Meet the children of Artolita

We would like to introduce you to some of the members of the church, beginning with some of the most faithful...our children!

Karen is one of the only children that attends church with one of her parents. She and her father, Ricardo, have been faithful to the church for over a year now. Karen is a very sweet child and always willing to help her dad when it is their turn to serve in cleaning the church each month. She is the youngest of four sisters and is believing with her dad that each of her sisters will become faithful in the church as well.

Marcela is a precious little girl that lives two lots down from the church. She was born with a problem with her legs and they just don't work the way that they should...but you couldn't tell her that! She walks (holding onto things) but mostly crawls wherever she goes. She is at church almost every Sunday so that she can be at her Bible class. Her big brother carries her to church each week and many times her mother comes to pick her up. There have been many times that she left church in tears because she just didn't want to leave! One of her brothers has come to church with her some, but Marcela is always faithful to come bearing her great big smile! Please keep her in your prayers...we are believing God for a miracle to heal her legs and that she will one day walk normally...and even dance!!

Valeria (top) and Jennifer (bottom) are sisters that live across the street from the church. You can almost always find them at church on Sundays as well as Wednesdays. They are very sweet little girls that just love loving on you and being loved on! They both come to church on their own, their parents do not come (as of yet!), but their grandparents do. Jennifer loves to sing and has a stuttering problem that we are asking God to heal for her. If you ever come to visit, you can be guaranteed you will receive a great big hug from these two!

Alejandra and Cristopher live next door to the church. They are also the only ones in their family that attend the church right now. Their parents have visited but have not become faithful as of yet...we are praying for their family to be in unity and come together for fellowship and the teaching of the Word. These two will be found at the church for any cleaning work day we may have. They are servants and always willing to help out!

Jocelyn is almost 12 years old and has been coming to the church for about a year now. She attends church with her aunt, who is a member as well. Many times Jocelyn can be found assisting her aunt with cleaning the church each month. She is a sweet, but shy, girl and loves the Lord. She enjoys being one of the first to quote her weekly memory verse and enjoys helping out the others when they need it.

After each lesson, the children learn a Bible verse to memorize. We post them on the wall along with their attendance chart. The kids love to get candy for memorizing their verses! It is so awesome to hear these kids quoting Bible verses when just about a year ago most of them could not even tell us the Christmas or Easter story!

STAY TUNED.....we will introduce you to our adults!

