Week 12 Update

Dan here:
This week I was reminded of the story of Caleb. You remember Joshua and Caleb were part of a group of 12 men sent by the people of Israel to spy on the promised land. The 12 men came back and reported that the land was indeed good but there were giants and fortified cities. They caused the people to be scared - to want to play it safe. But Caleb silenced the people and said that they should go and take the land. They can do it because God is with them. Sadly, they chose to play it safe and wandered in the desert for 40 years.

Long story short - 45 years later (Caleb is 85, at this point, in Joshua 14) we hear from Caleb again. He still has the same faith and fire to go and live in God’s promise. Of the 12 men who went to spy on the land, only Caleb and Joshua believed in the promise of God and survived to step into the promised land.

This makes me think - 10 of those guys decided not to trust God but rather to play it safe. They decided to settle for survival instead of thriving in God’s promise. Do you even remember the names of those 10 guys? What kind of legacy did they leave behind? Their only legacy is that of people saying, “I just don’t want to be like them.”

Sometimes I feel like we still see the spirit of these 10 guys in the church today. How many people are settling for just survival instead of living in the promises of God? How many Christian leaders are settling for a timid church that just pays the bills instead of teaching boldly and raising up new disciples who want to change the world and glorify God? It’s certainly easier and safer to settle for “just okay”. It gets us out of church in time to watch football and play golf. But I want to be a person who chases after God with all I’ve got. I’d rather be a part of a group of people who live to glorify God in everything they do. As a result, my life may not be long - it certainly won’t be normal, but it will be worth it - because our God deserves our best.

I feel like God has been putting people into our lives that feel the same way. The heart of what they are saying to us is, “I don’t want to do church like the older generation did. They played it safe. We want to be radical for God.” It is so amazing to see how God is using the local church here in Alajuelita to reach people who have only ever seen religion instead of Jesus.

This has been another busy (good busy) week for us. We’ve spent time rebuilding relationships with old friends, building new relationships through our English class, and loving others while sharing meals with them.

Karen continues to visit her special needs orphanage regularly. The nuns are continuing to trust her with more and more responsibility. I might have to go in there and tell Fatima (the head nun) that they cannot have Karen permanently - she is mine! (I’m so selfish sometimes!)

Karen and I are working with a local couple here in Alajuelita who are helping us. They are helping us to learn Spanish and teach our English class. Laine and Allan Gutierrez are such a blessing to all they encounter and especially to Karen and I.

Allan is helping us with Spanish on Monday nights (this is in addition to our other Spanish class on Tuesdays with Veronica). He forces us to communicate only in Spanish and therefore practice our conversational Spanish. He also teaches us phrases that the “locals use” - I’m pretty sure he makes most of them up just to see if we will say them.

Laine is helping us with the English classes on Thursday night at Iglesia Nuevo Amor. Our class has doubled in size in one week and, if history is any indication, it will double in size again in a few weeks. We have so much fun in class. We teach the students English, the students teach us Spanish, and together we laugh a lot!

We still have so many more people to meet with and enjoy. Not surprisingly, Karen is keeping our calendar full. But honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We have built weekly times of rest into our schedule. God has been reminding us of our passion and mission. He has been using these times of rest to reinforce our thinking with teachings from the Bible and leaders we trust. In future updates, we will talk more about this growing passion. For now, please continue to pray for wisdom for Karen and I to understand God’s will for our lives. Also, please continue to pray for unity in the local church here in Costa Rica. There is a reason that Jesus prayed for the future church being one. Also, why Paul spent so much time praying and writing about the church being one in spirit.

Funny story - Here in Costa, the hot topic in the community is the amount of public urination that happens (especially in the San Jose valley). It’s become such a problem that a company even invented urine repelling paint - pee on the wall and it will pee right back at you! Well, you know Karen is a naturally friendly person. Yesterday, as she was out exercising, she noticed one of the security guards in our area standing around (probably waiting for a bus) so she waved as usual. Yeah - he was peeing. She was mortified when she realized what he was doing!!! From now on, she might not be as friendly on her morning runs.

