MAY SWOM: GRADUAMOS - GRADUATED

With our teachers

Our teachers praying over us graduates

What's next?

Well we did it, with your help and God's...we graduated from one year of Spanish language school! Thank you for your support and encouragement. Surely it has been one of the most difficult times in our lives, but our deepest journey of faith as well. God is good!

And we even have some next steps planned, God willing:

We leave Costa Rica May 28th to travel back to the States to complete interviews with a potential new mission agency, attend a training to help equip us in working with Muslims and to raise additional support to go to the field in Latin America.

We have investigated ministries in Costa Rica, Mexico City and in Panama and we are pretty sure we know where God wants us to serve. We will wait for a few more things to line up and hopefully by next month we should be able to tell you with certainty our next ministry home!

Needless to say, it has been a long wait for us, but we continue to walk trusting God to lead us in His faithfulness.

Please pray for us:

• Praise, that we made it through language school, we can't wait to be working alongside a local church in Spanish everyday!
• Patience for us in this upcoming transition: leaving Costa Rica, getting all our belongings into 4 suitcases and 2 carryons for the trip back to the States, saying goodbyes well and raising additional support.
• For God to provide us with clarity in the upcoming meetings and trainings. 

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

JAN SWOM: ESPERANZA - HOPE

Feliz Año Nuevo, Happy New Year!

What a season of hope it has been. The birth of a Savior, the holidays with our loved ones, a new year, and the promise of the end of the journey in sight!
 
We returned to Costa Rica just days ago from a time of spending the holidays with our families. First a trip to Wheaton to see our extended families, lifelong friends and a meeting with our home church mission board then to Colorado where we spent time at each of our kids' houses. 

It was cold, but so great to be able to reconnect with everyone. Now we are back and the rainy season has ended here, gracias a Dios, and we are beginning our LAST trimester of Spanish language school!
 
We have so many things to be hopeful about in 2016. Finally after a long season in the desert of  school, we are looking forward to graduating at the end of April. Of course, we know that we won't be perfectly fluent by then, but we are looking forward to getting out of the classroom and being able to practice speaking Spanish more out on the street.

We also have a trip planned to look at a ministry in Mexico City in February and are also praying about another ministry opportunity in Panama.

We continue to trust that God is the One leading us on this journey and that He will reveal just where He wants us to be in His perfect timing.
 

Please pray for us:

• Continued language learning capabilities. 
• Wisdom and discernment about future ministry options. We continue to pray and to investigate opportunities. 

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

NOV SWOM: ESPERAMOS - WAITING

Waiting and praying...

We are asking God what He wants us to do, that He’s equipped us to do, that’s not being done, that if we would do, would bring greater results for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom.

To this end, we continue to walk this journey of faith, waiting and believing even though we don’t see where we are heading, but knowing the hand of the One leading us.

We are still working hard to learn Spanish and we are trusting God to help us through the long hours of studying, doing homework and preparing for tests.

This past week we had the privilege of hosting a Christmas party for 120 orphans here at our school. We spent the afternoon playing games with the kids, presenting the gospel through a play and giving each of them a gift. We have never seen such a well behaved group of children. They were all so kind and respectful and grateful. It was heartbreaking to see so many children without parents but such a joy to be able to share this time with these kids. One of them grabbed Mike’s hand and brought him over to help him hit the piñata and another little boy gave me a huge as he walked out the door. 

In the midst of our waiting, God continues to allow us these special opportunities which are all part of the process. 

Please pray for us:

• To finish this second trimester well. Continued language learning capabilities. 
• Wisdom and discernment about future ministry options. We continue to pray and to investigate opportunities. 

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

SEPT/OCT SWOM: SOBERANIA - SOVEREIGNTY

The last couple of months have been hard for us. We were here in Costa Rica in language school and seeking direction as to where God would have us serve in the future and back home Mike’s dad was battling pancreatic cancer. We felt like our lives were on hold, we were constantly on the edge of our seats anticipating the call back to the States at any minute.

