Project in Cedral

Below you will find a couple of pictures of an area called "Cedral." One picture is of the type housing many of the people live in. They are mostly from Nicaragua and are very poor, as you can tell from the houses. The other picture is a view of a school in the area. Most of the children of Cedral go to this school. Notice the dirt bluff next to the school. It is this bluff that presents a serious problem for the school and the children. During the rainy season, the water cascades down this bluff, against the school and runs down the hill to another classroom building just below the one in the picture. The runoff doesn't actually get into the classrooms but the problem is worse. It runs into the sewage system and causes the "black water" to rise and run into the classrooms at times.

We are planning on a project to retard the water flow and redirect it away from the school building. Our hope is that a couple of local churches can spearhead the project and not only help the community but also gain some good will for the churches. This is a little out of our normal realm of work, but I believe that it will enhance the effectiveness of the believers in the community. We hope to combine the water project with some children's activities and also some door-to-door scripture distribution.

Pray for the workers necessary to do the project and for the opening of doors to the gospel through the endeavor.

Precario in Cedral

 

Escuela Cedral

 

How to Help

Jeremy called and wanted to talk with Steve and I. He had a couple of matters to discuss and also wanted us to accompany him to a school to inquire about us making a presentation there. Oh...Jeremy is a young Tico (Costa Rican) pastor with whom we work closely. Jeremy is one
of those guys you can't help but love. He is a hard worker, has a lovely family, and has a heart to serve the Lord. He loves to see people come to the Lord and grow in knowledge. He is progressive and innovative in his methods. Anyway, we went and accompanied him to the school in a nearby town, but weren't able to see the director. ( A little background...there is a lot more freedom in Costa Rica to have programs or presentations in schools by various groups. It is pretty much up to the director of the school. Consequently, we have been able to show some videos and make presentations in several village schools. The videos generally have a theme of good morals, self-worth or some non-threatning topic. However, in some instances we have been able to make pretty overt gospel presentations. It really depends on the attitude of the director and teachers. Most welcome us. There is never really a problem of mentioning God or making reference to Him in the school. They haven't become so "enlightened" as to disallow any reference to God in public life. In fact, having Catholicism as a state religion affords somewhat of an open door to at least refer to "religious" themes. Of course, there is sometimes a reluctance to let Baptists in that door. But if we can get in, it does introduce us to the community and gain for us some trust.)

The other matter that Jeremy needed to discuss was financial. Because he knows we don't monetarily support pastors, all he wanted from us was a letter or statement to that effect. Because he is the pastor of a new church and is somewhat a missionary himself, he is receiving support from several established churches. But...after learning that he was working with Baptist missionaries, and based on what some other mission organizations do, they assumed that we were paying Jeremy and wanted to stop supporting him. As I indicated, we don't pay pastors, and this situation demonstrates why. Local churches can support their own missionaries to reach their own people, but if there is someone else to do it, they will let them.

This isn't an isolated situation. It happens far too often. Churches become dependent on the rich Norteamericanos to pay pastors, paint buildings, provide materials, build classrooms, etc, etc. Example: We are attending a church that has a nice building (built by North Americans years ago) but is run-down...needs paint, etc. One of the plans for this year is to get a volunteer team of "Gringos" to come and paint the building. This isn't a poor church. It is a middle-class congregation in the city. To the pastor's credit, however, he did mention lately in a sermon that they ought to be ashamed to let "God's house" be so shabby and that they shouldn't have to have someone else come and fix it up.

Anyway, it's an ongoing battle to help but not to create a dependency that keeps national believers from assuming their own responsibility. Pray for us to have wisdom in how to help them but not debilitate them.

Preaching in Spanish

Recently I preached at a pastors' conference here in San Jose. A missionary never knows if he is being asked because the people think he really has something to say, or if they are just being polite to the "extranjero" (foreigner). Not to worry. Hopefully, the Lord will use it for His purposes either way. One of my main responsibilities, and toughest challenges, is to motivate and mobilize the existing churches to become involved in missions, local and beyond. It's not a mindset that many of them have. For good or ill, they have the attitude, much like churches in the U. S., that growing a big church is the goal, rather than "going into all the world". Of course, staying close to home is easier.

