Our Story

Karen and I met in 2002 while i was finishing up a bachelors degree at Multnomah University in Portland Oregon. I tried to ignore her for full year but in the end i failed an fell madly in love. We were married in 2003 and our first son Gabriel followed a year later. During our first year of marriage Karen and I were dreaming about our next steps as a family and during that time God spoke to us very clearly through a couple of YWAM missionaries who visited our church.

Through their encouragement we started looking into doing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) and found one that was offered in San José Costa Rica. We arrived in Costa Rica in July of 2005 and our Central American adventure began. During our school we felt clearly that God was calling us to minister longterm in Central America and that we were to Raise Up, Train, and Send Out Latin Americans into world missions but we had not idea what that would look like.

During our DTS Karen got pregnant with out second son Zachariah and after our school ended we returned to the US so that she could give birth near family and so we could plan out our next steps into missions.

Right before language school

The seminary where i taught

We returned to Costa Rica in January 2007 and started into a full time language study. It was a stretching time for us as we started out into missions. Our monthly support at that point was almost nothing and we have many testimonies of how God took care of us and provided for our needs. During that year a door opened for me to teach at a small seminary in downtown of San José and for the next couple years i taught in the missions department working with missionaries in training. It was a great time. I made a lot of mistakes and learned an enormous amount about how to teach (and how not to teach). We lived close to the YWAM base during this time and kept connected with the community.

Karen working the the DTS in 2009

In 2009 things started to change in our ministry at the seminary and we sensed that it was time to rejoin YWAM. Karen staffed the Discipleship Training school that year and we attended a conference with them where God confirmed our calling to raise up Latin Americans for missions.

Bible course in Argentina

As we sought the Lord for how to move forward with the vision that he had given us we felt that the first and most necessary step was to make sure that we provided bible education for our missionaries in training. With that goal in mind I left to Argentine to take a three month bible course with the intention to plant that school in Costa Rica. Karen and the boys stayed in Costa Rica and i headed out on my own. It was a very difficult three month apart but we learned a lot form the experience and we felt that it was a sacrifice that God was asking us to make.

Teaching in our 1st Bible Course

In July of 2010 we pioneered the Bible Core Course in Costa Rica with 8 students from 6 different nations. A great beginning! We are now about to start our 8th school and have trained over 70 students from 14+ nations including every country in Central America. Our former students are serving all over the globe, everything from ministering to transvestites here in Costa Rica to working with children at risk in Africa.

Over the last 6 years we have served in a variety of areas here on our missions center always working towards raising up, training and sending out Latin Americans but it has not  been until this year that opportunities have begun to open up for us to walk more fully in the vision that God have us back in 2005.

Together with a small team of missionaries here on our YWAM facility we have begun to focus on the other aspects of the vision. We have coordinated a full year of mission training focused on Unreached peoples so that people with this passion can get the training and help they need to reach the field. Also numerous short term teams have risen up as well, serving refugees on the Costa Rican / Panamanian border, working with refugees in Europe and the near east, Bible teams that want to minister to the underground church, and others as well.

We are excited for what the Lord is doing and the new season that he is bringing us into. The next 12 months will be very interesting. We are hoping for many new opportunities with local churches and as our first missionaries head out it will bring new challenges as we seek to minister to them on the field.

For those of you who have been with us from the beginning, Thank You! We could not be here without your prayers and gifts. For those of you are just joining us we hope that you are inspired to jump into the great things that God is doing around the world. We live in an amazing time when the Gospel is expanding and growing around the world.

Blessings,

DK and and familiy