Amos

"...If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:12

In retrospect, I am surprised I didn't blog about Amos a while back. To bring you up to speed...Our first week in San Jose we met Amos. He was attending CRLA with us, and ended up being in the handful of students that traveled to La Fortuna that first weekend. For the most part, Matt and I rolled separate from the group, but we all arranged to go to the waterfall together and grab a ride from the hostel owner. Matt and I were running a little late and didn't get a chance to sit down for breakfast so we ran around the corner to pick up some empanadas to-go and stop at the ATM a few minutes before the van was leaving. We were pushing it for time but Amos insisted on going with us to both the empanada stand and the ATM. He said his mom always told him to stick with his men ( or something like this, I can't remember the quote exactly but I remember it was sincere enough to be admirable but militant enough to be funny all at the same time). More importantly, I remember thinking that Amos had a very selfless heart... he was clearly in a position to miss the van ride for a late married couple that he really had no obligation too. He was making it clear that we were important to him. It stuck with me.

Amos loves Jesus. I remember whispering to Matt (in between the empanada and ATM) that Amos had to be a Christian. Matt asked me why and I told him because he is selfless when it is inconvenient. I asked Amos that weekend if he was a Christian and he smiled and said, yes I am. He went on to tell me about the youth conference he had just gone to before coming to San Jose, his church home, his familiarity with Bethlehem back in MN...

Needless to say, Amos became our friend. Many lunches at school together, ice cream runs... Amos left us about a month in, to travel. He hit every Central American country (except Belize) in 2 months, by bus. The best part about it all, is no one EVER guesses that he is 18 years old, home schooled, from Oklahoma and owns a start up roofing business...When Amos facebooked and told us he was coming back into San Jose we were super excited to hear his tales. He ended up chillin in a sleeping bag on our wood floor for a couple nights. We got a group of friends together and had dinner one night...we sat around and listened to Amos' stories of drug dealer threats, crossing the borders without proper documentation, chasing after a bus that had his bag on it, hitchhiking, bartering, living with a missionary family in Honduras...he smiled his way through every detail.

Amos made it an eventful mid week for us. Matt and Amos went to Manuel Antonio for a day (off the Pacific Coast). They also surprised me by showing up at school the next day during break with their heads shaved. :) It was the unavoidable for Matt... but Amos...not so much. Let's just say I was very surprised. Amos ended up taking a suitcase of our stuff back to the states. We over packed. He is shipping it back to Mpls. He wouldn't accept our money for the shipping or for the airlines.