Back in the U.S.A.

We've been back a week and one day! So many amazing things have happened that I want to share here, but today I've only got time to post a couple of lines. It might have someone to do with having a brand new grandson sitting in my livingroom :O)

Today is Kyle's birthday and our family is getting together over at Brad & Danielle's house with them and Ken's Mom is coming there also. We are bringing everything over there for dinner. We are all excited to be celebrating together as a family; first time in four years!

I have pictures I want to share, pictures before we left, pictures since we've arrived home! It's all GOD news and about how He works without us even asking! Please come back and read more over the weekend! You'll be blessed at seeing how His hand has moved in our behalf!

Until later...

A time and a season for everything!

Ecc. 3:1-8 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

vs. l1b-12 "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live"

Two weeks from tomorrow, our family will be leaving Costa Rica permanently and returning to the United States. We have tried our best to inform everyone that we know, but we are aware that we might have missed some people. Please accept our sincere apologies. We are doing our best to leave things in the best order for our missionary agency; it's not easy to "just leave" a 7-acre property and we have never been people to leave things "undone". We haven't even found the time to put a letter out through the agency with a two-week team of 34 people here at the end of January, and then every weekend at the camp being booked; let alone the little "repairs" we in good conscience cannot leave unattended!

There are so many issues that went into making this decision, and the decision was not an easy one. Many, many months of prayer went into it on our part, and with the prayer support of some close family members because our decision is not based on lack of financial support which often sends many missionaries home. Our decision is based on exhaustion even after having been home for a six-month furlough.

There are so many challenges to living on the mission field! So many are difficult to even put into words or unless you have actually lived the life of a missionary yourself, for people to grasp. There are some issues that go without saying because they are obvious; establishing close relationships is difficult with language barriers and the obvious cultural barriers, and this is painful if you are a "people person" like me (Sherri). Growing up kids on the mission field has it's own set of unique needs with our kids struggling to identify which country is called "home". Now that Heather is "home", we find that we were ill-prepared for the transition struggles that she would endure when we returned to the field as a Missionary Kid in the States; her friends have moved on in the four years that she has been in that "foreign land", she feels isolated and alone as few understand in her peer group her experiences of living abroad and serving the Lord. She recently wrote on her Facebook, "my Grandma has more of a social life than me". The reality of this culture is that even Christian value systems are at opposite poles to each other. On any given day just "doing" the administration of the camp (building permits, taxes, legal issues and banking) can be logistically exhausting and time consuming, often driving an hour and a half away for documents, standing in long lines for hours only to be told that we were told wrong, are in the wrong place, that more steps need to be done and to come back another day altogether, let alone just trying to maintain our families needs! This has been our reality the last four years, and some of it we have been able to adapt too. Most all of it, we have grown weary of and after four years on the field have decided we are not cut out for this in the longer term.

Does it mean that we would change any of it over the last four years? No! We are so extremely thankful to God for these experiences, for the things He has had to painfully change in us to serve here this long! On the contrary, we feel better equipped to serve Him. But God also calls us to serve our family before others.

How can you pray for us? We return to the U.S. on March 8. We have no jobs and our last support check will be for the month of March. God has placed eternity deep in our hearts and we don't know what He wants us to do, but we know we want to serve Him at home after some period of rest. Pray that we will hear His voice clearly. We are staying on with Global Outreach Mission as Representatives, going on short-term teams as God allows; Kyle already signed up for the January 2013 short-term team to Costa Rica and Heather may return in May 2012 to help with a medical team!

Thank you to all those who have prayed for our family and financially supported us. Thank you for serving alongside of us here in Costa Rica because without each of you, we would have never been able to be here!

There will be more posts once we arrive home! To God be the Glory for ALL THAT HE HAS DONE!!

