The last week of October, we had the privilege of working with a team of pastors from the Eastern Kentucky district. They brought down a set of Jesus Film equipment which will be used in the Costa Rica North district. This is a picture of the team with District Superintendent Johnny Calvo and Pastor Alvaro at the far right.

Both the Eastern Kentucky district and the Costa Rica North District (and the missionary hosts :) had been praying for good weather for this trip. Our “winter” (that is our rainy season) goes from the middle of May to the middle of November. The week before the team arrived there were red alerts for flooding in many parts of northern Costa Rica.

Although it rained liked crazy the day the team arrived, we thank God for His kind mercies as He gave us three consecutive days with little or no rain! We used those days to help replace old metal roofing in a local school in the community of Pueblo Nuevo (some of the families that live in Pueblo Nuevo have constructed make shift homes where the city garbage dump used to be). We also painted in a playground area in the community of Gicaro. Through these acts of compassion and door to door visits to invite people to the Jesus Film presentations, we encountered two very open and receptive communities. Before we left, the school director in Pueblo Nuevo told Pastor Alvaro that the church can come back to do Bible schools and other ministries. We were also blessed in Gicaro as some families have opened their doors to start new cell groups there. Praise the Lord!

And, most importantly, we thank the Lord for how He used the Jesus Film as we saw over 70 decisions for Christ from the three presentations. Pastor Alvaro and the Liberia church will follow up with these new believers. While we thank God for these new believers, we must also remember these local leaders in prayer as they will be doing the real work of meeting with and discipling these new Christians. One special story is for a nine year old named Iris. Many children in the community helped paint, including Iris painting at the top of the slide in the picture below. She was one of the many children that came forward to receive Christ, literally sobbing. It will be special to see what Jesus does through Iris...she is a special young lady.

This set of Jesus Film equipment is a great blessing for this district which covers the entire northern half of Costa Rica. Since this is their second set of equipment they can now have one set available for churches on each side of the district.

As always, it was special to see the relationships develop between our brothers and sisters in Liberia and our brothers from Kentucky. Here is a special picture of the church in Liberia with the US team.

Please pray for the MAC South area (the countries of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama) as their 8 district assemblies will go from Nov. 8-20. Many important decisions for district leadership will be made during this time and we look forward to what God will do in 2009!

Much love in Christ our Lord,
David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley