Missionary to Latin America

  My wife Lynn is counting down the days until we get to go back home and be reunited with our family. This will be the last newsletter that I write. I want to thank everyone for their prayer support over the last year. We felt your care as we entered a foreign country with a new language and culture, taught several subjects in a Christian school that we had never taught before, explored the country by car, Uber and a lot of walking, bonded with several families in our church in Cartago, survived and thrived despite an auto accident, and COVID, and continued to stay connected with our home church, Risen Hope in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania.  Graduation I opened the ceremony at graduation with an English and Spanish prayer, and Lynn spoke extemporaneously at the 9th grade ceremony. It was a highlight of our year. It was a pleasure to mentor and teach this group of young people.  Sojourn Academy Lynn and I feel like we made significant contributions to our students' education this yea

   May is here and gone, and we are on to our last two months in Costa Rica. This has been a difficult month. First of all, Lynn and I went home for Spring Break, and attended a funeral as well as visited my cousin who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I got to share the gospel with him, and two weeks later I flew back to attend his funeral. :( While I was there, I caught COVID. As I was recovering, I got even more concerning news. A dear friend has been diagnosed with cancer. We are in the rainy season again here in Costa Rica, and when it rains it pours. Final projects for Bible Class   For their final projects for the year in Bible class, my students have three choices: #1. Write a personal testimony of how you became a Christian. Here is an example of my personal testimony that I created for my students. Link #2. Create a website that will explain how to become a Christian. Here is an example of a website I created for my students. Link   #3. Create a worship song with an ori

  In April Lynn and I were able to travel to some of the places that tourists go to in Costa Rica. We traveled to the city of Fortuna, which is near a large lake and the Arenal Volcano. Our son & daughter generously subsidized our trip. We jammed a lot into a short time period: shopping, horseback riding, a 3-kilometer hike uphill to see a waterfall, and a dip in the hot springs. More about that below. We also were able to return to Pennsylvania over our Spring Break. This month we only had two weeks of classes because of Semana Santa and Spring Break.  Juan Santamaria courageous Act.  My name in the program Chapel   We celebrated a national holiday this month at our school, and I had the privilege of praying at this event. The Costa Ricans celebrate this day annually with great fanfare. They celebrate the sacrifice of one man, Juan Santamaria. He set fire to a house where some Americans were fighting to exploit the lucrative trade across Lake Nicaragua in the south near Rivas. He

The song Christ our Passover was written to illuminate the Palm Sunday account. However, as I have meditated on this verse this Easter God has given me new insights into the meaning of Easter. The song is taken from I Corinthians 5:7 “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us therefore let us keep the feast.” There are three other lines to the song that combine to form a cacophony of sound like the confusion that must have greeted Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The second part of the song with its own distinct melody is… ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Matthew 21:9 The third part of the song with a third melody also comes from Matthew 21:9 …” Hosanna in the highest, and the final part of the song with a still different melody is simply… “Alleluia’. As I was teaching this song to my students the significance of these bible verses began to make this a very meaningful Easter.  The context of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem is significant. Jesus chose to come

  March came in like a lamb, knocked us down like a lion , and ended like a lamb. This month we were able to start a marriage mentoring group in the Cartago Church. We had a major car accident on the road to Panama at the Costa Rican border, and we ended the second trimester at school. There is just one trimester to go! It’s hard to believe that we are now scheduled to leave Costa Rica at the end of July. It seems like yesterday that our church Risen Hope sent us out.  Students taking a group selfie in chapel Our Panama Accident Chapel   There are not many holidays in March. We did mention Saint Patrick’s Day, but most of the students had never heard of it. The highlight of this month’s chapels was taking a group selfie when we were discussing the theme of Christian Unity. It was really great to explore with the students how holiness and unity can conflict, and then produce unity in our diversity.  Accident I needed to leave the country to renew my tourist VISA, so we decided to visi