From Costa Rica

Thank you for those of you who prayed for us during our travels yesterday. We returned to Costa Rica arriving around 1:10 p.m. in the afternoon. It was a difficult departure as we left our daughter, Heather, behind to continue her studies in the community college. I can't say as I've ever seen two siblings cry as much as Kyle and Heather did at the airport. This missionary service over the last four years has always had Heather in the midst of it all. Of course, it was a teary day for all of us as well. It feels strange to walk past her room here in the house in Costa Rica and not have her here. We are sad because of it. Yesterday would have also been my nephew's 38th birthday!

Please continue to pray for our family, for Heather as she continues to adjust in the States and studies, for Kyle as he clearly misses Heather (they are very close and apart from the age difference one might think they were twins, always together down here), pray for this Mama who misses both "her girls" (Danielle & Heather) and please continue to pray for healing over Karl's untimely death.

But, we are here, and we are here because of His strength and His promises that we can count on during these days!

Revelation 21:3-4 "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away".

AMEN!!!!

Hickory Grove Children's Ministry - Part II

This past Wednesday was the culmination of our working with the Hickory Grove Children's Ministry. The four weeks before we talked about what a missionary is, what the "message" is of a missionary. We talked specifically about the ministry that we do in Costa Rica with the campground and then we talked about the outreach ministries that we also do: the Orphan Home ministry, the two Children's homes, the Homeless Shelter, the Women's Ministry. We showed slides of all of the above, enjoyed some Costa Rican snacks, discussed the Wordless Book and finally finished our Wordless Book bracelets! Last Sunday, this group of kids stood up and sang in Spanish a four verse worship song we taught them over the four weeks. Okay, if ever there is a time that the Lord allows us to be "proud" - I was so proud of each of them! They sang that song like Spanish was their first language and we taught them what each verse meant in English. So, we finished our four weeks up sadly, but then found out that this past Wednesday night, the kids were planning on coming to our house to do a little service project for our family. A dear supporter and friend had been working on tidying up the landscape around the front of our house. Not having much a green thumb myself, he spent a week with me and the boys (Kyle & Jordan) educating us on the care of our shrubbery, trimming things back, killing weeds, and preparing the beds for winter. He brought fiberglass mesh, soil conditioner and he delivered three loads of mulch to the house the days prior to the kids arrival. Below are some pictures of the kids service project.

The first picture is looking down my porch stairs at one big pile of mulch!


With the fiberglass paper laid down and just a few landscape nails securing it, the kids finished placing and pushing in the nails, and then started to load up plastic beach buckets with the soil conditioner.

They were excited and ready to go from the time they got off the church van with their teachers in tow!

It was so hot that early evening and the kids only had about 20 minutes to work since they were being treated to McDonald's ice-cream cones just down the road from our house and on the way back to the church. The next day, Jordan helped place and cut the fiberglass mesh around the trees in our front yard.

I got to working on the mulch piles!


But, before the kids left they wanted us to know how much they loved us and they told us so as a united group. Holding back tears, I reminded them how much our family loved each one of them. No service at this age is complete without a cookie (or at least I thought so), and even though they were going down the road to get an ice-cream cone, I baked up some M&M cookies and put some juice boxes on ice just in case the heat might overtake anyone ;)

Thank You Hickory Grove Wednesday Night Children's Ministry for the gift of a beautifully tidied up front yard. Most of all, thank you for the gift of your smiles, laughter, love and encouragement. We love you all!

Rest In Peace

We received an email informing us that a friend had passed away in a car accident last week down in Costa Rica. Willy the Clown, and his father-in-law passed away. Willy's mother-in-law is in critical condition. His wife and his 4-year-old daughter are hospitalized. Please pray for this family! Willy partnered with us on more than one occasion at the campground with the homeless shelter ministry as well as with the orphan home ministry. The words in the picture say, "A great friend. A great blessing. You will be remembered always". A flame for evangelical ministry in Costa Rica has been blown out this past week.

The "Furlough Bucket List"

Yep, the "Furlough Bucket List" is a no-brainer. This past week I drew a line through one of my "Wanna-do's" on my list and while it was very time consuming, it was for me, rewarding. I present to you my photo's of my pork butt that was dry rubbed, smoked and cooked on our daughter's grill for 7-8 hours. I forgot to take a picture of the slathering sauce that was made homemade and poured over pulled pork sandwiches (we are native NY'ers and this is how we eat our barbecue up there, but we mostly consume and heartily enjoy NC barbecue)!

