Vamos a Club!

Today was a very exciting day as we started our first youth outreach to our neighborhood. So begins “Club de Niños” / Kids Club, and prayerfully the beginnings of Rancho Oasis for Youth!

Jon and Brooke headed up the team of family and friends from our home fellowship for a Saturday morning filled with games, children’s worship songs, Bible stories and futbol! Even though it was Mother’s Day here in Costa Rica, several families and children responded to the near 200 flyers that we passed out Friday afternoon.

We met several parents who were very excited and appreciative of the activities that we had planned for their children. One father is a soccer teacher and works with several of the young boys in the neighborhood on Saturday mornings. He cancelled practice because of Mother’s Day and brought his own children to “Club”. Douglas is a widower after cancer took his wife three years ago. Despite having soccer practice the same time as “Club” next Saturday, he invited me to come a half-hour before and give a Bible lesson to his 24 students. Praise the Lord!



Thank you for your prayers during our preparation for “Club de Ninos”; we are excited to see how relationships with the families in our neighborhood will develop.

We also were blessed to have our first missions team come and support our family and ministry. Mike and John arrived July 31st and spent roughly 10 days fellowshipping with us and exploring the country. Mike and I are long time friends and classmates from High School and John was introduced to the RO4Y families for the first time. I had the pleasure of bring both to class with me at Colegio Bilingue to share music and have a Q & A session with my students. The boys also constructed a small compost shelter/shed with Wayne for our shepherd friends here on the property. The rest of their time was spent reading books to Naomi!



Prayer Requests:

• Praise for the strong turn-out and support for “Club de Niños”
• Prayer: Club de Niños, Saturdays 10 – noon in our neighborhood park
• The salvation and physical / spiritual well-being of the children and families of “Los Parques”, our immediate neighborhood and a much poorer neighborhood just North of us in a valley called “Progresso”
• Prayer: Jon’s Dell Laptop died last week. My coworker and computer teacher runs a computer repair business on the side and is working on installing a new hard drive. Prayerfully he will be able to retrieve all of my files on the old drive.
• Praise: While coming home from an IBS seminar with the Goransons and our friends in the north-pacific state of Guanacaste last weekend, my power-steering blew! We cut the belt to prevent the pump from getting any damage and drove home with a specialized fore-arm workout! Thankfully, it was only about $50 to get a new hose and belt.
• Praise: Jon worked his way through the Costa Rican health care system and had an appointment with an eye-specialist last Thursday. He was following up the diagnosis back in July of a Corneal Ulcer. Praise the Lord – the ulcer is gone!
• Praise: I’ve been able to stream line my classes at school and spend less time preparing. However, We are finishing out the 2nd trimester over the next two weeks, so I’ll be busy preparing exams, grading papers and prepping grades.
• Prayer: To manage time with personal devotion, our marriage, the girls, the extended family, work and ministry. Oh, yeah, we need a lot of grace!
• Prayer: San Ramon hosts “San Ramon Days” the end of August and we are praying about doing some outreach.
• Prayer: Continue to pray for God’s timing on property and horses.