Tico Tuesday, August 18th

This lovely picture is of Miguel Angel (the VP of Ministries of the LAM, left), Luis Diego (his tico assistant, right), and yours truly. Miguel Angel was in Costa Rica and stopped in to check on how things were going here. We had a great talk and a good meeting with Rolando as well. I was very encouraged by Miguel Angel's visit. My job here is a huge challenge, so encouragement and advice are always welcome. But, thanks be to God I know it is His work and not mine. Please keep praying for my church here and for me! Your prayers do make a difference!
I encourage you to go to my blog for more stories and information about my life and service here- http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/

A little bit more info about this Miguel Angel guy and what he has to do with me. Miguel Angel is in charge of matching missionaries with associate ministries of the Latin America Mission. Rewind. I am a missionary of the Latin America Mission (if you didn't know that by now). Instead of shipping you off to work with gringos in another country, the LAM places you as a missionary with an associate ministry that has been approved and accredited by them. So, you get to work with and under nationals that speak the language, are part of the culture, have lived in that country most (if not all) of their lives, and are familiar with an already-established ministry. I think it's amazing and wonderful. The LAM provides support for missionaries on the field-so if there is any kind of issue they are there to help work things out (but the missionary is responsible for raising his/her financial support). It's a pretty sweet deal. If you are considering going into missions (in Latin America) you need to look into them! http://lam.org/ They are wonderful!! So, yeah, Miguel Angel works in the Miami Services Office (our headquarters in the States), but he spends a lot of time out of the country visiting missionaries and ministries. Cool job, huh?