You might be asking why I went to all the trouble? Pork is expensive in Costa Rica and considered a very high end piece of meat, usually only bought and eaten at Christmas. We don't eat pork in Costa Rica, can't afford it! Another reason is, a childhood memory of my Dad taking our family to a small town near our home in NY to support the Volunteer Firemen's annual barbecue dinner. There, they cooked the meat underground which has always fascinated me, in fact, on my recent visit with my Dad, I asked him tons of questions on this process, which probably drove him nuts like I did when I was a kid! It's always been a "dream" of mine to cook a beef brisket underground, but even though Dad answered all the questions, bless his heart, I'm still a chicken to try it. I haven't been able to find a beef brisket on sale big enough to feed our family while on furlough, but I did find this pork butt, and so following the recipes (for the rub, slathering sauce, and cooking instructions) from my "Dinosaur Barbecue" cookbook, a well known restaurant in our home town up North made famous for their barbecue and now Food Network Famous as featured on the hit show, "Diner's, Drive-In's and Dives"; I dare say, it was delicious!

I may or may not be looking for that brisket on sale. Maybe I'll cook one for the family when we visit up North in October, but mostly I'm happy that I got to finally try it!

Back in N.C. and preparing for ministry, how you can pray!

We arrived home safely to North Carolina yesterday morning at 4 a.m. after spending two weeks in New York visiting our family and friends. This visit was especially enjoyable and it seemed as though God multiplied our time there as the two weeks felt more like four. We got to see everyone we wanted too and didn't feel rushed in our visitations. The last two times that we have been up to New York have been because of one of our parent's funerals. This time, there were more smiles, jokes and laughing. I had a wonderful time at a long anticipated family reunion getting to see my Aunt's and Uncle's, and cousins. When we moved to North Carolina in 1997 the family always happened to schedule the reunion in August when school was starting for our kids in N.C., and we were never able to make the trip up North. I saw family members that I hadn't seen in 14 years! We also had reunions on Ken's side of the family in that Aunt's and Uncle's came to meet us for meals on the road as we traveled through States; so much fun! ALL six of us kids got to be together in NY again as well. I did get to win one Parchessi game, but of course, with no mercy being shown, I lost more than I won! Perhaps, I will have a better round of games in October when we return!


We have been invited to minister to children over the next four weeks at Hickory Grove Church during their Wednesday night program. We will be discussing Missions and it's Message, teaching the kids a Worship Song in Spanish, doing crafts, discussing and showing pictures of our ministries in Costa Rica, and introducing them to Costa Rican foods and snacks! Your prayers are much appreciated and needed...Thank You!

Jump Start

I was reading a post by one of my good friends here in N.C. on her Facebook; actually I am just going to copy it right here, yes, without her permission because I know it would be okay with her anyways and I am not identifying who she is.

She wrote,
"is praying and believing that if this is His will, where He wants me to be, that He will open doors that no man can shut! Praying that my heart is where His is."

My response to her was something along the lines that she doesn't need to worry about making a "mistake", and that she should just continue doing what she is doing and that is being obedient, and He will make it known to her. Then I sent her a p.s. which just said 2 Corinthians 5:7 "We live by faith, not by sight".

As I thought about it more, obedience really is the key to God being able to use us. It is true that God can open and close doors that no man can touch! He can stop her dead in her tracks or He can push her forward in record speed!

God's biggest problem today is getting us started.

God bless you, E.B.L., as you chase after Him!