2008: Year in Review

It has been quite some time since we have been able to post an update, so we are going to post a review of 2008 so we can fill you in on what transpired throughout the year. As you may remember, and for those that are just "tuning in", in January we were placed in officially as Pastors over the church that was given to us in November 2007. This church is located in a very small community named Artolita. There are only about 70-80 families living in this area. As with any transition that takes place, there were some that were pleased with the change, and others that were not. We knew when we began that God was going to be the one that would have to "build the church". During the time that we started in Artolita we were living an hour and a half from the church, so we knew we had to make a change and move closer. So in February God opened up a small home near the church that we were able to live in for a couple months until we found something bigger. In April we were able to move into a bigger home that was much closer to the church. Also in April we began having monthly fellowships as a congregation. We started to have dinner together as a church family to help strengthen the bond between us. We continued with the dinners until the rains set in so hard that it made it more difficult for many of our members to be able to walk to church. The rains in our area of Costa Rica begin around mid-May and continue until about mid-November. By June it was already beginning to fill up the river that we have to cross in order to get to the church. So during the rainy season we would have to park our van near a footbridge, since there is NO bridge for vehicles in order to get to the other side! We would walk from the footbridge to the church, which is about half a mile. Since the road we walked was a dirt (MUD) road, you can only imagine what our feet would look like after walking!! During this season all I could think of was the Scripture that tells us..."how beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news"...covered in mud and all! In April we began teaching the church on a series of worship and how important it is in our lives as a believer. During this time the children learned choreography to "Shout to the Lord" and presented it for the first time in June for Father's Day at our dinner.
In July we were blessed by the church with a SURPRISE baby shower for Isabella. One of the ladies in the church, Lizbet, that has been faithful with us since we began in January planned and organized the shower for us. There were many women from the community, as well as the women in the church, that blessed us with many wonderful things for our coming baby! It was a wonderful time of fellowship and fun as we celebrated. One week after the baby shower, our Isabella Micaela arrived 3 weeks before her due date. She weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. and was 18 in. long. Having a baby at a public hospital in a foreign country was an "experience". I would like to give you just a little idea of what it was like. In Costa Rica the doctors do not deliver the babies, the nurses do. So when you arrive at the hospital they assess you to see where you are in labor. If they feel you are progressing, you go straight to labor and delivery, if not, you go to an observation wing of the hospital. They sent me straight to labor and delivery after I was checked in through the emergency room. In the States, when they see that a woman is in labor, they usually send you on to the labor and delivery wing and take care of you there, from what I remember anyway...LOL! Here...you have to go into the hospital through the ER, sign in, and WAIT to be called back for your assessment! There really is no "priority" unless you arrive by ambulance. Once I arrived at the labor and delivery ward, Dave was told he was not allowed in until it was time for me to deliver. In the L&D ward it looked like I had stepped onto the scene of a filming of M*A*S*H 4077! There were beds lined up on each wall and they took me to the wall that was beginning to fill up. Each woman is to labor in a room with 5-10 other women! This was very interesting! There are NO epidurals offered for any of the women unless they need it for a C-section (not that I use an epideral...just giving you an idea of how different it is here)! Everyone is there laboring in their beds side by side until it is time for you to deliver the baby. That is when they let you WALK to a delivery room, but the nurses wait until the last minute to walk the women there so they can deliver quickly since there are only 2 delivery rooms! When I felt it was getting close to delivery time, I told the nurse to let Dave know so that he could get dressed in his scrubs and come in for the delivery. I also warned the nurse that I usually deliver quickly, so they should probably tell Dave ahead of time...they of course did not listen to me! LOL! I was walked to the delivery room...had two contractions and Isabella literally flew out and landed on the delivery table! Thank God she made it on the table! Dave walked in just seconds after she was born...he missed the whole thing! So in the delivery room...you have about 10-15 minutes to be prepared to go to recovery. The recovery area was another wall of beds where the women are placed to recuperate for about an hour before being moved to a hospital room. After recovery, I was taken to a room that housed 6 women, including me, and their babies! The babies do not go to a nursery at all, except for the first few minutes after delivery. In the rooms, the babies stay with the mothers the entire time. The room was joined to another with 6 other women by a bathroom equipped with showers. This one bathroom was for the 12 women staying in the rooms! I noticed as I arrived that the women had their own towels and bars of soap to be able to shower with, as well as their own toilet paper! At this point....I was ready to go home! LOL! This