The Funeral

The funeral procession began at the Catholic church and ended at the small community graveyard.  This was a new and interesting experience for me.  I felt many emotions but could not help but be thankful that God had given me the opportunity to be a part of Miss Anna's life in the last couple of days. The whole community came out to grieve with the family.  After the viewing of the body they took her to the grave and lowered the casket into the ground and buried her.  I remember the deep sound of the first shovel full of dirt hitting the hollow casket and feeling a sense of sorrow.  There is no better picture to the end of life than a burial.  My heart hurt for the family.  I was sadden from what her family had told me days before that she had rejected the gospel.  However, standing there I was reminded how the grave could not keep Christ, that He rose and conquered death.  Before we get to much further let me rewind to the beginning.

 One of my favorite things to do with missions teams is to go into our small town and pray for our neighbors. Last week I had the opportunity to take Riverside Baptist Church.  I wanted to go find Miss Anna who had been terminally ill with cancer. After a sweet time of praying for many of our neighbors we went to her house. I had been a few times before to pray for her but this time it was different. Usually she was by herself sitting in her rocking chair. This time we were greeted at the door by her family and Miss Anna was laying in bed looking very ill. Honestly, I had never seen someone that close to death. The family looked sad and tired. Her daughter wanted us to pray for her and told us that Anna didn't have faith in Jesus. So some of the team prayed with her and witnessed to her.

 I felt an overwhelming desire to go and get food for the family even though I knew Anna couldn't eat anything. So we left and went to our local store and picked up groceries for them. Upon us entering the house I didn't think Miss Anna would really care about the groceries since she could not eat so I passed her room to go give the groceries to the family.  Her daughter stopped us and brought us back to her room and began pulling out all the groceries to show her what we had brought them.  Miss Anna's face went from downcast to smiling.  In fact this was the first time I had seen her smile.  I will never forget that moment.  Four days later I got word that Miss Anna had died. I don't know what happened spiritually for her in those last days.  I do know that she heard the good news and saw the hands and feet of Jesus.

One of the many things that God has taught me over the  years living here  is that we as Christians tend to over complicate ministry.  Often times we would rather sit around the table and talk about what it would look like to do ministry.  When what God is asking us is to just go! We will most likely make mistakes and will have to re-adjust accordingly, but that is okay. John Piper once said something like, "often times our approach to missions is similar to when someone is at the firing range who is just aiming and never taking the shot. He is afraid to miss rather than aiming, firing, re-adjusting, and firing again."  We didn't have a plan to go buy groceries for Miss Anna. We didn't know how God was going to lead us but 

we just went.  God used us and He received the glory.  

We feel so blessed to be a part of what He is doing here.  We don't always know why things happen the way they do.  Or why things take as long as they do but one thing we are positive of we are actively moving forward for God's glory.  Thank you for everyone who has partnered with us financially to make this all possible.  We have made a lot of progress at the ranch and Lord willing we should be obtaining our residency soon.  This is the first step to get children at the ranch.  Costa Rica is very slow in their  process but they are not outside of God's timing.  We meet with PANI (Costa Rica's version of CPS) November 14th to go over LWCR plans.  Please be praying that we get residency soon and the meeting with PANI goes well.

Thank you everyone!

Riverside Baptist Church

Caleb and his older friend praying together at our partner church's feeding center.

Our friends from city came out for the week.  It was so much fun!

I was sick for 2 weeks and the older gentlmen (Chai) gave me some deep tissure arm and hand massage.  I felt better within a day.

We had an awesome visit with Alli's parents.  They took us on a great adventure to La Paz waterfall gardens.

The Busy Months

A lot has changed  over the last 4 months while living at the Living Waters Children's Ranch! We are excited to see what God has done by the progress of LWCR and local ministries.

LWCR is located in small rural town of Buenos Aires, Horquetas. It's a rural farm town. It has two major grocery stores, a local school, a couple sodas (mom and pop traditional food stands) 2 churches, a catholic church, a huge soccer field, and three speed bumps. For the most part everyone knows everyone.

There has been major progress on the first family house. The siding is completed, the walls are up, electrical and water are running, and the floors should be laid soon. With the help of teams and finances the first house is almost completed. We should be able to move in before Christmas! How exciting and praise God! 

As great as it has been to watch the first house come to completion we are even more awed by how God is allowing us to develop relationships locally.  Initially we felt somewhat distant from the community but God opened the doors and introduced us to some very amazing people. One of the biggest allies and help so far has been our neighbor Grettle.  She has a huge heart to serve God and has been an awesome blessing. She often surprise visits us with homemade tortillas.  One of our other neighbors Ricardo has helped tremendously with introducing us to local pastors and other key people in the community.  Earlier this summer Josh was walking around town with some of our interns and ran into him.  Ricardo said that his daughter was getting married that night and invited us to come to the wedding. We were surprised that his daughter would allow him to invite people to come last minute but we were thrilled to attend our first Costa Rican wedding.

