Don't Miss the Feast! Update from Costa Rica

Rustic, simple, sparse… Training Camp and travel days are hardly times of abundance on Royal Servants. At Training Camp we slept in tents. Our food was simple – lots of pasta, rice, and sandwiches. We worked hard shoveling gravel each morning to repair our road. We spent much of the day studying scripture, in small group discussion, listening to teachings, and worshiping. The living at Training Camp is simple yet training camp is a rich feast.

It is easy to focus on the simplicity and “the hard” of living at training camp and miss the feast. Jesus says in Matthew 4:4, “But he answered, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by Bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” While the living conditions are rustic and the food is simple – life at training camp is a rich feast. Each day we feasted together on the word of God. The feast is Jesus. It is our undistracted focus on our savior that makes training camp a favorite part of the summer for so many. We sought through a variety of teachings and trainings to embrace and experience the grace of God afresh throughout training camp. As we transition to our work in Costa Rica, it is our prayer that we will faithfully communicate that grace to those we encounter during our outreach.

Travel days can be more than just sparse. They can be days of privation. Our day was marked by not quite enough to eat and certainly not enough sleep. We left Training Camp about 7 pm on Sunday and made a stop at Walmart for last minute needs on our way down to the airport. We arrived at the airport about 11pm. After a few hours of rest, we were in line to check at 3 am. Our first flight was delayed almost 2 hours. This created some stress as we were not sure if we would be able to make our connection, but the extra time did give some the chance to grab a bit more breakfast than what we had packed, which was nice. After multiple delays, we made it to Charlotte with just minutes to get to our flight. The airport was packed, so we didn’t quite run, but we walked about as fast as one possibly can. The team did great and we arrived at our gate during final boarding. We all made it on our flight to Costa Rica with our luggage without a hitch.

Customs was slow in Costa Rica and our drive to our new home in Cachi took about 2.5 hours. Pastor Alfonso and his wife Grace met us at the Airport and the church had dinner ready for us when we arrived. Costa Rican cuisine is beautiful in its simplicity. Rice, beans, cilantro, and chicken are in almost every meal, along with this incredible local sauce: called Lozano sauce which goes on everything. After a long hard day our simple dinner at church felt like stepping into a Michelin star restaurant. Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that good, but we really enjoyed it.

We had a great night of sleep on our mats on the church floor and enjoyed our oatmeal for breakfast. After breakfast we jumped in our first overseas quiet time. This summer, we will be reading through Luke and Acts together as a team about 3 chapters a day, so we read Luke 1-3 this morning.

We are often asked, couldn’t we have fancier meals and sleep in cozy cabins, or nice hotels. Wouldn’t those things make for better trips? Our first response might be something practical, “That would make the trips too expensive.” That would certainly be true. But I think there is a bigger answer to that question.

‍Exodus 16:1-3

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. ² And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, ³ and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

‍Matthew 8:18-22

¹⁸ Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. ¹⁹ And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” ²⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” ²¹ Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” ²² And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

‍Luke 18:18-30

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁹ And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. ²⁰ You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” ²¹ And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” ²² When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” ²³ But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. ²⁴ Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶ Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷ But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” ²⁸ And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” ²⁹ And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, ³⁰ who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

As the early church grew in numbers and then in wealth and political power, monastic movements quickly formed in response. The monastic movements sought to reform the church by rejecting worldly pleasures and embracing poverty, chastity, and obedience to become people who pray without ceasing in order to more fully fulfill the commands of Jesus. I would argue that in some small but significant way, each Royal Servants team embraces that monastic impulse each summer. We are intentionally setting aside some of the comforts, pleasures, and eases of normal life to seek Jesus more. Setting aside lavish food and accommodations, along with cell phones and other creature comforts, we are joining with the ancient church in seeking to set our eyes and hearts more fully on the feast that is Jesus.

The simple and the hard on Royal Servants is not missing out on what everyone else back home is doing, it is an opportunity to more fully embrace a life of feasting on the Word of God.

C.S. Lewis put it this way,

“If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, “Unselfishness.” But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics, and is no part of Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

What Lewis reminds us of here is that our simple living is not the ultimate goal. Our simplicity this summer serves to sharpen our desires for the rich feast of Jesus, His word, and His Kingdom for the rest of our lives.

On the other hand, while in Costa Rica we will encounter a lovely bakery, a great ice cream shop, wonderful tacos, and beautiful beaches… we can rejoice in God’s goodness, but also know that these beautiful things are not the goal. They too are still but the mud pies, compared to the riches of the reward of the coming Kingdom. So in all that we do this summer we seek to point our students, ourselves, and those we reach to the rich feast of Jesus, His Word, and His coming Kingdom.

Matt Swanson

Costa Rica Trip Leader