Just for fun #2

You probably don't know this about me, maybe you don't even care to know, but too bad, I'm going to share. I have "issues" with cake! I actually take a lot after my Daddy! I love pie! I like fruit pies, custard pies, anything but, sorry, shoe-fly; I've just never acquired a taste for it, but in the cheerleading section for Lancaster, County, P.A. would sit my husband, Ken, because he LOVES shoe-fly pies! Let me just say, that I will eat cake, but not with the ice-cream on it! Do not put the ice-cream near it! If you can serve the ice-cream in a bowl or plate separate from the cake, that's the bomb! I really dislike when ice-cream melts on or near cake. I know! I'm so weird! On the other hand, long before cupcakes even became popular and little cupcakeries started popping up all over the country, and TV shows like "Cupcake Wars", yes, I've been watching a little digital television since we got back in the States (Food Network specifically. I love that channel, always have) I have enjoyed baking cupcakes. It all started for me when my kids got into public school and no one would ever sign up for cupcakes for class parties. I worked from home typing medical records for a local hospital (someone had to do the job, so I figured why not me) and I would sign up to bring in cupcakes. I began to love making them. After all, they are kinda cute, little, two bite (that would be by my big mouth measurements) morsels of cake and no one ever offers you ice-cream with them! I make cupcakes in Costa Rica, but it's a little frustrating. Cake mixes are pricey, and I would much rather bake them from scratch, but the kinds that I would like to bake are often difficult to find the ingredients for since I like them "classy". So, I do the best I can with what I have which isn't very much selection-wise for the Women's Ministry. But, it's always been my "dream" to do something like the pictures below in Costa Rica. For a year, I've had something like this floating around in my mind to do for Women's Ministry, but again, it's too pricey to be a reality.

Imagine coming home and getting the opportunity through a local church near my house to minister to women, I mean, intentionally turning it up a notch to make them feel special just because, and it's a gift I'd like to feel God has given to me to use, and He opened a door! (Please insert a large "squeal" of excitement here)!

On Monday night 49 women came out to Johnson Memorial Church for a lesson on saving money in these economic times by learning effective Couponing methods from a young Mom in their church. I learned so much myself and I believe we all need to be good stewards of what we are given!

The cupcake is a Ghiardelli dark chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting! The other cupcake in the pictures was "Ken-inspired" because he loves raspberries. It's a French vanilla cupcake with a vanilla raspberry creme frosting! In the glassware are Mint Oreo bon-bon's, vanilla chocolate-coated pretzel rods. For some candy, I bought Skittles and some white mints. Ice-cold lemonade was to drink on this warm evening.

In looking for some cupcake wrappers, I was actually dumb-founded by how pricey they are..outrageous actually! So, one night, I sat down and cut away at a paper cupcake liner and made my own template for the wrappers you see here which are then cut at the top with decorative scissors. The paper I used was left-over scrapbook paper from Brad & Danielle's wedding!

I truly hope someone left feeling "special" and "cared for" that evening. Thank you, Lord, for caring for my "dreams"!

If you care to see the photo's up close, just click on them for a closer view!

Just for fun - #I

Packed away in a crawl space of the house, back in a corner were four plastic bins. Before I "became a missionary", like I haven't even arrived there yet, I'm still working on it with the Lord's help; I was a Stampin' Up demonstrator. I have not had a rubber stamp or an ink pad in my hand in three years. For me, it's been difficult. I used to love to make homemade cards and I would travel down to Wilmington, N.C. a few times a year on a Saturday with a friend, and do scrapbooking all day long in a scrapbooking store down there. I guess I would reference it to feeling like you'd taken a rolling pin away from Julia Childs! So, within the first couple of days that I got home; okay, don't tell Ken this, even before I got all my clothes unpacked and organized out of the suitcase, I set myself up a little stamping work station in my bedroom (trust me, it wouldn't surprise Ken). This is the second card I've made. The first one has already been given away to my neighbor! I know I'm no Picasso with my artistic skillz; my siblings got all those talents! But for me, this is so relaxing and I'm so excited to be able to do some of it again...I can't even tell you how excited! It's so much fun!