The busy months started in April for us this year and ended in the middle of August. We had close to 300 people and 15 churches come on a short term missions trip this since April!  Since we are now living at the ranch the whole family was involved and had the opportunity to meet everyone.  It was a very busy time with lots of ministry opportunity. Many people who came on a trip had life changing experiences all the while sharing the love of Jesus. 6:8's Facebook page has several videos from the teams that came this summer. Click Here to see a promotional video shot by Lantern Vision of the Mandarin Presbyterian mission team.  It gives a great glimpse into our world.  

We were blessed to have 10 interns help us this summer.  They were a vital part to our challenging summer months. I really enjoyed watching them rise to the challenge. I feel blessed to have been there as they grew in Christ, worked hard, poured into teams and formed relationships with locals.  Their love for others and Christ was contagious to me.

As a family, we are doing well. We really enjoy living out here on Living Water Children's Ranch. The kids really loved having so many guest here.  One of their favorite things to do with the team was to pray for them before they left or ate a meal.  However, often times the prayer went from sweet to silly but it was a great to see them participate.  We met so many amazing people this summer that have encouraged us.  We know that many people are praying for us and love us.  God grew us a lot and we look forward to the new adventures he has in store.  

Thank you for being patient with us as it has been a while since our last update.  By God's will we will have more time and opportunity to write more frequently in the following season.  Below is our prayer list.

Please pray for us as we enter a new

season. It will be crazy, I'm sure, but a normal crazy will be nice. 

Pray for us a we continue to build relationships in Horquetas. 

Pray that our understanding of Spanish continues to grow and that we become fluent. 

Pray that the remaining finances come in to finish the first family house.

Pray for us we raise personal support. (God has faithfully provided but we have lost some support)

Pray for Alli, Caleb and Micah as they start homeschooling.

Pray as we meet with local congress people and Child protection services to get official approvals. 

With the help of 10 teams this summer we moved 60 tons of rock to build our erosion prevention wall on the river.

The boys in all their glory taking a photo with Harvest ministries before they left.

Water Balloon fight with our neighbor.  Thanks Karl!

Alli learned how to gut and prepare chicken

Oh the looks!  Driving a tractor full of guys through town on our old John Deere

The sky was on fire.

Thanks to FBC St. Petersburg and the local church we passed out 600 pairs of shoes for people in need.

Slothing 

         

                                      Standing in the living room of the first family house. 

                                  

          Miss out being able to see through the frame but there's walls, sheetrock and doors. 

   

          

            The boys loved going on adventures with Spencer. Especially when ice cream was involved. 

      

                         A group from Vancleave Baptist spent many hours putting the siding up.  

                                         

                   The animals of true rainforest are incredible. Such an amazing opportunity. 

Not a minute late...

  Alli and I have experienced so much change in our marriage. We just finished moving for our 8th time in our 7 years of marriage.  We have finally made it to Living Waters Children's Ranch.  The one thing that is different about this move than all the other is that we believe God is calling us to finally send out roots.  In many ways each one of our moves has been one step closer to getting us here.  I still remember getting this random facebook message from Spencer 5 years ago....

A completely random message but God in His wonderful provision began working in our hearts  5 years ago to make this move happen.  I could go on and on with stories how God has provided financially, spiritually, emotionally and mentally for this.  The truth is he has began the work within our hearts way before we were married.  We are more that excited to serve God here.  We are so blessed.

A little update:

We have officially submitted all our paperwork for residency.  This has been a very long process but God has used it to teach us many things. While our paper work is under review we do not have to leave the country for border runs.  This review process could take up to a year.  Please join in prayer with us that we would receive residency.

We moved April 10th from Escazu, San Jose to Horquetas, Saripaqui.  Everything went very smooth.  We were able to hire a moving truck to get us from our house to the bridge before the ranch. Since the bridge is a old suspension bridge it can not have a lot of weight on it so we had to hire a smaller truck to transfer our items.  The Wutkas (the other missionary family) were working tirelessly on preparing our new home.  Alli's reaction to our new home was tears.  They did a wonderful Job.

 

Saying Goodbye was very difficult.  Over the past 19 months I have developed friendships with a lot of locals.  About 3 months ago Alli and I made some new friends with a young family in one of the neighborhoods we work in.  We were just getting our friendship underway when we had to move.  But we know that they will come visit us and we can visit them, we are only 1.5 hours away.

I went to our weekly feeding center in verbena this past Saturday.  This is where I almost lost it. I have spent the good part of the last year building trust with a 4 year old boy who was abused by a family member.  Every time I tried to show him attention he would run away.  Slowly but surely I began to gain his trust. I came a little late to our feeding center this week and our pastor was already in mid lesson but when I arrived the little boy blurted out AMIGO, and came over with the biggest grin and bear hug.  I held him for a little while praying for him and holding him tight.  It was sad to say goodbye.  Before I left I bent down and told him that I was moving but I would be praying for him, he nodded his head with a big smile.  As hard as the move has been we are very excited to know that there are so many more relationships to built here. 

