It all started with...

THIS! In nine days of clinics a total of 1,043 people were seen; 815 in the medical clinics and 228 in the dental clinics running simultaneously with children's ministry. The flyer above was prepared for the first 3-day site in the town of Cachi at the High School. From there more flyers were prepared for another set of 3-day clinics at a church in Tuccirrique. With the first six straight days of clinics behind us, on Sunday we stayed at the camp and worshipped as well as prepared for the orphan home/mother's ministry on Monday and a free day on Tuesday. We finished the last three days in a church in Cartago.

Saturday, the team took medicine inventory, the children's ministry team cleaned the closet and placed things back in their rightful places. The team left at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. We cleaned the Celebration Center on Sunday morning for an evening church service with Puente de Esperanza welcoming back their Youth from a Youth Retreat! Today, we grocery shopped for our family as well as took a couple with us who are staying on for four more weeks to do odd jobs around the camp. This afternoon Ken worked on the new cabin "mudding" one of the bathrooms and we hope to paint in the next day or two to finish the cabin for the weekend rentals!

Pictures and more details of the last two week team from the U.S. and Canada to follow as soon as I get some rest!

Ummm...WOW!

It's really been since November 5th that I last posted on the blog? Really? What? Where has the last month gone?

Things like "presentations" have kept us busy the last several weeks with our last church presentation coming up on Dec. 18th to our home. We now have flight confirmations to return to Costa Rica on January 1, 2012. About two weeks after we return to Costa Rica we will be hosting a 35-person team from the States and Canada who will have a three-fold, two-week ministry of construction at the camp finishing the new cabin; medical/dental clinics in rural, low-income areas with simultaneous children's ministry. We've been working diligently at home here in the States doing what logistical work we can to prepare for the team, but all good, fun things must come to an end! When we return we will plan the menu for the two weeks, finalize the driver's, interpreters and other volunteers that we will use with the team, order construction supplies and get those delivered to the camp for the construction team, and make beds for the team's arrival, just to name a few things on the "to do" list.

We appreciate your continued prayers as we finish our furlough here with our families before returning to Costa Rica, Christmas Eve with our kids in our home here in N.C.; Christmas Day with Ken's Mom in her home with an early afternoon departure on Christmas Day to Atlanta, Ga. to visit Ken's sister and put down her Christmas present from her husband - a new tile, kitchen floor. We return to N.C. on Dec. 28 if all goes well to pack up our things here for our return!

Hopefully, I'll get to post more before we leave! Thanks for reading and for praying!

Prayer Requests

The team from PBA arrives tomorrow. Today is the last day of preparations consisting of grocery shopping for a team of merely 30, our biggest team yet, preparing the finances for Ken to "pay as we go" this next week and then preparing at home, laundry and securing the house as we go out the next few days to the island and minister alongside the team. Today, I also have a doctor's appointment to have repeat biopsies for my uterine cancer, but I trust that God is in control of those results already!

Isla de Chira, where we will first be ministering with the team is a remote island off the Western coast of the country reachable only by boat. We will get up Saturday morning at 2 a.m. and drive a little over four hours by bus to get the team there, unpack the bus of our supplies and load our supplies on to boats, travel the channel by boat to the island, unpack the boats and then pack trucks with our supplies to travel to the church where we will set up our clinics that we will hold over three days. The majority of the people on the island have never been able to travel off the island themselves because the boat ride is $30 one way. It s a very poor area. We will bring in fruits and vegetables to help nutritionally meet the needs of the people there. The conditions will be very hot this time of year and we will sleep in tents on concrete flooring inside the church building. It will be much like missionary service from "days of old".

How you can pray:
1. Pray for the team coming from PBA as they travel to Costa Rica tomorrow for safety.
2. Pray for the physicians who are volunteering their time to work with us.
3. Pray for Ken, David & Katherine and myself as we work together and do final preparations today for this team.
4. Pray for the people of Isla de Chira that have physical as well as spiritual needs; that the physicians that we bring with us will be able to meet medical needs and that the Lord will prepare the way for us to minister to spiritual needs.
5. Pray for the medical clinic on Wednesday in a church in Cartago.
6. Pray for the team's free day and souvenir shopping day; that they will have fun and get some rest.
7. Pray for the team as they travel back to Florida next Friday.

Just a couple more days with family.