Prayer Requests

WE,

1. Have family visiting until the end of December and had a wonderful Thanksgiving with them and some guests that we invited in an effort to bless them.
2. With having extra bodies here (family) who are willing to help out, we have been able to spend some time "sprucing up" our mission home. The livingroom and diningroom have new paint and curtains. The diningroom now has chair covers which match the curtains. Our bedroom has a new coat of paint, new sound and light blocking curtains as well. Things are looking mighty spiffy around here! What a blessing to our family!
3. Have three teams coming back-to-back in December and January, and are busy doing logistics and having meetings with churches that will be hosting our medical clinics for those teams. Please begin praying for these teams and their ministry that they will be doing in Costa Rica!
4. Are working on obtaining building permits for a new cabin to be started at the camp in 2011. Please pray for this process, it is often frustrating and is always time consuming!
5. Just finished our Christmas letter that will be sent out through Global Outreach Mission to our prayer and financial supporters. We were happy to report that 255 people (children and adults) came to the know the Lord through this ministry in 2010 and are being followed up in local churches...Praise the Lord!
6. Are having heavy rains for the last two days and are having internet connection problems, thus, the short sentences, but some communication is better than none...right?
7. Appreciate all of you who pray for us, who think about us, who leave comments of encouragement, who financially support us, who love us, who care about us. We could not be here without EACH of you!
8. Often times don't understand why we have been allowed to be here. We are reminded that God does not need us to do His work and so, we are grateful!

Hopefully, another day when the connection will last longer I can post more, but until then, thanks for reading!

It stopped raining and a window into how people pass time.

We are still in the same hotel, but thankful to be safe and have this room. Our room is near the office and repeatedly throughout the day we have heard the office personnel tell people they have no rooms left available, and each time I feel a lump in my throat. There are wall to wall trucks parked alongside the road and people in this hotel are walking in the parking lot to keep from going stir crazy! While Ken and the boys were out walking to the grocery store this morning to buy milk and cereal, they witnessed a landslide across the river and watched as trees and a part of a mountain came down into the river. This is the first time they have ever seen something live like this, not someone else's video or something you would see on the news here. The grocery stores are running low on supplies, such as milk, since no one can get to us at this point and we cannot get out. We have about a three mile radius that we can drive and from those points are totally cut off in both directions with the roads being blocked. The update this morning was that we will have to wait until Tuesday to leave from the transit police; the road conditions are not just landslides at this point, but also repair work where there are sink holes and large parts of the road washed away. The hotel manager said this afternoon that they have begun the "work" on the roads and "maybe we can leave tomorrow", but with every person you ask you get a different story. There are only two restaurants that we can get to, one Chinese, and one pizza. We are only eating out once a day and eating cereal for breakfast, crackers and chips, apples and bananas in the hotel between meals or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. People are starting to wash their clothes and hang them outside their hotel rooms. We may have to start doing that tomorrow if we cannot leave as well since we only brought enough for three days and we've been gone from home six days now! It's taken all day to be able to get online to write this post with the internet not working.

All this to say, God is good! No rain and for a few minutes sun and then about an hour of baby blue sky before the cloud cover. This all taken in from a very comfortable front seat of our van!

Stranded, but Safe in Costa Rica!

We left Orosi on Monday morning and drove to Panama; our 90 days were up and we needed to renew our VISA's. We noticed that halfway through the trip it was very cool and raining which is unlike our previous trips to Panama. Usually, the AC in the van is running wide open as Panama is usually uncomfortably humid! We didn't know that a tropical storm had begun, but noticed that the travel was slower and it took 8 hours to get to the border rather than the usual 6. On Wednesday morning, we received our re-entry stamp to head back into Costa Rica. We got to the two-hour marker into the trip and the Pan American highway which we were traveling on was closed down ahead and we found ourselves at a "Y" in the road; meaning the only other way home was to the left, but that road too was barracaded off. Initially, we thought perhaps there was a bad accident ahead, but upon further questioning of the truck drivers around us, we found out that the roads had been closed since the day before, Tuesday, due to landslides and sink holes. 16" of rain had fallen in this area on Wednesday alone! At about 5 p.m. we decided to begin looking for a room and Ken came back to the van having received the LAST two rooms in a nearby hotel. We didn't have AC, hot water or a TV, but were thankful for the beds and ceiling fans! It is now Friday and it is still raining with only short breaks to lighter rains. We have since moved within the same hotel to a family room which is much larger and we are all together. For $5 more we now have TV and AC, but we have freed up the previous two rooms for others as well. We can now see landslides on the mountains surrounding this town as well.

