Greetings and Happy Fall Ya’ll! While we miss the looming fall of leaves and all things pumpkin spice, we are enjoying a few sunnier days amidst the rains this week and thankful for the blue skies. We were blessed to start the month with some belated summer birthdays and an August birthday. Windsor turned 6, Chanel turned 11 and Merary 21. We’re so thankful for the diverse population of girls and women we get to work with, both in personality and giftings. Chanel is nearly fluent in English now and Merary is working hard as a formal translator for teams. We love all of our girls, but these two have played a bigger role as of late and we enjoyed celebrating them along with our dear Windsor.
Jordanna’s classmate from college Laura Brennan came to spend a week on a mission with her teenage children and husband. They brought swimsuits for all the girls that were conducive for swim lessons. Her oldest son Kevin, is a collegiate swimmer and taught swim lessons at Pumilio Guest House, a guest house they rented just for the students to enjoy for the weekend. When students weren’t doing swim lessons, they were engaged in science experiments with Laura’s husband Mike. He taught them to remain curious about investigations and to take advantage of God’s creation and lessons. Kelsi, their 17 year old daughter was a natural magnet for our girls, making bracelets and playing games and their youngest son Justin was a hit using his Spanish skills with several students. He translated often for various activities and the weekend was a huge success.
August 15th is Mother’s Day in Costa Rica and we were delighted to partner with the Brennan family to honor mothers in Herradura. We purchased 36 food baskets to give low income mothers. We were also able to provide a hot meal for all the moms and their children and pedicures. It was a joy to be able to wash the feet of such hard working women who trust us with their children in ministry. We were very thankful for the seemingly endless gifts of the Brennan family from meals, swim lessons, food baskets and more. They concluded their time here serving with Pepper’s Freedom Alliance mission team at a new drug rehab facility building chicken coops and green houses.
River and Windsor started 1st and 4th grade. River will continue in home school with Jordanna most mornings. He also volunteers at a local day care in the babies class for continued Spanish immersion. He is an asset for mission teams with his extroverted personality and fluent Spanish. We can see God raising up a mighty man in him to serve well here. Please pray for his continued schooling/life balance. He is on a soccer and basketball team and loves his new T&T Awana class each Monday. Windsor is enrolled again at the local church School for 1st grade. She absolutely loves it. It’s a bilingual, Christian school start up and she’s very prone to the classroom setting. She is taking drawing lessons and piano lessons. Both children are on grade level and bilingual and we praise God often for this achievement.
The new youth director at Horizon Church has made a way for several NOW Costa Rica students to participate in Trek, Youth Group and even an upcoming Youth Camp. We were able to find one sponsorship for a promising young boy in our boy’s group, but the church is giving 7 additional scholarships for more teens of NOW Costa Rica. Please be in prayer for the 8 teens going Sept 6-8th to La Montana Camp and two of our leaders Merary & Doneira who will serve as small group leaders and worship leaders.
Shortly after camp, we will be receiving our next mission team from Tappahannock. Mike Walter is leading a second mission team to Costa Rica and Jordanna is beyond ecstatic. This is Jordanna’s home church from her teenage years, and the church she made a profession of faith to Christ at the age of 13. Mike and his wife Kim were Jordanna’s youth leaders. It’s amazing to see what God is doing decades later in partnership. The team will be involved in so many efforts to include breaking ground in a construction project on the property, to a large youth rally, to various VBS sessions and feeding the homeless. If you would like to see a typical mission schedule, take a peek at this google link so you can pray alongside the team’s efforts day by day. Be in prayer that this team reaches new students and the message the team is bringing can sink into the hearts of our students.
We were blessed to celebrate the end of the month with another very special person in ministry, Rita, Chanel’s mother. She has been so brave in sharing her testimony to several teams about life in Jaco. She now cooks delicious meals for teams and helps in so many other ways. We celebrate her today as she marks 30 years of life! The Lord has protected and restored her so very much with His faithfulness and provision. We know greater things are to come. Thank you for your ongoing prayers for Rita and her family.
As you pray for us in September we ask that you consider spreading the word about tangible needs we have for the upcoming Casita. We are about halfway to where we need to be funding wise to complete this project. We are praying that by December we can have all that we need to make the Casita fully functioning, which means able to feed students regularly, house girls in need and be a safe haven building for students. We are prayerful that in the new year we will be able to break ground on the adjacent athletic pavilion so students can have shade and shelter for our classes and ministry. We know we serve a mighty God and we are praying for partners just like you. Perhaps your bible study class, school or church would be willing to pledge the total for a specific item we need to build. We will be forever grateful.
May God continue to bless and keep you as you read this. May He grant you favor, peace and calm this fall. We pray we might all be mindful of our citizenship in heaven and bring glory to Christ our Lord always and forever. Please let us know how you are doing. We love when we get responses from our newsletters. It brings us joy and lets us know folks are truly reading, interested and praying for us through these seasons.
Blessings,
Jordanna
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