Travel and More Travel

Hello Family and Friends,

It has been a time of travel for David with Evangelism Coordinator meetings in the Dominican Republic, one day in the office and then a 4 day trip to the Indigenous area churches and cell groups.  Shelley and Kayley are expecting David’s return someone tonight.  It will be good to have all 3 of us home once again.  David enjoyed his time in the DR and will share more later about that, but for now a few photos will suffice.

Shelley has been busy with translations of the School of Leadership books, translating from Spanish to English.  The first book, The DNA of the Nazarenes, has already been sent to the printers and this week a revision of the printed copy is due.  The next book, which is nearly complete, is called Worship as a Lifestyle.  

 The Genesis Project is getting started on the Region.  This is a plan to enter into those cities and countries on the Mesoamerica Region where our church presence is limited in comparison to the population.  One of the Caribbean islands were the Church of the Nazarene does not have a presence is Curacao.  This is a Dutch (Holland) island and our friend, Joel Tooley and his son, Nick, spent a few days there exploring, talking to the people and learning about the people there.  Here a photo from the worship service they attended on Sunday.  Anyone speak Dutch and want to plant a church there?  BEAUTIFUL island!

Shelley has also kept occupied planning for CALL.  Six MNU students will arrive in mid November for a 4.5 week stay with CALL, completing their student teaching at a local private school.  They are preparing for their trip by taking Spanish classes online before their arrival.  A new volunteer for Work and Witness is also expected sometime soon to the field.  It will be a great help to that ministry to have someone in charge while the Sickels head to the USA for deputation.

Professora Zeidy teaching one of the MNU students in his first lesson

Speaking of the Sickels, everyone enjoyed Micah’s dedication service last Sunday and the fun Mexican meal afterwards.  It is good to serve with such great people!

            The Reinharts will complete their one month stay with CALL this week. It has been great to have them with us and to witness how their Spanish is improving.  We enjoyed a visit to Zoo Ave, a bird rescue center, which also had a few other animals too like monkeys, turtles, crocodiles and iguanas.

            

 Joshua is doing very well at college, both academically and socially.  We are anticipating his visit “home” to Costa Rica in December which will make the Webbfamily4 complete once again.

Kayley continues her good work in school earning nothing less than a 90% this first quarter of 9^th grade.  Great job, Kayley!

Well, that's the update for now!  David will be sharing with you soon about his recent travels.

God bless,

The Webbs

Hello to Everyone!

Life has settled into a routine these days with school for Kayley, work at SENDAS for Shelley and trips and meetings for David with the leaders of Costa Rica.

A new couple just arrived for the CALL Spanish language program:  Dan and Janet Reinhart.  They are volunteer missionaries with the South America Region and live part of the year in Argentina.  They are spending one month with us to learn as much Spanish as they can.  Soon they will be on their way to Argentina to work with Communications and Finances for the Region there.  They are some of the easiest CALL students that Shelley has ever hosted since they already understand some Spanish and with their backgrounds they are completely adaptable to whatever living situtation.  They are a blessing!

David preached last weekend in San Pedro de Poas, the largest Church of the Nazarene in Costa Rica. He did a great job!  This Church has had dreams of building a LARGE sanctuary for many years and now that dream is partially completed.  One half of the new sanctuary is completed, but there is much left to do.  We are so proud of the congregation there who have sacrificed greatly, both financially and physically, to make this a reality.  They are a church that prays and trusts the Lord to supply their needs and He always does!

Kayley is now officially on Fall Break!  She has a week off (and the next Monday too!), so she is planning on enjoying it fully!  No homework!  This will be quite a change since she normally has to spend 2-3 hours per night on homework to keep up in her classes.  She enjoyed a birthday sleepover last night with her friend Allison Tooley.  Looks like they had a fun time!





David took a one day trip to an Indigenous area of Costa Rica where we have some new church missions.  One this special day, 4 people were baptized in the river.  Two were planned on, but the other two were a surprise.  

Safely crossing the river once again!  They are becoming pros at this!

Reading from the Word before the baptisms.

Armando's baptism

Elias (white shirt), Leyla, Armando and Anderson (church planter)

Erminia was at the baptism service and said she wanted to be baptized but that she wanted to do it with her husband who was not there, nor was he a Christian.  So, she decided to wait.  But after the baptisms, during the preaching, her husband showed up. After hearing the preaching, he wanted to rededicate his life to Jesus and both of them were baptized.  Yeah!

Erminia and Eloy with their daughter.

One interesting thing we have found about the indigenous people is that they rarely smile for the camera.  They are serious, hard working people.  So don't think they are not happy, it's just so hard to get them to smile for photos!  They are beautiful people.