It's been a busy time here with my family and their team. They arrived last Monday night. On Tuesday morning we had orientation. In the afternoon on Tuesday half of the group went up to San Jose to minister at the homeless shelter. While there we cleaned the building, prepared clothing, towels for those that would be coming in that evening and any other jobs that they asked us to do. The other half of the team stayed back and prepared a meal of spaghetti and sauce to bring up to the shelter to feed the 85 people. Once they arrived as a team we fed the people and my sister, Wendy, shared a message and invitation. We arrived back at the camp late. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we worked at the camp doing all sorts of "odd" jobs that Ken had lined up for us, although the main reason this team came down was to put the new roof on the bathroom addition which the contractor had been working on. Due to delays with the contractor, we may actually get to start the roof tomorrow before they leave on Friday! This has been so discouraging for the team. Last Friday, we prepared the Celebration Center for the clinic on Saturday. On Saturday, with the help of quite a few volunteers from the church we attended 135 patients at the medical clinic at the camp, 23 of which accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior! Two members of the team headed up Children's Ministry throughout the clinic. On Sunday immediately following breakfast we headed up to the orphanage and had three hours to minister to the kids. The guys on the team kept the older boys happy playing soccer. The same two team members headed up ministry to the kids through a Bible story, craft, Heather led the singing, games. We had a great time with all the kids who came out of their homes at the orphanage! Monday was our free day and the team was ready to see some sights in Costa Rica. We took them to the botannical gardens for a tour, souvenir shopping and to the Cafe Britt plantation tour. We arrived back at the camp late in the evening, but the team seemed to really have a good time together. Today, it was back to work finishing up painting, sanding of picnic tables and varnishing those, planting an herb garden for the camp cooks, painting part of the Celebration Center roof around the building, finishing painting the deck of the pool; just a lot of little "things" that it seems we never have enough time to get too and probably without this team would be a very long time until we were able to accomplish them. Well, tomorrow (Wednesday) and also Thursday, the team hopes to be able to get the okay from the contractor to begin putting on the roof of the new bathroom building. It's been a busy few days and I apologize for not posting a whole lot. It's now 9:50 p.m. and I still need to do my U.S. job and that's pretty much how things go when we have a team here.

Homeless Shelter

After a day of work at the camp yesterday, part of the team cleaned up and drove up to the city to partner again with God Festival. They have recently opened a homeless shelter mainly serving drug and alcohol addicts, and the group worked from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. there last night. The second half of the group, mainly the men, are about to return from there this evening. Pictured here next to and behind Ken in the the right hand corner are some of the ladies, and a couple of the guys who went last night. The rest of the people in the picture are homeless men and women. They come to this shelter and receive clean clothing, a meal and the option of going to a rehabilitation center for help.

Not only did they fold and hand out clothing, but they also helped serve a meal. God continues to open amazing doors, the children's home and now this shelter for us to take teams or even our individual families to work beyond the confines of the campground, our small town, and boldly proclaim Him to the most needy.

Short-Term Team Preparations beginning in Costa Rica

Just to give you an idea, this is "some" of the food that Ken & I bought for a "small" team over the summer. Missing from the picture is a huge box of fresh vegetables and fruits and other miscellaneous items like toilet paper which has already been stored away in a cabinet, and fresh bread and meat which we buy just the day before the team arrives. We need you to be in prayer beginning NOW for the teams that will be coming from the beginning of December through the middle of February; that's four teams in eights weeks and we will also have various rental groups at the camp during this time as well. Right now, there is not a free-day during the month of January on the camp schedule! The teams will be doing children's ministry, construction at the camp and medical missions. The preparations for us here have already begun on all of these teams. Soon, we will be bringing bigger shopping loads than this back to the camp kitchen!

Construction team preparations

We have been busy the last couple of days doing final preparations for a team that is coming down from none other than N.C. They are from the Charlotte area and will be doing some construction. Final preparations have included getting last minute items at the grocery store, (we did the bulk load of shopping on Saturday when we took the last summer missionary interim to the airport), construction supplies, a huge supply of clean, drinkable water and those kinds of things. I am a little tired tonight. They arrive at the airport around midday. Tomorrow we eat dinner with the team and then have an orientation meeting. They will be here for one week. They asked if there was anything that they could bring us. I can never think of anything when people ask and I never know what people might think is asking too much. It's kind of hard. So, what did I ask for? A bag of Bojangles biscuits! I can just about smell them! Course, Danielle had to tell us all the places she was going to "hit" when she got home after being down here for three weeks...Bojangles, Chick-fil-A, Cracker Barrel. Ken & I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. We just covered our ears and hummed and she went on and on. Hopefully tomorrow I can post some pictures of the children's home ministry that we did last Friday. I got to talk to my Mom & Dad tonight. I have only talked to them once since being here. Today is my Mom's birthday and I wanted to surprise her. I got to speak with my brother for just a few minutes too. They all sounded really good! Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you and Dad very much!