West Virginia Team

Dear Friends and Family,

It has been a full week of activities for the Webb family. We hosted a Work and Witness team from Pierpont Church of the Nazarene in Morgantown, West Virginia. They were a fun group of 12 who worked very hard. It was a pleasure to spend time with them. This week we’ll give half the news from this week and next week we’ll finish it off. It’s just too much to share in one blog!

Our former Pastor, Casey Shorr and his wife Rhonda were with this team and they moved to pastor Pierpont church in August of last year. It was fun to see old friends and catch up on their lives.

The team of 12 arrived exhausted as they had driven all the night before to be at the airport at 3am for a 6am flight. All went well until Miami where they were delayed for 5 hours. Finally they arrived in San Jose and we spent the evening getting to know them and practicing a bit of the VBS program.

The team worked in a San Jose public school which is located near a local Church of the Nazarene. This local church is reaching out to their community and assisting this school that is in dire need of repairs. The team was here at just the right time to assist in the work. They dressed as clowns, hid behind sheets to share their puppeting skills and sang and did the actions to all the kids songs. They were a hit!

The school so enjoyed the program that the teachers asked for the material to use in the future.

The team also worked on Saturday alongside a few local church members cutting very high grass and picking up trash.

The school would like to use this space as a recreational area and are considering adding a fence. At least they can now use the flat space for a play area. It was long hard work using dull machetes and one weed eater that was not made for the job. Although some “suggestions” were made by team members about obtaining better tools, they used what they had and finished the job given to them.

Before and after! What a difference!

Another group worked on cleaning the school’s very dirty, grimy outside wall and ceiling. This was slowed by lack of ladders, but everyone pitched in and did what they could. I believe I heard some additional comments about the need for a pressure washer, but human scrubbing action worked too, just not so quickly!

The school, the local Church and the team partnered up to purchase and install new gutters for the school.

This was finished just in time for rainy season! Thanks Pierpont!

On Sunday morning we all attended the El Alto Church which is located on the seminary campus. Pastor Casey preached and our friend, Juan Manuel translated. It was a great message that touched the hearts of the people. It was a treat for us to hear a sermon in English.

In other news, this week was a special for the kids since it was the last week of school. Joshua had 5 final exams but did well. They only had half days this week with exams. They are thrilled to be on vacation from school, but we think the “I’m bored” comments may start soon. Thankfully we have a full summer of activities and teams planned to keep everyone more than busy.

Kayley received some school awards and the one she is most proud of is the Math Achievement Award. She is the only one in her class to receive this award. She learned all her times tables by heart this year and worked very hard to understand fractions as well. She deserved that award!

We'll continue the story next week with more highlights from the West Virginia Team.

God bless you!

The Webb Family

Trip to Venado

View of the Ocean from the beach near Venado.

Hello Everyone!

It has been another good week here in Costa Rica. The weather has been beautiful with the rainy season just getting underway. It has only rained once every few days and it is refreshing when it does. Here is what has happened this week.

David and Shelley took a long one day trip to visit a site for an upcoming church plant in August. The pueblo that has been chosen by the local leadership is called Venado. It is a small village located only 2km from the Pacific Ocean.

Already the pastor in Liberia has been working in this area to raise up a cell group and some leaders as there is no church of any kind in the area and the people are hungry to hear more about God.

We left at 4:30am, picked up the Costa Rican Central District Superintendent and his wife (Johnny and Mauren) and headed northwest. We arrived at 10:30 and began by visiting the local elementary school which is the only building in the town. After a short visit with the school director we were encouraged that there are some needs at the school and we received permission to return in August with more people to do some construction work and to spend time with the children.

The cell group of around 30 people is now meeting in a “building” of sorts but they have plans to build a more formal building.

The structure the people of Vendado are currently using for their sanctuary.

David is standing and Johnny, the District Superintendent and Alvaro, the Pastor in Liberia are sitting.

Five ladies of the community have already started laying some block for the front of the structure.

Johnny and Mauren Calvo in front of the new construction.

God blessed our trip and we learned a lot about the local community and there needs so we will be better prepared when the team from Carlsbad, CA arrives in early August.

A family home a few yards from the current church.

After a bit of car trouble we finally arrived home at 9pm. It was a long day, but well worth every minute. Our car is now in the shop. We need the radiator fixed (apparently on the rock roads we put a hole in it!) as well are other maintenance. We are thankful for a good sturdy vehicle for our travel needs in all 3 countries.

On Sunday we had a special service for all the churches in the Costa Rica Central District. There were about 400 people there and it was a celebration of what has happened and what will happen in this year.

Shelley sang with the worship team for this event and enjoyed singing once again. She has just started singing in the local church and has found that as long as the words (in Spanish) are in front of her, she can still find a harmonious note.

The school year will end next week and the kids are very excited! But for now, the studying must continue to be prepared for finals exams next week. Joshua’s BB season has also come to an end.

It was fun to watch him play. He was a star of the junior high team with his height and ability.

We are excited that our good friends Pastor Casey and Rhonda will be here tomorrow with their team from West Virginia. It will be a blessing to have them here. We’ll have more news about that next week.

We wanted to share that the phone numbers have changed here. Our number is 506 (country code) 2285-5005. Give us a ring if you have a cheap international rate. Otherwise download SKYPE and we can talk computer to computer for free!

That’s all for now! God bless your week!

David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley

Missionary Retreat - El Salvador

Dear Family and Friends,

Our latest adventure was a trip to El Salvador to attend a missionary retreat.

It was a mixture of work and play and a great time to be with missionary friends from the entire region and also to spend a little quality time with the family.

The retreat was held at a resort on the beach in El Salvador. The views were beautiful, but it wasn’t the kind of beach you would swim at. The waves were held back by a long line of boulders and the sand was a dirty brown. The kids found lots of crabs and other interesting creatures in the water and beach. The pools were great and Kayley enjoyed swimming with her friends and Joshua enjoyed playing water polo until his legs hurt from running in the water.

The mornings and evenings were reserved for meetings and trainings, although the parents of smaller kids took turns watching them on the beach and at the pool. It was incredibly HOT weather and the conference rooms were incredibly COLD so we could never quite decide which was better.

Of course the biggest blessing was seeing all our friends. There were nearly 70 people at our evening services. The missionaries are from all the countries in the MAC region (Mexico to Panama) as well as missionaries from Peru, Puerto Rico, Argentina, England and of course the good ole USA.

All of the missionary kids from the MAC Region.
They had a ball together! Kayley, front right and Joshua, back row in center.

Abby Slingerland, Kayley and Paige Buell in the back.

Kayley celebrated her 10^th Birthday while in El Salvador. It was wonderful to hear 50 people singing just for her and to pray over her that God would bless her in this 10^th year of her life. Everyone watched the kids take turns hitting the piñata and Kayley had the honor of breaking it open. It was great fun. Something that she will remember for years to come.

We returned home on Sunday with one sick child: Joshua. Today is Wednesday and Joshua has finally returned to school just in time to study for final exams in a week and a half. It is hard to believe it is May already. The exciting thing is that we have a team arriving next week to work here in Costa Rica Central. It will be a blessing to see Pastor Casey and Rhonda Shorr who were our pastors in Tennessee. They are bringing a team from their church in West Virginia. It will be a good time to visit and work together.

God bless your week! We’ll blog again soon!

The Webb Family