We have an exciting week coming up!  Since Kayley is not in school, she will go with us on Monday on a scouting trip to visit an area of Costa Rica where we do not yet have churches.  It is near the beach, so we hope to at least put our feet in the sand for a few minutes!  Then off to Palmares, a city about 1.5 hrs from San Jose, to plan for an upcoming team from WA that will arrive in January. 

Then Shelley gets to be part of a video conference test of equipment on Tuesday with a new site in Trinidad!  Shelley has been working some with the leadership there to help translate when there are issues with reports, etc.  In Trinidad, the people speak English (more of a Britain English) and since our secretary speaks Spanish only, translation is necessary to get the year end reporting done correctly.  Those are always fun, but challenging conversations to translate!

No big news from Joshua at MVNU, expect that he and his roommate have started a sandwich shop in their room.  The cafeteria closes at 7pm so by 9pm some students are hungry once again.  They have a George Foreman grill that they use to make various types of sandwiches with meats, cheeses and Joshua's specialty, grilled PB&J. 

We pray your week will be blessed.  Enjoy the fall weather and especially the turning leaves.  We sure miss that!

The Webb Family

Back to Life in Costa Rica

Hello Dear Family and Friends,

We arrived back in Costa Rica a few weeks ago and we hit the ground running.  One of our goals for these few weeks was to visit every one of the four churches in the area of Heredia (one of the Provinces (States) of Costa Rica).  We have visited the San Isidro de Heredia Church a few times, but we did not know where the other 3 churches were located.

This may not sound like much of a goal, but when you live in a country where there are no street addresses, finding anything can be very difficult.  One of the addresses we were given was to find the big grocery store in a particular communty and head 200 m west.  Another one was to find the soccer field, take a right, then find the cemetery, then you are close.  The last one was to find another of our churches, take the roundabout, go past the gas station and then take a left on the second little street after the bar.  (We found 3 bars there, so that one was harder, but we found it!).

Church in San Francisco de San Isidro de Heredia

Anyway, we have now successfully visited all 4 Heredia churches.   Each Pastor and church is very special, and we enjoyed so much worshiping with each congregation.  These four Heredia churches have a plan to do evangelistic work together in their communities.  In November, they plan to hold a Maximum Mission event, doing community service and outreach, to help the smallest church in Fatima. The church is alive in Heredia!

The Doctoral Student Group with Dr. Hahn from NTS (left in red).

Another special time was spent with the doctoral students from Central and South America as they were on campus for two weeks studying with  NTS (Nazarene Theological Seminary).  It was great to spend time with all of them.  We enjoyed a tour day to Poas Volcano.

Happy Birthday to Pam Tooley (former CALL student) and Professor Zeidy.

Shelley has been doing lots of future planning in these weeks, both with the CALL language school program as well as with the ESL program.  On top of that, she is working hard to translate into English a book in the School of Leadership series.  Since our Region now includes the Caribbean English field, some of our Seminary resources must be translated into English.  This is interesting work since it involves research.  You see, the quotes are in Spanish, but most were originally in English.  So Shelley has to find the original books (not always easy!) to have the original English in the translation.

Darin and Tonya Kucey, ready for their Spanish lesson with Professor Zeidy.

We have two students arriving for CALL classes this weekend.  We are excited to welcome the Reinharts.  They will study for one full month, learning all they can from Professor Gaby.  The Kucey's continue classes as well.   They are taking about 18 hours per month from Professor Zeidy.  They are advancing well in their Spanish language learning!

David made a special trip to Liberia recently, where we have 16 missions or preaching points.  He and Franlym Pena, Seminary professor and administrator, held meetings to discuss ideas for providing more and better theological and discipelship education for the church planters and cell group leaders.

This week, Shelley and David visited the church in Palmares, located about 1.5 hrs from the Seminary.  A team from Washington will be visiting in January, so we visited the church where our friend Felipe is the Pastor to plan ahead for this team.  We drove about 3 km on a windy, mountainous road to meet a few of the cell groups members in Candelaria.  Plans are taking shape, but a return trip in late October should solidify the plans.  

The Church at Palmares

Beautiful views on the way to Candelaria.

David is excited to travel to the Indigenous area next week (3 days) and then to the Dominican Republic for Evangelism Leadership meetings later in October.  Lots to do!!!

Kayley has been very busy getting caught up at school.  She missed 3 weeks of classes and although she did lots of homework on the road, there was still lots to do upon her return.  Finally, she took her last make up test on Saturday (make up tests can only be taken on Saturdays!) so she is officially caught up!  She has just two weeks of classes and then a week long fall break.  Yeah for Kayley!

We have all enjoyed Stephen and Anne Sickel's new baby, Micah. He is such a good baby and it is fun for us all to have a little one on campus.

Kayley with Baby Micah.

Joshua (OAK t-shirt) and the gang from the Pierpont Church in WV.

