Rocky Cape Christian Community

Written during the beginning stages of a new church outreach on the Pacific shore of Costa Rica, in 1993.

The first Christian community met the needs of the Christians in Jerusalem. Later on there were communities of believers in Antioch, in Damascus, in Asia Minor, and in many other cities of the Roman Empire.

During centuries following, Christian communities existed in northern Africa, in what is now Bulgaria, Italy, France, and later on in the northern European (German) countries and elsewhere.

The Anabaptists developed their own kind of community, now well-known in North America as the Hutterite Bruderhof. Eberhard Arnold and the Society of Brothers adapted Bruderhof methods to their situation and developed the communities that now thrive in the Eastern US and Europe.

If a Christian community will ever meet our needs in Costa Rica, it will likewise have to be adapted to suit our situation. I do not believe that we can totally copy an already existing community and expect success. I believe we must be very open to God, open to the needs around us, and among us. Then I think God will show us what type of community is best. And no matter how we do it, we will have to learn by doing. The less rigid our plans are made in the beginning, the less painful it will be to change them once it becomes necessary.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that a totally rural community would not meet our needs in Costa Rica. I think our community venture will have to be at least partially urban.

In Canada the Hutterite Bruderhöfe are all farming communities. But farming in Canada is quite unlike what it is in Costa Rica. In Canada the large community farms can supply work and comfortably support the many people who live on them. In Costa Rica, our land could support only a very few people. We could not make enough work on our land to keep many people busy.

Our situation is more like the case of the early Christians and the early Anabaptists. These people lived in cities. They did not have much land nor much money. The first community was a city community. The first Anabaptist communities were likewise founded in cities and towns (Nikolsburg, Austerlitz, Auspitz, Schäckowitz, etc.). Sometimes one town, like Austerlitz, had several communities.

I do not think that our land at Laguna is the best suited to community needs. I am wondering whether we should sell the biggest part of it (keeping only the house and the yard) and using the money from that sale to buy ourselves a larger house in Miramar or Puntarenas. In this second community house we could have apartments or single rooms for single young people. We could run a small industry (like a mechanic shop, an upholstery business, a bakery, a store, a restaurant, etc.) at this place. But not everyone from the community would be obligated to work there. And we would not be obligated to create work for everyone in the community.

Being in town like this, the single young people of the community, or even married men, could find jobs anywhere in town. If their education would be too limited to find jobs, we could help them to take evening courses to learn what is necessary to get better work.

I do not think it is so important that we all work together as what it is that we all share the good and bad things of life together. We should live like a family. The whole family does not need to work on the same project. But the whole family is affected by everyone else's success and failure.

At the end of every day, I think it would be important that all the members of such a community would come together, either for a meal, or just for a time of informal sharing, to draw close to God and to one another in the brotherhood. All money earned would be turned into one fund and all expenses would be paid out of the same.

Perhaps you have better ideas. With God's help I think we could come up with a community system that would fit our needs exactly, here in the province of Puntarenas. And with God's help I think we could have a very blessed time.

With this kind of a system I would be free to tell the homeless and displaced people that contact us: "Sure, just come. We have a place for you. You can be part of our family. You may live with us, eat with us, become a part of us in spirit and fact. We will help you find a job. And naturally, you and we will share all our material goods." I feel this last "little detail" would screen out many of the self-seeking and shallow-minded, who come to the church only to get but not to give.

What do you see in this?

Peter Hoover
Miramar, Montes de Oro, Costa Rica
1993