Welcome to Living My Faith, live from Costa Rica with 6:8 Ministries, a weekly show that celebrates the everyday believers who are walking with Jesus not just on Sundays, but in every area of their lives. From relationships and parenting to health, habits, and home, our guests share how they keep their faith at the center of it all. Hosted in Jacksonville, Florida and supported by Christ-centered partners, Living My Faith is a space where real life meets real faith. Today our host, Brian Sexton, spoke with Mike White, Major Harding, and Josh McArthur
Transcript:
Brian Sexton
Hello and welcome to Living My Faith on Faith works TV. I’m Brian Sexton and we are live in Costa Rica on a mission, and that mission is to share the hope and mercy and love of Jesus Christ with everyone that we encounter. And we have some special people here who are helping bring that all together. So let me introduce you to Mike white, a Foodie’s care.
Brian Sexton
Hi, Mike how are you?
Mike White
Thank you for joining us on this trip.
Brian Sexton
Because it was your idea to pull it all together.
Mike White
I’m glad you took the top bunk.
Brian Sexton
Thank you. That’s a story that we will tell over and over and over. Next to him is the president of the board of 68 ministries. And that’s where we are at 68 ministries, Living waters ranch. How are you, Major Harding?
Major Harding
I’m good. How are.
Brian Sexton
You? Good to see you. You want to use the guy next to you because you’ve known him almost his entire life.
Major Harding
I have, this is Josh MacArthur. He’s responsible for the ranch operations. Everything that goes on here falls under his care and guide. And he’s just been an amazing, employee asset to the organization.
Brian Sexton
If you’re not native to Costa Rica.
Josh McArthur
Not quite Saint Johns County. Yeah, Saint Johns County.
Brian Sexton
So tell us how you got here.
Josh McArthur
So, a few years ago, when, my buddy Spencer reached out to me, Spencer a, was a youth pastor, and, in John’s County, and, my youth pastor, he reached out to me when I was in Bible college maybe 15 years ago and said, hey, you know what? There’s some opportunities here in Costa Rica. I think you guys would be a good fit.
Josh McArthur
You and your wife, and we started praying about it, thinking about it. And, and we love the idea of moving our family here to minister to the people in our campus. They set up Hickey, which is our little town’s name. And, so we made the move. And it’s been over 11 years now since we’ve been here.
Brian Sexton
And we’re going to show people the ranch. We’re going to give a view of what you do here. But when you come home and you talk to people about what you do in Costa Rica, how do you describe it?
Josh McArthur
Well, it’s really hard for people to get a full picture of it when you don’t see it. You just understand it’s just very foreign thing. But, I describe, describe it as a life of sacrifice. There’s a lot of giving up so that others can see the hope of Jesus Christ and what he’s given us. And so, it’s not only just an amazingly beautiful location, but there’s a lot of hurt and suffering and, here that we are trying to, bring hope to.
Brian Sexton
And, major, you saw this early.
Major Harding
US altar.
Brian Sexton
And saw the opportunity early. And what is it that you hoped this would become? And and what it will become?
Major Harding
Well, it’s become completely different than what we first envisioned it to become. But, you know, we say the the gospel loses speed of relationships here. So we go into the local community, we form relationships, and we come alongside and we offer support to, to the various, you know, feeding centers, the, child crash course, which is our educational, English as a second language.
Major Harding
If they can learn English early, then they become employable here in Costa Rica. That has 65% unemployment rate. So so we’re doing a lot of things then I think we do a lot of things well in each of the communities we serve.
Brian Sexton
And Mike, let’s try this all together. Major is the board president of six eight ministries, but also a foodie’s care.
Mike White
That’s correct. And this is where relationships, movement, speed of relationships. I’ve had the privilege of serving with Major Harding, with our friend Jack Sears on the Boy Scout board. That committee for 12 plus years, a long time. And through those relationships and seeing what Meijer does with the Rotarians, who also through relationships, sponsor of the feeding ministry here.
Mike White
So, we started Foodies Care with a whole goal to raise money for organizations that support food insecurities and housing insecurities. So at Foodies Care, we throw events and bring community together to write grants to these organizations like six eight ministries. They’re doing the heavy lifting. But what we have is relationships back home, your relationships, your voice majors, relationships with Rotarians.
Mike White
Well, Josh and the team is here doing the real work on the ground. We’re trying to support them at home.
Brian Sexton
So when people show up at a foodies care event they’re about to see, they are about to experience through the magic of television exactly where their money goes.
Mike White
Absolutely. And we’re going to see later, as you’re interviewing, they’ve got ministries tied into making jewelry. And then all of those dollars that they sell the they’re teaching the skill set to the women who would be unemployed, raising money and giving them dignity, giving them something to do and purpose. We’re taking that back to Jackson and our events.
Mike White
We throw parties, we have fun. But in doing it, we are bringing our relationships to really witness what is going on to our support agencies.