But God taught us an incredible lesson about His perfect timing and His sovereignty in all of this!

On Friday morning October 16th, Mike woke with the feeling that
God was telling him to go home to be with his Dad, that this was the time. So after classes on Friday we booked tickets and headed home on Saturday. We arrived to find Dad at home in hospice care and declining quickly.

Thanks to God’s amazing timing we were able to be there to help the family with his care the last days of his life. We were able to sit by his bedside, hold his hand, hug him and pray with him. He still was able to hear and understand but wasn’t able to talk much once we arrived. We were by his bedside as he passed. We said the Our Father together and then with the reading of the last words from Psalm 23, “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” he passed.

The Lord is so good, He really does take care of all the details in life. Sometimes we look back and say to ourselves, why were we so worried about when to go? After all does He not give us wisdom and does He not prompt us on the timing of things?

We smile as we recall His perfect timing and His sovereignty over ALL!
Here are just a few of the ways He proved it:

• We were called home the ONLY week of this 15-week trimester of school that we didn’t have homework or tests because it was a special week of spiritual emphasis.
• We were able to book reasonable one-way airfares each way on very short notice.
• We were able to be there for the memorial service in Wheaton, the burial in Iowa and arrive back in Costa Rica  for classes on Monday.
• We were able to see our kids, 2 of our grandchildren and the beautiful colors of Fall that we haven’t seen for 3 years.
• Prayers and expressions of love from family, friends, classmates etc. 
• The list could go on and on but for now, we are just praising Him for His goodness to us. 

We have renewed confidence in His perfect timing and His sovereignty over our lives as we continue to love Him and to wait on Him for our next steps as well. He is always faithful!

Please pray for us:

• Continued language learning capabilities. 
• Wisdom and discernment about future ministry options. We continue to pray and to investigate opportunities. 

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

JUL/AUG SWOM: ¿POR QUÉ? - WHY?

People ask us why.....

Why start all over in another land?
Why acclimate to another culture?
Why go through the pain of learning another language?
Why do you want to be away from family again?

After going through the first trimester of language school, I (Mike) ask these questions and other ones to the Lord myself. As I am frustrated in learning a new language, I can easily blame those who built the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) but then I realize that I probably would have been in that group of people too.

Anyway, we have completed our first trimester of Spanish, gracias a Dios, and we have two more trimesters to go. We are feeling good about our language learning this time around, but it's not without its pain.

But WHY do we do this...
because we believe that this is what the LORD has called us to do!

We know this is His plan for us today and we are trusting Him to enable and equip us. We are taking advantage of lots of opportunities to see how God is at work here in Central America and we are praying for His lead and direction for our next steps.

Ultimately, this is WHY: It's all about Jesus and His commission to us all to go and make disciples of all the nations.

Thank you pray-ers and givers for enabling us to be go-ers! It is such an encouragement to us to be walking this journey together with you all.

Please pray for us:

• Good language learning capabilities as we begin our 2nd trimester of studies.
• Pray for the bible study (in Spanish) that Peggy will help with for the maids at our school beginning Sept 8th. 
• Please pray for continued recovery for Mike's Dad. Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

JUNE SWOM: PACIENCIA - PATIENCE

Worshiping with a church in rural Costa Rica

Enjoying warm hospitality on the front porch in Spanish!

Our class learning numbers by playing BINGO!

We are learning patience in so many ways...

In the classroom. We, along with our fellow classmates, are so anxious to learn Spanish that we repeatedly badger our teacher and ask why about this and what about that as we seek to understand every little nuance of the language. Our teacher gently reminds us that little children never ask such things and are just patient and satisfied with what the teacher presents.  One of the few benefits of being a more "mature" student is understanding that this language learning is a definitely a process, a marathon rather than a sprint.

