Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow
Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox
Free picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

December 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot believe it has been a year since I last blogged and I do apologize for that. This year was a difficult year for blogging since we did not have access to internet in our home. As of just a couple months ago...that has changed and we now have internet access for the first time in about 3 years!! It is such a blessing! So we will now try to stay up to date with blogging!

This year we purchased a new sign for the church!


We are VERY excited to report that just a couple months ago we set in our FIRST deacon!! We have had a wonderful family that has been a part of our church for awhile. Ruperto (Peto) and Karla have two children, Danghelo (11) and Franciny (10). They are a very faithful family and we feel blessed to have them as a part of our body.


















I have the pleasure every Sunday of being able to teach the children. This year they learned alot about worship and how much it is pleasing to the Lord when we worship Him. One of our crafts this year was letting each child design their own worship flag. The children enjoy using their flags during praise and worship time to bring glory and honor to our Father!!






We have two special parties a year for the children to enjoy and have a great time! In September, Costa Rica has a national Children's Day, and we always use this time to bless the kids with a party. Also, every Christmas we give them a party to enjoy celebrating the birth of our Saviour. It may have been the best party we have had yet, thanks to the new game show Minute to Win it!! The children (and some of us adults!!) had a great time playing games, then eating hamburgers and fries for lunch, opening their gift, and busting open the piƱata!!! In the past the parties have been at the church, this year Karla opened up her home for us to have our Christmas party!


Have you ever seen a snowball fight in Costa Rica? The kids had a great time tossing snowballs back and forth to see which team would have the least amount of snow, they had one minute to complete the task! The GIRLS won!!!



Every year we also celebrate Christmas as a church family and have a wonderful meal together! This year Miriam made caneloni!! It was delicious! I made good 'ole Southern cornbread dressing! It was a great night of worship, food and fellowship. We had about 6 visitors at our dinner too and that is always a blessing!!



Thursday, January 21, 2010

Back in Action!

After some time off from the blog due to technical difficulties (our camera died! LOL!) we are back up and running again! We pray everyone had a wonderful Christmas and you have entered 2010 in the blessings of the Lord! We would like to share with you some of our activities from Christmas. We had a blessed time celebrating with a children's Christmas party and had a church Christmas dinner too! Our children's party has been an annual event for the kids of the church and this year we had 13 children in attendance. It is always a fun time for them as well as for us!!
Musical chairs is always a favorite among the kids! We also play several other games...but this is their fave!


One of the ladies of the church blessed them by making a chicken and rice dish to serve. It was yummy!! Just ask the girls...LOL!

Or the boys!!We always end the party with the breaking of the pinata and the kids also get to open presents from the church. We take up offerings all year so that we can bless the kids with at least one gift at the party and lots of candy!!!

Right before Christmas we celebrated as a church family with a special dinner. It was a great night to reflect on the gift of Jesus for us as we shared in Communion and then broke bread together.

Jeremiah (our only youth in the church for now) and a few of the other children helped serve the adults.The women served up the plates and Jeremiah and Danghelo served everyone!It was a wonderful night of delicious food and good fellowship! One of the things we have really been trying to teach all of our members is the importance of fellowship and family time together!The Christmas tradition for Costa Rica, that many people still participate in, is making homemade tamales every year. They make them for their families as well as to share with neighbors. One family that lives next door to the church has blessed us with tamales for the last two years and they are so delicious. The mother and her daughters take about two days to make them. They cook on an open fire outside until they are done and tasty!! This is one tradition we have really enjoyed since being in Costa Rica...although I have not yet ventured to try to make them...having them given to us is much easier! LOL!

We would like to share a huge praise report with you too that took place during this last year! Dave and I are official Costa Rican residents now!! We received our residency status in June and in August. This means that we NO longer HAVE to leave the country every 90 days!! Praise God!! It was a miracle the way our residency came through too. Our immigrations lawyer that was working with us during the whole process told us it would be easy for us to get since we have a baby that was born here. He did not even realize how easy it would be once it came through! Both of our status' were approved within days of our paperwork being received!! He said that this was a miracle and he had NEVER seen it come through so quickly for anyone else! He said he knew that God was on our side! What a wonderful testimony! We had spent time sharing and witnessing with our lawyer and his wife and he immediately realized that it was the hand of God that brought everything through so quickly! At the end of the month we will be picking up our residency cards. Sometime during the year we will begin to work on the children's residency. Since they are minors it is not necessary for them to have theirs until they are 18 years of age.


We want to thank you for your continued prayers and support for us and our church. We are believing that we will see more miracles this year as we pursue the calling to Costa Rica!!! God bless you all....we love you!!