Las Tablas... Costa Rica

These are the children we worked with the first week here in Costa Rica. We also preached a few evening sermons at a church in San Jose here... but predominantly we worked with these children. These children live in the absolute barrio (ghetto) of San Jose... the poorest of the poor districts... where all of the drug lords are... the absolute slums. These children are most definitely classified as "Children at Risk". We had the chance to sing songs with them, play some games, tell some bible stories, and color and play with them. It was amazing, these kids are so broken... perhaps my favorite part of the whole week was just sitting with them as they colored... they would scooch close to you so as to have your physical presence right next to them... you could sense their desperation for some sort of love or security. These kids need intercession and it was a humbling experience to simply try to love them as much as we could while we could. These children absolutely captivated my heart... there were a few in particular that I would take home with me in a heartbeat if it were at all a possibility.

Please pray for these children... don´t just look at the faces and not care... these kids are special to God... and should be special to us.

Last Week in Baja... sorry it took a while

So I had been meaning to post these pictures of our last week in Baja and these are them... the captions tell the story mostly.

We ended up taking a bus up to the border and walked across the border back into the U.S.A. so some of our pictures are from there. We spent a night in San Diego before flying out to Costa Rica with my friend Eric Poon from high school. Praise God for Eric, he really was a blessing to us in helping us out. While with Eric he took us on a few errands to get some things before flying off to Costa Rica... including a Wal-Mart run where we met Barbie... Sarah dared me to take a picture with her. Hey, you only live once right... there are many stories to go along with the pictures but for the sake of getting updated with some posts I will move on.

Children at Risk

So today I had the chance to teach 7 little children about who God is... WOW!!!

These children are considered "children at risk" because they live in the slums, their parents make hardly any money and are probably involved in drugs and other wickedness, and they will probably not receive much of an education. Yeah, today I had the chance to speak the truth of God's love to 7 little children who have... well... really... nothing. They don't have any hope outside of the love of Christ. He alone can give life to them, they certainly won't find it elsewhere.

Today I spent the morning with these precious children in the slums of Costa Rica, in utter filth and poverty... and you know what makes me sad the most. I really don't feel like I care. My heart is not absolutely broken. Yeah, they're cute... yes, I want their situation to be better... BUT, there's something within me that is willing to simply accept that this is their lot in life. This is what breaks my heart. I wish I could have pictures of them, perhaps that would break OUR hearts more... but really, shouldn't it break my heart that I am so blessed and these poor children have... nothing.

This is what God is showing me today... he wants me to love what he loves.

Having a nice car... well... is nice... but really, shouldn't I care more about these children?

Having the finer things in life isn't inherently bad... but... shouldn't I want these children to have some sort of joy in the midst of utter darkness?

Is it enough that I entertain them for a few hours and feel better about myself for being a good person?

This is what I am challenged with... what is right? What does God say is of value?

AND... the real question is... am I going to stop talking about doing something... and actually DO something?

So... please be praying for Maria (7) and her brother Dilar (3), and for Esther (8), and for Antonio and Johnny (both 5), and for the two 8 year old twin girls that were so cute I forgot their names. They are desperate for God's help... they have nothing, but they can have Jesus... the living savior who can bring redemption to their dark and hope-deprived future.

Our Adventure for the Day!!!

So... we left Baja... and I have some more pictures I will put up from there shortly. Recently we have had a bit of trouble getting hooked up with a place in San Diego to crash and get a ride to the airport from tomorrow (Saturday). Nothing was really working out, our contact Jonathan was having a hard time working some things out with his work... so yeah, we were praying a bunh for some help. So I thought to myself... I have an old friend from high school named Eric that I have recently been in touch with through Facebook. So I sent Eric a message asking him if he could help us out and... booyah grandma!!!... we have a place to crash in sunny San Diego and a ride to the airport. The only tricky part was getting to the border and across it.

