Mission trip to San Carlos / Quesada

We have just returned from a mission trip. Isn’t that a hoot?! Missionaries in the field go on mission trips – go figure! What was really different and really neat about this particular mission team is that we are all full-time missionaries to Latin American countries, all with different callings and talents but with the same heart for missions. It was great! Where we are usually the leaders of separate short term teams, we were now a team of leaders all coming together as one short term team. It was really wonderful to watch everyone mesh their callings and their gifts, their talents and trainings into one team effort.

We worked in Quesada / San Carlos, Costa Rica. We held a children’s ministry for 50+ children (age 2-9), a youth ministry for 40+ youth (age 10-18), and a women’s ministry. We had a team of nine missionaries who went out into the community for door-to-door evangelism. And we spent some time in a local boy’s home, cleaning up their grounds, teaching a bible lesson, and just hanging out with them in fellowship. It was a great short term mission effort.

Billy and I were amazed again at how God has divine appointments in our life that we know nothing about. The camp we stayed in is heavily affiliated with The Mission Society (we had no idea) and the camp director, 89 year old Rev. Marion Woods, is a huge cheerleader for missions and The Mission Society. We are so blessed to have met him and even more blessed to be asked to lead the next mission effort in this area in the Spring of 2008. The current leaders are graduating from the Language Institute and have asked us to step into their shoes. We are honored to take on this charge.

So we return from our mission for the weekend, tired and rejuvenated at the same time. We had a great time with great people. We stayed up LATE into the night, talking about missions and visions and our passions for service (an adult slumber party for missionaries :). We ate too many snacks, we played jokes on each other, we practiced our spanish, we vied for our place in the shower line-up… it was a great time!