Brian Sexton
Josh, we’re 15, 16 people down here on a mission trip. How many people come from the United States down to see what you’re doing and help be a part of what the Living Waters Ranch is all about?
Josh McArthur
Sure. We we host about 600 people a year. This year’s probably going be a little bit more as we’ve kind of begin to expand and grow into other parts of Costa Rica. But it’s it’s a lot of people, about 48 to 50 teams a year that we, we bring through. And, every team is special. Every team, every person that comes down has a chance to be impacted and to make an impact.
Brian Sexton
What’s a team look like?
Josh McArthur
A team is, is a group of people willing to just come and be put on mission. And, the best teams that come down are, are the ones that are willing to just go and serve and just be open to what is next and just put themselves out there to maybe be uncomfortable, to be pushed and challenged, to love others in ways that maybe they’ve never loved others.
Brian Sexton
When we when we first started talking last night, that was one of the points you made. You’re not at home. And that is a very that’s a stark point to a lot of people who come down here.
Josh McArthur
It’s absolutely yes. Whenever you’re exposed to a, a foreign culture, a foreign place, you’re out of your comfort zone and then it feels uncomfortable when you go into someone’s home and they welcome you in and some stranger, you you are not only a stranger, but you don’t belong in history. You’re not. You’re not a native Costa Rican.
Josh McArthur
You don’t know me. And I’m going to. You’re gonna invite me into your home. You’re gonna give me a cup of coffee, you’re gonna get to know me. I’m going to get to know you. And it can be very uncomfortable for people.
Brian Sexton
So just give people an idea of what’s our team going to do? What are we going to do that makes us uncomfortable? That gets us out into the community?
Josh McArthur
Yeah. So one of my favorite things we do is is called a prayer walk. And so today we’re going to go after breakfast. After the delicious breakfast, we’re going to go on a prayer walk. And and what we do is we’ll go to the local store and we’re going to gather up some groceries, about $50 worth of groceries for each family, and that’s about 10 to 15 days worth of groceries for these people, a quarter of of a normal salary.
Josh McArthur
And so we’re going to come in, we’re going to we’re going to pray for that. We’re going to go and give them the groceries, and then we’re going to see what they need prayer for. We’re going to ask them their story and see how we as, as believers can go pray for that. And then and then pray for them.
Josh McArthur
And we’re going to ask team members to pray for sometimes some of these team members. I’ve never prayed out loud before, and now they got to pray out loud for a stranger. And it’s a it’s a way that is very stretching for a minute.
Mike White
You know what’s neat is, I came last year for the first time, and it opened my eyes to something I, I knew existed, but never felt it, going into a village and seeing Spencer and the group holding the babies, telling the story of the kid to their parents, got on drugs or physically abused, sexually abused. And just the love and compassion they’re giving.
Mike White
And it’s neat coming down with CEOs of other companies with Ryan Hawkins at Right Way and Ryland, at Live Oaks and seeing their faces for the first time. So I’m excited to see what they’re witnessing, because that was me last year. The moments just my jaw would drop to the amount of poverty and and then connecting the dots to the good that you guys are doing just by being present and correct.
Brian Sexton
So much transformation in nature, maybe you can jump in on this too, because you’ve been around here a long time, How different do people go home from when they arrived?
Major Harding
I would say 95 to 99% go home. Transformed. You know, and there’s always somebody, you know, that that maybe just doesn’t get it. But, the, the success rate of the people returning, we got 100% retention from the teams that came this past summer that are coming back. So I think that says says it all pretty much.
Major Harding
I mean, they’re bought in. They see the good we’re doing on the ground in the communities and it’s yeah, it’s a, it’s life changing really is.
Brian Sexton
With rap on this. Mike detailed all of the problems that you encounter homelessness, abuse, fatherlessness here in this area of Costa Rica. What does success look like for you at the end of the day, when you and your wife, Ali, put your head on the pillow, how do you know that you’ve had a good day for me?
Josh McArthur
That is a great question for me. My goal is one life, one person focus, one person. If one young man you know can have a life changed and become that man that really can run a family, could protect a family, love a family, and begin a cultural ripple effect. That’s what we’re going through. And we have a few more than one.
Josh McArthur
But yeah, when we have a successful day, it’s we had that tough conversation. We pointed them to Jesus and they got it.
Brian Sexton
So as we wrap up this first segment, we’d like to show you the folks who are going to go out into the community, who will be walking and sharing both the news of Jesus Christ and groceries. We’re going to build some bunk beds. We’ll take you there as well. We’ll show you the Living Waters Ranch and the beauty of God’s creation here in Costa Rica.
Brian Sexton
Then we’ll make sure you understand what a good day looks like, because we intend to have more. So for more information about living your faith, check out Living Your faith.com. And for more, stay with us. We’ll be back right here on Living My Faith.
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