Prayer request:

1. Residency acceptance

2.  Transition out here

3.  Relationships out here

4. Financing for the Living Waters Ranch

5. Our busy summer months coming up.

6.  The future children of the ranch.

God has blessed our first week with so much wildlife.  We have seen monkeys, toucans, great green macaws, large and small parrots, hummingbirds,  Iguanas, basilisk lizards and countless other bird species.

Thank you for all the prayer and support. 

For more info on LWCR click here for the most recent update.

Swinging near the river

Constructing the temporary chicken coop

The early morning riser enjoying the early morning view.

A mess but still a good mess.

Last month Josh wrote about our newest change coming up; moving to the ranch in the spring. We are excited and thank you all for the encouragement. 

Lately though the whole thought of packing and moving has me all flustered, stressed and anxious. 

The thought of keeping three kids alive, keeping the house decent enough to function in and packing all while Josh works...uh, not exciting. 

I'm getting comfortable in my house. There's a routine that we all have throughout the day. I know where almost everything is in my house. I know where to shop when I get out and I am getting familiar with the food isles. 

How am I going to pack each room? How do I move a house full of stuff to our new place that's two hours away? I know that finding a trailer isn't super easy.  I wish I had the energy to throw away crap each day. These silly stupid thoughts will jump in my head, while I'm thinking of something else,  creating chaos in my head, just like multiple tabs open on a computer. 

18 months ago we moved Internationally with a 3 year old, 23 month old and a 4 month old. So yeah, this should be simple. Also, I'm not the first person to do this. 

So when this fear and anxiety over packing, moving out to the children's ranch, and restarting comes there's only a couple things that I can do. 

1.) stop. We still have to live here for the next two months. Realize that there's not a lot that I can do right now. Also, "do the next best thing!" 

2.) say the fear out loud. It was the craziest thing when I realized how much of a burden was lifted when I said out loud what I was feeling. And it wasn't until a week ago did I realize that there was a fear, I thought it was a mix of things but never, I'm scared about moving. 

3.) pray. This really should be the first thing that I do. But I don't always. God is so good to know already what is going on in our lives. But knowing that we can come to our Heavenly Father and talk to Him...wow! 

4.) list what I'm thankful for. Choosing joy isn't the easiest thing but it does take the focus off of the hard and it brings to light things that are true. "The joy of the Lord is my strength!" 

So, please pray for me. I know that you do. This is something big right now and it's scary, exciting and fun.  Really it just means that it's a mess!  A good mess too. 

I'm so thankful that we've had this time to live near the city, experience life, and become a little more familiar with things here. And yes, we will miss certain things here but I know that there's a lot of exciting, challenging times ahead. 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. - Philippians 4:8

Change is inevitable

Alli and I have been here in Costa Rica for a year and a half.  As most periods in life, it has flown by.  To put it in perspective we moved here when Caleb was 3, Micah was 1 and Judah a mere 4 months old. Caleb is now 5, Micah is 3 and Judah will be 2 in March.  We have lived in the city for the whole time.  I have been busy leading teams from the Untied States through out  Alajuelita, building relationships with the locals and acting as the pastoral care for the staff. Honestly, I really didn't have much desire to lead teams before coming to Costa Rica. Both Alli and I wanted to be on the ranch with unwanted children.  However, we moved knowing we had to spend at least a year leading teams in Alajuelita.  I quickly realized the joy in leading teams. I have been there to experience life changing moments in peoples lives. I have the privilege to teach God's word while people are being rocked spiritually and point them to the cross.  I've been a part of baptisms, conversions and peoples new found joy in serving the Lord.  I truly have been blessed to be a part of what God is doing here through 6:8 Ministries.

However, like the title states, change is inevitable.  As the Children's ranch continues to develop there soon will be a spot and a need for us to move there. 


Our plans are to move to the ranch in mid April to early May.  We will be assisting in developing the ranch and the ministries relationship within the community.  I will also continue to lead teams with various ranch projects, community relationships, chapels at the ranch and much more.  We are so excited about this change and at the same time sad.  We have really enjoyed our time here in the city and feel like God has used us.  We know that this is a big step for us. I know God used this past year and half to prepare us for this next season of ministry.

Please be praying for us as we begin the process of moving and for a smooth transition. We are also praying that God would weigh heavy on couples hearts to join us at the ranch.  We have a few families that are currently praying about joining us as potential families on the ranch.  Please pray for them!  Pray that God makes His plan for them very clear.  Alli and I are super encouraged and can't wait to see who God brings.  We are blessed to be a part of this amazing God sized project and we are excited for more to join.

Alli is truly is an example of grace, love and hard work.  Pray for her as she continues to lead the boys in homeschooling.  I am truly blessed with an amazing partner. 

Thank you for all your prayers and support.  As always please email me with any questions or specifics on how we can pray for you.

Verbana feeding center

Las Tablos

Neighborhood swimming pool

Verbana feeding center 

Little heart throb

Exploring the river