We are in the airport and everyone is through security and on our way home. Praise God for a very successful week. Thank you all so much. Keep praying for our team though as this day and the next week may very well be the hardest days of our whole trip…
-Peter
We have been away from the internet for a while now… On wednesday we left super early in the morning to head off to the Island. I am pretty sure that the name of the island is veranado island. It is the same island that our team went to last year and built the walls on the youth room. This year we went back and painted the children’s building and the youth building, inside and out. We also painted the pastors house inside and out. It was in desperate need of a new coat of paint. The pastor and his wife were so happy to have us descend upon them. Pastor went out fishing in the morning and caught our lunch and our dinner. We had fish and rice and beans for lunch and for dinner we had a shrimp fried rice. It was unbelievable.
The island really was an incredible experience. Seeing life in a whole different light. It definitely had it’s share of interesting experiences. From about 5:30 on, we had straight downpours for hours! It poured and poured and poured some more. Just when you thought that there could be no more rain, it began pouring even harder. THe guys had to walk in the rain from the pastors house about a mile away to the church to sleep. Then began the fun. After being already pretty well saturated, we decided that we would bring a bar of soap outside and make use of the pouring rain. I don’t believe that i have ever experienced a more unique and relaxing shower. Well, we come inside and hear snake snake snake! Then Daniel says KILL IT! IT’s poisonous. I’ll spare you the details, but I took care of it. Done. Moments after our snake expedition, we get a call on Daniels cell phone. It is the pastors house. Katelyn Miller got stung by a scorpion! WHAT? Is this for real? Sure enough…
Every day we’ve been asked and answering the question, “How have you seen God today?” The other night, many of us were thinking, we can answer the question, “How has satan tried to distract us and cause us pain?” There can really only be one reason, and that is because GREAT things are happening.
And they are. If I were to share with you even half of the things that God has been doing through these students and equally important in these students it would take me days to write and you hours to read. It has been incredible. We are excited to share with you what God has done. We are still working out a time and place where we can get together and invite all to come hear and participate in what we’ve been doing.
All I can say is I promise you that this has been quite possibly one of the more formative weeks that I have experienced in student ministry ever. God is good! RIght?
Here are a few pictures…
Tomorrow we fly home. Please pray for safety! Thank you!
~Peter
This morning we headed off to “Colegio Mexico”. It is a local high school here in San Jose. In comparison to the elementary school that we were in yesterday this place seemed like a palace. It was amazing to see the difference. Upon arrival at the school we immediately jumped into soccer games in their gym and we held our own. Believe it or not, we played “gringos” vs Ticans, and we actually won several games. It was Mike W, Jake Klapper, John Mitchell, Alex Vogel, and myself on a team. It was fantastic. We played about 2 hours of intense soccer. Needless to say our thighs and calves are SORE!
We had plenty of time to share our story with them and the picture books. Our mime/drama team performed their skit several times and they did an amazing job each time. Several of our students shared the gospel and today we saw many students make a public profession of faith. It was amazing.
This afternoon we went up to a place called “the ruins” and we took 10,000 tracts with us. We split up into 8 groups with each one having their own translator and shared the gospel with many people. There are to many amazing stories to share about conversions this afternoon that I can’t even share them all. I will share one story with you.
While we were at the ruins today, we had the police approach us and tell us that we were breaking the law by sharing the gospel in this area. We were forced to stop our efforts. We were out there for about an hour before the police arrived on the scene. It felt very early church’ish. I wondered if it was how Paul felt time and time again. We are very well aware that Satan does not want us to succeed, and today had many success’ on several different levels. We have had police interuptions, stomach sickness, headaches, and other set backs, yet we continue to rely on our God realizing that He is the sustainer, and our provider.
Don’t forget to pray for us! Tomorrow we head out to ‘the island’ where we will have many many service opportunities.
Thank you for praying for us!
~Peter
Today we ended up going to the elementary school, I may have had some evangelistic forecasting in the amount of kids that were going to be there. We didn’t have 800, but we probably had 400! It was an incredible day of ministry. There were countless stories of your kids, loving on these little children.
Stephen Terry, Storm Patterson, Mike Wodzisz, Jake Klapper, and Anthony Formicola tore it up as clowns! The principle of the school said she was so impressed because no other groups have come so prepared and ready to show these kids a fun time. They were running around in hot sweaty clown outfits laughing and smiling and hugging children. The little kids had a blast trying to steal their wigs and red noses. We are so proud of them!
Another really cool thing, which you needed to be there to get the full experience, was we broke up into 8 groups and our students shared their testimonies through a translator and presented the gospel to each and every kid that would listen. It was an incredible feeling for me to sit and watch and pray as they were leading children to the Lord. I was so proud!
Scott and Daniel said to me, “This is the first group we’ve ever worked with that knows how to play with children and not against them.” That was unbelievable for me to hear that. I was so proud of our group. They loved these kids with all they had!
Keep praying. Tomorrow we are going to work with the local High School. Then in the afternoon we have an incredible opportunity to pass out tracts to thousands of people who are making a pilgrimage to touch a statue which will “heal” them and walk through a special door to be forgiven of their sins. Daniel said that he has not brought a group to share the gospel with this group of people before. He feels that our group is ready for this! Please bathe this in prayer! Satan does not want us here. Satan does not want our group, your students doing all of these things!
