To all our friends and family in the States and abroad, Thank You! We have completed 4 years here in Costa Rica and are very thankful to our Lord and Savior, and to all of you who have supported us financially and by way of prayer. We hope to have another year of serving our Savior in the work He has for us here in Costa Rica.
The last few months have been full of delight and stretching. The delightful part was all of the ministry opportunities that we have had. The stretching part has been the spiritual attacks that seem to have increased since the first of December. I don’t want to go in depth on the attacks, but I do ask that you please keep all of us here in the ministry in prayer, especially me. We are looking for direction in what the Lord would have us do here in the town or even in another. We are praying that the Lord would give us direction before we leave to visit the States in June, but we will see what He has in mind. Specifically the thing you can be praying for is that we would be patient in waiting for an answer and that we would understand the direction clearly.
Now for the delight we have had in the past few months.
• The trip to Natividad went well; remember she is the lady taking care of her 3 handicap nephews. Darwin, Zoe, and I were the only ones that were able to make the trip. She was very thankful for the clothes, diapers, and shoes.
• We had our third annual tamale cook out which went very well. I love the time it affords to spend with people in the church. There is nothing like a bunch of guys sitting around a fire waiting for the tamales to cook. The women had a good time of prepping the veggies and meat. All in all it is a great time to be able to talk with the people about their lives.
• A few days after the cook out we enjoyed the fruit of our labor at the Christmas party. Again another time to grow closer to the people and encourage them in Christ. At the end of the party, as always, we had a fire work show thanks to the help of my Dad. It is such a fun time of the year.
• One of the guys (Gerry) that came down a year ago to start a Bible college here was married to a local lady (Silvia). That was fun to watch.
• The Lord has been blessing Darwin in his ministry with Hogar Crea. As we have been trying to find more time to spend with the guys there, Darwin came up with a great idea to take them to the beach. So on the 30th of January we had a beach day with 13 of the guys from Crea. It was a great time of playing games, surfing, sleeping, and teaching about Men of Valor. Please continue to pray for Darwin and the ministry he has with the men there.
So we will see what the Lord has planned for this year. We are continuing to teach through the New Testament on Wednesday nights and have now combined our Sunday study with the guys Sunday study at the Teaching Site (aka Bible College). We plan on being back in the States for a month in June. As the time gets closer we will give you more details of where we will be during the month. We would love to meet with every one of you while we are there. It looks like the first 10-12 days we will be in Murrieta, CA; then 5-7 days in El Paso, TX; and then the rest of the time in Colorado Springs but first passing through Durango, CO. So we will see what happens.
We love you all and thank you for your dedication to us through your prayers and finances.
Blessings,
Curtis, Chelly, Ava, Zoe, Ali, and Rya
