A Busy Weekend

What a busy weekend we had! Friday after school we went to a friends house to make decorations for the prison that I work at on Saturdays. We will be having a Christmas party on the 12th of December for the women. Usually we have about 35 or so women who come and that evening we will see about 80 women. It will include a dinner and games with a spiritual message and a small token gift, like a bar of soap. It gives us a chance to reach more women with the message of the Gospel, please pray that their hearts will be open to God's wonderful news for them!
My little English speaking group, who are from other countries, is going well. I am starting to get to know them a little better and it has helped me to be able to speak more directly to their hearts! We had a new gal this week from Germany. She is pretty rough looking on the outside but is only 17 years old. Thank you for praying for God's message to penetrate their hearts. It is pretty lonely to be in prison and even more so in a country that is not your own.
Before we even got all the decorations up on the walls someone had stolen part of the scripture and the tape! We at least got up:"for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son so that whoever believed in Him..."
After the prison, Bob picked me up and we went to one of the parks close to our home to join a YWAM group that was interceding for our area of the city. We arrived late and they were just finishing up, but we got to join them in prayer for the churches. They had set up several stations for prayer and went from station to station in the park and prayed as God lead in those areas.The reason for the gathering was the extreme amount of violence and robberies on this sector. Several students from the school and YWAM missionaries have been robbed and assaulted on the streets. At first YWAM was wanting to move their headquarters to another part of the city but felt the the call was not to more but to pray for God's victory.They had invited several of the area churches to join them but did not have a great response. Pleas pray not only for safety for God's people but for a show of God's power in our midst!

As we were leaving the park Bob could not resist stepping in what we fondly call here"gringo-traps"! They can be found on all the sidewalks and in most of the streets. You can never look up for fear of falling in one and several are very deep! Someone got the great idea of putting this tire in one . Sunday afternoon we went up into the country side to get a view of the city. In typical Costa Rica friendliness we met a nice man who befriended us on the spot. We had a nice chat with him!

If God Had Favorites

"The greater part of our happiness depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances."

Martha Washington

I was sent this quote today and it so describes the heart attitude of my friend Carmen who lives in Costa Rica. We went to her humble home last night to celebrate her birthday with her family. Every time I am with her I sense the joy of the Lord in her life. She has nothing of value as far as earthly standards go and has lived most of her adult life taking care of her father, daughter and grandchildren. She has no income and the only money brought into the household is by her daughter, who lives in the same dwelling.
Every time I am with her she shines with the love of God. She loves to tell me how God has taken care of her. When ever she needs something she just prayers and waits for God to provide! She has amazing stories of how God has provided for her! They have been saving for a long time to put a floor into their home and now they have bought the materials and are waiting patiently for God to provide a person to help them install the tile. But instead of being anxious to have it done now, she waits on God for his timing.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we were in short sleeved shirts and sandles, how strange it felt until we entered into the home where the turkey was cooking. The smell of turkey brought us right back home for a minute. Our dinner was with new friends here in Costa Rica and it was fun to hear other missionary stories. One couple was just visiting friends. She was telling me that she had just moved to Louisiana to help work with the many homeless that still live there. They help in many ways but one of those is to bring a hot dog cart around every weekend to feed the workers and anyone who is hanging around. They have gotten to share the love of God with a lot of the now homeless people through their hot dog cart! We spent Thanksgiving evening with some friends on the other side of the city, God blessed us with a day filled with His blessings!
A great friend, Terri, came down the week before Thanksgiving and we had the opportunity to take her to a couple of places in the country. One of which was a Catholic Church in Cartago, which has a very interesting history and every year Catholics from all over Costa Rica come to the church to petition God for healing. When they get close to the church they fall to their knees and advance to the front of the church on their knees the whole way. It is quite an amazing process to watch such fervent faith in the midst of the trinket sales out front!

Life in Costa Rica

Life down here has been very busy! Lots of adjustments to be made from country life to school in the city! Although the city still has a country look occasionally. I love seeing the men with carts come into the neighborhoods on foot to sell their wares! I took this picture as he was passing down our street. You will notice the gated house in the background. Here security is a big deal. Everyday we hear new stories of someone being robbed, even in the middle of the day. Our Spanish tutor, who is Tico, has been robbed 6 different times and once at gun point in her 32 years of home ownership. We need 4 different keys to get into our house. Thanks for praying for our safety!
We are slowly getting adjusted and have a pretty good routine now. Up at 5:00am for prayer and breakfast; 7:25am off to school (right now we live 5 minutes from the school); home at 12:30 for lunch a rest and back to the books! We try to get a walk in either before or after the afternoon rains (usually it ends up being 'in' the rain!). Our evenings are spent chatting with our host family, eating and studying. A couple nights a week Bob goes to play basketball at the school. We have started going to a mission outreach in a poor area in the northwestern part of the city. They work with children there and do door to door evangelism. Bob and I had a chance to use our Spanish during the home visits during a 2 hour downpour. It was exciting to be able to communicate a little.