was not my idea of a hospital stay!! I have to say it was rather difficult that one night in the hospital listening to other babies in my room crying most of the night and having to put up with the heat since there was no air! One funny thing that happened too was when Dave was talking to the nurse after my delivery. He asked the nurse,"Do you have very many Americans deliver here at the hospital?" The nurse replied, "Not many....um....HARDLY EVER!" So we knew we were quite unique...LOL! Also, I met a woman at the hospital while I was in labor that came looking for the room I was put in after recovery. She walked around asking where the "gringa" was. Everyone she asked was able to point her down the hall to where I was...I guess it was pretty obvious! Two weeks after Isabella was born we were blessed to have my mother, one of my aunts, and an uncle of mine come for a two week visit. This was their first trip to Costa Rica and it was such a wonderful time with them. Here in Costa Rica Mother's Day is always on August 15, so I was able to celebrate it with my mother! Dave, my uncle, and one of the men in the church cooked Arroz con Pollo (a chicken and rice dish) for all the mothers in the church. The youth served the mothers their meal. It was a great time of good food and fellowship. The following week we were blessed once again by a visit from our wonderful Pastors and two of their grandchildren, Kyle and Moriah! They were able to bring many baby gifts from the women of our home church, Spirit of Life. Thank you so much ladies for the wonderful clothes and items that you sent! They have been such a blessing to us. During their visit with us, Pastor Craig shared the Word on Sunday morning and we had Isabella dedicated to the Lord. Afterwards we had a meal full of typical foods from Costa Rica prepared by the women and men in the church. This was the first time our Pastors had been able to enjoy some of these typical foods. It was a great experience. During their visit with us our Pastors were able to see where we were living for the first time and they noticed how secluded we were from all forms of communication. The only way we were able to check emails or keep in touch with any contacts in the States was by driving at least 8 miles or so to do internet, and that was usually only once a week. So while they were here they suggested the possibility of us looking into being in another town equipped with more of what we were needing. They mentioned that we pray about it and see what God does. We had always been interested in a town that was nearby, Filadelfia, but we had never been able to find a house available there. Not long after our Pastors left, Dave was visiting a friend of ours in Filadelfia and mentioned to him that we were interested in a home there. He told Dave that a home had just opened up next door to him so we checked into and it was exactly what we were needing: grocery stores close by, internet available either in the home with a phone line or an internet cafe just around from the house, the medical clinic is just a few blocks away and the post office is close as well. Our new snail mail address is posted to the right of the blog. Also in September, not long after finding the house, the rainy season set in full force! We had 12 days of straight rain which brought some major flooding of the river near our home by the church. It so much and so hard that the road leading into our town of Artola, close to where the church is, was completely covered in water and there was no way in or out for several days! There were 3-4 days where all public buses were cancelled as well! After seeing this...we felt it was time for us to move to a town! By mid September we were in our new home and very thankful to be away from so much of the flooding! We are still close to the church and we are able to enjoy the conveniences of living in a town now for the first time since being in Costa Rica. Living in town has given us more opportunites to experience alot more of the cultural aspects of Costa Rica as well. This has been a great experience for our family to learn more about the country we are in. One of the things we learned about Filadelfia is every year on Christmas Eve all of the children go out into the streets and go from house to house looking for manger scenes (portales). All of the manger scenes are put out on this day and the homeowners usually have candy, chips, fruit, drinks, etc. to give to the children. We thought this was very interesting and we were talking to our neighbor about it. She told us it was similar to what the States does for Halloween. We explained to her how evil Halloween is and that the significance behind doing it on Christmas Eve makes so much more sense to us as believers! The children go out "seeking" manger scenes and they are given "gifts". What better way to celebrate the one true GIFT that was given to us at this time of year! The children really enjoyed this and look forward to it again next year! In December we had our annual children's Christmas party for the children of the church. We have about 12 children that come regularly, so this was a fun time to be able to celebrate with them. Our children have grown so much over the year, not only physically, but in their Spanish as well. They have become completely fluent and have no problems at all...well...I should say they have trouble deciding what language to speak in! Usually we hear alot of "Spanglish". There are many times that they try to explain something to us and cannot even remember their words in English! So I would say they have grown by leaps and bounds! Here is a fun example of how Levi has picked up on the language! Mariachi music is VERY popular here and it is not hard for them to pick up on some of the songs. One day Levi was playing around with one of the songs he heard and we were able to get him on video imitating the mariachi singer...he sounds just like one of them! EL GRINGO MARIACHI!!


