Yes, we know it is Easter and not Thanksgiving, but we are
overflowing with thankfulness for all God has done in these 14 weeks of being
with 7 Work and Witness teams. It has
been busy, rewarding, crazy, wonderful and exhausting all at the same
time! Once again, God has shown us mercy
and grace as we ministered with teams from California (two teams), Tennessee, Missouri,
Michigan, Kansas, Illinois and a team from many states from Jesus Film Harvest
Partners.
You can see in the past posts about many of the teams, but
today’s blog focuses on the Mundeleien/ Elgin, IL team and the Northern
California district team.
The Los Angeles Church is blessed this year to have several
teams coming to help them build a new and MUCH NEEDED building.
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| There was not enough room for everyone for the Sunday service. This congregation needs more space! |
The Mundelein/Elgin team was the second team (see previous post about the first team to LA in January this year) to arrive to help this growing and serving congregation. The team’s main job was putting up block for
the walls for the new bathrooms.
They
also painted the metal trusses. It was
one of the hottest weeks we have ever had in Costa Rica with the sun beating on
everyone all day long. Many were
sunburned and exhausted from the heat, but much great work was done in the
process.
Shelley spent one day at the clinic when one lady stepped on
a nail and another young lady received chemical (allergic?) burns and swelling
from the paint thinner. Who knew??? Anyway, everyone was ok in the end, although aloe
was a friend to many.
The team also participated in a Sunday evangelistic event for kids, and in the end a great connection was made with a local community leader and two teens are now coming to the youth meetings.
On April 1, a team from the NorCal district arrived to work
on the final stage of the water project at SENDAS. This project has been on the list at SENDAS
for many years, and we can now say it is FINISHED! All the sewer water system has now been
connected to the city drainage. It is
not easy to find a team for this type of work, but our friend Larry, who works
in plumbing, got together a specialized team to help with this project.
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| Larry with Andres praying over the congregation of Los Angeles. |
The NorCal did such great work that the project was completed one day early, leaving then time to help one day at Los Angeles! This was such a blessing for everyone. The team loved the experience, and the LA church was so thankful. More of the block wall was completed.
The NorCal team also spent one morning at the Bambi Children’s
Center which is run by a Nazarene named Aurelina. She and her team care for 70
children at the center. We enjoy helping
there whenever we can. The children are
all from high risk situations and need all the love they can get. We did a craft with the kids and shared God’s
love.
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| Planning meeting for the Children's activity |
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| Enjoying the children at the Bambi Center |
A big thanks to our missionary friends, Bruce and Linda Wilson, who led these two teams and basically saved our lives! With a number of other responsibilities, it has been difficult for us to be with the teams 24/7. THANK YOU, Bruce and Linda.
A couple of days after the last team left. the Los Angeles Church completed the roof on their new building! One more team will arrive in July to complete the basic structure. We are looking forward to the building dedication in early July.
In addition to having many teams, we have enjoyed having four
Nazarene University students with us this month: 3 from MNU and 1 from MVNU. Nick, Ellen, Sydney and Laurianne have been
such a blessing to us as they complete their student teaching and learn
Spanish. They are a great group of young
educators, and three out of the four have interest in teaching abroad in the
future.
We also said goodbye to a special couple who studied Spanish
with CALL and taught ESL to some of our missionaries. Thanks to Tom and Karen who became such
special friends in such a short time.
Come back again soon, amigos!
It is now Semana Santa (Holy Week) and we are enjoying a few
days of rest. We did not have the energy
to travel a long distance so we spent one night at a Hilton Hotel here in the
city. It was just what we needed to
recharge. We walked in Sabana Park,
enjoyed the sunshine by the pool and slept – a lot! God blessed us with an upgrade to a suite (we
didn’t even ask!) and the views were amazing.
It was 24 hours of pure refreshment.
Ahhhhhhhh…
Happy Easter! We
celebrate not only that Jesus really lived on Earth, not only that He is God’s Son, but also that he died in our place and lives again. He is risen…He is risen indeed!
Many blessings from the Webbs.