The weekends have been variable. Sometimes we go visit various mission sites and other times we go with our family on their errands. We have enjoyed our trips to the 'feria', which is an open farmers market with hundreds of vendors that would put any in Maine to shame!

The first weekend we were here our host couple got married and we were invited to their wedding! The setting was high up in the mountains with a view of the city below. They had to perform two ceremonies because the one performed in the evangelical church is not recognized by the country as legal! So a notary/justice did the official one.

One of the joys for us is meeting other missionary couples who will be going all over Latin America. Our class at the institute is the largest they have had in several years. We are over 120 new students! God must be getting ready to reap a bigger harvest here in Latin America.
We have been visiting churches to seek one that God would have us go to this year and this Sunday we may have found it. It is a group called 'La Amistad'. It was founded as a Columbian church but it has people from all over. In front of us were some young singles from England and Germany who were doing short term mission in Los Guido. It is only a 15 minute walk from our host home. The worship was beautiful, the people warm and inviting and the outreach focus was what we were looking for in a church. They just happen to be building an outreach church in Los Guido, where we have been a couple of times with a fellow missionary from CTEN, Keith Britton (keithbritton.blogspot.com). We will be helping with this years Christmas party for soup kitchen kids in a nearby community, Los Guiceros.

We have had a chance to visit in Linda Vista a few times. This is the community that we have been doing short term missions at for the past three years. It has wonderful to get to see old friends again. The church there is doing well and we are so encouraged to see their growth over the years. The photo at left is of the Linda Vista community in which the church is located. The homes are draped over a nob on the hillside with only stairs from the top down to access them. The road is located at the top of the picture.


Below is a picture of a man we meet in the mountains while walking from Los Angeles to Linda Vista. He had just gathered some wood for a fire for cooking outside his house. I just love his smile!

A Rollercoaster Ride?

This is the process I go through when I see a roller coaster….
I don’t wait in line, I go over by the fence and just watch the people getting on,
Some seem really excited , others a little reserved, and others a little fearful…
But, they continue and put their seat belt on and the attendant comes by and makes sure everyone is buckled in safely so that they can’t fall out….and the ride starts!
At first everyone seems to be handling the ride fine as it mounds up the first slope, but then it rushes head long straight down…you hear screaming and see very fear filled faces. The ride for a moment doesn’t seem very safe or like a lot of fun…but, they get over that and prepare for the next twist in the ride…and on it goes until only minutes later it is FINISHED!
They sigh a sigh of relief and off they go, telling everyone what fun the ride was!

This is what it is like for me going on the mission field.
First you watch and listen to the experiences of others and God starts to put a desire in your heart to go as well. You start reading the Word and come across stories like Abraham who was willing to leave his country and give up everything to follow God
Paul who had his eyes opened to the truth became passionate for sharing that Good News with as many people as he could
And many others who through the ages found a passion for the Gospel that they just had to go….for some that go meant in their very neighborhood but for others it meant a go that took them to distant lands and cultures….

Back to the roller coaster….before you get on you watch others and you count the cost of the ride! You see that it will not always be easy….sometimes the slopes will be high…..like having to learn a new language…living with a family that can’t speak a word of English……having no car, no house, no phone……and needing to fit into a culture who think very differently than your own…. All this brings you at a decision point….will I cross that ticket line and get on or will I stay here on the sideline and just watch others enjoy the ride?
I have discovered that when I am truly serving God out of the gifts and call He has on my life it is very much like that roller coaster ride…there may be bumps along the way but the thrill of being in the center of His will is irreplaceable!

What’s the pull? It is sort of like a man who finds a pearl of great price and sells all he has to obtain it…
Because that pearl is far more precious to him that all the treasures in this world!

I used to think that it took very talented people, like Jan and John to become missionaries. So, when I read the slogan of the agency we choose I was excited! It says: Helping Ordinary people partner with God to accomplish the extraordinary!
That works for Me! I know that I am an ordinary person! In fact God usually chooses ordinary people to do His work so that He gets the glory!!!