So thoughout the last year we have had many things going on, but the best thing is we know that God is in control of everything. We have gained some people in the church...and we have lost some...but not one has come or gone without the eyes of God watching. We pray that God will complete his purpose in each one that he calls to be a part of our body.

We ask that you keep us in prayer as we are in the process of obtaining our permanent residency here in Costa Rica. Through the birth of Isabella, we are able to request to become residents and we are in the midst of that now. It is a process of mostly paperwork and TIME! Please pray that everything goes through smoothly and that we have no complications. Getting our residency here will free us up from having to leave the country every 90 days to get a new visa to allow us to stay in the country. This is costly and takes alot of our time. We prefer to plan a vacation to leave the country when the time is right for us...not when the visa runs out on paper! So please hold that up in prayer for us, we need all of our paperwork to come in that we have requested without any problems so that we can present it and receive our residency papers. Then we will only be required to renew that each year which will be so much better!!

We thank each of you for your prayers and we ask that you continue to hold us up in prayer as we seek Him for His will to be done! We appreciate you and your support for this ministry. We pray for you and ask God to pour out His richest blessings upon you!

Merry Christmas!!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Pictures of the House

Here are the pictures of our new home. We were able to get moved in last week and have enjoyed our time there so far! You will see on the front of the house it says "Casa Timo". In Spanish this is "Tim's House". The owner of the home is named Timothy. We felt like this was not a coincidence as we feel that God is allowing us to have this home to be able to raise up Timothys, not only in the body here in Artolita, but also in the future, those that feel called to the mission field in Latin America.
1 Co 4:17 For this cause, have I sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance, of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.

"Unless the LORD builds the house....

...they labor in vain that build it." Psalm 127:1 We are so thankful for our Father that has been building HIS house! In February, we were able to let you know about us taking over the care of the church in Artolita that was given to us through a Pastor in San Jose. We are so excited to report on the GOOD NEWS of the church growing. When we first started in mid-January, there were some that were not pleased with the change. Those are the ones that we just committed to prayer and asked the Lord to have His will be done in their lives. The very first service that we had as new leaders of the church, we had 6 children come to church. We knew that God had control of everything and we continued to place our trust in Him. Since that service, we have fluctuated from a handful of children, to 4-5 adults and some children, to having up to 48 people! It is such a blessing to see growth taking place! The last few weeks we have been having 18-20 children in attendance and 18 or so adults as well! We have one gentleman that has been a part of the church since it began 8 years ago. In November, he was battling with several health issues and we nearly lost him. God is so faithful...He has completely healed this man and he just celebrated another birthday! He was able to come to church for the first time in months a few weeks ago. After service, he pulled Dave aside and said that he was so excited to see what the Lord has been doing in the midst of the church. He said that he saw people at church that night that he had NEVER seen come to church before! It was so exciting to hear this good report! We knew that God was doing something, so to hear a confirmation of it was wonderful!

We have our mid-week service on Thursday nights, which is normal here in Costa Rica. For the last several months, Dave has been teaching on prayer: how to pray, the importance of prayer, and understanding corporate prayer. We have designated this night each week to take the time to pray as a body for the needs of the church, our community, our country, as well as many other things. Many of them are learning how to step out and lead a prayer for the evening. It is great to see them growing and learning!

On Sunday nights we have our children's classes at the same time as the adults have church. Many of the children that come to class, come completely on their own! Their parents do not attend church or their grandparents may come every so often. About 12-14 of the children that come, do not have their family with them in church. The children have been so faithful in coming each week, for Thursday's as well as Sunday's. In our classes on Sunday, they have been learning how important they are to the Lord, the love God has for them, and for the last few weeks they have been learning about worship. We love seeing the enthusiasm these kids have each week when they come to class. Most of them are learning basic Bible stories for the first time. During Easter week I asked the children about why we celebrate Holy Week (a huge celebration in Latin cultures). Many of them were not able to tell me the significance or importance of why we celebrate Easter! What a joy it was to be able to share with them such a wonderful story!

Starting in March, we began to implement a Missions Sunday each month. The first Sunday of the month is designated to the body learning that there is a need in other countries, as well as in Costa Rica. They are learning to give offerings that will be used to help support Pastor Serafin Pagan in Jinotega, Nicaragua. As you may remember, this is where we lived for 7 months before coming to Costa Rica. The church has truly embraced reaching out and giving to missions! Many people in this area of Costa Rica, that have steady employment, average around $300-$400 per month! We have had two missions Sunday's, March and April, and just recently we were able to send our first offering to Nicaragua for the Pagan's! What a blessing to see these people reaching down from THEIR needs and reaching out to another country of people that is in need! We had one gentleman in church tell us, "We should do this EVERY Sunday!"