It would be easy to complain, I reckon. The kids are tired of each other and we are tired of the kids....LOL!!! We could have been on a road or a bridge driving back home that suddenly washed out as so many continue to do each day. We could be at the side of the road sleeping in our van with our three kids with no bathroom, running water, AC or TV; not that we "need" those things, but it sure feels more comfortable, and there's a grocery store behind the hotel!

Three homes have washed into the river in Orosi, where we are from in Costa Rica, the driving bridge is impassable in our town.

We have had sporadic internet service, power and cell phone service here at the hotel, but His timing is perfect in that we have a team arriving in Costa Rica tomorrow to spend a week at the camp and every time we have needed to "connect" with someone regarding finishing the logistics for this team, He has provided a way, a connection!

We don't know when we will get to go home. We have the transit police office not far from the hotel we are stranded in and they give us updates. It is still raining and they tell us they will not begin clearing the roads of the mudslides until it stops raining due to the instability in the mountains and the danger to the workers. We planned on two days away, but it's been five so far. We know the team will and can go on without us because we know whose team it is as the Lord continues to provide for Global Outreach Mission and the campground expansion projects!

It would be so easy to gripe, but when I look at this picture all I can say is "Thank You, Lord" for having us in your protective Hands!

http://www.ticotimes.net/News/Daily-News/Escazu-Landslide-Leaves-at-Least-20-Dead-10-Missing-Costa-Rica-on-Red-Alert_Thursday-November-04-2010

Five months and still praying!

Heather had a dentist appointment today in San Jose. Today, her and Ken opted to take the bus rather than drive the van, but doing this will take the better part of a day which means a late return home this afternoon. The van is scheduled to go in for more repairs again tomorrow. Last week, we were still having problems with the oil leak, but it seems as though that might have been fixed, but when one thing is corrected, it has meant that we have difficulties with something else. Now we have a new problem of leaking gas; from what location, I don't know, only that Ken told me that it is. The van has not been operating correctly since we got the new motor put in, and none of the repairs that anyone has done on them seems to last very long. It is stressful for Ken because he needs to make sure he is getting back to the mechanic before the work warranty runs out. Personally, we are ready to just begin taking the bus everywhere since the repairs are costing us so much money! They weren't kidding when we came here and we were told that it is costly to maintain a vehicle.

Today, I cleaned the green cabin that the Messick Family stayed in over the weekend, folded a large amount of laundry, and did more camp laundry.

This week will be a week of preparation for a large group rental the entire weekend. They plan on arriving Friday morning between 8 and 9 a.m. and leaving late Sunday afternoon. It is the homeless shelter that will be returning, one of our partnerships through Promundo Fundacion, and they always would request your prayers for their work during the weekend. Please pray for the participants who are continuing to work through a restoration program both spiritually and from the addiction of drugs or alcohol.

Well, time for me to prepare for my two-hour English class this afternoon. Megayle is 18 years old and is a Christian, and she is an outstanding student, doing her homework and scoring a 101 on her "other" teacher's exam last week. She sure was excited and returned to my home at 9:15 p.m. last Thursday night to show me the results. Continue to pray for me as a strive to help her learn.

From Kristy

Below is a comment that Kristy left on our blog after returning home from the camp. I just wanted to share it with everyone and to thank you so very much for praying for her, Matt, and the kids as they enjoyed the camp this weekend. They too, were a blessing to us as we attended church together and spent some time just getting to know each other, and encouraging each other! May the Lord continue to bless them, their ministry and their family!

