Visitors from Pennsylvania

For a number of months now we have been looking forward to having a group from Pennsylvania come and visit us. My next younger brother, Benjamin, teaches high school Spanish at Penn View Christian Academy. Toward the beginning of this year he talked to me about the possibility of taking his two classes on a cultural trip to a Latin American country. After weighing different possibilities he decided that Costa Rica would be the best option. TONS of work and planning on both of our ends has gone into this trip and now their arrival is nearly upon us. It is hard to believe, but they will be here a week from tomorrow. Benjamin wanted this trip to be a mixture of cultural experience and ministry opportunities for his students. Lord willing we will be spending about half of the ten-day trip sightseeing and the other half ministering out at Paraiso where we will be holding a special weekend (June 4-6) for the family. Rev. Frank Heidler and his wife, chaperones for the group, will be holding a marriage seminar. Benjamin will hold special sessions for the young people and several of the students will be in charge of activities for the children.

Click here to visit the group's trip blog; my brother is doing a great job of keeping it updated!

The Heidlers are former pastors and currently work at Penn View.

My brother Benjamin (the one with the orange shirt and tie) poses with seven of the nine students who will be coming. Benjamin's fiancée will be a chap as well, so the total group will number thirteen.

I would ask you to pray for several specific prayer requests concerning this trip.

• -Pray for traveling mercies for the group. Flying internationally with this many people can be challenging, and we will be doing a lot of driving once the group gets here.
• -Pray for our young people here in Costa Rica. I am really wanting the group to be a major positive influence on their lives.
• -Pray especially for the marriage seminar. Pastor Rolando and I are trusting that this will be a way of getting a number of un-churched people from the community to visit our church, opening doors for us to reach them after the group leaves.
• -We will have a special evangelistic service the Sunday morning that the group is here. Often a group from the States draws people who would not normally come to church, so this will be an important service.
• -I would appreciate your prayers as I do my best to interpret for the Heidlers.

What Can Wash Away My Sins?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

Costa Rica is predominately a Catholic nation. My heart is stirred every time I see a Costa Rican doing something to try to earn their way into Heaven. We recently took some friends to see the largest Catholic church in the country and I recorded this video. How can these people believe that crawling hundreds of feet on a hard tile floor will improve their chances in eternity? Lord, help me to be able to do something to reach them with the truth!