by jimmy | May 25, 2017 | Blog |
On March 18th everything changed, for those that don’t know we lost both Jeannie’s sister and her husband in a tragedy and nothing has been or will ever been the same. That is just the truth of the matter and because of that event we have to come up with a new plan. Something we have been sort of calling Plan B after reading an article about the co-founder of Facebook who lost her husband. A friend told her “look, plan A is no longer an option but we are going to kick the the crap out of Plan B.” Good advice. Leslie had three kids and there are no words to describe the pain. Royce and Sally lost a daughter, my kids lost an Aunt and Jeannie lost her sweet amazing sister. This was not how we had it planned and we are all are struggling to come to grips with our new reality. There is a famous quote supposedly from Winston Churchill, “If you are going through hell just keep walking before the devil finds out you are there.” We are certainly walking through hell in this moment, but there is a peace and it is unmistakable and real. It is a power. It is supernatural. My faith is stronger at times than at others and this is one of those times that it is strong and not in a way that is desperate but in a tangible I know He is here kind of way. The bible talks about a peace that defies understanding and we are living in that. We have a thousand things that...
by jimmy | Jun 20, 2015 | Blog, buildingaboat |
One year ago today…..we got on a plane and arrived here in Costa Rica. We began a journey that as I look back on it a year later seems it is only beginning. We have experienced so much over the past year that it is impossible to quantify in a post. We have learned to speak a new language. We are learning so much about this new culture. We have made friends in a new school and continue to search out a church home. We are in our third trimester of language school and while we have learned a ton of Spanish, this trimester has been by far the hardest of the three. We are both ready to be done with school. The amount of rules and ideas are just simply overwhelming. It is hard to imagine that we will ever be able to speak fluently but we know only time here in the culture will fill in the gaps in our language. We are told we are doing great and that is a huge blessing to have friends willing to help correct and improve our language. Our meetings are now in Spanish and it is amazing to be sitting in a meeting and finally be tracking along and speaking at the pace of the meeting. It is hard to explain, but when you are in a meeting with Nationals your brain just kind of switches over to Spanish and you find yourself thinking in Spanish. It is without a doubt one of the cooler experiences in my life. We are in a season of huge blessing from our...
by jimmy | Mar 8, 2015 | Blog |
Many of you have shared a desire to help on projects when we found a need. After being here for several months, we have identified two very worthy projects. Join us in serving Granadilla: We would like your help in raising funds for a community center in a small town called Granadilla and to construct a home for a generous Young Lives volunteer. Early one Monday morning I joined the Young Life National Director at a meeting of a few community leaders to discuss the building of a community center in a small town called Granadilla. Young Life has a strong presence in the community and they have been holding club at the current community center for years. The current community center is below. It is hard to explain my thoughts after visiting, but it is basically a tin building built with scrap metal and wood. There are, I believe, two light bulbs that give light to the inside during evening meetings. There are no windows, but some light flowed in through the walls during our morning meeting. The people meeting us do not work for the city. The city would not attend a meeting like this because they have no funds to make improvements. These are citizens. They are like you and me. They care about the lives of kids in the community and want them to have a place to go and things to do other than some of the poorer options available, like drugs and gangs. We are meeting to discuss the building of a community center and trying to confirm that we can start with...
by jimmy | Jan 9, 2015 | Blog |
Happy New Years to you all. We are so grateful for each of you that join us in prayer and support. We have seen some amazing things transpire in 2014 and we look forward to a great 2015. Please let me know how I can be praying for you. Each morning I prayer for as many as I can remember and I would love to be praying for specific things. Our first Work team We just ended our very first work team here in Costa Rica and it was an amazing time. We were asked a few months ago to host a service project for a couple of families coming to CR. They wanted to come on December 26th and after some prayer I felt like the Lord wanted us to grow in some ways so we decided to agree. Like always, when we say yes to what the Lord has for us great things happen and this was no exception. I thought I would recap a bit of what took place over the four days they were here. There were two families of five, the Crawfords and the Mays, with kids from ages 13-19 they were both from Austin and both were very familiar with Young Life. We ended up having many mutual friends and it was great to have visitors in from Austin. Both were great families and we had a wonderful time getting to know them. A couple of the kids organized a clothing drive and they showed up with 6 huge duffel bags full of clothing and shoes. The clothes will go to bless the...
by jimmy | Dec 31, 2014 | Blog |
We sent out an update the week before Christmas sharing some highlights of what we’ve seen here in our first six months! We know for so many of you, a video is another great way to share the same message. So here you go! God has shown us great things so far! We can’t wait to continue sharing all that’s happening here in 2015. Happy New...
