As most of the kids in the States are going back to school, Beth and I will be going back to school as well this week. We will be receiving some incredible training at Roblealto, which is a Christian organization that works with children of families of abuse or neglect.
Roblealto will take these children in for up to two years while the State works with the parents to teach and train them in better parenting skills. After the two years, hopefully the families are reunited. If the parents have not fulfilled their obligations and training, then the State will step in and take away the parental rights of the parents.
We will be working from time to time with Roblealto if they have children that end up in the “parents have had their parental rights removed” category and are no longer eligible to stay at Roblealto. These children would then be eligible for the Children’s Home in Coronado where we will be house parents. You can find out more information about the wonderful work at Roblealto and their history at www.roblealto.org .
We have two Costa Rican women, a mother and daughter, who will be staying with the triplets this week. They have been the baby sitters for Emma and Sarah Zirkel for several years. Of course, Emma and Sarah are the daughters of our good friends and missionary partners, Ray and Lidia Zirkel.
Obviously, Kirsten, Drew and Jesse are a little nervous about spending the week with two women that they don’ really know all that well, but I think it will be really good for them. Neither of the ladies speaks any English so it will be a really good week for the kids to practice their Spanish.
This is going to be an incredibly busy and informative week. Beth and I would appreciate your prayers for understanding and retention of all of the information we will receive this week. Not only will there be a tremendous amount of data to absorb but it will all be given in Spanish. Our Spanish is much better than it was a year ago, but we are still by no means fluent. But, we are getting there.
Also, please keep Kirsten, Drew and Jesse in your prayers. They are still struggling to adapt to the school system and not only will they be adjusting to us being gone next week but they will also be having exams while we are gone.
You can also now follow us on Twitter. Our Twitter account is MissionCR. Just go to www.Twitter.com and enter MissionCR under search and you can then sign up to follow us.
The roof is going on the first home at the orphanage and it is so exciting to see the fruition of all of the hard work of so many coming to pass. I will try to get some new pictures of the home uploaded to the website within the next couple of weeks. We will also try to post some pictures of our time at Roblealto after we return from training.
God bless and thank you for your prayers and partnership.
Shalom,
Bryan
We are all still adjusting to our new culture and surroundings and this is especially true for the triplets. But, they have really jumped in and become very involved with activities at school. Drew is playing basketball and soccer, Jesse is playing basketball and involved in music and Kirsten is involved in choir. All of this on top of tutoring, learning Spanish and learning French being taught in Spanish.
On March 26, 2010, the school that the triplets attend, Colegio Metodista, celebrated their 89th Anniversary. It was a pretty big deal with Bishop Palomo, the Zirkels, a team from Dallas Texas and the entire student body present.
One of the really cool things about this celebration is that Kirsten and Jesse both performed in the Praise Team that lead worship at the end of the celebration. Kirsten was on vocals and Jesse was on drums.
We shot some video of this celebration and you can watch it by clicking here. Please forgive the unsteadiness of this video. I shot it at a pretty good distance away and I had problems keeping the camera steady.
Thank you for your prayers and partnership with God’s ministry here in Costa Rica.
Shalom,
Bryan
NEW VIDEOS
During Spring Break in the States, we had two groups from our home church, Asbury UMC, spend their Spring Breaks here in Costa Rica on a mission trip. We had a group from the Youth Department and a group from Children Ministries serve here. Below is a video of that trip.
Asbury UMC Youth and Children Spring Break 2010 Mission Trip
During the week of Holy Week, we needed to leave the country to renew our visas. We spent a couple of days in Granada, Nicaragua and below are a couple of videos of that trip.
Visa Renewal to Nicaragua, National Park, Masaya Volcano and local church
Visa Renewal to Nicaragua, Boat Tour
NEED TO RAISE FUNDS FOR PURCHASE OF TRUCK
When we moved to Costa Rica, we felt that part of the adjustment process should be to learn to travel and get around the way most of the people that we work and serve with get around. For the last ten months, we have walked, used the city bus system or taken taxis whenever we needed to go somewhere. We knew we would eventually get a vehicle but just prayed that God would open the door when the time was right.
A couple of months ago, we found out about a family that was returning to the States and had a Land Rover truck that they were wanting to sell. The problem was the asking price. Although, the price was very fair for the truck, we just could not pay the amount being asked.
So, we told the couple we couldn’t afford the truck but thank you for showing it to us. They insisted that we at least make an offer. After Beth and I prayed about this, we apologized for the low offer (I have never done that before) and offered them about half of what they were asking. They said, as I would have, thank you but they would continue to try to sell it in the following months.
Then a few days ago, we received a call from the owners of the truck and they wanted to know if our offer still stood. They were leaving for the States in a couple days and wanted to sell us the truck at the price we offered. But, they needed to sell the truck as soon as possible and we had not specifically raised funds for a vehicle.
So, we have taken funds from the general account and now need to raise the funds for the vehicle purchase and replace the funds to the general account. We are so thankful for this truck. It has been such a blessing and it has made even little things, like going to the grocery store, so much easier. It will be especially nice to visit different churches in the area and not only the church that is on our bus route.
We would really appreciate you thinking and praying about financially partnering with us for the funding of this truck.
If you feel led to partner financially with us for the truck, you can do so at the links below.
Please be sure in the Donation Information Section, under Special Project, to add the note: AUTOMOBILE FUND.
Credit Card Donation
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Donation
Donation Form (PDF)
God bless and thank you so much for your prayers and partnership.
Shalom,
Bryan