Week 11 Update

Karen here:

What a week this has been! Emotionally, this has been the most difficult week yet. We feel like God has definitely put some ideas on our heart for our future ministry in Costa Rica. Sometimes God allows us go through challenging times in order to prepare us for future endeavors. Dan and I truly believe that the challenges and the emotional roller coasters we have been on this week are preparing us for some BIG things. Please pray that God will give us wisdom and peace.

Thursday night we began teaching English classes at Nuevo Amor, one of the local churches. It was a blast! We laughed more Thursday night than we have in weeks. It was such a blessing to spend time conversing, laughing, and developing relationships with new friends. Dan and I are really looking forward to meeting even more students this week. Pray that we can be effective and show them God’s love while we are helping them learning English.

We are also working on our Spanish. This morning, as we were walking to church, I was praying that God would help me with my Spanish. I want to learn but I am such a visual learner that it has been difficult at times to fully understand the sermons on Sunday. Don’t get me wrong…I have really been trying but its not always easy. Well this morning in church, as we were singing, the pastor turned around and gave me a hug. He also gave me a set of stapled papers and informed that it was the sermon for the week. Don’t you just love how God works? Here I was just praying, only moments before, for help with my Spanish. Then suddenly, the pastor pulls out his notes for me to read as he speaks?! God is so good! I’m reminded of the verse in James 4:2…You don’t have because you don’t ask. Sometimes God just waits for us to ask. When I asked he provided:) After the church service I told Pastor Miguel what a blessing it was to be able to read his notes as I listened to him. With a smile he told me that he would give them to me every week from now on! I’m so thankful for a God who takes care of the little things along with the BIG things. I’m also very thankful for his servants who truly listen to him and step out in obedience. Miguel didn’t have to give his notes to me but he did and it was such a blessing!

Dan and I believe that one of our gifts in ministry is our desire and ability to invest in the people around us. We have especially been diligent about spending time with the Ticos and Tico staff here in Costa Rica. We were blessed to be able to spend time with much of the Tico staff this past Friday playing games, talking, laughing and just enjoying being with each other. Additionally, we were able to spend an evening with one of our dear friends here, Carolina, celebrating her birthday. We are constantly reminded how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends.

Here’s my update on the orphanage…Elizabeth is such a miracle. She is more attentive every single time I see her. I love playing with her. This past week we played ball together. Another huge event happened this week at the orphanage. They received a new baby-Antonio. He is precious. Antonio is 13 months old. Pray for him and the nuns who take care of him! I’m praying they bond quickly. Anyone who enters the orphanage can see how attentive the nuns are and how much they love each and every child in the orphanage. Pray for the orphans and the nuns. They have a special place in my heart. I know God loves them even more than I do!

Week 10 Update

Dan here:

You may have noticed these past two weeks that our updates have not been coming out on our normal Sunday night schedule. We apologize for this and hope to be back on schedule this coming weekend. Life, as it does, got away from us for a bit.

This past week has been much fun and we are constantly amazed and thankful for the blessings in our lives. We are privileged to serve in a fantastic ministry with amazing staff members and friends. We are blessed with an amazingly beautiful world filled with fun people with whom we get to enjoy life.

This past week we had the opportunity to spend time with our dear friends Veronica and Carolina (fierce competitors in game night - alas, never the victors). Carolina and Veronica are patiently teaching us Spanish in between their losing game sessions...

Carolina and Veronica - Game night

We also enjoyed an evening with our long time friends Robert & Maria. There is never a dull moment when these two are around.

More of our favorite people in Costa Rica are the Campos family who came over to our house one evening for dinner and games. We met the Campos family when leading an English class here several years ago and instantly fell in love with them.

We continue to serve in our various roles throughout the ministry as well. But this weekend was our once a month weekend of travel and rest. We timed this weekend well in that we were trying to pick a weekend in the rainy season near a new moon so that we could visit the northwestern peninsula of Costa Rica called the Nicoya peninsula. On this peninsula there is a protected turtle nesting beach called Playa Ostional where millions of turtles come to lay their eggs. We were fortunate enough to see one of these “Arribadas” which has been a life-long dream of Karen’s (not going to lie - I was enjoying finally getting to use my 4 wheel drive as much as seeing the turtles). The area where we stayed was quite remote and the roads were barely passable with a good 4-wheel drive vehicle (we had to cross a few streams and a few ponds in the road). But seeing the turtles struggle onto the beach, lay their eggs and struggle back to the ocean was amazing and made the trip worth it. Over 20,000 turtles nested that evening (the before and after views of the beach were amazing. All those turtle tracks turned the beach from smooth sand to a trampled mess). We also found a beautiful B&B near the beach to rest and relax for the rest of the long weekend.

