Costa Rica's Missionary Family

I thought it might be of interest to tell you about the folk we work with here in Costa Rica - the other IMB missionaries.

We have one couple who are our financial folk. They have one teenage son still on the field with them and two daughters in college in the U.S.

Another couple has dual roles. He is the missions mobilizer - working with nationals who feel called to go as "foreign missionaries" and she is our language consulatant.

We have our boss living in San Jose. He is over all the guys who do Carroll's job of Country Strategy Coordinator in Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. His wife coordinates the English classes in which I teach along with several other American ladies. They have one son still on the field and 3 and a daughter-in-law back in Kentucky.

There is one couple who also has dual roles. He is our trainer of nationals and she coordinates the housing and schooling of our language students. They have two children with them in Costa Rica and one son in college in the U.S.

This leaves the only family with a small child and they are church planters. God is really blessing their efforts.

The IMB has one teacher at the MK school, one single guy helping us with volunteer groups and follow-up, and one single lady who does logistics for our volunteer groups.

One thing unique about serving in Costa Rica is that the Spanish school for IMB missionaries is here. The Instituto de Lengua Espanola is not strictly IMB but multidenominational and we make up the biggest part of the student body.

There is a child-care center and school on the campus of the Institute where the MKs are cared for and educated.

Remember these children have already been uprooted at least twice before they get here and will only be in Costa Rica one year so they need lots of prayer as do their parents.

At this time, we have twelve IMB families studying Spanish in Costa Rica. This group brought many little children as well as school-age children. It's fun getting together with these dear families.

They live in small houses of about 800 sq. ft. no matter the size of their families and don't have cars so take either buses or taxis to go to church, shop, etc. They all walk to school which is maybe a half a mile or a little more from where they live.

They study one year, three trimesters, and are tested by our language consultant at the end of each term. The IMB tries very hard to give them every opportunity and advantage to learn Spanish the best they can in this one year and has a standard that must be met before they move on to their field of service.

They attend class 4-5 hours a day and many work with tutors after school. It's a tough year and they need your prayers.

The older you are the harder it is usually to learn a new language and we are getting more older couples. They bring experience, maturity and good life experience to the field but are "handicapped" in the language-learning department. I can say that as we are in that catagory.

We missionaries are family and depend very much on each other for encouragement and fellowship. We Costa Rican missionaries get together once a month for prayer; when someone leaves to show our gratitude for their service and pray for their future; when a new class comes in at the language school; on holidays; and sometimes "just because". It would be very lonely being here without these great people. Please pray for them when you pray for us.

Ox Carts in the street in Liberia 

Bull in the church yard 

Typical Street in Liberia, Costa Rica 

GO group from MIchigan & Bible Baptist Church in Liberia 

Liberia

The past week was spent in Liberia, a medium sized town in northwestern Costa Rica. We were there working with a team of 6 great folks from Michigan. They came with a great spirit to work and that spirit didn't diminish during three hard, hot days of walking the streets, passing out the Gospel of John door to door and talking to many people.

Working with the group were people from a local Baptist church. I can't tell you how impressed we were with the folks from that church. Each day there were at least 10, sometimes 12, people there to help with the distribution. The amazing thing is that they were mostly young people, even a couple of boys around 10 or 12. And they weren't just there to walk around with us. They were bold ! They had a heart to lead people to the Lord. They knew the scriptures well and weren't afraid to engage in discussions with anyone. The church people were so anxious to talk to the folks in the houses that a couple of members of the team from Michigan actually began trying to go on their own so they could do some of the distribution and talking.

We took 2000 copies of the Gospel with us, thinking that we surely would not use near all of them, but with the number of local believers and their enthusiasm, we distributed all of them and 16 people prayed to receive Christ as Savior. We kept having to find new neighborhoods to go to, because we were going through them so fast.

Praise the Lord for a good week and that so much seed was sown. Pray for the new believers and for the church as they follow up on the work that was done.