December Happenings

Hello to you all! 
We have had a wonderful month of December, filled with year-end projects and Christmas activities.  Here are a few hightlights...

Franklin (left) and Pastor Rolan (right).

We have enjoyed visiting many of the local churches and this month we visited the Coronado church, not far from where we live.  The Sunday we were there the Pastor used the preaching time to interview one of the Costa Rica Central district church planters named Franklin.  Franklin has been working hard in the area of Sarapiqui where he has started 16 new missions and cell groups.  Travel in that area is difficult and because of the rain, Franklin could not get back home the day he intended to, but finally the rain ended and he was able to take a bus back to his wife and child.  The local church raised a very generous offering for Franklin that will help him to complete the roof on his house.  Awesome!

Pastor Leyla receiving her license degree (a level above bachelor).

SENDAS graduation was held on December 10th with a group of 49 students graduating from around the world (4 continents).  It was a wonderful service, transmitted by Internet so that those who could not attend would be able to view the service.  Our friend, Pastor Johnny Calvo preached an inspiring message about our duty to serve others.  It was a good evening with lots of celebrating.


The kids have had some exciting events this month too.  Joshua's senior class held a "prom" event with a dinner and dance.  Many of the students in his class (all except for 6) are not returning in January since they have completed the requirements for Costa Rican graduation already, and for that reason this event was held now.  Joshua had a good time with his friends, but is really looking forward to graduation in June of 2012.  The good news for Joshua is that his requirements can be completed in only half days for the second semester, giving Joshua some extra time for ministry with his Dad and an opportunity to assist with the junior high basketball team.

Joshua is in the back, second person from the left.

Then the kids enjoyed their youth group Christmas dinner, which was a formal affair with a lasagna dinner.  The kids all looked so great, dressed up and ready for a fun Christmas celebration with their church friends.

Ready for the formal gala.

 

Kayley, who has naturally curly hair, was proud of her straight locks after the local hairdresser cut and did her hair.  Of course, once washed the curls return, which made most everyone very pleased.

Shelley enjoyed the Seminary Christmas party on Dec. 14th, just before the Seminary closed its doors until January.  It's a blessing to work with such a great group of people!

Then, just before Christmas, we hosted a Missionary Christmas Party for "those who remained."  It is always lots of fun to spend time with those who are around the Christmas and their families.   Above you can see Stephen Sickel holding Gordo, Ana and Andrea Salazar and to the right, Esdras Jimenez.  Awesome friends who are always there for us.

We enjoyed our local El Alto church's Christmas Eve service and then Poas Church's Christmas morning service, which was their first service under their new building.  Then we spent a wonderful time with the Tooley family for Christmas dinner (turkey and all the fixings!).  YUM!

Poas Church - the sign reads Merry Christmas, God has helped us to reach this point (that's not literal, but since the literal doesn't make much sense, this will do).

The new building with roof - this is only half of the building!

The Christmas morning view from the new church building.

We had a great time with Grandma Donna who visited us for a few days from her home in Seattle.  We enjoyed La Paz Waterfall gardens, Cafe Britt and a walking tour of downtown.

In downtown San Jose there are 70 of these doves, each one differently designed by a local artist.

Then we took a few days vacation in Panama at Playa Barqueta.  It was a long drive from San Jose (11 hours with the border crossing), but worth it to see our friends the Slingerlands.  Here are a few photos from our time together.

Now we are back to San Jose, getting ready for the New Year.  Not sure how we will celebrate on the 31st, but guaranteed it will have something to do with fireworks at midnight.  There is no use trying to get to bed before 1 am with all the noise throughout the city, but it is lots of fun.

We are looking forward to a busy, busy January with CALL students arriving starting January 5th and classes beginning on January 9th, a visit from David's niece next weekend and a visit from a Point Loma professor in preparation for the planned summer classes in 2012.  David has a trip to Panama scheduled for January 4th and with district assemblies in early February, it will be busy for him as well.  The kids don't return to school until January 17th, so they will be enjoying a few more days of freedom before life gets back to a regular routine. 

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Year celebrations will be filled with thoughts of thankfulness for what the Lord has done in 2011 and anticipation of what He will do in 2012.  GOD BLESS YOU!

The Webbs

November Update - 2011

Hello Dear Friends and Family,

I apologize for being so long in posting a blog, but it has been a bit busy around here.  It seems like each weekend we are attending another ministry event or visiting a church we’ve not yet been to.  It is our hope to visit each and every Church of the Nazarene in the country of Costa Rica within the year, and we’ve got a good start.  I think we are up to at least 8 of the 35 churches.  Making good progress.

