Beach Vacation 2009

Hello Friends and Family,

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to share with your extended family, but since that has not been possible for the last few years, we have begun a new tradition: beach vacation! 

Since Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Latin America, it is a great time to visit the coast since most Costa Ricans travel to the beach at Christmastime.  We beat the holiday rush and enjoy the beaches in peace!

This year’s vacation started with a night at the Marriott near the San Jose airport visiting with a Pastor and his daughter from Ohio.  Pastor Bernie Dickson (who bought our van in August at the end of our home assignment) and his daughter Christy enjoyed a few days at a resort near the beach and spent the last night near the airport.  Since Christy works with Marriott, she gets some amazing deals on hotels and resorts and we enjoyed a night on the town with them. 

We talked, played Phase 10 cards, visited the gift shop and enjoyed a special desert before saying good night.  It is always fun to see friends from the USA when they visit Costa Rica.  Let us know when you will be here!!!

The next morning we were off to the beach – Manuel Antonio to be exact.  It is a National Park (about 25% of Costa Rica is protected park land) that only allows 800 visitors per day.  It has a number of beautiful beaches and we especially enjoyed the guided tour through the forest where we saw monkeys, sloths, birds, insects and other interesting creatures. Is that sloth not the ugliest thing you have ever seen!  We were literally a foot or two from it, which is very rare since they are only on the ground one time a week.

I will let the photos do the talking, but you can see we enjoyed our vacation.

 

Next week we will have lots to tell about the Seminary graduation and the upcoming Maximum Mission trip to Costa Rica North.  See you then!!!

The Webb Family

Building Bridges of Hope

 Repairing a "bridge" in Puerto Cabezas

Greetings to our family and our friends,

David just returned last week from a 5 day trip to Nicaragua.  While he was there he was able to visit two new missional zones where the church is working to plant new churches.  One new area is in the department (or state) of Matagalpa.  This area is north and east of Managua.  He visited a church in Matiguás that was started one year ago and some of its surrounding communities.

David had the privilege of preaching in a very poor community called Muy Muy.  Please pray for this community as there is such a great need for the gospel here and very little representation of evangelical churches.  David and some Nicaraguan evangelism leaders came to this community without promoting that they wanted to do a service and ended up having between 30 and 40 people come for the service and two people reconcile with Jesus Christ. 

That same day they did an evening service in the mother church before driving back to Managua.  It was a short night as they arrived in Managua at 12:30 am and then boarded a plane at 6:30 am for the northeast coast of Puerto Cabezas.  It is still not possible to drive to Puerto Cabezas from Managua as this area had just received very heavy rains as a result of Hurricane Ida (David checked the weather this time as he already had a hurricane experience as he actually arrived in Puerto Cabezas the same day Hurricane Felix hit in Sept 2007:)

 

This is a picture of missional zone planter Feliciano Perez in Puerto Cabezas.  Thanks to help from US teams and compassionate ministry help, the church, which suffered severe damage during Hurricane Felix, has almost completed its repairs.  The church is growing and Pastor Feliciano has worked hard to make new relationships with the indigenous Miskitu people that live here.

Although the main city, Bilwi, seemed to have made it through Hurricane Ida fairly well, many outlying communities suffered severe flooding.  This is a picture of the community of Il Tara which lost almost everything they had planted in rice and beans.  In some areas, the farmland was under as much as 12 feet of water.  This picture shows the mud and dirt residue that remained on the trees after the flooding.

We are looking into possible compassionate projects to help this community.  We rejoice in the new works that Brother Feliciano is working with.  Here are two pictures from our visit with the leaders in Il Tara and the home for a new cell group in the community of Loma Verde which is on the other side of the city from the mother church.

The lady in the center has opened her home for the Nazarene cell group.  The church has directly impacted her life as her son accepted Christ a year ago through attending the Church of the Nazarene. He now has a call to ministry.  They are a very sweet family (although it is hard to get them to pose for a picture:)  Although there is much poverty here, we can sense the joy these people find in knowing they have eternal riches in the Lord.  We are very excited for the ministry possibilities and look forward to continuing to reach new people for Christ.  We thank God for all He is doing and are remembering that He does not want even one person to perish but for every person to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9).  Please pray for boldness and faithfulness as we share the only real hope we have--Jesus Christ.

Much love in His Name,
David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley

La Cumbre de Santidad (Holiness Summit)

Hello Family and Friends,

We have not yet shared with you about the first ever Holiness Summit, an event that occurred here on the Seminary campus at the end of October. It was a big event with more than 300 people registered from all parts of Central America as well as Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Argentina. Truly, an International event.

The event featured great speakers each session, always focusing on the topic of holy living. Each one was unique and challenging.

In between the services, Shelley and David worked in their respective booth, David with Evangelism and Shelley with the Seminary. Here is the Seminary booth with lots of folks asking questions about upcoming classes.

