Tico Tuesday, April 26th

Welcome to Guararí (pronounce wah-ra-REE with the r's flipped so they sound a little more like d's), the poorest part of my province Heredia.

My church partners with a local ministry here that provides children with tutoring, Bible clubs, a free meal once a week, women with discipleship classes, sewing classes, and a host of other activities. Today, several players from Heredia's soccer team came to meet some of the kids and serve them lunch. It was quite a to do! While we waited for the players' arrival, the man who directs the ministry and some of his fellow clown friends led the kids in some fun songs. When the players arrived it got pretty chaotic, but what do you expect when a couple hundred kids meet famous people? All the local news stations were there interviewing the players--I wasn't so impressed by that. But they had the press come to the activity instead of their training session today (and they are currently the number one seeded team and heading into semifinals). I understand the press' desire and the desire of the team to look good, but I also understand the children's desire to hang out with some of their favorite players.
I had fun getting to meet and interact with some kids. They were having a blast getting their faces painted and balloon animals and such. I saw one boy swinging at the grass with his balloon sword much like people cut grass with a machete here. Thankfully he didn't seem upset by his balloon popping.
I'm grateful for this opportunity to visit this ministry of my church and see the bridge we are helping them rebuild (which is literally falling into the polluted stream below and therefore quite scary to cross. You can see part of it on the left side of the picture). It was quite an experience! And thankfully, God held off the rain until just after we finished.
May God continue to teach us to see his hand at work and be his hands and feet to those in need,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 19th

I've had some great meetings in the past week.

 I visited a couple small groups and tonight my supervisor and I met with the leaders of the Crown Finance ministry (pictured) of our church to figure out how we can make better use of their knowledge and materials in small groups and the rest of our church. This morning before the weekly staff meeting I met with Shirley, my right hand small group woman, and last week I had a really good meeting with my supervisor. Needless to say, it's been a productive time.
While I definitely still feel like I'm adjusting to my new role, I feel like I'm slowly gathering a better idea of how things will be and how to go about them. It will not be an easy task and I have a lot of learning and growing to do, but I know that God is at work--in me and in my church. It's a busy, exciting time as we prepare to move up to our property and our first church building!
After the series we are currently doing on the war against temptation, we will be strongly encouraging all small groups to keep on meeting! In the past, the tendency has been for only a few groups to meet year-round, while the majority only have met when there is a series (6-7 sessions, 2-3 times a year). I'm working hard on developing resources for small group facilitators to use when we're not doing a series. Please pray for me as I build a team to work with, develop materials, plan trainings, continue to visit small groups, etc., etc., etc.!
In other brief news: 1) My car is in the country! Please pray for all the paperwork and everything to go smoothly so that I can have the keys in my hand by the end of the month!! Thank you again to all of you who made buying it possible! 2) Please pray for the team I have joined who will be going on a short term trip to Cuba next month! It will be a challenging time, but I'm really excited for this experience!
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support!
Love,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, April 12th

Happy Tuesday to you once more!
The ups and downs of this week were a little more exaggerated than normal. It's not every week a good friend has a baby with a bit of a scare right after the delivery (thankfully baby and momma are now well and at home), I get to go to an elegant 25th anniversary party/vow renewal with mariachis and fireworks, and I have to deal with some extra-tricky cultural situations. But thankfully, God is present and at work through it all.
I was particularly grateful my friend and small group member Angie (pictured) was at the anniversary party. There weren't many single people there and while I know I would have been fine without her, I was very happy to have a buddy there. Angie is one of the few people who kept in touch with me while I was gone last year, so she is really special to me. I've really been enjoying getting to know her and the rest of the members of my small group. We're starting to develop a stronger sense of community and I'm really excited about it. I think I've mentioned it to you before: the last time I remember being part of a good small group was college!
I've started visiting other small groups now too and am really enjoying that. Last night I was really impressed by a leader that is reaching out to her neighbors and teaching them from God's Word, even looking up extra passages not mentioned in the study to share with them. From the little I know about this woman, I can see that what she is doing is a really beautiful act of love and service. It's a wonderful blessing to get to know and work with these people, encourage them, and provide them with a listening ear, support, and resources as they obediently serve the Lord. I'm so grateful to be a part of the Lord's work here!
May we be obedient to the Lord and selflessly serve and love others too!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 29th

