Poas All District Service Nov 2014

Hello Everyone,

Each year the Costa Rica North district holds a “Culto Unido” or “All District Service” where the churches and missions of the district gather together in one place for one day of celebration.  This year the event was held at La Finca Poas Church and we had a great time seeing many pastors, leaders and friends.  There were nearly 1,000 people there from all parts of the North district.  Many got on buses at 4am to arrive for the 9am service.  Becuase of delays with the transportation, the service did not start until 10am but it was worth the wait!

The worship team did a wonderful job of leading the music and praise. The Poas church was decorated with bright colored banners with the names of the churches and missions. David was invited to say a few words as well.

 Rev. Johnny Calvo, Superintendent for the North district received special recognition for seven years of service. 

Two new churches were organized this year:  Quebrada Grande and Tres y Tres. 

Pastor from Quebrada Grande (near Liberia)

Member of the Tres y Tres Church receiving the plaque for the congregation.

Pastor Jorge from the mission group in Miramar gave greetings.  There were 14 people from his church who attended the event.

Pastor Jorge García was recognized for his many years of dedicated service to the Church of the Nazarene.  He is officially retiring this year.  He is a great man of God!

Pastor Felipe Flores preached the message with his usual energy and wonderful spirit. 

We are so pleased to work with such wonderful people.  Congrats to the North district for having a “vivo, unido, santo y creciente” district (alive, united, holy and growing). 

Kayley always enjoys seeing her friend from Poas, Keythel.  These two always enjoying spending some time together at Poas.

Kayley has completed her semester by exempting all her final exams!  This means she has a 93 or higher in every main course. Way to go, Kayley!  And Joshua has completed his finals as well and will travel to Costa Rica on Sunday to spend a couple weeks with us here. Yeah!

In upcoming events, be praying for the Third Wave conference in January.  It will be held on SENDAS campus, so we are expecting a FULL CAMPUS for this event with approximately 280 in attendance. 

As we celebrate the growth of the church in Costa Rica, we also praise God for the growth of the church around the world.  David spent three days in the Dominican Republic last week to meet with evangelism coordinators from Haiti, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and El Salvador.  They meet twice a year to share strategies, successes and challenges and to continue to develop a regional plan to reach our countries for the Lord.  The harvest is very ready.

A Merry Christmas to all.  Thanks for your continued prayers and support.  We love you and appreciate you so much.

The Webbs

Giving Thanks 2014

Hello Friends and Family,

We had a great time with the Crosspointe Church of the Nazarene from Lutz, Florida (near Tampa).  They worked so hard at the San Pedro de Poas Church, also called La Finca.  There were 12 people on the team, including two great children.  Kayley had a great time getting to know this group, but could not stay with the team all week with her class schedule. 

Here is a photo summary of their week in Costa Rica.

Pastor Harv meets Carlos Jaime.

George and Darald worked really hard on the drop ceiling.  (Darald is from the Tampa First Church).

Moving the dirt, sand and rock to the road.

Mixing concrete near the entrance to the Finca.

Pastor Johnny painting at the local elementary school.

The Crosspoint team at the local school.

Enjoying the Poas Volcano - great day for the tour.

The team worked on the road entering the Finca, mixing concrete to make a smoother entry.  Others worked on the new bathroom and shower rooms, sanding walls, cleaning and finishing plumbing.  A few more worked putting stucco on the outside walls.

The Coronado Church recently held a weekend event in a nearby community.  It was great to spend part of a Sunday morning with them as they ministered to the people there and invited them to church.

The Coronado Church serving in their community.

We are near Thanksgiving and have so much to be thankful for: good health, great ministries, a wonderful family. What more can one ask for?  We plan to spend Thanksgiving at home in Costa Rica, decorating for Christmas, making a turkey and seeing a new release movie.  And relaxing is in the plan as well.

We are so excited to see Joshua for Christmas.  He will be here for two weeks with us, leaving January 2^nd for his final semester of his junior year.  Kayley is studying hard to finish up the term and she is taking the ACT exam in December. 

Joshua working at a concert at MVNU.

Kayley's 11th grade class at ICS.

Here a few prayer requests for our family:

1)  To finish the year strong in ministry and to make some fun memories together as a family during the holidays.

2) That both Joshua and Kayley would finish strong in school.