This past Sunday we had our first dinner fellowship as a church body. Dave has taught them about how we are all a family, working together for one purpose, and the importance of fellowship in the body. Sunday was just the first of many to come! We plan to have a dinner fellowship once a month as a family. This past Sunday was awesome! We had a total of 48 people at church, adults and children together. That is the most we have had and we believe it will just continue to grow from here! We had a time of praise and worship, Dave shared a few Scriptures with them about the importance of breaking bread together, and then we ate together as a family. Everyone was so excited and are looking forward to the next dinner!

God has been moving so much this year on our behalf and once again He is moving us!! We have been living in a two bedroom, one bath house that is in a town about 15 minutes from the church. We had been praying and believing God to open up a bigger home for us in an area that is close to the church. Once again, God is so faithful!! We are moving tomorrow, the 15th, to a home that is about a mile from the church! The house is owned by a Canadian man that spends half of his year here in Costa Rica and the other half in Canada. He has been NEEDING someone to stay in his home so that he can leave and go to Canada. We are happy to be able to meet his need! We will be able to rent his home for a very reasonable rate each month. He had the home built to be a type of bed and breakfast where he could rent out each bedroom individually. The house has four bedrooms and each room has its own bathroom, equipped with a shower! It sits on two and a half acres of land and has a river at the back of the property. We will be moving from a house that is about 600 sq. ft., to one that is about 1600 sq. ft! This house will be a huge blessing to us! We will now be close enough to the people of the church and be able to have fellowships in our home. Where we are now, we would not be able to have anyone from Artolita in our home because the majority of them depend on public transportation to get around. We are looking forward to being able to have people from church in our home now, as well as reaching out to new people in our area. There are currently no pictures available of the new house. We will be able to take those and post them in our next update. The owner is returning to Costa Rica in December and he has told us that we are welcome to stay in the house as long as we want to! He has begun construction on two additional bedrooms with bathrooms. He has told us he will resume this construction in the fall. What an answer to prayer this house is! We have a vision to not only be able to use the house to raise up the body of Artolita, but to also have space sufficient for our family and extras! Part of our vision for this home is to be available to help raise up any missionaries that may feel a call to a Latin American country. We now will have the space to be able to house them, as well as any visitors we may have! The house is up for sale. The owner has had it for sale for about 3 years now. We are believing God that we will be able to buy this home! Several things would have to fall into place: finances and the dropping of the price, but we know that we serve a great and mighty God and if this is His will for us it will come to pass! We ask that you keep this in your prayers for us as well!

We have recently found out that our baby that is due in August is a baby girl! We are naming her Isabella Micaela. Isabella means my God is a vow and Micaela means who is like the Lord. The Lord has truly shown us His promises through this precious little one. We found out at 11 weeks of pregnancy that there was a problem with the placenta being detached from the uterus. The doctor was very concerned about it, so she placed me on bed rest for almost 2 months. We spent the time praying and trusting in His might for complete healing. By my appointment at the end of March, the ultrasound showed that everything was completely healed and in place! Praise God! He is so faithful! We had another checkup last week and the doctor said that it was as if there had never been a problem!! Thank you so much to those of you that knew about it and stood with us believing for a complete healing! God has truly manifested His promises to us!

We have been able to set up a new post office box to receive any "snail mail" now. Our new address is:
Charles Davis Anderson
Apartado 117-5019
Playa del Coco, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, C.A. (it is important to put the periods so as not to confuse postal workers into thinking it is for California!)

We ask that you continue to stand with us in prayer as we continue to endeavor in the work that God has called us to. We are seeing His hand move mightily and we look forward to seeing more! Thank you so much for your prayer support for us. It makes us so excited to be able to share with you the mighty things He has done because we know that it is the prayers of all of you that help back this ministry. We love and appreciate all of you and pray His richest blessings upon you!

New Year.....New Beginnings!