Kristy said...
What a gift it was to be able to come and RUN, PLAY, SING, and collect fruit in such a beautiful garden! We had a fabulous time as a family taking a break from Spanish and just being a family! Thank you for letting Christ's love shine thru you guys and gifting us with exactly what we needed! So thankful to be in His hands! Culture shock isn't fun, but remembering it won't last for ever, and remembering that we all go thru it to some degree makes it a little easier! Thank you for being willing to walk with us thru a bit of ours!

Visitors & Ministry

On Monday, Emil & Stacey arrived at the camp with their two daughters, Becca & Tate. They are prayerfully considering full-time missionary service with Global Outreach Mission and came from California to see the ministry in Costa Rica! Part of our ministry here is to share our lives with other potential missionaries by involving them in what we do on a day-to-day basis as well as having them joining us in ministry. This week has been awesome because it has felt like we have had a "mini" team here and we are always able to do so much more with a few people than just by ourselves! I really like their family and I wish that we could keep them here. Their girls are so special and Heather has enjoyed having "little sisters" around. It's hard for us to meet people for a short time, bond with them in some way and then have them leave. We don't know if Emil & Stacey will feel that God is calling them back to Costa Rica, but we know who does the calling! I do know that they would make great missionaries and so I ask that you add them to your prayer list for us; that God would give them very clear direction in the future. May God bless their family!

This picture is of Stacey at the orphan home introducing a craft with Heather translating for her.

As I mentioned before in a previous post, Candace is here from Arkansas for one week. She is an R.N. and has been ministering with Amy from a medical aspect in that her and Amy devised a plan to teach general hygiene while we were at the orphan home. Candace has been a hoot while she has been staying in our home. When I think about the scripture, "The joy of the Lord is my strength", I will always think of Candace in the future. She floods a room with "joy" in all circumstances and a love for the Lord that is contagious. She will be greatly missed when it is time for her to go as well.

Also as part of our ministry at the orphan home, we have always tried to minister to the mothers as well. I emailed Candace in advance of her coming and asked her if it would be possible for her to bring some small gifts for the mothers. When she arrived I was thrilled when she opened a suitcase of donations from her home church and friends of small bottles of lotion, candles, notepads, washcloths, etc. and when Ken was out one day he found these cute purse-like gift bags for us! Some were white with silver beaded handles and also red. At the end of the day of ministering on Tuesday to the orphan home kids, Stacy, Candace & Heather went to each home, prayed with each Mom and presented them with a special "ladies only" gift bag! Thank you so much, all of Candace's family and friends who made this possible for us to do. It was a tremendous blessing for the ladies to receive and I know that it encouraged each one of them!

In talking with Amy about what kind of thing we could do "new & different" in ministry at the orphan home, she came up with the brilliant idea one day as she was up to her arm pits in suitcases and sorting medical supplies, that with the extra that we had on hand, we could make miniature first aid kits for each orphan house. From that idea came another to have general hygiene kits for each child, and to set our "program" for the children around scriptural verses relating to God's temple (our bodies) and the care of our temple. Then, came the email to Emil & Stacey who were still preparing back in the States to let them know what we were doing and how they might be able to help us. Never did we expect that Emil & Stacey would take our ideas and prepare so much for us; what a blessing! When they arrived, they had two suitcases full of 60 prepared hygiene kits, each in an individual travel bag and complete with a washcloth, travel toothbrush, a regular toothbrush, soap, hair brush and shampoo.

On Tuesday, Stacey prepared a devotional that pulled everything that Amy & Candace had been teaching on hygiene together using one of the hygiene kits! The kids lined up to leave and go back to their homes after the ministry, and Becca & Tate, along with Stacey placed a kit in each child's hand. The kids were so excited! I saw one little boy, not even looking through his bag as most of the kids were, but clutching it close to his side as if to send the message that it "was his"!

