One Month Old

It's hard to believe that God blessed us with this little bundle of joy one month ago today. Has it really been that long already?

Jared's First Doctor's Visit

Dr. Salazar brought me into this world. I couldn't have asked for a better doctor!

Mommy and Daddy felt sorry for poor Dr. Molina, my pediatrician. I "watered" him, his wall, and his floor! He took it very well though.

I didn't like it too much when he checked my spine.

The Park

The weather here today was beautiful, so we decided to spend a little time at the park next door. This was Jared's first adventure into the great outdoors, but I doubt that he got much out of it since he slept through the whole thing. The rest of us had fun though!

He's all ready to go.

Devin has been having a ball playing with Uncle Jeffrey (no pun intended)!

Today is Independence Day in Costa Rica. Many children dress up in typical outfits and march in parades. This cute little girl was pretty interested in Jared.

Who has the bigger mouth? Devin...

...or Momall?

He's Here!

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Missy's Baby Shower

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Coming Soon...

WARNING

Not Responsible for Heart Attacks Caused by Post

Yes, it's been a little while since I posted (thus the warning above). Life is moving along as it has a tendency to do, and little Willy (NO, that is NOT his real name) will be here before we know it. We are all getting excited to say the least. Devin even seems to comprehend that he will soon be getting a little brother. He was super excited to go to Missy's last check-up to be able to see the baby. Lord willing our new little one will be arriving in about five weeks. We would appreciate your prayers that everything would go smoothly.

Devin loves to kiss his baby brother.

Devin's First Sleep-over

We enjoyed a very special time with our national church president's family this past weekend. Two weeks ago we moved from the small apartment where we had lived for the past year and a half into a much more adequate house. We thought that it would be nice to invite the Meneses family to spend a night with us in our new place. It is quite common for us to visit with them at their home in Paraiso, but rarely has it worked out for them to visit us. So this past Friday I picked up their family after the boys got out of school and they spent Friday night and Saturday morning with us. Everyone had a great time, especially the boys! It was the first time that Devin had friends come and spend the night with him.

The Dust is Settling

The dust is beginning to settle, life is slowly getting back to "normal," and it's time to get back to blogging. The last three weeks have been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! Get the picture? We were privileged to have Br. Lee Rickenbach, our regional director, with us from May 29 through June 1. It was a short visit but a profitable one as we sat down for a number of hours and discussed, prayed about, and planned the future of both the work in Costa Rica as well as our personal ministry. Br. Rickenbach is such an amazing listener, and he is so understanding and wise when it comes to giving advice and direction.

The day that I dropped Br. Rickenbach off was also the day that I picked up the group from Pennsylvania (see our previous post). They got here nearly five hours later than scheduled due to a canceled flight out of Washington, D.C. Needless to say they were all very tired upon arrival, but they were still up bright and early the following day, ready to hit the ground running!

Our first destination was the Arenal Volcano, about a four-hour drive from San Jose. Arenal is one of the most beautiful and most active volcanoes in the country. We checked in at an amazing resort that sat at the base of the volcano and spent two days there. God was good enough to move the clouds and allow us to see some lava flowing from the peak of the volcano that night, something that many visitors miss out on. We went ziplining the second day of our stay. For those of you who have never been on a zipline, you basically hang by a little pulley to a cable and go flying across a canyon. We rode 8 cables, some of which were 600 feet above the rainforest floor and close to 2,000 feet long. It was raining when we went, and at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour you get quite an experience! Everyone enjoyed themselves though, even the girls.

Our groups had a whole unit of rooms pretty much to ourselves.


The landscaping at the resort was simply gorgeous!

We saw a lot of wildlife, including this baby iguana.

This picture was taken from the porch of our unit. We only saw the very top of the volcano once or twice because of the clouds, but it is a perfect cone. Notice that the right side of it is burned bare. This volcano spews lava almost constantly.

This was my first time to go ziplining and boy was it a blast! It was raining steadily, which made the rides even faster.

I'll be posting more about the rest of the group's trip over the next little while so keep checking back! Also, my brother Benjamin is continuing to update the groups blog (click here to visit it). In closing, I would like to give a great big "Thank You!" to the group for their excellent attitudes and participation. We had a lot of fun, but we also ministered and worked a lot. They always put themselves wholeheartedly into everything that they did and never complained. The young people even seemed to enjoy the various national foods that they were served. Great job guys!

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!