Costa Rica--Sunday

We had a great day of worship yesterday with the church here in San Jose, Costa Rica.  

Rained Sunday night, but we managed to have the campaign in between the showers.  

Costa Rica--Day One

Even though the flight to Costa Rica is less than an hour, the trip overall still takes 5 or 6 hours by the time you drive to the airport, arrive two hours early, fly, go through immigration, pick up luggage, go through customs and drive to the hotel.  However, let me say that I'm not complaining.  So thankful that God has provided the resources for us to make this short trip in place of the 26+ hour school bus ride that the Salvadorans endured to get here.

We walked right in to orientation with the Gulf Shores group when we arrived at the hotel.  Introductions, discussions, questions and more followed for the next hour.  Unfortunately, the group from Faith Baptist had missed a connection and we weren't sure they would arrive in time for the evening event.  But, God had other plans--their flight came in at 2:30 and they were just barely able to get checked in before we headed out.

We had planned to go to Cartago and pass out tracts at the site of the annual pilgrimage, but since we wouldn't have arrived until after 5:00 p.m., Pastor Rodolfo indicated that most of the festivities would be over.  Instead we spent time sharing one-on-one on the pedestrian walkway in downtown San Jose.  

After the event, we went to Pollo Campero with the Faith Baptist group and Stephen did their orientation over chicken!  

Looking forward to joint worship this morning with Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva, San Jose!

Goodbye KC, Hello Home, Goodbye Home, Hello Costa Rica

For some reason I couldn't bring myself to shorten the overly long title because it really tells the story.  We said goodbye to Kansas City and the family/friends we'd been visiting for the last two weeks and about 7:45 p.m. last night we landed in El Salvador.  The flights (KC to Houston and Houston to San Salvador) were smooth and on-time.  Unfortunately, the delays started once we landed.

Although the immigration line wasn't as long as I've seen it, it still takes time to get through it.  Normally, by the time you finish that process your luggage has been circling the belt for a bit.  Last night wasn't the norm--it took forever for it to come.  We had four checked pieces--two suitcases and two boxes.  Two of our pieces came out in less than stellar shape.  Two of the four wheels on our big suitcase were pushed inward and it was impossible to roll.  Stephen was finally able to push the sides back out (like the dented bumper on a car) and it seemed usable, if not fine.  We also noted with some dismay that the larger of the two boxes was somewhat crushed.  Of course, this is after we signed a "limited damage waiver."  Who knew, the airlines didn't cover "boxes."  Eventually, everything showed up (a definite blessing) and we worked our way to the customs line.  As we feared, the boxes drew the attention of the agents--nothing magic about boxes, just didn't take our extra suitcases so it was our best option for bringing the Peruvian drum and pressure cooker!  They didn't make us open the boxes, but did make us run them through the x-ray machine again.  

One of the challenges of getting out of the airport is that the carts that hold your luggage are limited to the short-term parking lot.  Of course, we were in the long-term parking lot.  Stephen went to get the truck and he was gone so long I actually had a passing thought that he forgot me and the luggage and was on his way home.  But no, the news was, "the truck wouldn't start--dead battery."  Just what you don't want to hear at that hour.  Eventually, a parking lot worker took pity on me and maneuvered the cart around the pylons and over to the other lot.  We loaded the suitcases in the back seat and the boxes in the bed of the dead truck.  He and Stephen pushed it out of it's parking spot and I was able to get it started by popping the clutch--thank goodness for manual transmissions.  We were finally on our way when about 10 minutes out it started to rain, albeit lightly.  Yep--two cardboard boxes in the back and it's raining.  I decided the best solution was to pray!  Thank the Lord, it never rained harder than a light sprinkle even though the roads toward the city were soaked.  We pulled in to our townhouse about 10:00 p.m., backed the truck in to guard against it not starting and unloaded.  I left everything to be unpacked in the morning, but Stephen unpacked his suitcase and found that one of the liquids had completely leaked out and soaked some of his clothes.  Enough for one day!

Today has been quite busy with the cable/phone bill to pay at Plaza Merliot and the rent and water bill to pay at Banco Agricola.  Washed the dirty clothes and unpacked the food we brought back.  Tonight we are packing for Costa Rica and after less than 36 hours in the house, we will head to the airport in the morning at 6:00 a.m.  

Tomorrow night we will start the campaign by visiting Cartago--the site of annual pilgrimage called the "Romeria" to the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles.  You can read the story of the apparition of the "La Negrita" and the tradition of the pilgrimage here. We will be sharing the gospel with the people who are there to see the spectacle of the pilgrimage.  

 

The rest of the week will progress like a normal campaign, school visits in the mornings and family festivals in the evenings.  Please pray for the teams coming from the states and our team from El Salvador who started their 26+ hour drive at 3:00 a.m. this morning.  We are taking the easy way with a flight that's just over an hour.