3) That the Third Wave Conference in January would be a blessing for all.  There are many logistics involved in this event for 280 people.  SENDAS is hosting the event.

4) For the new students who will arrive in January, the Schrage family from California.

5) For Kay Lynn Robson who is planning to arrive in February to study Spanish and volunteer with SENDAS and CALL.  We are so excited to have her with us.  If you have a few extra dollars and can help this volunteer get to the field, you can find her volunteer page here: 

http://tinyurl.com/mnafhcn

6) For the Florida District team who will arrive in March to work at SENDAS.  We cannot wait!

Many blessings to you all this week as you enjoy time with family and friends at Thanksgiving.  

David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley

David's November Update

Greetings from Costa Rica!

We continue to rejoice in God’s goodness and His provision and blessing on His church here in Costa Rica.  Here is a summary of David's travels over the last few weeks.

Two weeks ago, David traveled to one of the indigenous zones in Costa Rica called Tayni with two pastors from San Jose.  The church planter's name is Pastor Maximiliano Diaz.  Brother Maximiliano has a small Jesus Film set that he is using to help him open new works and he is currently meeting with people in ten different villages.

David visited two of Pastor Maximiliano’s works on this three day trip.  During this time, he and Pastor Leyla were able to be a part of three baptisms and a wedding for three couples.  God blessed in the journey as there was no rain, which helped as they had a 2.5 hour hike to the nearest work after driving in as far as they were able. 

lthough the Jesus Film has been very effective in Spanish in the indigenous area, we know that it would be even more effective in the heart language of Cabecar for the folks that live in the territory of Tayni.   Please pray with us that God will provide the resources for the Jesus Film translation to happen.  We have been able to meet one of the folks who helped translate the New Testament into Cabecar, and he is ready to help with the Jesus Film translation.

Last week David visited pastors in Guanacaste in northwest Costa Rica and also visited the Costa Rica North District Center in the city of Muelle.  We thank God for His provision through the Chicago Central District and through Alabaster to purchase the property in October of 2013 in Muelle, and we are looking at possibilities to construct a multipurpose building soon.

The building at the District Center...yep, it needs some work!

This past Saturday, we celebrated the organization of a new church in the community of Tres y Tres (yes that’s right, Three and Three in English).   This is a small community where a mother church began the work less than three years ago.  The church was organized with 53 members and an average attendance of 125 people.  Although the community had a great deal of distrust of evangelical churches when the work began, the testimony of God’s faithfulness is very special.

Beautiful entrance to the new sanctuary.

Pastor Alex who lives in Alajuela (3 hrs away) is the Pastor at Tres y Tres. 

Founding church members

This new church is the only evangelical church in the community and has received an invitation by the community to host the kindergarten and sixth grade graduations this year.  They built a bus stop for their community two years ago and are currently trying to help the community build a playground area for children close to the city park. The land where the church is located was donated by one of the families that have come to know the Lord through this work.  As the apostle Paul wrote, “Love never fails.” 

Turrialba Volcano

 An interesting event happened on October 29th that has not occurred for 150 years.  The Volcano Turrialba, located just 18 miles from SENDAS, exploded.  It threw ash over the east part of the city, including where we live.  It was just a light dusting of ash, but it sure smelled like sulfur that day.  Then, as usual, it rained hard in the afternoon and the rain looked like skim milk as it ran down the streets.  The volcano has not stopped exploding yet, but so far, no more ash has reached us.    

Can you see the ash on our plants in the our backyard?

Poas Church building.  The Florida team will be working here starting tomorrow.

Thanks so much for your prayers for our family. Shelley has been extremely busy with many ministries including the preparation for the graduation at the seminary, which takes place Saturday.   David will be working with a US Work and Witness team from Lutz, Florida, who arrive tomorrow.  

Kayley is working hard in school, and we are looking forward to Joshua’s visit during his Christmas break from Mount Vernon Nazarene University.   

Many blessings in Jesus Christ. Thanks for keeping up with us through the blog.  See you next time.  David, Shelley, Joshua and Kayley

Goodbyes and Hellos

Hello World,

September was the month of the goodbyes.  No one likes goodbyes, but we have to admit, we have grown accustomed to it.  As a family, we were trying to count all the people who had come and gone from Costa Rica in the last 7.5 years and the number was HUGE.  We could think of 25 families in just a few minutes time, including both missionaries and CALL students who have lived on campus with us for an extended period of time. 

