Three Prayer Requests ....no, Four

-- Please continue to pray for Luana Chan's family.  Her sister Iliana did lose her baby and now has returned to the states with her husband.  Needless to say, this family has gone through a lot of tragedy and are having to find their way around their lives again.  I cannot share all the details, but please pray for wisdom and direction as they face not only big decisions, but also the daily tasks without mother and wife, and now baby, too.  (Pictured here, Luana speaking at her mother's funeral.)

-- Also, this week at Sojourn, we are blessed to have with us Larry Czerniak, a friend and retired pastor/principal from Ohio.  Larry will be conducting teacher workshops and student chapels at Sojourn.  Pray for a fruitful time in every area.

-- Please pray, too, for Tia and Katy this week.  Tia will be traveling to Honduras to see where Katy has been ministering this year near La Ceiba.  Katy is finishing up there this month, and on the 30th of March both will travel together back to Costa Rica.

-- Pray for our students in transition.  Many transitions occur in life and in the lives of our students, but this week we are particularly burdened for those older students moving with their families to these foreign places in order to serve in ministry.  Imagine the difficulties that teenagers face when they leave the friendships and family and support groups and have to begin anew.   For sake of privacy, we cannot share particular cases, but please pray for these individuals that their hearts will be open to what God can do with them in this new opportunity.

Where we are...

  
This week, Kevin and I find ourselves in Cedarville, OH.   Cedarville University annually hosts a recruitment conference for Christian schools, and we just finished up there these last two days.  Praise the Lord for good contacts, and pray with us that He continues to provide the best teachers for our next school year.  

While he is here, Kevin will also visit with the Veteran's Administration doctors for followup visits and such.  Pray for the continual progress on his stump and prosthetic.  We are told that it takes about a year for the stump to get to the size it will ultimately be at.  This means continual refittings of the device, and all that continues to go well.  Praise the Lord.  It's really great to see him doing so much.

This trip also brings the blessings of seeing friends and family.  We have visited with Sean and his fiancee and several other great Cedarville friends (rather quickly, however).  Our regional administrator, Rich Davis and his wife, Joanne, were also in town this week, so we were able to touch base with them in a more personal way than usual.  That also was a blessing.

    

First week back to school . . .and so much more!

We had an exciting week here in Costa Rica--you may have even heard about some of it.

We praise the Lord that this first week back to school involved early dismissals each day:  on Thursday, at 1:21pm, Costa Rica shook under the impact of a 6.1 earthquake.  The epi-center was only about 20 miles northwest of here.

Our TicoTimes newspaper has English reporting of the event at http://ticotimes.net/ .   Numbers change daily, but some reports say that 19 or 20 have died and anywhere from 40-100 people are still reported missing (depends on what report you read).

Looking at the photos of towns so close by and having friends who have lost friends reminds us again of the frailty of life.  

Our ABWE team prays and has action planned to help some of those without shelter or who have lost so much in this sudden crisis.

November Ps&Ps

Fall flies by once again, and as we approach thanksgiving, of course, we thank the Lord for all the blessings.

Family-wise, this year has been so different than last. Especially in the health area. We have been so excited to see the progress of Kevin with his prosthetic—incredible. The doctor says he is doing very well, very quickly; Kevin walked with a limp in the beginning (end of September), but now it is totally gone. He meets three days a week with a therapist, but that will be ending soon. However, the progress includes Kevin actually walking down the hill to our local park and he has begun to learn how to run again as well. Just amazing to watch.

Kevin has also been able to return more full-time to the ministries in which we are involved. At Sojourn Academy, he is back in the director’s chair, and that, in turn, enables Tia to return more to teaching in secondary English classes, which she totally enjoys doing.

Kevin also continues to administrate our ABWE Costa Rica team. Toward that end, we ask that you pray for the team to continue to develop and strategize for evangelism here in Costa Rica. One of our fellow families will be going home on a year’s furlough—the Salleys; and another family, the Lohrmans, will be moving into the interior area of Guanacaste in order to survey that area.

Pray, too, for the visa situation of our family as well as several other families on the field. The lawyer who has been handling that process for us did not come through with his end of the work; after finding out from immigrations that our paperwork was not as far as long as we had been told, several families have to begin again with the processes. Needless to say, this is not a “free” application process and requires an investment of time as well.

As we continue to attend church at “Vida Nueva” and support the work of the Colliers, Tia helps occasionally with children’s church, for which Colleen is actually on the teacher team. Watching Colleen grow up encourages greatly us as parents. Every opportunity in which she is placed, she shines and quickly takes up whatever leadership or teaching or translation needs exist. Naturally, too, she and Tara can do all that in both languages, and being that we have so many missionary kids in children’s church and in Sojourn, they have chances all over the place to help with these children going through transitions.

Speaking of children in transition, please continue to pray for Sean in his second year of college. As a third-culture-kid (TCK), he has a lot of different adjustments to conquer, and he would appreciate your prayers.

Katy, too, engages in her own adventures still. This week she will return to Costa Rica for a week. Since September, Katy has worked in Honduras with friends of ours who work on a medical missions compound near the coast (La Ceiba). Her primary role involves teaching two sixth graders in home school, but she also enjoys ministries with the local children’s center and music ministry with the local youth group.

Thanksgiving, yes, brings reflections and thank you’s
Bigger than we can express in words.
Often we do not realize
the moments or hours
that you take us with you in prayer.
But then we look back over the road we have traveled...
A road perhaps narrow and bumpy, but lit up with that light that is Christ,
His words and His care.

Children's Church 10.24.08

The Lord blesses each week. Much of our work is at Sojourn Academy, the mk and international Christian school, but these photos here are from a recent turn at Children's Church at our church --Iglesia Bautista Impacto Vida Nueva.