We have moved into the new year and have many new beginnings already in the works! Pastor Marcos came for a visit in January and met with the church body of Artolita and let everyone know that the church has been given over to our care! As with many changes that take place, some were happy about the transition and of course, some were not. We know that God is in control of everything and that He is the one that builds the house. We have now gone to having two services a week, a Sunday service and a Thursday night service as well. We have had some new people coming to the church that we were told used to come years ago. We are so excited to see God moving in this direction and we are truly looking forward to what He will do in the coming months! We are stepping into new beginnings as we move more into 2008! Praise God!!



We are in the process of moving to a house that is much closer to the church. Since November, when we began going every Sunday, we have been traveling an hour and a half ONE WAY to get to the church! Praise God, we have been able to find a home that is only 15 minutes from the church! It is a smaller house than what we are in now, but we are thankful that this will enable us to be much closer to the people that God has called us to! We want to be more available to them for any need that should arise. We will be in the process of looking for a bit larger home, as this one is a 2 bedroom one bath house. We know that it is just temporary and that it opens the door for us to be able to look for something more suitable for our family. This move will also place us much closer to grocery stores too! We have been driving a little over an hour to be able to go shopping and go to the market. Now we have at least 3 major grocery stores within 15 minutes of us and a very large market will only be about 30 minutes away in the city of Liberia! We are looking forward to that as well! We will be moving on the 4th of February and for at least the month of Feb. we will not have any internet in our home. We are planning to be able to have it connected again by March.



Since we are moving to a new town, we have canceled our post office box that we had in Santa Cruz. We will be opening a new box sometime in March. We are asking that if you had plans to send any mail to please hold onto it until we notify you of a new address!



There is one other great annoucement we are very excited about! Like I said....a new year full of new beginnings! We found out at Christmas time that we are going to have another baby! This will be baby number five for us and we are all very excited about this new addition! Jeremiah, Rachel, Levi and Hannah all have plans on how they would like to help out with the new baby! Our baby is due in August of this year!



With all the transitioning taking place in this new year, we ask you to please keep us in your prayers. Your prayers are such a wonderful support to us and we appreciate them so much! We ask that you keep the church covered as we continue to transition there, that God will continue to give us wisdom along with His direction!



Thank you all so much for your love and prayers for us! You are greatly appreciated!! May God continue to bless you always!!

Video link of Rachel's Spanish

Many of you have told us that you just could not imagine the children being fluent in Spanish. Last week while we were in Artolita, I made a little video of Rachel playing with some of the kids there. This is a great example of her with her Spanish. We have had many people tell us that the children sound like they are from Nicaragua! I am still having a bit of trouble getting video and pictures loaded individually, so here is the link to the video and you can see it there! http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=23268791 In this video, the "ball" they are playing with is a grapefruit! LOL!

Church in Artolita

Last Sunday, November 25, was our second service in Artolita. One thing we did not share in our last post was the way we have to get to this town! There is a creek that separates the town of Artolita from its sister town of Artola. The only way to get to Artolita is to cross this creek in your vehicle, during the dry season that is! In the rainy season, the vehicles have to be parked near the creek, and then you can walk across on a foot bridge. As of yet, there has only been "talk" of putting in a bridge that will allow vehicles to cross all year long! Since we are in the dry season right now, the creek is not too high, and we are able to cross. The kids love the "adventure" of having to cross the creek each week!

Dave began a series of teachings on the importance of unity. We had about 15 people there, and this was also the service where we told the church we will be coming each Sunday to work with them and minister to them. The church was very open to having us return each week! At the end of the service, three of the youth in the church presented a dance that they choreographed. It was such a blessing to see these youth so ready and willing to praise and worship in the dance!