Joshua is settled in now at MVNU (Mount Vernon Nazarene University).  He is enjoying college life, complete with the full service dining hall and evening basketball games.  He really enjoys his psychology class and is putting up with biology.  He has a work study job at the IT Help Desk.  He is having to relearn the PC system since he has become accustomed to his Mac.  We are thankful for skype so we can see and hear from Joshua once in a while.

Joshua in the student lounge with Travis is roommate (yellow t-shirt).

A big thanks to you for praying for us.  We are blessed to have so many praying for us each week.  God bless you!

The Webb Family

Three Weeks in the USA!

Hello to Everyone!

Well, we are now back in Costa Rica after a 3 week visit to churches in the States.  Here are some highlights from the past three weeks:

1.  Kayley passed her permit test and learned to drive (kinda).  

2.  Joshua passed his driver’s license exam and driving test.  Yes, he is a good driver.

David and Pastor Doug DiBell in Monticello, IA.

3.  We visited 3 churches in Iowa (Monticello, Centerville and Des Moines Southside) and spoke to two different Bible Study groups.  Then onto Ohio (New Life Church of the Nazarene in Mount Vernon) and finally Naperville, Illinois.  A whirlwind tour!

Ladies Bible Study in Leon, IA (David's Mom is standing in the back).

Preaching at Naperville, IL

4.  Joshua celebrated his 18^th birthday.

5.  We traveled to Mount Vernon, Ohio to leave Joshua off for this freshman year at MVNU.  

Joshua in his new dorm room with his friend Hunter.

Joshua on MVNU campus.

6. David went to an Iowa State football game in Ames and traveled 10 hours by car to do so.

7.  We safely returned to Costa Rica this week.

8.  We were promptly greeted by the 2^nd strongest earthquake Costa Rica has ever experienced:  7.9 located in Nicoya on the Pacific coast. 

Today David has gone with some other missionaries to help one of the local pastors.  A retaining wall fell onto a small house and 3 truckloads of dirt fell on the side of the house.  Lots of digging!  The boys will come home sweaty after their hard day of work.

Shelley is looking forward to a great day of playing tour guide tomorrow for a group of 11 doctoral students and their professor.  We are praying for clear skies in the morning after an all night rain.  

Thanks for all your prayers and support.  God bless you all!

The Webb family

FOCUS Youth Conference, Panama City, July 2012

Hello,

David getting ready to translate for workshops.

I just wanted to share a few photos and some basic info about what David and Joshua have been doing for the last week.  They left last Tuesday for Panama City.  David translated for workshops for the FOCUS event and Joshua helped with the Central Church team from Lenexa, KS. 

The FOCUS conference is the first of its kind since it is first youth conference held for the new Mesoamerica Region.  There are 30 countries on the Region now, and the majority were in attendance (which is an amazing feat when you consider all the visa regulations, border crossings, expenses and long travel days required to arrive.)  More than 600 people attended the conference which lasted for 5 days. Translation was necessary with English, Spanish and even some French speakers on site.

There were many highlights, but one special moment was when the 5 youth from Cuba finally arrived in time for the end of the Thursday night service.  It is a total miracle that at the last moment they were given visas to leave Cuba for this event.  When it was announced that they had arrived, they stood, and the cheering lasted for quite some time!  An amazing moment to be a part of - even if by streaming!

David in one of the many workshops.

Joshua (in blue Tshirt) at La Pesa construction site.

The Central Team, among others, with Joshua in the background, probably helping the team to order from the menu.

Shelley and Kayley stayed at home, but were able to watch much of the event through live streaming.  It was fun to see Joshua and David there in Panama. 

Joshua is working with Stephen Sickel, the W&W Coordinator, to assist in leading the Central Team.  They are working in La Pesa, a community where there is a Church of the Nazarene, a preschool and a Child Development Center.  Shelley has been there since she worked with this Child Development Center in her previous work for Compassionate Ministries.  On the service day for FOCUS, a group from the event went to La Pesa and helped for the day.  Great experiences for all!

The Webb boys will return to Costa Rica on Saturday, after they finish up their work with the Central team at La Pesa.  Stephen Sickel will return home soon to be here in time for the birth of their baby boy!  YEAH!

Joshua leaves on August 3rd for the USA, first for the MK Retreat in Oklahoma City, then a couple of weeks touring on deputation and then to Ohio and MVNU for this move in day on the 31st of August.  What a whirlwind!  
 

Also, a quick update on the Las Marias church construction.  Here is the most recent photo I have from the site, but I know that two local churches are planning a trip in the next week or two to try to complete the work.  The team from Kansas City did a great job and completed the vast majority of the new parsonage for a well-deserving Pastor Franklin and his family.  Thanks!!!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog and for all your prayers and support.  We hope to see you soon!
The Webb Family