It's about Jesus' heavenly beauty (but also, it's a compilation mix of "Strong Love" and "Your Faithfulness"), but I chose it because lately, I've been able to experience much of Jesus' beauty in his creation here in Costa Rica, so as promised, I'd love to share some of that with you.
I just realized that it's been more than a month since we left for Bocas Del Toro, and I couldn't believe it. But at 4:30 a.m. we began our trek to Bocas, and 11 hours, 2 bus rides, 2 taxi rides, crossing the border, and a water taxi ride later, we finally arrived in Bocas Town, the main business hub and town of the archipelago. A number of awesome things in Bocas
1. Our hostel was over the water, overlooking the vast bay dressed with clouds, storms, sail boats, and water that let you look all the way to the starfish on the floor.
2. La Mama Loca, the hostel's restaurant served awesome, thick patty burgers, on which I have yet to see in Costa Rica
3. You take a boat everywhere
4. The hostel had live music every night - from an African style drum ensemble to open mic night, to a Chilean Jazz duo, and the greatest band in the world "The Cartoon Hamburgers". It was great.
But the coolest thing to do in Bocas was definitely snorkeling. On Sunday, we snorkeled near a reef just off some small islands known as "Zapatillas," and it was pretty sweet. Think "Pirates of the Caribbean" style desert island with nothing but tourists on its shores
By far though, the coolest thing we did was rent kayaks and snorkel gear, and go out exploring our own snorkeling spots, as well as having fun exploring the ocean via kayak. And it was the cheapest thing we did too, which was sweet. We were told of this sunken boat that was starting to grow coral so we went out to see it, and it had some coral which was awesome, but we were much more interested in the shallower coral and sea life near the set of mangrove trees closer to home. We also lost a paddle, which we saw the next day on the water taxi back to the main land. Oops.
Now to Arenal, and the hike up Cerro Chato, which was gorgeous. It starts out in kind of high open fields that has an excellent view over La Fortuna, which is the town below the volcano, and about half way up, it turns into this gorgeous and thick jungle for the rest of the way up, and really steep. When we got to the top, you could see the big volcano, Arenal, but only as it peeked through the clouds. Which I forgot to mention that most of the day, Arenal was hidden behind the clouds. So when it peeked its cone out of the clouds it was absolutely gorgeous, especially when the sun was on it as well. Then we hiked down almost a ladder-like slope it was so steep, and then swam in the wonderfully cold, green waters of the laguna in the volcano. We swam out to the middle and yelled, and the echo was so awesome. On our way back down, we heard a beautiful bird that sounded like it should have come from Rivendell, and sang the beauty of heaven along with the gorgeous trees and vegetation surrounding us. When we came out of the jungle, you could see 400m below over La Fortuna, and look level with the storm of rain beginning to wash over the town like a curtain, and then come right after us. The thunder was pretty spectacular as well, and it his us about half way down.
Since I gave the teaser, I had a gorgeous ride to work one morning. So as I walk up the Hill Westward toward my bus stop, the sun is beginning to rise over the volcanoes to the East, and this morning was an especially cloudy morning, with a break in the clouds enough for 20-30 minutes of sunshine, and the morning was misty. As I get to the bus stop, I recognize a rainbow spanning my entire view of the cloudy canvas behind it. When the bus came, and we started riding down the Hill to the East, I could look over the valley to the North (my left) and the darkness of the clouds and the golden light of the sun gave the trees this awesome contrast that made them glow brilliantly among the dark and misty morning. I was so enamored by God's beauty I couldn't take my eyes off it.
Thanks for reading, an update will come soon, and Shelley comes tomorrow for a week of soaking in the beautiful Costa Rican country side, Costa Rican and eMi culture!!! I'm super excited.
Thanks so much, and keep praying that I would take the most joy in Jesus.
Brad
p.s. As a quick shameless plug, I recommend any music that comes from this place, and they have a prayer room that streams worship music 24/7 from their website ihop.org. They also have a ton of resources with excellent solid teaching, so I encourage any of you reading to go check them out - it's really good.
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