Busy, Busy, Busy

Dear Family and Friends,

David just returned from a great trip to the Panama City area to assist with a team from the United States with Jesus Film Harvest Partners. Jesus Film is a DVD or video that is used to tell people about Jesus and has been very useful and effective in many world areas. There were 16 people on this team from all parts of the United States.

They donated 3 sets of Jesus Film equipment for use on the field. Two sets will stay in the central part of Panama and the third will be utilized in the west side, called Bocas Del Toro (Mouth of the Bull). These teams also helped to show the film and evangelize in other ways by sharing the Evangecube and working in communities with children. Here you can see a VBS event taking place in Panama.

David returned on Wednesday night just in time for retreat with the youth of MAC South. We’ve spent the last few days with 380 youth from our Area of Nicaragua, Panama and of course Costa Rica. They all spent 2 nights (some 3 since they will stay Sunday as well) here on the seminary campus in a retreat sponsored by SENDAS, the Nazarene Seminary. The purpose of the retreat is solely for Spiritual Growth. The main speaker was Pastor Alex from Brazil. He is a youth pastor at one of the largest Nazarene Churches in the world in Campañas, Brazil. His youth group has over 1,500 kids in it. WOW! Now that’s a youth group! He was very nervous since Portuguese is his first language and English is his second and then it’s Spanish. But he did very well and everyone enjoyed his preaching.

Above: A part of the crowd at the youth event, Todo o Nada (All or Nothing).

Below: Here is the Webb Family along with Benjamin and Marlen (sitting, they are Youth Leaders for the Region) and Pastor Alex from Brazil. We had a great time visting Cafe Britt.

As usual, Kayley manages to make friends wherever she goes. Here she is with Pastor Felipe and Maru's daughter from Panama as well as her cousin who lives in Costa Rica, at the youth event.

We are privileged to have the opportunity to work with such great leaders, young and old, across all 3 countries and even in other world areas such as South America. It gives us such hope to see so many young people gathered together with the purpose of knowing God more. We are already looking forward to an even bigger event in one year, July of 2008, when the entire region, Mexico down through Panama, will be sending their young people here, to Costa Rica and the Seminary, for a huge gathering of young people. It promises to include many late nights, great preaching and music and of course fellowship.

We are now looking forward to a few family days together. We promised the kids a trip to the beach before school starts and time is running out. We should have some great pictures next week of the beach (Pacific side) and the rain forest as well. Have a great week in the Lord.

Thanks for your continued prayers for us. You are appreciated.

The Webb Family

David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley

Waterfalls Galore!

Dear Family and Friends,

As usual, it has been busy here in San Jose. We hurried before our short vacation to get completely caught up and now, after our break, we are scrambling to catch up once again. But how fun it was to have Grandma Webb and Aunt Tina (David's mom and sister from Iowa) visit us here in Costa Rica. It would have been fun enough to just hang out together, play cards, eat good meals and relax, but in addition to that, we spent Saturday at a wonderful place called La Paz waterfall Gardens.







It is a serious of 5 waterfalls in succession with built in walking paths down the mountain with wonderful views and sounds of each one. They are gorgeous, loud, powerful and wet. Another example of God's great creation.






The gardens were also beautiful with an avery filled, of course, with the birds of Costa Rica, as well as a butterful viewing area and places to watch hummingbirds (I should say "feel" as they whizz by your head), frogs and snakes.



Another stop along the way was a coffee farm where Tina, Virginia and Kayley had their photo taken with "One Dollar Juan" (appropriately named for the $1 price tag to have your photo taken with him, his animals and his ox cart). These types of ox carts are the national symbol of Costa Rica and can be found in many bright colors and designs.




Our time together flew by and too soon it was once again "goodbye". But for David, it won't be too long to wait as he will see his family in September when he visits the states for work and witness conventions.

For now, David is off to Panama this weekend, to return in 5 days just in time for an area event here for youth called "Todo o Nada" (All or Nothing), a weekend focused on spiritual growth and development. We're looking forward to making many new friends and seeing some familiar faces from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

God bless you week. See you soon,

The Webb Family

Nicaragua Trip

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, David had a great week in Nicaragua, but we are glad he has returned safe and sound. His travels began by crossing the border at Paso Blancos, Costa Rica and then traveling northward to Rivas where he led a training of new church planters. Then he traveled to Managua to spend one night before heading off for Estili, an city in the north Nicaragua district. He led a training event there as well which started off with some singing. By the end of the day many leaders had committed to starting a new cell group or church in their area.



One day later he headed back to Managua (3 hours or so) to catch a plane to the Southeast district of Nicaragua.



There he met with leaders and discussed their plans for Maximum Mission events and possible work and witness projects for the coming year. Since there are not many cars in this area of Nicaragua, David got to view the local transportation and he got to eat tamales made inside of Banana leaves...Yummy!



After two days in the Southeast, he boarded the small plane once again for Managua. A few more meetings in Managua and Rivas and finally he got home on late Saturday evening. WHEW!!!!

But it was all successful and vale la pena (worth the trouble) to visit every area in one trip. Today, Saturday, David is off once again to the north part of Costa Rica for a one day training. He will be back late tonight.

We're all excited as Thursday approaches since David's mom and sister arrive that evening. We'll need to work a little as there is a work and witness team passing through on their way to Panama, but we'll be sure to spend some quality time viewing volcanoes and waterfalls together.

God bless you all this week.

The Webb Family