It was lots of fun to see many friends from all over, including many old friends from our days in Guatemala.

Another exciting event when we finally got to meet Alvaro face to face in San Jose. Some of you know about Alvaro, who was a foreign exchange student with David's family when David was only 5 years old. Alvaro really became a part of the family and this summer we learned that Alvaro had moved from his home country of Colombia to..... San Jose, Costa Rica. He works with the Colombian Embassy and travels to Nicaragua and Panama, just as David does. So, finally we found a day to have lunch with Alvaro and his wife Monica. It was a wonderful time of catching up and telling him all about the Webb family. The next visit will be soon at Alvaro's home on the other side of town. We are already looking forward to it. Here is a photo of David with Alvaro and Monica.

In other news, the kids received good grades on their first report cards and we are all getting excited to have a short break at Thanksgiving. We are traveling a few hours west to the beach where we will enjoy the sun and surf. It is a must needed break from the daily pressures of our work. We will be very thankful as we drive on Thanksgiving Day.

God bless you all!

The Webb Family

Traveling to Tay Cabecar

Service in Tay Cabecar


Greetings to all our friends and family!

Thanks again for your prayers as we have been getting caught up in our ministries after a three month home assignment in the USA. David took a special trip at the close of October where he visited two new missions in the southern part of Costa Rica.

In one mission, Llano Grande, the team helped in the local elementary school with painting, donation of clothing and Vacation Bible Schools.

David with a rare bad hair day

We received permission to show the Jesus Film in the community center and rejoiced with those who made decisions to follow Christ after the presentation.

Special prayer time after the Jesus Film

The following day David and a group from the mother church crossed the same river three times to reach area called Tay Cabecar where an indigenous people group called Cabecar live (this is also the name of their language).

This is a very beautiful and very isolated area. Although more than 23,000 people live in this area, there are no bridges that can carry a vehicle and no electricity.

David’s group had a special evening service with the use of a generator they brought with them (they were blessed that one of the members of the new mission brought a horse to help us carry the generator and sound equipment across the river). We had a special communion service which is not only special because of what this represents but also because this was the first time this mission had ever celebrated communion.

Communion preparation by candlelight

After Bible schools and meetings the next day, David and the team headed back on their hour and a half hike in the rain. God blessed the journey and everyone rejoices in all the doors that God is opening in Tai Cabecar. The leader of this new mission, Pastor Arselio, has a heart to reach many other villages in this area. Many of these villages have no evangelical churches. Pastor Leyla and our local church in San Jose, Costa Rica is continuing to disciple Pastor Arselio with the hope that they will help him carry out the Great Commission in Tay Cabecar.

Until next time, "Sibu ti bukimi" (God bless you in Cabecar)

David, Shelley, Josh and Kayley

CALL Begins

Hello All,

This blog will be a quick one. We are very busy with many projects on the burner all at once.

Shelley is excited that the first CALL (Christian Academy of Language and Learning) student has arrived. Lora from the Boston area wants to improve her Spanish in order to work with forming Partnerships between the MAC Region (Mexico and Central America) and those in the USA and Canada who have a heart for various projects. So, Lora is here studying for 8 weeks and we are sure she will be speaking much more Spanish by the end of that time. Two more students will arrive in November to study for few weeks, so the class is growing. Already we have one student for the January Term and we are praying for a few more.

David has begun traveling once again with a number of day trips and this week a 4- day trip to an indigenous area in southeast Costa Rica where church planting is taking place. The team will be carrying their backpacks, materials and the Jesus Film equipment across a river and then a one-hour hike. That should be an interesting experience and we’ll tell you all about it next blog.

On one of David’s one-day trips in the north of Costa Rica, he “enjoyed” traveling across this bridge – 3 times!

It made him nervous, but the Ticos said it was no problem (apparently they weren’t driving!).

But all is well and David returned home in one piece with lots of platanos (plantains) that we enjoyed giving out to all the missionaries.

Next week there are a number of events taking place: the annual meetings for the Seminary (many leaders from the USA, Central and South America will be attending), Compassionate Ministries meetings and the Holiness Summit, which is like a retreat. There will be many people on campus and everyone is looking forward to seeing old and new friends while enjoying great the Retreat.

The kids are doing well as the first quarter ends and the second begins. We are all looking forward to Thanksgiving, with our annual get away to the beach! It is a great time to go since no one else in on vacation!!!

One more thing: Once again, our address has changed. This is the new address to us if you wish to send something to Florida that will then be sent to us here in Costa Rica.

ASOCIACION CRISTIANA REGION MAC IGLESIA NAZARENO

3401-B NW 72nd Avenue

Epaqs 27582

Miami, Florida 33122-1321

See you next time!

The Webbs