But God is good!
~Peter
Today we will be heading off to a elementary school where we will have the opportunity to interact with and play with over 800 students over the course of 6-7 hours. Please pray for strength for our team (as we are getting up very early for this opportunity), please pray for safety (as the location we are headed to is very impoverished and riddled with abuse etc), please pray for an openness in the hearts of the children to the gospel! Pray that God would change these little kids lives forever tomorrow.
We are looking to show that we are His disciples by having love for one another! God is good and He is preparing our team for this exact moment in time! Praise God for the great things that He has done already!
Sunday Night 7/25 6:00 CR Time
Today we returned to the same church that we were at last night. We were warmly welcomed by the Costa Rican church. We started the service in the main sanctuary singing in spanish alongside of our extended spiritual family. After a while we split off with the teenagers and returned to the youth room for the remainder of the church service.
This morning in the service Sami Young, Hayley Weiland, and John Mitchell shared their testimonies. They shared from their heart and told the story of their faith journey. I beliefve that God used their stories in the hearts of students. We sang a worship song in english for them and they really appreciated that. It was great. We sang “God of this city”. It was so appropriate. When we came to the line “Greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city” I thought to myself, this is unbelievably true. God is at work amongst all the nations.
I again had an opportunity to preach to the students, this time from 1 Peter 4. It was funny, right about 3/4 of the way through my teaching they started handing out cokes to each person. Life and culture is definitely different here in Costa Rica. That is a good thing! We are learning a lot about this country, and maybe even more about ourselves.
This afternoon Daniel took us out to a mountain view where we spent some time admiring God’s handiwork. Daniel led us to this place to have time with God in the splendor of His creation. From there we went on to see some more of the Costa RIcan countryside. It is a nation filled with beauty and diverse plant life. At the same time there are so many who live in poverty and whose lives are filled with addictions and brokenness. Costa Rica as a whole is only 3% evangelical. There are many here who are very confused, frustrated and hurt by the church.
Tomorrow we will be headed to the elementary school and our goal is to help these students meet and know Jesus! Our puppet team will be doing several presentations tomorrow, please pray for them! Thank you!
~Peter
Saturday 7/24 11:02 CR TIME
Tonight was a great night of ministry. We first arrived at the church and immediately broke out the message balls that we brought with us. They are official size soccer balls that have the gospel, the 10 commandments, 2 different parables, and a few other things printed in spanish on them. We started playing soccer. It was a blast. But that was only just us ‘gringos’. In a little while the Tican teens came out and many of them were really shy to begin with. We went into their youth room, and we were lead in worship by their YG worship leader. It was really a neat time. Then we all went out to the yard again and played a few different games. We played soccer and volleyball. More Tican teens were playing at this point in time. It was a great icebreaker. From there we moved into the church building and we began our presentation. It consisted of many different things.
We sang one of our worship songs for them. We sang “Glory to God” by Fee. Then Corey Miller and Becca Kuhns shared their testimony’s. After they each shared their testimony we all got back up and sang “How Great is Our God”. Following that Jordynne Kuhns, Carina Barrerio, and Nicole Tanner each shared their testimonies. It was so cool to listen to these young women share what God has done in their life. I only asked for volunteers to share, and these were the ones who volunteered without blinking.
We had a few other pieces of programing. Austin Cooper played a guitar solo that he had been preparing and it went really well! Our drama group performed their mime/skit and it was really very effective in communicating the gospel. Following the drama, I was able to bring a message from Acts 3 and 4… Challenging the people there if they have been with Jesus lately, and has it left an unmistakable mark on their life!
This was a great start to our ministry times! Believe me, it was one of the coolest things I have seen as a youth pastor: watching your students interact with and love kids and students from another culture! They did a great job. I’m so proud of them!
You’ll have to ask them for more info about lunch at Wal Mart and their trip to the super market! I’ll save those details till they are home! All I can say was more guacamole for me and bags of coffee.
Keep praying. Let’s not forget that while these reports are all very positive, we are still in a battle against the deceiver, the one who longs to confuse and distract, lead us to counterfeit lives only to ultimately destroy and devour! Every moment here in country is precious. Pray for opportunities.
Thank you!
~Peter
Saturday 7/24 12:00 CR Time
I am able to grab a few minutes and share with you our general schedule.
Saturday night: We will be at a local church in San Jose working with older high school students and college age people. We will be participating in a service for them. Our students will be sharing their testimonies, and I will be preaching.
Sunday morning: We will be at the same local church in San Jose as Saturday night. We will be doing children’s things, and we will be sharing the gospel with those kids on Sunday morning.
We aren’t sure what is going to take place on Sunday afternoon yet.
Monday: We will be going to a local elementary school and our primary goal will be to love on these students. Our clowns will be huge here. Our balloon animals and others will come in handy. These students are unbelievably void of love. Our goal is to play games with them, hug them, and laugh with them. Then after we have built some level of trust we will share the gospel with them.
Tuesday: We will be headed to the High School to share our picture books with them. The mime’s will perform their programs and our students will be sharing the gospel with them there.
Wednesday and Thursday: We are going to be headed to the Island and we will be doing many different kinds of ministry there. Please keep us in prayer!
Friday and Beyond has not yet been revealed to us! We are anxious for the opportunities ahead of us! Please pray specifically for us.
~Peter