ALLELUIA! Christ is risen!!
It's finally Resurrection-tide!! I've been waiting for this for so long! Yes, every Sunday is a remembrance of Christ's resurrection, but to focus our celebrating on new and eternal life, promises and prophecies fulfilled, freedom, and forgiveness just makes me burst with joy!! Especially when I think about this year and how God has brought me back to this place. How he has given me a fresh start in a place I deeply love and has clearly been blessing me since my return and indeed confirming that this is where he wants me at this time. I am so grateful! Life isn't without it's challenges (my driveway was recently all dug up and a mess for several days and my knee has been acting up lately, and of course ministry is full of challenges), but it is good. It is very good.

We celebrated Easter at church under our roof! The school where we currently meet decided on Wednesday that we couldn't meet there, so as almost everyone in the country went on vacation on Thursday and shut everything down, the staff and some wonderful volunteers ran around like crazy and managed to coordinate everything for us to have our services at the property and inaugurate the roof! It's amazing how God works things out! Typically attendance on Easter Sunday is low because lots of people are away enjoying the long weekend. But, it appears a whole bunch of people came home from the beach early to inaugurate the roof because we had the highest attendance ever this weekend! We had over 1400 people come over the course of the three services! Praise the Lord! And even though we didn't have all the signs and everything for the small groups stand, some people still came to get material for the series we are doing right now and several people asked me to help them get plugged in with a small group. God is at work! Please keep me in prayer as I'm continuing to get oriented and figuring out how to structure and proceed with everything.
More good news! I only need 8 more special gifts of $50 to reach my fund raising goal for my new car! I'm buying the car from a company that is importing it from the States (because it's always better to be the first owner of a car here), and Lord willing, my car will be here April 13th! Just 8 more people! Gifts of any size are welcome if $50 is too much of a stretch--or if God places it on your heart to give more. Will you help me reach this goal of having all the funds before it arrives? Thank you so much! You really are an amazing support team and I'm delighted to share this journey with you!
May we all continually rejoice in Christ's victory over death and sin and the new life we have in him!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 22nd

To wrap up our monthly meeting of the church's core leaders on Saturday, we went up to the property to see the progress on the new building. It was so exciting!

Great progress has been made and we are counting the weeks until we get to have our own building! (10, Lord willing!) I'm particularly excited about the new building because it means I won't have to lug a bunch of boxes around in my trunk all the time. The high school we are meeting in used to lend us two rooms as storage space and now only lends us one. There isn't room for everything! In the new building, I won't have to lug boxes around, I won't have to set up a table and banners and signs. It can all just stay there! That will make life so much easier and save a lot of time! And not just for small groups and discipleship, for the fellowship ministry, for our little bookstore, for every other ministry that has a stand each weekend. We can't wait and are praying hard for the construction to continue to advance quickly and for everything to go well. Please join us!
I'm here in the picture with my friend Pri. She is now the leader of the young adult group and over the last couple months has quickly become one of my closer friends here. She kept in touch with me while I was gone last year and has been a wonderful support and blessing to me (and hopefully I have been the same to her!). I'm so thankful for her!
Car update: God is so good! Last week I mentioned I needed 26 people to each give $50, and now I only need 18! Praise the Lord! I only have a few more weeks to raise these funds. Will you be one of 18 to make a special gift of $50 to help pay for this vital means for ministry? It will be such a joy to drive it and think of all you who made it possible for me to do so! Thank you!
God's peace and joy be with you this Holy Week! Sunday is coming!!
With love and gratitude,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 15th

What a week it has been! Thursday through Sunday was our annual UWM Costa Rica retreat. On the way up to the retreat, I stopped at some AMAZING, beautiful botanical gardens. It was phenomenal. I could write a whole post on that and how I felt like it was the closest thing to Eden I could imagine and what a glorious time of worship and communion with God it was. Please make sure to look at the pictures I posted on facebook!

