Hello friends.
Sorry
it has been so long between blog posts.
It is not for lack of exciting things to talk about. Let me do my best to catch you all up on the
last 2 months.
Christmas – We were not planning on going back to the states
for Christmas this year. Between the
cost of flights and all the preparations we needed to do down here to get ready
or the first mission teams in January, it did not seem possible. It turns out that most of the Costa Rica
shuts down for much of December and airfare dropped significantly at the last
minute. We also confirmed that our
application for residency is going slower than promised so we would need to
reset our visas in the first week of January anyway. Taking all that into consideration, and a 2x4
upside the head by the Holy Spirit saying that I needed to give the kids and
Yvonne some much needed time with family, I booked tickets and we made a ‘surprise’
trip home on December 18th.
We were home for 10 days and it was wonderful. Relaxing, full of family and friends, and
most importantly - completely unplugged from home schooling!! The kids got to surprise many of their
cousins when they got off the school bus on Friday the 19th. Hartland school is also awesome. Yvonne contacted the principle prior to our
arrival and they invited all the kids in to spend a day with their friends at
school just before the Christmas break.
We stayed with Yvonne’s parents and got to attend Valley Brook for both
Sundays that we were home. We also were
able to hit some of the Christmas parties and events from church which allowed
us to catch up with many of our brothers and sisters in Christ. I have to give a huge thanks to my folks who
helped significantly with our airfare.
To sum it all up, it was a perfect trip to end our first 6 months on the
mission field.
Residency – We have officially started the process but it is
a very slow one indeed. We are applying as
officers of a corporation. Our mission
organization does business under two different names down here. Everything is done correctly, but we need to
go through the process of combining both entities under one name. Once that happens, it should be smooth
sailing for our residency. It was
necessary to reset our visas again in early January so that was one of the
factors that had us take a Christmas trip to Connecticut.
Ranch Progress & Move – The two team houses at the ranch
are now complete!! We have enough room
to comfortable host groups of 30 people at one time. We have also been creative in the layout and
have found a way for my family to move into one of the three ‘bunk rooms’, and
still have room to host our scheduled teams this spring. We are planning to move out to the ranch by
the end of January. We will stay there
during the week and come back to Alajuelita on most weekends to help with
ministry. We have also finally had
success in finding an architect that sees our vision and is working well with
us. Over the next few weeks we hope to
have the blueprints on the family houses and to get permits to start
construction. We decided that I needed
to be out there full time in order to keep things moving smoothly and to also
provide security. Most theft and crime
is down here is one of opportunity. Just
having activity and my family onsite should be a huge deterrent to anyone
thinking of breaking in and stealing stuff from the team houses.
Teams – After several months off from teams we have hosted
our first 2 in January already. And they
have been awesome! Copiague Christian
Church from Long Island NY brought a team of 14 down for their inaugural visit
to Costa Rica and 6:8 Ministries. This church
is led by Paul Vaccaro, who happens to be Yvonne’s uncle. This church is also one of our family’s
supporting churches and we were so honored to have them come and check out the
ministry. It was an absolutely amazing
and Spirit filled week of playing with kids and working hard at the ranch. This team was exactly what we needed, not
only for their help with the ministry but also for their encouragement of the
staff and our family. (And remember,
although there is an ‘i’ in Copiague, there is no ‘I’ in them). We are also about to say goodbye to an 8
person team from Mandarin Presbyterian Church from Jacksonville FL. This has been another awesome team full of
encouragement and complete dedication to serving the kids and the building
process.
School – After 6 often trying months of home schooling we
have decided to enroll the kids in a local school at by the ranch. This has been a difficult subject because the
local schools are 100% Spanish speaking and we know that would have been very
difficult and scary for the kids.
Through God’s provision, we found a bi-lingual school about 15 minutes
away from the ranch that all 4 kids can attend.
I say God’s provision because we had heard a rumor of such a school but
could not find it. Last week when we
were about to leave for the ranch there was a large land slide that closed our
normal route over the mountain. We
decided to go anyway and took the 3 hour trip north around the mountain. It turns out that this alternate route
brought us right past the very secluded entrance to this school! I stopped in and met with a teacher and the
director and they were excited to have a missionary family join their small
school. We also discussed if there were
any projects in the community that mission teams would help out with in order
to bless the people. There are
several!! (this was another task on our
list after moving out to ranch). I am
bringing the whole family in on Thursday 1/29 to meet with the principle and
officially sign up. School starts on Feb
9th.
Birthday – we are in the middle of preparing for Mara’s 11th
Birthday party which will happen on Tuesday this week. Instead of the usual sledding party that she
likes to have we are having a pool party;-)
We have been blessed with making friends with several families down here
so they are all invited, along with the great staff we work with. It should be a fun day.
In closing let me say again.
We love you all and appreciate all your prayers and support more than
you can know. Please continue to pray
for each of the topics in this post. It
is such an honor and blessing to be able to serve the Lord in this way.
Serving Him,
Rob, Yvonne, Elise, Mara, Jonathan & Abby
