This Blog is a little long, but I hope it gives you an update on my last month, how I am doing, and a little encouragement for you!
I am currently in Jaco, Costa Rica, partnered with the same ministry I was with six months ago. We are helping pilot a Business in Missions School. This involves us attending classes in the morning on missions and business. Business in Missions is also known as BAM.
Business as Missions was a surprise to me. Back in Nicaragua, I was reaching out to this months host. She used the term BAM and I was so confused. I thought to myself, “we are on a mission trip?”
As it turns out this has been an incredible learning opportunity, in which I have become really passionate. All around the world right now Christians are running a Business as Mission. We all need to work jobs to make money, but we are also called to the Great Commission. People are using there businesses as opportunities to further the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.
People are doing this all around the world, whether it is strategic to spread the gospel, or just in your home town. The Kingdom of Heaven has come… let’s walk in it. We are called to be disciples and then to make disciples.
I have seen Business as Missions in Thailand, Malaysia, India, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, The United States, and Panama. I have seen Mechanic shops, coffee shops, second hand stores, coffee farms, Italian restaurants, real estate, and so many more businesses do this. While they make money for their family, and enjoy their job. They also focus on loving their employees and customers, and bringing love through Christ.
In Jaco, we have had the opportunity to work alongside Remax. While doing such we have fed the homeless, cleaned the river, planted trees, and painted morals around town. One girl on my team, Erin, is a Hair stylist and got to cut hair. The Host of Oceans Edge Ministry ( where I am) is over all the Remaxs in Costa Rica. She uses this position to bring the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have been taking part in a unique ministry operation called the Jaco Beach info. Jacobeachinfo.com . I have been running excel sheets and organizing over 600 businesses, then updating and creating websites. ( I never thought in my life that I’d be doing excel or creating websites.) While I am doing this, the team is splitting up and going through town, taking photos and gathering information for the websites. A unique way to do ministry, serving the local businesses with a free website and advertisement that few have. The workers are excited for this and it opens a opportunity for relations to be formed and for the love of Christ to be displayed.
Live life on a mission!!! It can look different than the way you think, it can be as simple as mowing your neighbors grass, inviting them over for dinner, inviting one in for coffee or tea or even coca-cola! You don’t have to be the manager or the owner, love your co-workers and superiors being an example of Christ Love to them!!
We take part in something called Surf Ministry, which is just the best thing ever! We have free surf lessons and then a bonfire and Bible story at the end. Kids from all over come for free and we get to go surfing as well! Something so fun as surfing, can be a ministry opportunity!
It is so simple, yet we over complicate it. Just make relationships, which can be tough, but if you are loving it can happen. The vast majority of people, especially in the United States are broken and sad. We get to be Salt and Light, and The Aroma of Christ!!
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I sent my team out the other night to do something called Evangelism. Evangelism holds a lot of negative connotations in my generation and the generation before me. So, as I heard in a sermon the other week, call it what you want, we are basically just bearing witness.
So I sent them out in the streets, like Jesus sent his disciples. Some brought back amazing testimonies, including a group of Men crying and a Man who was a Prodigal. Us Christians should naturally stick out, we should be different, we walk in the light and in the light there is no darkness. My really good friend Drew, who is currently in Albania, wrote a blog six months ago when we were in Jaco together. He shares on being the Aroma of Christ, and I love that Blog. Here it is, check it out… https://drewdavidson.theworldrace.org/post/if-you-were-a-candle-which-one-would-you-be
This is life, this is everyday, as we go we get to make disciples of all nations!! Even the United States!! We get to go love others!
A couple months ago I was at the Miami International Airport. I saw this lady walking up who had a knee brace and crutches. She sat down near me and I prayed about going to pray for her. I felt that it was not the time, so I waited. A little bit later, this same woman called for me and asked where the water fountain was, I smiled and told her and offered to fill her water up as well. So, I walked all the way over, filled up the water for her and came back and started talking to her.
As I began talking with her, I learned she was from Germany and was about my age. I then asked if I could pray for her leg and she looked at me like I was a crazy person. I ended up praying for her, although she told me God did not exist. After praying, I hopped on the plane from Miami to Nicaragua. I think back and wonder, this persons life could have changed that day. God works is powerful ways.
Time and Time again this last month, walking on the street in Jaco. I would just stop and talk to the homeless and random people. I am amazed at how God is working and moving. I am blessed with an amazing opportunity to just step out and talk to people. Always bringing it back to Jesus for he is the center of what we do.
I was painting a light pole the other day and this homeless man I know came up to me and asked if he could paint. I wanted to say no, but I realized this man has been told No his whole life. I handed him the bucket of black paint and a brush and he started drawing a huge flower that just kept going. I smiled as a man from across the street began yelling saying it was ugly. My homeless friend was so happy to paint the pole, but the man across the street was very critical and mean towards him. I smiled back at the man painting and told him I thought it was beautiful. We finished the pole later that day and left part of his black flower. He smiled at me and told me Jesus washes our sins away in Spanish.
