Village Parkway Baptist Church Team

Hosting a team is a bit of work but a ton of fun. What a blessing to share a little over a week with five men from our home church in San Antonio. We have been experimenting with different size mission teams. We have hosted groups as large as 12 and as small as two people. This was the first time Village Parkway has sent a team of only men. What a blast!

Making concrete the old fashion way!

This was a construction team that helped work on two projects. The first was to pour concrete in a fellow missionary’s house and the second was making repairs at a forgotten public school inside the reservation about 25 minutes by car from where we live. Both jobs included some heavy work without the modern machinery we are so accustomed to in the States. All the concrete was mixed and carried up the hillside by hand and wheelbarrow. At the school we had several projects going on. Adding an extension to the roof, fixing the bathrooms, removing the concrete floor, laying tile and adding a boot wash to keep the school clean.

Allen getting some "expert" help.

Lori had her hands full cooking for this team. Praise God for the help of our friends that helped Lori. As some of you know Lori is 5 months pregnant. We did have to modify the schedule to the demands of the work and climate of Costa Rica.

Our crew with the Cabecar Teachers

After each day of work we would return for an incredible meal and devotions and fellowship. What a blessing to get to know other members from our church a little better and to open God’s word and share what God is teaching us in our lives.

One of the highlights of our trip was when the young school kids got to help. Each patiently waited their turn to help lay tile in their school. Their little faces would light up when it was their turn.

Aqueduct Water

Water, a necessary part of life. There is a lot of it here in Costa Rica, it comes in many shapes and sizes. From it’s mighty rivers, magnificent waterfalls, trickling creeks and almost daily rains, we have water here in Costa Rica. Having water at the house has been a different problem all together. At times God gives you what you need all at one time and other times He gives you what you need only when you need it. It was that way with electicity. It took us months to get electricity to our home site. The day we were ready to start putting up the house we had electricity. Our water needs worked almost the same way.

We were blessed with permission to use water from a spring for building our house. We were going to have to obtain water from the aqueduct for drinking water before we moved in. We had two options, both which would have to be funded by us and we did not find either of them very appealing. The first option was obtaining water down below and pumping the water up the mountain side. This would have required several pumps, electricity and tanks to get the water to our house. The second was getting water from above but the cost of this project was very steep.

Several weeks before moving we were told the same water we have been using for construction we now had permission to use it in the house. This gave us more time to figure out how to get safe water for drinking and everyday use. How excited we were to have free fresh water in our house. We were blessed but it did have a downside at times. When we got heavy rains our fresh spring water would become a bit dirty, ok a lot dirty. After some heavy rains our hose and bucket system would be dislodged from the creek to find out hrs later we do not have any water. We ran out of water several times. We would have to go up the mountain side and figure out what the problem was. Sometimes the hose was dislodged, other times there was air in the hose and the water would not pass, and other times it was debris and rocks that were the problem.

Several months ago, the president of the aqueduct came back to us with another proposal. After a couple of weeks of negotiating we agreed upon a solution. We would donated funds for half the project and the other half of the funds would be paid back to us with the use of water. We have all the water we can use for the next fifteen years. So on the 15^th of September, Independence Day for Costa Rica, we were hooked up to drinkable and clean water at the house. AMEN

Hand dug trench going to our house.

From the road up our hill!

To the house!

After 45 days of work, we have water!

Visitors

Visitors are very important to a missionary family. It is a way for us to stay connected and keep up with friends and family back in the states. We can share the joys and struggles of living in a remote part of Costa Rica.

So far this summer, we have enjoyed two visits by Ron Sweet our good friend from Village Parkway Baptist Church. He had the pleasure of staying at our house while still in construction. His second visit he was able to enjoy our almost completed house. You can read about his work via his Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1709592279730&set=a.1709591599713.68877.1835808484&type=1&theate (Well worth reading)

Ron visiting one of our neighbors

Our niece Faith Friedly has made her second trip to Costa Rica. She brought her good friend Garine to share the experience with her. We took Garine to the airport last week to pick up four more people. One of these people just happen to be our daughter Cristen. How blessed we are to have our girl back with us. She has been to Paso Marcos many times but this is the first since we moved into our new house.

Faith, Garine, and Lori working in the garden

We have kept a busy schedule so far with this new group. The first morning we got up and made the drive to the far end of Paso Marcos. We have teamed up with the local elementary school to make repairs and build relationships within the community. The school has been neglected for many years and much work was needed to be done. We had a lot of help because the Gill Family from Minnesota were in Paso Marcos visiting with Alekcey and Judith. You can read about Alekcey and Judith at www.judithandalekcey.blogspot.com (A good read as well)

Work Party and Students

Work included repairing the roof, painting the inside, outside and the roof. Another missionary couple (Mark and Marge Long) kept the children busy with a rapelling expedition down the steep side of the hill by the school. By the end of the three days, the kids were not scared or intimidated, they enjoyed some face painting and we endured a rugged soccer game just in case we were not tired enough.

Bethany and Bellieka

Our daughter, Cristen

Mark and Eden assisting a brave young girl

God works in mysterious ways. We pray all these students and adults involved with the school will come to know the peace and joy of serving our Savior.

Group photo during dinner at Manuel Antonio

Before heading back to the airport we splurged and enjoyed a couple days on the pacifac coast.

What we learned when we ate Chicharones

This is a story about chicharones, a man and seven step children, and the lady he is living with. First thing, what is a chicharone? A chicharone is a Costa Rica delicacy of fried pork, usually made the day a pig has been slaughtered. The man is Tatto, our builder who took over construction of our house when Giovanni started work on a new house. Tatto is a very quiet man with an intense work ethic. (good guy to have build your house). He is very shy and hardly spoke a word to us all the times we came up to look at the house. I was a little concerned how all this was going to work out trying to communicate with Tatto, my fledgling Spanish and this quiet moody man. Praise God he learned to speak slowly and we communicate fairly well. Through this process he found out that we like chicharones and he invited Lori and I to his home for dinner.

Fried Pork "Chicharones"

On our second trip to his house one Saturday afternoon while enjoying this yummy fried pork meal we noticed how many people stop by the house and store to eat. There were people eating when we got there. I believe he feed four more while we ate and another three to four people as we talked that afternoon. Lori and I went home that night and started talking about what we experienced and not just the yummy fired pork. We discussed how much our relationship with this couple has grown and compared what we experienced verses our initial perceptions and common rumor of who these people are. We have seen the good and bad sides to this family, their struggles with the good and bad decisions they have made over the years and have been blown away by their generosity and love for others. Here we thought we came to Costa Rica to help others and we were blessed to see how this family has poured so much into their community. We pray that God will reveal himself to this family and that they learn what true peace and love is all about.