Costa del Sol y N. Africa

Hey everyone,

it’s Aaron again, the one who you can never keep up with and the one who you don’t ever fully understand what he’s doing. Well, most of the time I can’t even understand what I’m doing!

Just to catch you up to speed, I’m in San Jose, Costa Rica in Central America. In the last week I have traveled twenty four hours from the middle of Morocco to Spain, spent four days in Malaga, took a seven hour bus from Malaga to Madrid, ran across the Madrid underground, spent eight hours in the airport, flew nine hours across the Atlantic Ocean, got an x-ray for drugs in Bogota, Columbia, spent twenty more hours in an airport and lastly took my final one and a half hour flight to arrive in San Jose. Worryingly this is becoming more and more normal for me.

After a week spent in England visiting a friend I flew down to Malaga, Spain to meet up with my team. Spain was an amazing time for me and my group. We stayed in a beautiful old villa, owned by a YWAM base that was so refreshing after months of hostels, apartments, and squishy rooms. We as a team had an incredible time of teaching and bonding with each other. It was also a time of reflection of the last eight months and growing in our relationship with God. We had a chance to share with each other our burdens, lives, hurts and joys. We spent three days praying, on our faces, worshipping and the Lord ministering to us. I believe it was a blessing and significant moment for us as a team to really bond and know each other before we head back to Kona.

Having our teaching on Islamic worldview, we put our knowledge into practice, split into small teams and traveled to North Africa. Surprisingly it only takes a couple hours by bus and ferry before you land yourself in Tangier, Morocco, the place that part of the Borne Ultimatum was filmed. Fortunately and unfortunately we didn’t hang around and headed straight down to a city called Marrakech, twelve hours by train. What an incredible city! Even though it is “infested” with tourist, us being some of them, it still holds onto its old Moroccan roots and traditions. There were kilometers of markets, strewn with died leather, spice shops and jewelry, wonderful foods, including tajine, dried fruit stands and fresh orange juice, monkey’s, henna painters and snake charmers…it was quite an experience!.

We didn’t waste time however and found a guide who would take us to the desert. Things fell together quickly and we were off early the next morning. Driving through the Atlas mountains was a breathtaking experience but it was not our main goal so we moved on through long plains, steep gorges, dry desert and twelve hours later finally made it to a town on the foot hills of the Sahara called, M’hamed. We had a wonderful night with cultural music (even though I wouldn’t consider them talented), Moroccan food and chatting with our hosts.

The next morning we took camels to a Kasbah a couple hours away, meet some people and visited with a family. After lunch we took off by four wheel drive into the desert where the paved road literally stops and dry, rocky ground begins. It was a rough two hours across deep ruts, carved out by many others desert hungry tourists. Stopping at an oasis outfitted with beer and snacks (LOL) was an odd experience but we finally made it to the towering sand dunes. Presumably, the three of us climbed the tallest dune in Morocco, three hundred meters high and left a gift for the rest of the guests, footprints all the way up. After a long dehydrating afternoon we stepped back into camp for a wonderful dinner and met some great people. I had the chance to chat with out guide, Hussein about his faith but he wasn’t that interested, a bit of a desert hippie.

Well after a twelve hour journey back to Marrakech, a day trip to the windy city and twenty fours hours back to Spain, we met up with the rest of our group for a nice debrief of the last week. Spain and Morocco was such a diverse time for me personally. I had a time of deep brokenness, extreme relaxation, bonding with the team, a birthday celebration, intense travel, wild Moroccan life, meeting other back packers, desert dwelling in sand dunes and dry camel hair tents, Mediterranean fisherman, more travel and finally making it to Costa Rica. God has done brilliant things in the last month and answered several prayers.

If you remember, please continue to pray for my team. Two of our international students, both from Korea, did not make it to Costa Rica due to visa problems coming through the United States. Pray that they will be able to return safely to Korea and get student visas as soon as possible to meet us back in Kona for the rest of the program. Pray that God will use our team to speak into the lives of those around use, including our team and the locals that we meet. Please also pray for a peace as I go back to Kona and preparation as I go back home for a couple weeks to visit family and friends. Thank you for continuing to partner with me throughout this program. It has been a wonderful year full of adventure, growth, hardship, joy, fulfillment and much more.