Spanish, Conference with Paul Washer and Phil Johnson and a Surprise

Live near to God--and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Day 289 – This month started off busy and continues to be very demanding of our time. Kim started school this trimester and is doing an excellent job at balancing her school, home-school and all the other things that demand her time. God as definitely given her increased grace and mercy, like He is so faithful to do. I too am very busy with school. On top of my grammar class, which is becoming more complex as we learn about the 15 subjunctive tenses, I am also taking a class called FARO. FARO involves coming up with 2 themes and 20 questions a week and then going out into the streets and using these questions to speak with 10 people on a route that I have established. I end up spending 3 or 4 hours a day on my route conversing with people. I then have to write a report that is due every Monday about all the information I collected from my interviews. The report usually takes me 4 or 5 hours to write. FARO is very challenging and very demanding of my time but as it pushes me, my fluency is definitely increasing. 

Chase and Raegan are finished up their home-school this month, which brought them great joy. They did very good. Chase is really making an effort to use the Spanish he has learned in home-school and he can get by. Raegan is definitely more shy and we have to persuade her by force to use her Spanish. Emmy is thriving in this environment and is learning Spanish faster than everyone. She understands an unbelievable amount for only being immersed in her all Spanish school for over 4 months. She is making some really good Tica friends at her school and some really close friend who are also missionaries kids.

The two great highlights this month were Kim's sister Jen surprising Kim with a visit and me going back to Montana for 6 days to attend the Reformation Montana conference. Tim and I, along with our two Costa Rican pastors, Eduardo and Alex made the trip. The conference hosted Paul Washer and Phil Johnson. We were fed so much spiritual from the outstanding preaching of Washer, Johnson and Jordan Hall that we were about to burst. We returned to Costa Rica so encouraged and excited to pour our lives out for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ. We got to spend the entire time with Paul Washer. The one on one time with Washer for the 3 days was invaluable and we received so much good advice and encouragement from Him. I was so encouraged to see some good friends back in Montana that I have not seen in a long time. It is hard to explain how encouraging it is to have so many people back home holding the rope for us. I praise God for the Body of Christ and the way He has ordained to use the Body of Christ to bear each others burdens. I also had the privilege to preach at Matt Davis' church in Helena on Sunday. It was a blessing to preach the last sermon in Matt's church, as the church is growing so fast that they are moving into a bigger church building. It is a pleasure to preach in a church where the people are being fed with such solid food every week.

Kim's sister Jen and I planned a great surprise for Kim's birthday. Kim and I usually go on a date night and bible study every Wednesday with our friends Joel and Krista so I brought them in on the action. They told Kim that after dinner they had to go pick up a friend of a friend at the airport. Kim had no clue what was about to happen. When Jen walked out of the airport, Kim saw her and almost fell over. Her brain was trying to quickly process why her sister was in Costa Rica and then she burst with excitement.

Please continue to pray for language learning and our family unity in our daily pressures, which are just becoming a normal part of our life now. Please pray for our school this month as we have David Sitton from To Every Tribe coming to the school to preach during Spiritual Emphasis week. Please pray for God to go before us and prepare the way to get visas and a place to live in Cusco. We seem to be running into complications getting visas, which are necessary to live in Peru, but we serve a big God that can take care of these small things.  

Our faith in our mighty God continues to increase as we see Him continually provide for our needs month by month. We thank God that He has ordained to use all of you who support us from back home. We are so thankful for your obedience and dedication to God and we pray you are growing Spiritually as you hold the rope.