SO... today... we drove two and a half hours back up the Baja from San Quintin to Ensanada with our friends Jonathan and Yvette... our awesome contacts who we will deeply miss. Then we hopped on a Mexican bus for two hours from Ensanada to the border crossing in Tijuana. Then we walked about a mile with our 18 pieces of luggage to the border crossing and through it. Then we got aboard a trolly on the other side of the border and rode it for an hour into downtown San Diego where my friend Eric from high school picked us up. Did I mention that I hadn't seen Eric in more than ten years... not since we both graduated from high school. Since then God has captured Eric and brought him into His salvation through Jesus and now Eric works for an awesome church in San Diego here.

SO... yeah, it was a long day... but beautiful because Eric has hooked us up to stay at his house and took us to have dinner at In-N-Out with some of his buddies. The trip today was quite an adventure I thought I would share with ya'll. Tomorrow we depart to Costa Rica to begin the second half of our adventure... so please be praying that God would equip us for our teachings and prepare the hearts of the people we will be teaching. Much love ya'll

(p.s. I wanted to give a shout out to Eric's church because he has helped us out so much and it sounds like an awesome place doing some awesome things in the city of San Diego)

His church is called the Rock... the website is...

www.therocksanddiego.org

Las Playas del Baja

I dont actually know if that translated properly... I probablemente messed something up in that simple 4 word title. No worries... which I now know how to say in Espanol now... "nimodo". So, yeah, we have been to the beach a few times over the past 3 weeks. It has been extremely nice to take some time on days off and get to the coast... to rest, to play, and to watch the sun set over the Pacific. I have missed West Coast sunsets for about 6 years now... so it is awesome to get to see them again. These are just a few of our pictures from the past 3 weeks hanging out at the "playas". These beaches have great boogie boarding, which I am able to do courtesy of a friend at FFHM who let me borrow his board. They also have TONS of seashells... giant Pismo clams are the size of your hand and there are literally a gazillion sand dollars at "sand dollar" beach.

I love all of you... God is doing mighty things, this has been a wonderful experience teaching into and experiencing another culture. 1 more week here and they we are off to Costa Rica for a month to teach Gods word there.
p.s. please check out the previous post if you missed it...

The Bible Students... and Foundation For His Ministry

So this is the Christo Por Su Mundo Institute de Biblica. These are the students we taught the first two weeks here... these are amazing people who are going to change Latin America through their faith in Christ and willingness to serve others that they might experience the life abundantly that God has for them. I consider myself thoroughly honored to have had the chance to speak truth into their lives... it has been an amazing and humbling experience spending time with radical people like these. I was able to spend a great deal of time with them both in class as well as outside of class at meals and visiting them in their studies during the evening. I will most assuredly miss them.

These are more pictures of FFHM... Foundation For His Ministry. This is an amazing place where God is doing a mighty work for the community here and throughout Baja. I certainly hope I will be able to return here again... I plan on it. I would encourage all of you to check out their website and watch the video that I put up 2 posts ago. I will miss this facility... mostly because of the people and the children here... it was an AMAZING blessing to get to spend 3 weeks doing Gods work here in Vicente Guerrero, Baja Norte.

Finally... some pictures from Baja... our time here has been awesome

So I finally had a chance to get to a good internet connection to put some pictures from these past few weeks online. These are pictures from our drive down here to the mission... from some of our teaching... and some of our fun. We have many other pictures and have been recording most of our lectures so I will try to get some of that stuff published soon also.

The past few weeks have been filled with a lot of teaching... I taught 1st Thessalonians for 10 hours last week and have taught the book of Philemon every evening this week, so about 6 hours @ 1 1/2 hours each evening. Wednesday I got to teach what we call Bible Overview at a family's house... so I explained God's story through the Old Testament in about an hour. That is perhaps my favorite teaching, to explain how God has moved through history calling a people to show his mercy to. Yesterday I taught the book of Jonah for 4 hours as our last lecture at a Bible Institute here. I have become quite fond of the students in that school... I eat almost all of my meals with the students, have played soccer with some of them, and have been thoroughly humbled and blessed to get to teach these people who are going to be changing Mexico for the sake of Christ. God is going to use these men and women mightily to bring restoration to broken hearts here.

So these are some of my pictures, it is absolutely beautiful here... the people being the most amazing part of the trip by far.