October 1

October 1st, 2012



What’s so important about today?  Lots of things.  It starts the beginning of the 3rd trimester of 2012, ends the fiscal year for most businesses in Costa Rica, it’s a Monday, we are underway again in Costa Rica (quick language and culture adjustments) and it’s a great day to share our thanks for your help financially and for your prayers that under-gird us daily. Speaking of prayer, please help us pray for our participation in Cartago.  We helped at the outreach for the children in San Callatano on Saturday and the efforts are making inroads in that little community. 

The 10-13 year old boys are attending in great numbers and we expect to break them out for the next session, take them to the closest town, Cot, and play some soccer along with sharing the gospel.  They have energy to spare!!  The place we meet at is a three bay equipment pole barn.  It is really handy for gathering the children as it is close to their homes.  There are some drawbacks though.  The current roof shields the sun but as we experienced Saturday, it doesn’t do much to shed the rain (most of the roof panels look like they have been hit with a shotgun!!).  We served up some lunch just as the rain hit and about 35 of us were looking for the 2 semi dry spots to sit and eat it!!  We are very grateful to Main Street Baptist Church in Brunswick, Maine that they have plans to send a team to tackle the roof situation next February.  The church in San Rafael (which is leading the outreach) is considering having members sponsor a piece of roof, so we hope to progress well in these coming months (maybe we can address the walls some as well with the team..).  I, Bob, will work on some electric service for the place as there are already plans for gathering ladies from San Callatano for a women’s event next month.

B is back at the prison serving woman from around the world sharing God's love with them.They were very happy to see her.It has been wonderful to see God changing their hearts.
 She is preparing to start another Bible Study this fall in Philippians,with the theme of count it all joy!

We just returned from the US.  We did get to see children, grandchildren, friends, many of our supporters and the three churches that are behind us in a busy but thoroughly enjoyable time.  It is hard to beat the weather in Maine in August and this year was as good as ever.   After selling our house two years ago, we lack a place to stay in Maine.  So over the next 5 to 8 years we will be chipping away at renovating my old carpenters workshop into an apartment for ourselves and having a place to store some things.
We are blessed to have 15 families and 3 churches participating with us regularly in our efforts here.  Should you know of others that would like to be involved as well please have them contact us.  Also if you, your family, you and your friends  or your church would like to get involved first hand here in Costa Rica we would be happy to help you with the arrangements.  It would be a memorable trip indeed!!
Again, as I stated at the top,  thanks so much for your generous sustained support for our efforts here in Costa Rica.
Blessings, Bob n B

May June Briefs

These last 2 months we have had fiestas and special events for the women I work with.  The 30th of May, which is the day that Nicaragua celebrates Mother’s Day, just happened to fall on the day which my Bible Study meets in La Cuenca.  We celebrated it with a nice luncheon, special music and a speaker.  Steph and Marcela, a friend of hers, led us in a time of worship.  This was so much better than the CD music we usually have!

     Our speaker, Shirley, was born blind and shared with us how God has been so faithful in her life. She is a Costa Rican missionary that travels all over Latin America with a message of hope. The women received prayer from her and many responded to her message by opening up their hearts to receive from God His healing touch.

     Last Monday we had a women’s day.  It was held in the mountains above the slum where we work. Another missionary from Venezuela and I brought our groups together to be blessed by a small group of women from the US who came to serve and teach the women about the price God paid for them. The theme of the event was “Bought with a Price”. I am always amazed at how the issues of being a woman cross geographic boundaries. It was a beautiful day. The place where we met is owned by a missionary from the US, Ruth, and this year she celebrated her 88^th birthday. She and her husband have served as missionaries for over 30 years in Costa Rica. (They came at about the same season of life as us!)

      In April we also hosted a team from So. Carolina. It was the same school that came last year, Shannon Forrest Christian School.  There were about 25 students and 4 teachers.  They worked in La Cuenca, adding a bathroom to the ministry site and also went and served in Cot, a village in the province of Cartago about an hour out of San Jose.   The most remarked about part of the trip was what it was like living with the families. The students were all a bit scared at first but after only being in with the families for one night most everyone was feeling right at home!   When they left and had to say goodbye it seemed like they were leaving their very own families behind!   

     Several of the students had never been out of the country before and seeing the poverty was a real eye opener for them.  One of the things they loved was being embraced by the children, who are not timid at all. Many of the children come from single parent homes and are starved for attention.                                  