Dinner with Friends

Time in Kansas City has dwindled down to the final night.  This week has been a series of dinners with friends.  

Monday--Dinner with Jim and Debby (and Jon) at La Fuente.  A lively game of 313 followed.

Tuesday--Delicious home-cooked dinner with Brian and Sheryl.  Yea for salmon, corn-on-the-cob, green beans, garden tomatoes and cucumbers.  Brian and Stephen spent their recreation time shooting baskets while Sheryl and I went for a walk.

Wednesday--Tonight we are heading to Spin Pizza (not necessarily on my healthy eating plan) with Steve and Terisa, with a stop at Custards Last Stand for dessert (definitely not on my healthy eating plan.)  Sometimes, you just have to splurge and our last night in KC for six months is as good a reason as any!

Beautiful bride, handsome groom and good friends

Two hearts, two families and two cultures were joined in marriage yesterday afternoon.  Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Luis Magaña!  

We had a wonderful time celebrating with them and their family.  It was also good to catch up with friends we had not seen for a long time.  

 

Time in Kansas City

The last official day of the campaign with the Christ Chapel Bible Church youth was Friday, July 18.  When the team headed to the beach for the day, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Kansas City.  Unfortunately for us, there were storms along the east coast so, even though we had no problems getting into Houston, our flight to KC was delayed two hours--11:00 p.m. arrival into KC instead of 9:00 p.m.  Originally, my dad was going to pick us up at the airport, but I'm so glad we changed it.  I can't image how he would have handled the two hour delay--probably would have tried to sleep in his car in the KCI parking lot.  By the time we got to Lee's Summit it was after midnight, but we still managed to talk to the Guenthers for an hour or so before we crawled into bed.

Stephen and two of his brothers worked in a game of golf on Saturday afternoon and then we all went out to dinner (minus Michael and Denise.)  

We went to the traditional 8:00 a.m. service at Abundant Life on Sunday morning and then on Sunday afternoon we drove to Topeka to visit with Jeff and Paula Rhoades.  It was great to go to church with them and see their home/town.

Stephen drove to Marshall early (5:00 a.m.) Monday morning to have breakfast and play golf with Michael.  In the afternoon, he stopped to see our friend, Kimberly Kelley in Seymour, Missouri, and pick up a Peruvian drum for our church in Guatemala City.  Kimberly tried to bring it to Guatemala in June, but the airlines wouldn't let her carry it on.  We're going to put in a box and check it as luggage.  Hopefully, it will make the trip safely.

He also managed to find time to play the piano and give her brothers a quick lesson.

He's spent the last two days visiting his parents in West Plains while I've filled my time with various annual doctor and dentist appointments.  Our son, Jon, flew in on Monday night so I've been able to spend some time with him, too.

Youth Trip

The mission trip with the high school students from Christ Chapel Bible Church started on Monday, July 14.  We spent the entire day working with Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva in Nueva Conception.  Since there are almost 90 people (youth and chaperones) it takes awhile to move everyone around in three different buses.  

We formed 20 different groups and shared at three different schools.  

At noon, we all returned to the church for lunch and then in the afternoon all 130 of us went to the central park and played various soccer matches and basketball games with neighborhood kids.  We were supposed to have a concert, but there was a huge downpour so it was impossible to bring out the sound equipment.

On Tuesday we went to a school in San Salvador and half the team shared in the classrooms and the other half painted!  What a day!  There were more than 200 professions of faith in the classrooms.  

In the afternoon our three-day VBS started in a community center in Apopa.  There were about 70 kids on Tuesday.  The day included songs, drama, game time, Bible story time and craft time.  

Weekend Between Campaigns

The Hilo, Aguja y Biblia group continued working on our most recent project . . . . drawstring backpacks.  We are working with a public high school in a small town.  We'll be sharing a value lesson in the classroom and then distributing the backpacks.  Here's a couple of pictures of our work.

Saturday night we introduced Koky and Ena to healthy food from the Daniel Plan and then taught them how to play Cribbage.  It was a fun night!

This morning we went to church in Lourdes instead of the hotel because we had to pick up a second inflatable.  We'll be using two of them during the campaign this week--one will be used in the afternoon VBS and the other in our regular family festivals.  Don't know if it's possible to get them both in our truck, but we'll find out tomorrow.

The really exciting news this weekend is that we bought our tickets to fly to Bogota, Colombia, in January.  The sending service for our new missionaries, David Guadron and Alex Hernandez and their families is the last weekend in August.  They will begin their church planting work in September and will host the first campaign in January.  We're thrilled to be a part of this new work . . . . please pray for them, us and the group of North Americans who will be coming for this campaign.