I’ll be honest though, the last few months have been hard, even this whole last season. I have been discouraged at many points, yet God has been there for me. I have so many testimonies, but let me just share a few points of where God gave me encouragement. First off, as I praying about leading this trip back in July, I felt like the Lord was giving me this promise: it is going to be hard, but you will walk in an abundance.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
John 10:10
One day. I was at a bakery getting some WiFi to work on some websites, as I was there I saw a man who I met in March. We locked eyes and could not believe it. We ran up and gave each other a huge hug. He smiled the biggest smile and called me his friend.
Now, when I first met this man he was not doing so well, but we took him him out to eat and clothed him. I wrote a blog on it called https://samosuna.theworldrace.org/post/a-man-with-no-shirt Read it if you want a great testimony, but he just shared with me how God has blessed him nonstop since we prayed over him in March. He showed me his new puppy that was in the basket of his bike! I even saw him at church later that week!
Another day, I was at the beach and it had been a rough day. The enemy kept telling me lies and so I sat down and realigned myself to who God says I am and read scripture out loud and prayed. I felt weak after that, I was sitting alone on the beach on a big log, I felt down, I was thinking to myself how can God use me, how am I even a missionary, and how am I even leading?
My team and I went to the road and we were waiting for a friend to pick us up in their car for house church. I looked across the street and saw this man sitting alone in a hole in the wall. I just walked over and he met me halfway. He looked at me in the eyes and said “please pray for me”. I had said nothing to the man, but God placed this man in my path for me to encourage him and for me to be encouraged as well. It is God working through us. Not me doing anything on my own strength, but ready to be a witness. (this story goes a lot deeper, but I will stop here).
Another day, I was walking in the street and a man with a cane was sitting on the side of the road asking for money, I went over to him and he began to tear up and pointed to the cross necklaces some of us wore. I then noticed he had rubbed a cross with light paint on his shirt, that he wanted a actual cross. As we prayed for him, an Italian woman came up and prayed for us, and encouraged us to keep doing what we are doing!!
The next week, we were on a bus to San Jose at 5am and we stopped in a small town and out of the window was this man again. I waved and smiled at him. I never thought I’d see him again, but I did in the middle of nowhere and at 5am.
God placed people at the church who spoke things over me and it was some powerful encouragement. God has placed friends in my life back home to encourage me. My team has encouraged me. Although I have been getting discouraged, I remain strong in the Lord, and he encourages me to keep going. I remind myself the promise I felt the Lord speaking over me, that it would be hard but I would walk in an abundance.
I had people share testimonies and pour into me this last month. Stories of them casting out demons and testimonies so powerful of how God can change anyone.
I am reminded that I am like a Jar of Clay. I am an imperfect and broken person, yet God uses them as vessels! Read 2 Corinthians 4:1-9!
As I was praying in August, I knew I needed to find my strength in the Lord and not on my own strength this season. So I found a few verses while praying and they have been powerful. We have to strengthen ourselves in the Lord, we don’t have the strength ourselves. Here are those verses that helped me: 1 Samuel 30:6, Philippians 4:13, Psalm 46, 2 Corinthians 12:8-10
I can say God has been letting me taste the abundance! It doesn’t mean nothing bad will ever happen to you, but something I’ve learned is Christ is greater than all other things and that he truly satisfies. So the storms come, the battles come, but we find our refuge in the Lord. True satisfaction comes from Him.
Jesus says “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.””
John 7:38
And in John 4 he meets a woman at the well and says …”“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.””
John 4:13-14
When God is our source, he fills us up with an abundance and we truly lack nothing!
In Jeremiah 2:13 it says, ““My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Jeremiah 2:13
Don’t go to others sources, go to the everlasting source. Other sources may satisfy us in the moment, but really they are broken and only the Spirit of God truly satisfies!
Go to the one who truly satisfies, Jesus Christ! As you spend time with him all else fades in comparison! His Spirit is the refreshment our souls long for, and only he truly fills us.
Something that has happened in my life is, when I don’t spend time with God I am not fun to be around, but when I do spend time with him I am a different person. Intimacy with God is really important to me! Ministry is natural each day when I allow the Holy Spirit to lead me.
So, that was long, but to recap: Ministry has been great and I have learned wherever I am ministry can be, this excites me to dream about my future. Things have been hard and tough, but God provides the encouragement I need when I become discouraged. Choosing to find my strength in the Lord, rather than my self or other things has grown me. Intimacy with God truly fills me and when I am filled I seem to have amazing encounters with people. Not because my strength, but because of his!
So be the Salt, Light, and the Aroma of Christ!
““You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:13-16
Hey,
This is Sam Osuna. Thank you so much for reading my blog, or just scrolling down to the bottom. I hope you enjoyed reading and I thank you if you did. It was a long one, but trust me it could be way longer. I am looking and praying for support. I have $1,700 left to fund raise for this current trip I am leading.
In January, I am leading another trip to Eastern Europe-Asia-Middle East area. One of the countries in Jordan. I am extremely excited for this opportunity and it will be my last one with Adventures in Missions. I am being trained in Trauma certification and taking a perspectives class in order to go. We will be ministering in countries and people groups where Christianity is not common. I am asking for your support, as I need to have $5,000 raised by November 30th.
I know God supplies in unique ways and I’ve seen it before. Thank you so much for your support an dfor reading this blog….stay tuned.
