study on healthy dating relationships this month that I will be helping with.  Given that 40% of the youth grow up in single parent households, many to teen moms, and almost all kids are sexually active at a young age, this is a really important topic!  I got the opportunity to talk with one of the girls during lunch about the unhealthy relationship she is in right now.  I am hoping to win the right to speak into her life and remind her that she is a daughter of God and He wants the very best for her!

Below:  The teens playing "ninja" at club.  It was fun teaching them this game!  These kids have a TON of energy and are not accustomed to having to listen and follow instructions as well as kids I have worked with in the past--it is a challenge, but one I am learning to meet!

Below:  All the kids hanging out at club--this is in 25 de Julio in Hatillos, one of the highest crime areas of San Jose.  Check out these statistics on the drop out rate in this community:  http://www.fundavida.org/need/drop-out/?lang=en

Below:  Me and Kelly.  This is a super sweet girl that I felt an instant connection with!

Below:  Me and some of the kids at club!  I feel so blessed to already be starting to form friendships with them and so quickly.  

Below:  Watching the little ones (0-4 years old) at FundaVida's Saturday program while their moms, most of them teen moms, where in a class designed to teach them parenting skills and help shape their faith.

Below:  I just couldn't resist including this video from club.  This is a really funny game where a guy has to come out and give the girls his best "pick up line" and if the girls approve they invite him to sit with them.  Little does he know what he is in for!  My years of Young Life experience are coming in REALLY handy as a lot of these kids have never seen such high quality programming and games.  It is a great way to attract kids and humor is an amazing way to build friendships with kids and break down walls so they are ready to open up their hearts!