     While we were in Cot with this team we met a new pastor, Greivin, who has started an outreach in a small slum area on the outskirts of Cot.  His church in San Rafael actually hosted a handful of the students.  Since April we have been able to get to know the pastor, his family and the churches vision better.  What a surprise to see Greivin at ESEPA, the seminary where Bob serves as administrator, one Thursday after one of his classes.   His background was in sales before being called to pastor, so he maintains his formal studies one day a week with us at ESEPA.  One anecdote he mentioned to us was about 15 years ago they moved to Canada to work and raise their family.  As Greivin relates “we arrived at the Toronto airport in mid February, baby in hand and when the door opened to the street I could neither breathe nor move… it was so cold.”  He had never experienced temperatures less than about 50 in his life, they returned to Costa Rica after one year!  This little church in San Rafael reminds us alot of our North Woolwich fellowship in Maine.  They have a great heart and vision to reach out to their neighbors, nearby communities and they even have a trip to Africa planned for the coming year.  We expect that this church will be hosting teams with us starting in 2013.  We currently are making arrangements for a team from Maine Street Baptist in Brunswick, Maine to come down in February 2013 and there is talk of a family of 6 coming down in the next 6 months.  So, if there is a desire in your heart to mobilize your family, your neighbors or a group from your church to experience a cross cultural setting for ministry, we would love to assist in the planning and hosting on this end.

      Let us know if you would like a visit from us during our break in Maine in August and early September.  Gather a small group, we would be happy to share our life in Costa Rica, get to know you and maybe encourage you in developing a group for a trip out of country.

La Boda

My how have the last three months flown by! To say it has been busy would be an understatement but it has been a great busy! We would like to share with you some highlights.

La Cuenca:
   It was our great joy to be at the Boda (Wedding) of a couple who had lived together for 6 years and have 4 children. We have spent about 5 months doing martial counseling with them and in February they were ready to make their union pleasing to God! Costa Rica being a Catholic country requires that anyone wanting to marry out side the church to first go to a lawyer for a civil marriage and then it is permissible to have a religious wedding.
They live in a very humble home in the slum and the religious ceremony was held in their home. We were in their living area and it was wall to wall chairs, no turning around room. The pastor did a wonderful job blessing them and guiding them as to how to live a marriage pleasing to God.

   The woman's Bible Study,held in the same slum, La Cuenca continues to go well. We are going to finish our study of The Lords Prayer in a couple of weeks and then I am hoping to have a special day with a guest speaker and invitations to women from the area.

 I am praying for some finical assistance to be able to take some of the women out of La Cuenca for a day in the mountains, filled with games, food and teaching. If you are able to help please send a check along to CTEN Commission To Every Nation
P.O. Box 291307
Kerrville, TX 78029-1307     with our name on a sticky note.

Thursday Bible Study
 We are also finishing a study on prayer and then we will start into Genesis, the book of beginnings! I am really having a great time with this small study, the ladies are such good students and we just added two new women to our group! If any of you have ever been in one of my studies you know how I feel about homework! They always complete it and are very involved in the discussion. It has been exciting for me to be teaching them how to study their Bibles inductively and the Genesis Study will be our first full Precept Study.

The Prison:
We have started our next course of Celebrate Recovery with between 9-12 women. They have been doing the work in their books and are really seeking recovery. One woman had been struggling with some unforgiveness issues and last week when we had our one on one time she was glowing as she told me that she had not only forgiven someone but had also gone to that person to seek forgiveness for what she had done. She was so excited to tell me about it!

Stephanie
Stephanie, the young woman that I had the privilege to mentor last year, has come back from Mexico and is now going to seminary here in Costa Rica as well as joining us in the work in La Cuenca. Seminary is her next step into full time missions.Part of what she needs to do as she completes her studies is raise support, which is very difficult to do here as the local church does not have a missionary vision. We are excited that God has provided generously through some of you to bring her to Maine for a week this summer so she can have the opportunity to share her vision with you all. If you would like to meet her please get in contact with us!

Bob's 60th
We had the great surprise of having our son Ryan with us to celebrate Bob's 60th birthday this February 29.I am excited to say that I was able to keep it a surprise and we had a long weekend to spend with him and his friend, Ann.

Thank you for continuing to keep us and the ministry God is doing through us here in Costa Rica in your prayers.We know that the prayers and support you provide allow us to continue to serve God and you in bring the good news of the Gospel!