Two weeks ago, GI completed our 24th mission trip of the year. We were in what is now our newest country site: Costa Rica. While Costa Rica might be known as being on the higher end of the economic scale in Central America, our contacts brought us to a banana plantation where conditions are far from ideal.
While we were there, we learned that 80-90% of the workers are immigrants from Nicaragua looking for work. The rest are Costa Rican, and all of them are living in poverty. Most kids barely make it past elementary school. When we showed up to do a kids outreach, the candy, stuffed animals, crayons and coloring sheets may be all they will get for Christmas. For their families, food is a higher priority than presents.
Yet in the midst of poverty, we saw more than a dozen children give their lives to Jesus.
GI also works in partnership with one of our contacts who is helping Syrian refugees. These refugees are just on the other side of their home country’s border—they flee Syria, and live in Lebanon. They are in need of food, shelter, medical supplies, and much more. Thanks to the amazing work our long-time Middle-Eastern contact, we have been able to help many families as they are about to brave a harsh winter—living in refugee camps, wishing they could just go home.
It is not new to bring up the fact that those of us in the first-world probably had a very different Christmas than most immigrants and refugees. The baby’s birth whom we celebrated this month grew to be a man and said, “for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’” (Matthew 25:35-36). Know that when you support Global Infusion, we are doing exactly that. Thank you, to all who have given in 2015.