This month we said goodbye to three families:  the Jimenez’, the Gentrys and the Faucett.  We had a time to celebrate their lives and all they have accomplished while at SENDAS/CALL a few days before saying the final goodbyes.

Gentrys (back left), Faucetts (back right), CALL professors Nuria, Zeidy and Gaby (front).

The SENDAS staff and faculty at the Farewell party.

We are thankful that God gives us Hellos to balance out the goodbyes.  We are pleased to have the Honea family (Bub and Rickie) with us once again.  They studied Spanish with CALL a few years ago and have since taken on the huge job of Work and Witness Coordinators for CA-4 (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua).    

Independence day in Costa Rica is Sept. 15th and we enjoyed watching the schools receive and run with the torch.  This torch starts in Guatemala and continues through Central America until it reaches Costa Rica.  Then each school meets up with a torch (apparently lit from the main torch) and runs with it a number of km to their local school.  It is a neat tradition throughout Central America to celebrate their Independence.  

David has been preaching at various churches on Sundays, most recently at Poas.  We are so pleased to see not only that the gymnasium gets bigger and bigger (thanks to the Work and Witness teams who have come to help) but also that the sanctuary is packed out for services. 

Poas Church of the Nazarene, attendance of approximately 350 on Sundays.

Bub Honea was a huge help to us (Shelley and Kayley) one morning when a Mot-Mot bird flew into our back patio area.  We remembered he rescued a parrot when he lived here before, so we instantly called him and once again, he came to the rescue.  These are beautiful birds with bright colors of blue, green and yellow.  I doubt that Mot-Mot will make that mistake again for awhile.

We are excited that in November, two new churches will be organized in the North district.  One is located near Liberia and is in the community of Quebrada Grande and the other is in the area of San Jorge called Tres y Tres (Three and Three).  These both have been mission churches for a few years but have grown substantially and are ready to be organized officially.  YEAH!

Yesterday (Sunday) was Cultural Day in Costa Rica.  This is a national holiday and the local church celebrated with an international food festival after the service.  Kayley made chocolate chip cookie bars.  Most of the folks in the church are either from Costa Rica or Nicaragua, so the food was mainly from those two countries.  Yummy!

 

This month, we would like to include a number of prayer requests for various needs. 

Please pray with us for these pastors and churches.

1.  Pray for Leyla Ramirez, a pastor on the Central district whose husband Jorge unexpectedly died in September.  She is the mother of four, and three of the four kids live at home.

Leyla is in the center with Pastor Arcelio (left) and David (right).

2.  Pray for the two new churches to be organized in November.  Tres y Tres does not have a full time pastor and this is a great need.  Quebrada Grande is the other new church in the North.

Tres y Tres

3.  Pray for Miramar.  This town is the home of the first mission type church in the Puntarenas area.  We had a Jesus Film team come from Washington State to help with the work there and the four days of ministry were very successful, but the mission has not grown as we had hoped.  Pray for Pastor Jorge who is reaching out to his community there. 

Pastor Jorge and his family.

4.  Pray for the church in Limon and Pastor Edwin.  Limon is the main port city on the Atlantic side and is known for drug trafficking.  It is not an easy place to minister.  This church is beginning to find its identity in the Church of the Nazarene, and we want to be more attentive to this church in the coming months.

5.  Pray for the Indigenous area of Costa Rica and the Cabecar people.  The district currently is working in three main locations within the area, and we are praying for a strong leader to emerge from one of these areas who can help to develop the work there.  

David with some of the leaders from the Indigenous area.

6.  Pray for the SENDAS assembly on October 24^th.  This is the yearly meeting where leaders from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and South America come to serve as an advisory board. 

7.  Pray for the soon to arrive Work and Witness team from Tampa, FL who will work at Poas.  David is leading this team who are from our LINKS district.

8.  Pray for the Third Wave Conference that will take place in January on the SENDAS campus.  There will be approximately 280 youth leaders from all around the world.  Pray especially for the Evangelism Outreach day when the participants will work at four sites doing evangelism and compassionate ministries. The four sites include Orosi, San Ramon, San Pedro and Heredia.  Pray for the leaders who are preparing the communities for this special day.

9.  As always we would appreciate prayers for our family.  Joshua is having a good semester at MVNU in Ohio, Kayley has just completed the first quarter of her 11th grade year, and David and Shelley continue to be busy with ministry.  