Our evening with the turtles

Here is a google story of the turtles: https://goo.gl/photos/X2umRWY8jxebzEkY8

And here is a Facebook album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153699918392287&type=1&l=a4c5c32fcd

Our view from the B&B - look close - there are monkeys in the trees!

Karen found her happy place

The beach near the B&B

It was almost completely deserted - just the way we like it!

This really is an amazing world in which we live.

Interesting tidbit - even though we live in a tropical country with an extremely abundant rainy season (normally) we are now under water restrictions here in the San Jose valley.  Yep, every once in a while, for no apparent reason, they shut off the water at our house for 4-6 hours.   Actually, we are lucky.  Our friends that live up the mountain (Robert & Maria) lose water several times a week for 12 hours a day.  We try to avoid them on those days as we imagine they will be fairly grumpy...

Prayer focus:
Karen and I start teaching English class this week. Please pray for wisdom as we lead these folks in learning and special blessing as we develop new relationships and new discipleship opportunities.

Week 9 Update

Karen here:

Where do I begin? God is so good. He is stretching us…by trusting Him and living outside our normal comfort zone He is doing mighty things.

We have been so blessed to spend time with dear friends down here. I know Dan has mentioned this before but I’ll say it again. We know the locals can be so much more effective in ministry than us. Our prayer is that we can work alongside locals to develop new ministries in the community. We are praying for like-minded friends to share our vision…God’s vision…and grow it with us.

This week we were able to finally take the next step toward residency by going to San Jose to complete the fingerprinting process. Now it is all a waiting game. For those of you who know what a planner I am, you know this is an area where God is stretching me. I’ve had to learn to take things in stride and accept “Tico Time”. I have a poster in my classroom that reminds me “Life is all about how you handle Plan B.” Plan B seems to happen more than Plan A down here. However, I’m constantly reminded that God’s plan is always better than my plan:)

One of my major prayer requests this week is for our Spanish skills. We are blessed to have such wonderful teachers. Now we have classes 2 nights a week with 2 different teachers. One night a week we have class with Veronica while Allan is teaching us on another night. Their teaching styles are very different from each other but exactly what we need! Dan is doing a wonderful job as usual. He’s my gifted husband:) My knowledge on the other hand is more limited, I understand much more than I speak. Please pray that I can just relax and not be afraid to try to speak Spanish. While I don’t worry about sounding like an idiot in front of kids in Verbena or at the orphanage, its a little bit harder when I am practicing with friends or attempting to communicate with parents at school. Learning Spanish is critical to our ministry down here so your prayers are very much appreciated!

We are so pleased to announce that the church, Nuevo Amor, in Tejar has started advertising for our English classes. Dan and I will officially start teaching this class on October 15th. Pray for guidance and new friendships. We met some of our best friends down here when we taught English classes down here in the past.

My precious Elizabeth turned 2 this past week. I have mentioned that the locals know how to throw parties down here. Well they had a huge party for Elizabeth. They truly celebrated the miracle that she is still with us and also thriving! Each time I see her I am absolutely amazed at her progress:)

God has big things in store for Alajuelita! I know this because of the trials some of our local friends/partners are going through at the moment. Satan is trying to take their eyes off the ministry and put them on other obstacles but our precious friends are determined. Pray for God’s abundant blessings on all of the locals that are working with us to build God’s Kingdom. One specific prayer request is for a couple that is looking for a new affordable place to live. The husband did a week’s worth of work and then the employer never paid him. While our friend has a great attitude about it we want him to have that financial blessing that he deserves. Pray that they find a house, better jobs, and that the former employer finally pays him.

We love and miss you guys! You are in our thoughts and prayers each and every day:)