But, I also have to tell you about getting together with my fellow missionaries here, hearing some of their stories, receiving excellent teaching from the Word through some of my colleagues from the office in Charlotte, starting to work on a strategic plan for the year, roller skating and playing with scooters, singing to the Lord together (next year I'm going to record us singing the Doxology because wow, what gorgeous harmonies!), sharing and praying with the other women, and more! It was a wonderful, encouraging time. Chad, our spiritual formation director who is now in charge of strategic planning too gave an excellent overview of the book of James, helping me see it as never before. We also spent a fair bit of time in small groups. One highlight of my group was when someone compared a hard season in life to a chick hatching out of its egg. What a beautiful, hope-filled metaphor! That's way better than thinking of a long dark tunnel, despairing that the light will never come!
Back to strategic planning: UWM has all of its missionaries create annual goals in collaboration with our ministry partners. Then there is an annual review process. This helps keep us focused and accountable in our ministry (part of the report goes to my supporting churches). In my new role as small group coordinator, I've been feeling like I could really use some strategic planning! The role is new and I tend to not be much of a big picture/visionary kind of person. But, thankfully, this strategic planning process is really helping me. Chad gave me some good ideas, and today I met with my supervisor don José to talk about them and get his ideas too. I have a lot of praying, planning, and work to do. Please continue to pray for me in this new role!
Car update: I'm now over 35% of the way to raising the funds for my new car! If 26 of you gave a special gift of $50 that would be enough! Will you consider being 1 of 26 and helping meet this ministry need? Not having to take my car to the mechanic's every few weeks (and get it back days later) and not having to worry about bottoming out all the time will be so wonderful! Thank you so much to those who have already given and to those who give on a regular basis! I am so thankful for my amazing support network--and that includes a lot more than financial partners with UWM!
May you see God's glory this week and be filled with his hope!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, March 8th

It was a big weekend at church.

I believe I mentioned previously that my pastor's father passed away a couple weeks ago. Well, this weekend, with that grief still quite fresh, he had to accompany a family whose father/husband died in a terrible, tragic way. Saturday morning he did the funeral at 8, a wedding at 10, went to a birthday party with his son in the afternoon, and then preached Saturday evening and at both services on Sunday (and spent time with and helped his wife and baby daughter at various moments too). And this wasn't just any sermon, but the opening sermon of our first series of the year, so there was a lot of hype about that. Thankfully, God gave him the grace to make it through the weekend and he takes his Mondays off very seriously. But still, as someone who cares deeply about my pastor, his family, and my church, I ask you to please pray with me even more for my church, my pastor, the rest of the staff, along with the small groups and their facilitators --particularly over the next 8 weeks as we go through this series, "Invisible War: Winning the Battle against Temptation." We know there will be temptations and raging invisible battles; in fact, we know there already are. We have action plans to move forward and are in need of God's constant guidance and grace. Please cover us in prayer. We know God is going to do amazing things in this time, that his work will not be without resistance-- and that he is greater and more powerful than the evil one!

Update on my car: I already have about $600 of the $2000 needed! Thanks and praise be to God! This car will be an essential ministry tool for me. Will you be God's instrument of blessing and provision to me?
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support. Each and every one of you is a blessing to me! I am deeply grateful. One final prayer request: This Thursday through Sunday is the annual UWM retreat/conference. We will be focusing on strategic planning--something I know I need! Pray for God's wisdom, for us to be attentive to his voice, and for him to bless our times of sharing together.
Mil gracias for everything!
Carrie