In Costa Rica

Have been in Latin America for 13 days. Spent the first 4 days in Guatemala, the next 3 in Nicaragua, arrived in Costa Rica last Saturday. Have spent the time meeting/getting to know pastors, District Superintendents, doctors, community leaders, and visiting projects.

In Guatemala: a Nazarene hospital that is being designed to serve pastors and their families as well as the poorest of the poor, 3 child development centers, communities in need of clean water, a goat project that has almost 80 goats now in 6 communities, a World Vision office to learn about their ministry, and a Catholic center that has a residential program for severely malnourished children as well as elementary and high schools that serve about 800.

In Nicaragua: communities in need of clean water and reforestation, microenterprise loan projects, and a church engaged in ministry to alcoholics and drug addicts as well as the elderly, patients in a local hospital, and a prison. So much need, but God’s church is alive and well and at work being His hands and His feet in our world….

One of the things that has impacted me the most strongly is how much pastors/DS’es here struggle…. not only do they often live in communities where they are surrounded by poverty and tremendous physical needs (and they have few resources with which to respond), but they often live on so little themselves. I have yet to meet a DS who isn’t also pastoring a church; some of them don’t have computers, and some of them don’t even have vehicles. A DS I met the other day told me that only 25% of his pastors receive a salary from their churches; his salary is $80/month, which certainly goes much further than it would in the US, but still is poverty level here…..I am amazed at their faith, at their trust in God to provide their needs, and I feel so humbled in their presence, so grateful to be used by God to encourage them, and to sometimes find people and churches and individuals who will partner with them, to be the hands, feet, and words of Christ alongside them….

My apt here is nicer than the one I was in last fall, and I have it to myself, which is nice, since I am much busier this time than before. The first night I went up to the bedroom (it has 2 floors) and started to make the bed, and went to pull the curtains aside to see if the window was open -- and there on the curtain was a huge spider…. It’s body wasn’t as big as a tarantula, but it was hairy and the leg span was bigger than my hand… I almost had a heart attack! I booked it over to the Webbs (missionaries who live on campus here) and David came over with bug spray and a shoe…. I couldn’t even stay in the bedroom while he killed it…. Ugh -- he says it is the largest one he’s seen in the 3 years he’s been here…. right next door is where they’re building a new building, and I imagine they’ve stirred up the creatures with their activity. After he left, I walked through the apt praying and moving furniture, trying to let any other creatures know that I was here and that it was time for them to move on……