Life in Costa Rica

Hi everyone, It's been a few months since our move to Santa Rosa and our last post, and we are so excited to share everything that God has been doing in our lives and ministry! We have been adjusting well into this new environment, and are thankful for the amazing body of Christ we have around us to support and encourage us daily. It has been awesome getting to know Esteban and Hannah better and learn alongside them as we join in their service. This month we officially became members of the Church "Semillas de Vida" (Seeds of Life) and have jumped into full time ministry. Brandon has been able to help out with a few Sunday morning sermons, and has now taken the position of teaching a 30 minute Sunday School lesson before each service. He has been focusing on discipleship - what it is and how to implement it in our everyday lives. At this point Sunday School is still in the main room with everyone, but as the church grows and the building expands, we plan to have multi

Hey everyone! Thankful for this opportunity to present the Gospel to this kids in La Aldea We are happy to be moved in to our new home and have been enjoying life here in Santa Rosa . We started our move bright and early on Friday the 30th of August. It was a long day of packing up the moving truck and hauling all of our belongings 3 hours to our new home. The day that we got here with all of our stuff, we postponed our evening of organizing and unpacking for a Bible study in a nearby village called La Aldea . We are looking forward to working more in this town as there is only one family of new believers and they are reaching out for Bible studies to be formed to reach their neighbors. La Aldea is a small town that is a 45 minute drive through the jungle back a dirt/rocky road. We are excited to work with them and build our reputation as we attempt to bring God's saving message to these people. We were honored to have the opportunity to be invited to the elementary school

Hey everyone, Just wanted to reach out and give a quick update on how God has been guiding our steps in our upcoming transition. For those who haven’t heard, the Lord has been working a lot in our hearts over the past year. We are looking forward to our move to a town by the name of Santa Rosa. We now have an official move date (September 13 th ) and a house!!! Praise God for continuing to provide for our needs in this time of many unknowns. It’s been awesome to see prayers being answered in this journey.   We had the opportunity to host the Keystone Youth Group down here at the beginning of July. They were able to get a glimpse into the community and church plant where we will be serving. It was a very busy week as we held a mini VBS in 3 different locations. It was a blessing to have a team that was well prepared that was able to share the love of Christ to the different communities. They endured a very hot week and were full of energy the entire time. Please continue to pra

In May we said goodbye to our nineteen 2018-19 GAP students. Second semester was full of adventure, ministry, growing friendships and personal growth for many. We love seeing the continued excitement and yearning to learn as students jump in and make the most out of the second half of their year. This year was a challenging one for many of us here at GAP, with lots of problems and situations that came up that we had never dealt with before. From all the health issues (affecting staff and many students), to learning how to handle the many different personality types in the villa this year, to the immense spiritual battles and growth, we tried our best to lead this class well and always point them back to Christ! We saw God do amazing things in and through many of the students. God brought many of them to a saving relationship with Him, and we were honored to be a part of many of their baptisms! We saw students really begin to dive in to the Word of God and get answers to questions of fa

Hey everyone! We are well into the second semester of the GAP year, and there are some cool things happening. Though every season brings its own challenges, we are so thankful to be a part of God’s work here in Costa Rica and in the GAP program. It was great to be home to celebrate the holidays and catch up with many of you, we are always thankful for visits back to the states to see family and feel refreshed.  Every January, we hold summer camps with the churches and ministries we work with. This is an awesome opportunity for the GAP students to really connect with the kids and teens they are serving in ministry, as they are normally week long, overnight camps. We love seeing students return after camps with improved Spanish and stronger relationships with their ministry kids.  Brandon and I had the opportunity to serve in camp with Salvador and his youth group from Los Guido! The theme of the week was “walking towards spiritual maturity”. There were speakers who came from