I forgot

Would you believe that I brought my camera to take some pictures last night in the Celebration Center and I totally forgot to take any pictures! Ergh! Last night we had low numbers, 10 women and 5 children. In the June meeting we had 26 women, but I found out that the church in Orosi was having a major fundraising project and that almost the entire town was attending that. I believe that God had attend exactly who He wanted to get there. Amy's testimony was amazing and I saw some teary eyes. The children had a really good time too. One really neat thing I noticed was that the women stayed around a lot longer this time to eat snacks and just to talk. That really is a cultural difference that I have noticed. They kind of eat and leave here real quickly where we live; whether you've invited someone for dinner or its a ministry activity. That was a really, really nice change last night and I am grateful for it. Today, I've been cleaning up my kitchen after making the brownies and cookies (did I mention they were high heeled shoes?). So stinkin cute!

Pray for seeds that were planted last night!

As always, thank you for taking the time to read...

We ate....a lot...while in the States

A 12-lb. turkey in Costa Rica costs $80. Needless to say, we don't eat turkey at Thanksgiving or any other time of the year for that matter. Actually, Costa Ricans don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day and so the turkeys are imported from the States. Most Costa Ricans have never eaten turkey! When we do get to come home, a turkey dinner is something we very much look forward too. We spotted frozen Butterball turkeys in the Wal-Mart freezer for 86 cents per pound! Danielle, our oldest daughter, is at the end of the table and her husband, Brad, is to the right of her. They come to Costa Rica and spend every Christmas with us, but we make it a point when we are home to celebrate Thanksgiving with them as a family. So, here we are around the kitchen table at our home in N.C. enjoying 100 degree temperatures and our Thanksgiving meal...TOGETHER!! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, a little early!

Sharing about Costa Rica

One of the first presentations we did was to this group of kids during our second week at home in N.C. These pictures were taken at Kids Faith Camp outside of Smithfield, N.C. We were invited to share about our missionary lives and our ministry in Costa Rica. The kids were really inquisitive and asked some great questions! Of course, we came armed with the "cream of the crop" photos for kids that they all want to see; the tarantulas we have photographed at the camp, monkeys at the beach, the Macaw's, etc. Heather, Kyle and Jordan are dressed in "sort of" the national costume (the boys should have been wearing white long-sleeved shirts rolled up, but we needed to get back home to purchase those, and hadn't yet at the time of this presentation, but red is a national color). They performed a typical Costa Rican dance that you would see here at a parade particularly on Independence Day! And of course, we talked about "spiritual" things too. I explained that we don't have to really go far to be a "missionary" if we open are eyes wide enough! Seems even in the States there are plenty of people in need. You never know, maybe one day, one of these kids will be a missionary, if not at home, than another country. Thank you Kids Faith for the opportunity and the blessing of being asked to share with your kids!

Traveling

Ken did get in the U.S. safely on Sunday, not Saturday night due to a three hour delay in take-off from the airport in San Jose. This made it impossible for him to make his connecting flight in Dallas and he spent the night there. On Friday night his father had been admitted to a hospital in Atlanta, so on Monday morning we headed out early for there. We arrived in the afternoon, went to his sister's house, and then to the hospital with his Mom to see his Dad. Before we left his Dad's doctor came by to see his Mom and to talk with her. We were told that his father's condition is now terminal and yesterday he was placed in a Hospice Hospital. We have been told that his father has a few days to a few weeks to live.

Tonight, we are back in our home in N.C. and this weekend Ken will return to his sister's home in Atlanta. His brother and sister from New York will be coming down to Atlanta this weekend as well. Heather, Kyle, Jordan and I will try and keep the speaking engagements that we has committed to here in N.C. regarding our ministry in such places as churches, camps and the first week in August a VBS program in New York.

While Ken was a little surprised that his father has so little time left, we want you to know that it does not come as a total shock to our family. His father has been fighting this cancer for a very long time! One day soon his body will be free from pain and while we will miss him dearly here on earth, we rejoice because we know where he is going! God's timing is always perfect and we are thankful to be home during this time to support his Mom and to spend with his father.

You can pray for our family as we travel and as we go through the process of letting go of his father. Thank you!