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.