The terrain...look at that mud!

Let’s start with a run-down of David trip to an Indigenous area of Costa Rica.  Since you must cross a river to reach the particular area that the team was headed for, it became impossible to do so with the heavy rains and rising river.  So the team headed another direction to visit a different village where the local Pastor has a new church plant. There they led a training session and visited with the people.  They spent the evening sleeping on the concrete floor, but it was well worth the sacrifice. 

Pastora Leyla leading a training.  She brought along her own little whiteboard...good thinking, Leyla!

My favorite photo. Isn't that little guy the cutest!

A return trip is planned for the near future.  It will be easier to travel there when the rains completely stop in late December and January. 

At the Church in San Pedro de Poas, big things are happening.  This church has worshiped in an outside sanctuary for a long time now after outgrowing their church.  They have had dreams of a multipurpose center (a HUGE one) that could be their church home as well as a training center for the community.   

This month the trusses (serchas) were placed by crane on top of the side walls.  It took two days of the crane lifting, the men welding and others holding the ropes for it to be completed, but finally, that part is done!

No thank you!  That's way to high for me.

The Chicago Central District is partnering with this district (see previous blog about the team in Liberia) and soon they will begin to collaborate with this construction as well.  Maybe the congregation can begin worshiping under the BIG ROOF in late January or February.

We had a nice time as a family at the beach over Thanksgiving.  This has become our tradition.  It is a beautiful time to go since the Thanksgiving holiday is not celebrated here and the beach is nearly empty.  Awesome!!!

Everyone enjoys the water and the surf, but our water time was cut short by David being stung by a Sting Ray. The Costa Rican’s say manta ray, but those don’t have stingers so we’ll stick with sting ray.  It was quite painful and the only relief was found by putting the wound (his foot) in hot, hot water.  After a couple of hours the pain subsided, but the beach just didn’t have the same lure as before for David.  

Shelley has kept busy with her regular work routine as well as helping to teach the ESL class.  She is almost done with her masters in ESL - just one more course in January and February.  YEAH!

Shelley with a few of the ESL students in the night class.

We are enjoying the Christmas decorations in our home, trying to make it as festive as possible.  We bought an advent wreath this year and are enjoying lighting another candle each week, anticipating the arrival of Christmas and the Baby Jesus.  It is amazing to think that God would be willing to leave his throne and his rights as King to be born on earth, but He did just that for us.  Emmanuel – God with us. 

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  We will be here for Christmas but may sneak away for a few days to Panama before New Years. 

May God bless you richly during this CHRISTmas season. 

Shelley, David, Joshua and Kayley

Weekend trip to Liberia

Hello Everyone! 

Last weekend we traveled as a family to Liberia, Costa Rica, a town about 4 hours northwest of San Jose on the PanAmerican highway.  It was fun to spend time with the team from Chicago First Church of the Nazarene.  The team has been working there all this week to begin the constrution on a second floor of the local church. 

This church has been responsible in the last 2 years of planting 18 new missions/cell groups and Pastor Alvaro has been the church planter for the area.  Pastor Alvaro has lived in the back rooms of the church for many years, and it is time he had better accommodations.  So the plan is to put an addition on the back of the church so that the upstairs can be a small home for Alvaro, his wife, his son and his mother-in-law.  It will be a huge blessing when it is finally finished.

Kayley manages to make a new friend wherever she goes.  She met Silvia who is the daughter of one of the leaders of the church there.  Silvia is 14 and attends a sister school to ICS, where Kayley attends.  It was fun to listen to them visit, going back and forth between English and Spanish. 

David and Joshua worked hard with the team, moving parts of an old wall, digging the foundation, hauling rock and beginning the cement work. 

We are looking forward to the Chicago team arriving here to the Seminary tomorrow (Saturday) for a one night stay before heading home.  What a blessing they (and all teams) are to the leaders here.

David traveled to the Tjai Cabecar region to visit a mission there.  It is always a long trip, sometimes crossing rivers by foot, but this time the river was too high and they had to divert to a different village.  But a good time was had by all and David will share more about that next week.

We are looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving get away.  Turkeys cost too much here to buy ($50 or $60) so a complete Thanksgiving meal is out of the question, so we will travel to the beach for a couple of days instead to enjoy the sun and surf. 

Have a great Thanksgiving . We are all very blessed.

The Webb Family

First Regional Conference for Mesoamerica!

Many blessings in the Name of Jesus Christ.