Many blessings to you all.  Until next month,

Shelley, David, Joshua and Kayley

Hello World,

Time flies when you are having fun.  At least that is my excuse for not posting a blog from more than one month.  SORRY!

Well, let’s start with the family.  Both kids went back to school in this month, Kayley on the 6^th and Joshua left for the USA on Aug 21^st.  Both are getting adjusted to the new school year, and both are juniors at their respective schools, ICS (Kayley) and Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

Joshua and Lilly

Joshua at a ball game in Columbus.

Just before Joshua left us once again, we took a few days off to visit Cahuita National Park, located on the Caribbean side.  This area is less developed than the Pacific side, but beautiful just the same.   Since Joshua had never been there, he enjoyed the unique experience of the natural beaches and let’s not forget the snorkeling.

Back at the office, Shelley said a sad goodbye to her office assistant Helen who is going to the Dominican Republic on her way to Honduras to serve as a missionary with Genesis.  Check out this site if you do not yet know what I am talking about!

http://www.mesoamericagenesis.com/

The SENDAS crew at Helen's going away party.

But God has provided and I have a new assistant named Vicente.   I am so thankful for the help God gives me in my work.  I don’t know if I would survive without these great leaders who use their talents for the Lord.

Vicente Bustos, new office assistant in Public Relations

In other GOODBYE news….we have a number of missionaries leaving this month.  The LeGrands were the first to say goodbye to Costa Rica, leaving for a 4 month home assignment before they are assigned with Work and Witness in another area of the Mesoamerica Region.  We are already missing their kids running around campus, asking us questions and in general, just making life fun.

On September 23^rd, we have two families leaving for the USA: Lucas and Liz Gentry, who have served as volunteers for an entire year with SENDAS and Gary and Naomi Faucett who have taken intensive CALL class before they head to the Dominican Republic to work with the Genesis project.  We are excited to watch as God uses them in ministry in the coming months and years.

Lucas and Liz Gentry

Gary and Naomi Faucett with Profesora Gaby

A final goodbye will be for the Jimenez family.  They have served at SENDAS with us for nearly 3 years and will be moving to Ecuador to serve on the South America Region.  Many blessings to them as they move even further from their families:  Esdras is from Mexico and Scarlet from Nicaragua.

CALL has had another good year.  The language school is blessed to have three great professors who are patient and caring as the students learn Spanish little by little.  I am blessed to work with these great ladies!

All three CALL professors:  Zeidy, Gaby and Nuria.

In other ministry news, David and Shelley have been working all year on the translating and recording of a Spanish radio show called Family Care.  Our friends Miguel and Irene record the 5 minute show in Spanish and then we record it in English.  There are many Caribbean islands that are waiting to have these shows available to them on the radio and on the website.

A first for David and Shelley – leading a marriage workshop!  We taught the basics of the 5 love languages at the mission Three and Three (yes, that is actually the name of the community, something about two families with 3 boys each) really enjoyed the teaching.  Many couples that live there are not married, but instead live together.  But as they are learning more about God’s plan for marriage, they are sensing a need to be married in the church.  Fourteen couples came forward at the end to pray for their marriage and three couples talked to the Pastor afterwards asking about the process for being married.  God is good!

More than 80 persons were in attendance at 3y3.

Lastly, we enjoyed our time with the Costa Rica Central pastors and spouses at their first retreat in nearly 15 years.  It was a time of relaxation, talking, eating, and marriage/family workshops.  We are so thankful for the great leaders we work with here in Costa Rica.

Many of the Pastors and spouses from the CR Central District.

Another blessing for us here in Costa Rica is to spend time with Alvaro and Monica.  Alvaro lived with David's family as a foreign exchange student when David was five years old.  You never know who God will bring into your life once again, but we sure are pleased He gave us these last few years with these special people.  Al and Monica are moving back to Columbia soon and we will miss them.

Alvaro and Monica have been family for us here in Costa Rica.

We can’t wait to see you next summer when we visit the USA.  We are planning on spending some time in Iowa, Kansas City, Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee and Chicago in our two months of traveling and speaking in churches.  Maybe we will see YOU then.

Thanks for your prayers and support.  We couldn’t be effective in ministry without each one of you.

Blessings,

The Webbs