2026: July

July has been a wonderful month of connecting with people back Stateside, raising more awareness and support and quality time with family and friends. We are so thankful for each person who opened their home to us, invited us over or made space for friends and neighbors to learn about our work.We started off the month in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with Pepper’s side of the family touring the sites, enjoying Dollywood and good food!  We even were able to meet up with the Moore family who have been supporters of our ministry for a long time and helped us to put down a deposit on our land purchases four years ago! It’s always nice to see our kids connect with other mission minded families and we are thankful for the Ailors, Parkers, Moores and others who made our time away restful and fun!

Meanwhile, classes on the property continued to gather with our dynamic team of leaders on the ground in Costa Rica.  Over 20 boys on Sundays and often 50 girls on Saturdays met each weekend!  We’re delighted to see God’s hand at work maintaining progress in the ministry even while we step away.  What a wonderful gift of sustainability for the gospel!  We could not be prouder of Merary, Doneira, Jennifer, Amanda, Ariana, Kenneth, Dany & Grethel who step up week after week to ensure discipleship, english, health classes and more continue each weekend.  Our intern Jennifer has faithfully driven students to youth groups on Mondays and Thursdays as well.  If you are looking to support Jennifer please feel free to email us.

Mid July, Jordanna ventured off to JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Relay Service) a program connected to Wycliffe Bible Translators in Waxhaw, NC.  Council member Nancy Dillingham previously served as a missionary with JAARS for over a decade and mentioned to Jordanna the possibility of taking a Water Safety course with JAARS.  The Lord has provided a new intern named Seth Lockwood who is life guard certified and teaches swimming lessons.  Seth will join us September 1st in Costa Rica.  So we flew Seth in from Rochester, NY to join us for the training.  My lovely prayer warrior and friend Jami Carneal accompanied me as did Jim Savage, a board member who lives in Georgia.  We learned a myriad of things around water safety, flash flood tactics, rip tide education and more.  We hope and pray to bring these skills back to the local community in the fall.  What a joy it was to be in Waxhaw.  The JAARS community, both present and retired, were so kind.  They welcomed us into their homes, told stories of life on mission overseas and became very interested in our work.  We thank the Dillinghams for organizing not only this training but also our first official NOW CR board meeting.  In January of this year, we got our own 501c3 status and now have functioning by-laws and board members.  God is so good! Please note, we no longer receive checks at our old mailing address which was just slightly different than our new one.

OLD MAILING ADDRESS: PO Box 1242 Tappahannock, VA 22560

NEW MAILING ADDRESS: PO Box 2703 Tappahannock, VA 22560

Both our Board Meeting and our training at JAARS were a huge success.  Thank you to our partners who stepped up to help us meet that additional cost.  It was time well spent and we are excited to see how the Lord uses this in the seasons to come.

One sweet habit we’ve fallen into as a family is to restrict screen use during the week to bible stories/apps and an evening episode after dinner of an old show.  We went through Little House on the Prairie last year and are half way through The Waltons now.  Little did we know that Walton’s mountain is very near to Pepper’s parents so it was a delight to tour The Walton’s Museum with the children.  They loved seeing replicas of the set and made this small family routine even more special.

Jordanna, River and Nana made their way north bound to visit friends at Manassas Baptist Church last weekend.  It has been a few summers since the Ailors were able to make a visit and boy was it special.  River ran into some of his old preschool teachers, a few students of Jordanna’s youth group were home from college to pay a visit and of course David Donahue was a joy to be around.  River got to go skeet shooting for the first time with David.  The people of MBC Church are always very generous with their time and resources.  We were so thankful to speak on behalf of the NOW Costa Rica community but also to raise awareness around other stateside anti-human trafficking organizations.

We concluded our month with a visit to see sweet Jackie in Baltimore.  Staying with old college friends, Jordanna, River and Nana got to enjoy a very special visit to meet Jackie’s third baby, sweet Aisha.  Jackie has been a big inspiration to Jordanna for the work that she does both overseas and whilst in the US raising awareness.  She’s a testimony to faith, perseverance and family.  We love her very much and see God working in a mighty way in her life with her family.

Saturday we will have our 5th annual Women’s Connect Ministry’s Fundraiser at Beale Memorial Church.  We hope those in the area can come out and join us from 5-7pm.  Pop in anytime or stop by to carry out meals for your family.  We are very thankful for Dale Mitchell’s leadership, RuthE Tobey’s famous spaghetti sauce and all of the women who, year after year, step up to help our mission.  We welcome your prayers as River and Jordanna return back to the field Monday August 3rd.  Pepper and Windsor returned two weeks prior. The children start school in two weeks and we will host mission teams August 8th and September 3rd. Please be in prayer that our children do well in the transition and that the fall teams experience God’s presence when with us.If you or anyone you know wants to hear more about our work, we are happy to set up a zoom meeting.  We are raising funds for our instructional pool. All donations in November and December will be matched and we hope to break ground in January.  This instructional pool will help us to teach children survival skills in water, possibly even long term, enable us to provide job readiness skills such as life guarding and work involving water in eco tourism, and perhaps some day host baptisms.  Many of our students are afraid to be immersed in water so we see the Lord’s hand guiding us.  Will you pray about this project and its launch date in early January, that the Lord will guide and direct the steps He has for our ministry.

How can we be praying for you?  We would love it if you took time to reply and let us know that you’re reading these newsletters and a few lines about how you are doing. 

May the Lord bless and keep you!

Jordanna, fam & team