Anyway, I preached my little sermon and hopefully, the Lord used it for His purposes. Maybe it wasn't too bad, because the pastor of the church we attend asked me to preach in a couple of weeks.

Preparing sermons in Spanish is an involved process for me. I have to compose the sermon (because I'm still not good enough to preach it extemporaneously) and then get it proofed by a native Spanish speaker to make sure the grammar and syntax is correct. Consequently, I have a few sermons that I preach repeatedly (poor Mitzi...having to hear those sermons over and over). The people are always very kind and attentive...probably because of the novelty of the gringo preacher.

When preaching or teaching, I sometimes try to explain to the listeners that I want to speak from my heart, but that speaking in Spanish requires me to speak from my head, and I ask that they try to hear my heart through the accent and halting Spanish. My prayer is that God will speak to them and overcome my limitations with his Spirit.

Correction to previous story

A few days ago I wrote about a catholic priest being converted....this isn't a retraction, but it is a correction. I wrote that he was a priest and was converted to Christ by reading and studying his Bible. Well, that was the information I had. Turns out, it's almost right, but not quite. After talking to one of the pastors involved yesterday, I found out that the "priest" was a man who had studied 7 years for the priesthood, but learned the truth by reading and studying the Bible. He was, in fact, saved and is now attending the church where Jeremy, the pastor I mentioned, is serving.

The result is the same. The man got saved through learning the word of God and is now wanting to serve him.

Priest sees the light

What happens when a person studies the Bible seriously...with an open mind, seeking the truth? Well, if that person is a Catholic priest, it causes some anxiety, maybe even consternation. Confusion? Perhaps. Recently Jeremy and Jaime, two of the Tico pastors we work with, met just such a priest.

The guy had begun to study the Bible seriously on his own. (That's relatively unusual even for a priest.) What he learned shook him up. He found that there were some serious discrepancies between the Bible and what he had been taught and was practicing and that bothered him...a lot. Jeremy and Jaime began to talk with him, and it wasn't long before he accepted Christ as savior!

We are excited! This priest plans on attending services at the church where Jeremy is pastor and bring some of his "flock" with him. Pray that he will have the leading of God in what to do now. What an influence for the Lord this man could be! It has been suggested that maybe we should just target priests for evangelism...hmmmm....not a bad thought.

Young people get into the act.

The following was reported by Mark Grumbles, one of our veteran missionaries.

The International Youth Group in San José, Costa Rica has stepped up to the plate at the same time that they backed away from their plates. You see, around fifty teenagers didn’t eat anything from one o’clock Friday afternoon until after 7 o’clock Saturday night. Going thirty hours without food was not just a challenge or a test of faith and discipline, but an opportunity to raise support for World Vision feeding projects around the world where $1 can feed a child for one day. Their goal is $10,000!

Various youth participating in the 30-hour Famine also chose to work in one of several ministries on Saturday, Feb. 25^th while they were on their fast. Ten of them chose Operation GO. Pam and I took them to work alongside 8 adults from Iglesia Bautista Shalom in Los Guido to a neighborhood called Urowe. We prayed through this neighborhood that has more than its share of drunks, druggies and single mothers and then visited 400 homes leaving each family a gospel of John. We also gave away cassette tapes of the JESUS film to three people who could not read. I heard one tape playing (LOUDLY) as I walked by the house of a man who was stricken blind from complications with diabetes. The needs that we encountered were many, and we prayed for them. Everyone on the team got a chance to pray personally with someone.

Shalom Baptist already has some Bible studies going on in Urowe. That Saturday, sixteen more people indicated their desire to study the Bible further, and two people even turned their lives over to Christ that day! We finished the work in the early afternoon and the youth returned to their other big group activities.

One mother reported that her son said that the mission work in Los Guido was a life-changing experience…and that’s just what our prayer continues to be for the 400 families that we visited, too.