Friday, April 27, 2007

The Road Home

Today we're preparing to head back to San Jose. I'm here in the bungalow answering emails, packing, and updating you all back home. Norman and Barrett are out spending some one-on-one time.

One of the things we've tried to make a focus of our missions ministry at CCJ is missionary care. Missionaries are often sent to the field with little or no training or financial support. We just kind of toss them into the foreign field with a policy of "sink-or-swim." Scary. And then once the missionaries are out of sight, they're out of mind. We're trying our hardest to take a different approach. Time and care from folks back home is a huge investment in the ministry of those we send to the field. Although cash goes a long way out here, contact from home goes even further. So Norman and I have tried to go all out to maximize our time with Barrett and Amy and Maili and Makena.

Yesterday we had the chance to work together as a team while the orders "forward," "stop!" "back," "stop!" "left forward," "stop!" "get down!" "right forward!" "high five!" we're shouted at us from the guide at the stern of a raft as we plunged through rapids on the Rio Pacuare. Nothing builds a team like working hard and playing hard together while depending on each other to get to the end of the trip, team intact. On this river, not everyone makes it to the end all in one piece. But, thankfully, we did.

In June, another ministry team from our church will come to Puerto Viejo to serve and support the work Barrett and Amy Cruce are doing in this community. We'll help with construction projects at the skate park and possibly around town and hold English as a Second Language clinics at the local high school. Barrett and Amy are doing an incredible job of using all that they've been given to make disciples of Christ here on Costa Rica's east coast. They're doing an incredible job and we at CCJ want to do all we can to get in on what God is doing in and through this family.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Would love to be a part of that!

Marcos