We have made plans to be able to spend each Sunday after service in Artolita to be able to establish relationships with the people, and get to know others that are not a part of the church as well. Last Sunday was a great day walking around and meeting a few of the families there. One of the ladies we met was named Maria. We had the opportunity to pray for her concerning paralysis she has been experiencing in her face. We are believing that God will show Himself strong and bring healing to her body! After we walked around a bit, and the children were able to enjoy the creek some, we went to the home of one of the ladies in the church named Florita. It was a great time of just getting to know each other. We were invited to stay for dinner with her, before heading back home. It was a great time, and we look forward to what God will do each week as we return!! We ask you to please keep us in your prayers as we make this transition, that it will not only be smooth for us, but for the congregation as well! May God bless the little town of Artolita!

More blessings from the Lord!!

We have received so many blessings from the Lord lately, but we have to tell you about one of the most amazing yet! While we were living in Jinotega, Nicaragua, we met a Pastor that lives here in Costa Rica in the San Jose area. About 8 years ago he began a work in the Guanacaste area, which is the province we are in. He has had a couple of people over the last 8 years working and Pastoring this church, but it was just getting to be way too much for someone to travel so far every weekend to be able to minister. Our province is about a 6 hour drive from San Jose. Dave was in San Jose visiting with this Pastor friend of ours. Pastor Marcos talked to Dave awhile about the work over here and asked him if he knew where it was. He explained where it was and we found out that the church is only about 10 miles from us when traveling by a mountain road that is near our home. Unfortunately, during the rainy season this road is impassable and not able to be used until it is scraped in the dry season. So the other way to get there is about 40 miles, which takes about an hour and a half. After talking, Pastor Marcos OFFERED the church to us and asked us if we would like to take it over. We knew that this would be something we would need to pray about...and we knew that the Lord would have to provide us with a vehicle so that we could make the drive to the church. While our Pastors were here, we prayed with them about the situation, and when Dave and Pastor Craig went to San Jose to purchase our van they were able to meet with Pastor Marcos. We decided to have one service in the new town of Artolita and see what God was saying in the matter. During the service, my husband and I both just felt like we were at "home" once again. We knew that God was opening up our hearts to receive this church and our Pastors are in agreement that this is the will of God for us. We called Pastor Marcos and let him know that we would be accepting the church he offered! What a gift from the Lord! The building is debt free as well as the property that it is on. There is room for about 75 people as it is right now. The church even has all the instruments for a worship team, there just isn't a team yet! The first service we had, there were about 17 people there! It was such a blessing to see! We will be going every Sunday to minister to them and have church service. Pastor Marcos will be coming to share with the congregation, as he is the original authority over the church, about the transition. We are very excited about what God is doing and we look forward to updating you on the progress!

We have a NEW VAN!!

We were honored to be able to have our Pastors come and visit with us this month! It is always such a blessing to see them and be able to spend with them! On this trip they were able to bring two of their grandchildren, Nicolas and Madison. Our kids were thrilled to have some of their friends come along for a visit as well!! Since we arrived in Costa Rica our home church, Spirit of Life Church, in Tn. has been giving offerings to help us to purchase a van for our family here. Dave's stepfather, Micheal Watkins, also blessed us this year with a donation to go towards the purchase of the van. We are pleased to announce that we now have a vehicle!!! God blessed us with a wonderful deal on a 2005 model Mitsubishi! He gave us favor with the previous owner by bringing the price down to a more reasonable one. The van has low mileage and it is a diesel van which makes it so much more economical! It is a 12 passenger van, if we are speaking in American terms...but more like a 15-20 passenger if talking Latino! LOL! This is a huge blessing for our family. It now means that we are able to get out more as a family to purchase our groceries. My husband no longer has to fight the rains on the motorcycle during the rainy season to try to get food for our home! We are able to do so many more things together now! PRAISE GOD!!! He is so faithful and so good!! We want to say a VERY special thank you to all that gave to go towards the purchase of this wonderful blessing! We are so overwhelmed at the goodness of God..but it takes special people like you that gave to hear His heart and give towards a need. You are all so appreciated and there just are not enough words to be able to say a proper, honorable thank you! We pray that God blesses you one hundred fold for everything that was sacrificed and given!! We love you all very much and appreciate your support!