Tico Tuesday, August 29th

Tuesday greetings to you all once more!

Great sunsets at church never get old!

This past week was full of some crazy busy days packed with errands and wonderfully productive meetings and days at the office. Before we had this office space, I used to always have to work from home. And, I've continued to do a lot of work from home. But, lately, I've been trying to take more advantage of the fact that I actually have office space and a desk. And last week, I started a new habit I'm really liking. It consists of only doing work at work. Pretty wild, right? A couple nights, I actually even left my computer at the office! That meant I was able to come home and read and rest a bit. Wednesday, I got to the office at about 9:30 and came home for an hour in the afternoon before returning for our midweek service. I almost didn't come home, but I'm so glad I did! Otherwise I would have spent over 11 straight hours at church.
I've been learning and thinking a lot about limits lately. It is quite an accomplishment for me to decide to leave work at work as much as I can. There is always more to be done, there always will be. So, in order to live a healthy life and protect myself from burnout, I need to set boundaries for myself. And I see this tying in perfectly with what God has been teaching me about trusting him. Setting and respecting limits with work is a way for me to practice trusting God and remember that I am serving him. He has everything under control. It is about him. I am not a slave to small group coordination: I am a servant, friend, and daughter of my perfect, loving heavenly Father. And I like that. It fills me with peace and gives me a great sense of freedom.
May you sense God's peace and freedom this week, and be encouraged to trust him to help you identify and implement a new boundary you may need in your life.
With love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, August 22nd

Greetings to you all once again!

This Sunday I finally was able to go to visit our church plant at our drug rehab center! It's often hard for me to get away on the weekends, but at last it worked out for me to go. While the centro is almost directly north of us, there are also mountains directly north of us, so we have to drive around them to get there. Most of the drive is through a verdant national park, so, if it's not too foggy, cloudy, or rainy, it's gorgeous. The road is narrow and curvy though.
The rehab center is a small, simple place. It has individual cabins for each of the 16 men going through the intensive 3 month program. On Sundays their families brings them the food they need for the week and they are responsible for making their own food, handwashing their laundry, and they also help with maintenance and gardening projects around the grounds, along with receiving the rest of their treatment.
I think what impacted me most was the time of worship through singing. (My pictures of that were blurry or back-lit. Bummer!) Watching the men in the program sing to God was powerful. How often do I sing and completely forget about the words coming from my lips? These guys sang to God with all their hearts. The phrase that came to mind was, "he who has been forgiven much, loves much." It is so true. These are guys from really rough backgrounds, who have been on the streets, who have lost so much, who have been forgiven much. And they learn to love God and know that He is the answer, he alone satisfies, frees, restores, transforms, and saves. It was very encouraging to be there. And I really enjoyed the time with my friends Mónica and Daniel who took me.
In other news, my current migratory process got sent back to square one on Friday. That was obnoxious, but at least I was able to write emails and read while I waited in line for 4 hours, so it wasn't time wasted. Migration here is an amazing picture of inefficiency, ridiculous complications, and treating humans like cattle. Not very pleasant, but until some serious reform and technological advances are implemented, I'm learning to just roll with the punches. Please keep my migratory processes in your prayers.
May God continue to grow our love for him and our awareness of him each day,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, August 15th

Greetings to you on this Costa Rican Mother's Day!

Here's what Ale and I will be working on together!

Do you ever feel like you hit a jackpot? Getting to have my mom as my mom is a jackpot, but in terms of work this past week or so, I feel like I hit a jackpot too. Since I went to the small group strategic planning conference, I've been more motivated to find someone to help Small Groups in the area of social media. Social media is not my strength, and it is something I knew would be really good for me to delegate to a volunteer. When I went to Fraijanes a couple weeks ago, I noticed my friend Alejandra showing great ease and domination of technology and social media and mentioned to her the idea that she help me. Ale said she'd be happy to help. I mentioned it to her again a few days later, making sure our conversation had been serious and not just a joke, and she affirmed that she had been serious too. So we've now met a couple times to talk things over and start developing a plan, and Ale is amazing! It wasn't until our last meeting when she was blowing me away with her wonderful ideas that I found out: she has a degree in marketing! No wonder she has so many great ideas and such a good hold on what we need to do! Jackpot! But really, I know it is God's provision. Ale is a mature, hilarious friend that I know will be committed and dependable. If you feel like working on your Spanish or just admiring Ale's genius, check out the Grupos Pequeños VAH page on facebook.
Thank you to all of you again for being God's provision to me. I wouldn't be here were it not for you!
Carrie

Tico Thursday, August 10th

Thursday greetings to you! Just checking to see if you were paying attention! It's been another full week on the mountainside of San Rafael, Heredia. A lot of big exciting changes are coming for my church with the implementation of the strategic plan and things I learned from the conference I went to in California, so my church and I are in need of your prayers even more than ever!

But today I want to tell you about the training retreat we had for the small group facilitators on Saturday. Wow, what a wonderful day! God's presence was with us from the moment it began to the very end (and he held off the rain until everyone left too!). I know God is always with us, but his presence was palpable. We started with a time of worship, then I sent everyone outside to spend some time in Psalm 139. After a coffee break, we divided everyone into 3 groups and had them create presentations about the vision, mission, and philosophy of small groups. This helped me get an idea of how much they all understand these things, and I was quite pleased with the results. The group that did the mission did such an amazing job I want them to do the skit in front of the whole church next time Rudy preaches on small groups! After the presentations, I explained how to do the spiritual health assessment and plan and sent everyone outside again to do them. After lunch I shared about some of the things I learned at the conference in California, as well as some of the plans we have for the future. Then we gave everyone some time to share together. We closed the day having people share briefly what impacted them or what God spoke to them during the day. It was beautiful to hear how God moved throughout the day and how people were challenged and encouraged. My team and I received a lot of positive feedback afterward, and I can only give all credit and glory to God. I felt so relaxed all day (unlike most other training events I've led). God's hand was definitely in charge of it all and I'm full of gratitude for all he is doing in me, in Small Groups, and in my church.
Thank you for your role in this. God is doing great things! May he continue to do great things in you too!
Love,
Carrie