At the grocery store.  We recently moved from living with a Tico family into our own studio apartment and thus have begun grocery shopping. We walk about 10 minutes to the local grocery store called Maxi Palí, a subsidiary of Walmart. It it a good sized store but the check out process is ridiculous (to us North Americans). Maybe because it is a US based business we expected more from them, but as we wait in line for about 30 minutes (average check out time for us) we realize how little tolerance we have for such things. We keep looking at our watches, shifting our weight from foot to foot barely containing our impatience at the wait. The few checkers working do the scanning and the bagging themselves. And then we take a look around at the Tico shoppers and they are perfectly patient as they wait. They don't have shifty eyes looking for a faster line, they aren't craning their necks to see what can possibly be taking so long, they're not sighing or complaining (even from the

little ones sitting in the carts) and we think, O Lord, we have so much to learn!

In our faith. We are waiting patiently on the Lord to show us the future ministry that He has planned for us. To that end, we have been attending different churches each week and last weekend went on an overnight trip to visit a rural church, which was a whole other experience in learning patience on a very curvy, bumpy, 3 hour bus ride around the mountain! We keep seeking the Lord and He continues to remind us that He knows the plans He has for us, that He wrote them for us before we were even born, so He just keeps whispering to us to rest in Him. We know we are on a journey together and this is just the beginning. We just keep clinging tightly to His hand and following His lead.

In so many other areas, but we're afraid you would lose your PATIENCE reading about all of them!

Thank you so much dear friends for journeying with us. Your love and support are a constant encouragement to us.

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

Please pray for us:

* Good language learning capabilities.

* Pray for wisdom for Peggy as she was asked to co-lead a Bible study (in Spanish) beginning in September.

* Please pray for a steady recovery for Mike's Dad. He had a successful surgery to remove a mass in his pancreas June 8 and is slowly recovering. We continue to be thankful for Mike's family who are caring for him in our absence. Wisdom for us being so far away.

* Please pray with us for Greece.

MAY SWOM: HOLA - HELLO

Greetings from Costa Rica! We can't believe how much has happened already in one month. We arrived in CR and hit the ground running.

For the first month, we lived with a Tico family in the backroom of their house. It was quite a shock to arrive at their house with our 5 suitcases and to move in with a family that did not speak English at all. From the start, we have been learning and practicing a lot of Spanish. Peggy is grateful for her years of high school Spanish (albeit 40 yrs. ago) that helped us survive those first few days living with our Tico family.

We go to school every weekday for 4 hours of classes and then have tutoring and homework for the rest of the day and then it starts all over again. We have completed now one full month of classes, and have survived and passed, tests in phonetics, linguistics and grammar, only with His help!

We continue to grow in our faith as these new learning experiences require FAITH, especially at our age. Our school is great, the teachers are all Christian and they really want to help us succeed. Besides just the basic Spanish, they are also teaching us how to pray, read and memorize Scripture in Spanish. They continually remind us that God is the One calling us to learn this language and that He will be faithful to enable us as well. A reminder that we recall many, many times during the long, challenging days in the classroom.

We are getting out and seeing some of the ministries that are here in CR, visiting different churches each weekend and meeting believers here. Peggy is also really enjoying attending a Spanish Bible study followed by English classes on Wednesday afternoons for some women who work as maids here.

Thank you so much dear friends, for your prayers and support. So often during these initial days of culture shock and the overwhelming differences in life we are experiencing, please know that your prayers have encouraged and strengthened us. Thank you for standing with us, you are part of our anchor, encouraging us that we are not in this alone. We so love and appreciate you all!

Additionally, Hellenic Ministries will continue to process our monthly donations until we have formalized a new mission agency.

Please pray for us:

* Good language learning capabilities.

* To receive the paperwork we need from Greece so we can apply for a student visa here. No word yet from the Greek embassy after 6 weeks.

* That the peace of God will continue reign in our hearts and minds as we experience so many transitions.

* Mike's Dad is experiencing some medical problems and potential serious surgery ahead. Please pray for him and their family. We are so thankful for Mike's family who are caring for him in our absence. Wisdom for us being so far away.