Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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!




Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Our Thanksgiving miracle!

We have so many wonderful things that the Lord has done lately that we want to share with you. God has truly blessed us during this wonderful season of thankfulness!! I want to start off by telling you about a Thanksgiving miracle that happened to us this week! With this being our second Thanksgiving away from the States, we were really beginning to crave a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving meal this year. Seeing as how Thanksgiving is NOT a national holiday here in Costa Rica, turkeys are not exactly easy to come by. The going rate for a turkey here is about $50 for a decent sized one. That is a little bit steep for us....so we were planning on just celebrating with a nice chicken and then adding some fixings to go with it. But God had other plans for us! On Monday afternoon we had a very nice surprise!! A turkey was delivered to our home, bought and paid for as a gift for us!! We were so overwhelmed at this gesture and we just knew that God was telling us that He truly is in control! It amazes us to think that something like having a turkey for Thanksgiving is important to our God because it was simply a desire that we had! Our God is so awesome!! We want to say a very special thank you to Dan and Hilda Carter for their wonderful gift of having a turkey sent to us. We pray that God blesses you abundantly for hearing Him and meeting this desire of ours. Thank you so much!!



Here are a few Thanksgiving pics. One of course of our miracle turkey and everyone of us Southerners know that Thanksgiving would not be complete without a wonderful dressing! You can see the girls here having a good time mixing it up the right way!!