On October 18 through October 23, David was in Guatemala for the first ever Regional Conference for the Mesoamerica Region.  The Mesoamerica Region was born as a result of the merger of the Caribbean Region (CAR) and the Mexico Central America Region (MAC) which took place in March of this year.  This region is made up of 30 different countries.  Over 700 people attended the conference...here is a picture at the beginning of one of the evening sessions.

It was a time of great blessing as David was able to see old friends from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama and to make new friends that are from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Barbados Islands, Jamaica and many other countries from the Caribbean.  

The first evening we had music specials from different countries.  We began with a mariachi band from Guatemala.  One of the highlights was a musical special from our brothers and sisters from Haiti.  Though not many in attendance spoke Creole (outside of the Haitians that is), all were very touched by the music.  The Church of the Nazarene is alive and well in Haiti as we have over 600 churches there.  

The services were great and on one of the nights, representatives from most of the countries represented entered in their traditional clothing.  Here are some of the folks we know from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

Our region has the special blessing of having four different languages (Spanish, English, French and Dutch) plus several indigenous languages.  Because of this, David had the blessing of translating for two of the workshops that were given.  One was with the coordinator of literature for the region, Brother Edwin Martinez and the other was for the coordinator of education for the region, Dr. Rubén Fernandez.  Here is a picture of this workshop.

The last evening was a special thank you and farewell service for Dr. Louie Bustle as he will be retiring in February 2012.  Dr. Bustle received many thanks and it was great to hear the personal testimonies of his ministry in many parts of our region.  This is a picture of Dr. Bustle with Rev. Alphonso Porter who is the field strategy coordinator for the English field in our region.   

There was great preaching from Global Mission Director Dr. Louie Bustle, General Superintendent Dr Jess Middendorg, and Regional Director Dr. Carlos Saenz.  All was a blessing but the great fellowship and the challenges for future growth for the mission stand out most of all.  God moved in a mighty way in the conference including in times of renewed commitment and prayer. While we are so thankful for all that God has done, we know that the best lies ahead.

As always, please pray for the growth of the church in Costa Rica and Panama.  David and District Superintendent Johnny Calvo of the Costa Rica North district were especially challenged at the closing service about the need for churches in every community in our world.  They are leaving tomorrow for a two day vision trip to know better the communities where we do not have churches.  They are praying that God will allow them to make contacts and to see where God is leading to plant new churches here in Costa Rica.  We know that God does not want anyone to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)

Please also pray for the missional zone planters in Costa Rica and Panama.  These folks are supervising the planting of new cell groups and David is working with them to develop discipleship and leadership in these new works.  We praise God as we have seen over 65 new works started over the last 19-20 months through 6 of these missional zone planters with a total attendance of over 1,000 people.  We know that this is just the beginning and God has many, many more great things in store. We praise God for His faithfulness and His presence here.
 

Fall Break in Costa Rica

The view from the hills surrounding Flamingo Beach in Guanacaste.

Hello Dear Family and Friends,

This is the first year that the kids have had a fall break!  It came at the cost of starting school one week early, which we all thought was not such a good idea at the time, but now we are quite pleased with the new schedule!  It started with Shelley's birthday and a fun lunch with the CALL students and teachers. It was a great way to spend a bday and to start a short vacation! 

Anne Sickel, Rickie Honea, Profesor Gaby, Profesor Zeidy and Bub Honea.

A day later, we packed up the truck for a few days at the beach.  Now, you must remember something important about Costa Rica in October.  It rains.  It rains a lot!  And although the beach was not as bad as other places for the amount of rainfall, the cloud cover was continual. Thankfully, it was a pleasant 80 degrees with some gorgeous views.  Take a look...

The view from our home away from home.

 

David and Kayley finding some shells.

The boys walking on the beach, probably talking about football.

Enjoying seafood at the Golden Shrimp restaurant.

A view from the hilltop of Flamingo Beach.

This is about the most sun we saw, driving home near Puntarenas.

Now it is time to get back to work!  We have enjoyed these few days away, but we are ready to tackle our work and studies once again.  We arrived to San Jose to a far-reaching fog that seems to have turned our back yard into a scene from The Lord of the Rings.  Very different from the beach, but beautiful nonetheless.

The kids go back to school on Tuesday but the parents are back to the office tomorrow.  David travels next week to Guatemala for the Regional Conference while Shelley stays home to take care of parent/teacher conferences, orthodontist appointments and the all-important ACT exam on Saturday.  It will be a busy week for all.

God bless you this week.  We hope you are enjoying the fall leaves.  (We miss that!!!)

The Webb Family