13 months later...

After 13 months of living out of suitcases, visiting 6 countries on 4 continents, sitting with refugees and sipping tea in Lebanon, sweating through summer in Cairo, 3 months climbing the hills of Amman, and then experiencing winter in the great Northwest of the USA, we finally arrived again in our beloved Costa Rica!


  We spent the last few weeks of our time in the US doing a road trip. Through some fellow missionaries in Costa Rica we made a connection with a couple who works for Disney who gifted us 2 free days at Disneyland which was a dream come true for the whole family. It was spring break for a couple of states so the lines were a bit long but that didn't bother us a bit. From LA we headed east and visited some of Karen's family in Arizona and then on to Texas to visit my family. We boarded the last flight of our long journey last Saturday and arrived safely here in Costa Rica.

We have spent the last couple days reconnecting with friends and our life here. As well, we have had to start the lengthy process of picking up where we left off thirteen months ago. Our first major hurdle is finding permanent housing. At the moment we are living in two small rooms that our mission center is providing. After living out of bags for so long we are definitely ready to settle down some place more permanent. As some of you might remember, several years ago we were able to purchase a small home on the south side of San José but unfortunately the mission center is on the east side of town and travel between the two areas is quite difficult. As we enter into this new season of ministry we have felt that it is very important for us to have a home that is easily accessible for people from the center so that we can use our home for discipleship and ministry. The afternoon after we got back into the country we headed out to see what was available in our area and we have already seen five houses and found one we are hoping might be the house that God has for us.

We ask for your prayers in this process, first that we would be able to sell our other house quickly, second, that we can get approved for a loan for the balance. And third, this will mean an increase in our monthly expenses so please pray for God's provision as well.

Ministry wise, the focus of this next season will be on gathering a team of like-minded people who are committed to seeing a mission movement begin here in Costa Rica as Costa Ricans are sent out to reach those who have never heard the Gospel around the globe. We recognized while were in the Middle East that the vision that we have is much larger than we can hope to accomplish on our own and that together with a team we could accomplish so much more. We have 2 couples and a single fellow that have been on our minds for a long time. Please pray that God will give us clarity and wisdom in this process of team building.

We are excited for the new things that God will bring in this next season of our lives here in Central America and we will make sure to keep you all up to date as things move forward. Thank you all again for your prayers and support.

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

Home again (kind of)!

    At long last we are resurrecting our blog site! We have been keeping one since our missions adventures began over 10 years ago and we still find it is the best and easiest way to chronicle our lives and ministry. We will still send an occasional update through email whenever we have happenings that are not appropriated for public social media.

     As many of you may remember from our last email update, we finished our 9 month stint in the Middle East with 3 months in the nation of Jordan. Our trip came to an end at the beginning of December and it was bittersweet to leave, so many new friendships, a new culture that was just beginning to feel like home. But at the same time, having resided in so many new countries in so short a time, we are definitely happy to be back in someplace familiar again.

 

     The last month and a half has been a time of rest and recovery. We returned to the US very tired and burned out from so much change in such a short amount of time. We were able to spend a week with Douglas family in Texas. My brother and his wife just had a baby and it was wonderful to meet him and spend some time with all the cousins. From there we flew back to Portland and have been with Karen’s parents enjoying the quiet and the wild winter weather. We will be here in the Portland area for the next 6 weeks and then we will head south to California in early March and finally back to Costa Rica a few weeks later. We are enjoying our time here in the US but are anxious to get back to our Latin American home.  

  

    We as a family want to give a huge thank you to our community here in the US and abroad that supported us in prayer and with finances during our stint in the Middle East. We had expected it to be a difficult and heavy time emotionally and physically but instead we felt like we were covered with a special protection. It was such a wonderful time of receiving from the Lord and we cannot thank you all enough for you support during this time. We will be returning to Costa Rica with many new ministry tools and a renewed vision for sending Latinos and we have you all to thank for making this last year possible. 

We though it appropriate to end this post with selection of photos from out whole trip. Many thanks and blessings to you all. 

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

Amsterdam

Beirut Lebanon

Enjoying the Mediterranean

Food Distribution

Tyre

Egypt

Sailing on theNile

Egyptian Foods!

Amman, Jordan

Petra

New Friends

Coke is EVERYWHERE

 Thank you all again for your prayers and support over these last 9 months. 

Many blessings, 

Douglas, Karen, Gabriel and Zachariah

Lebanon Update

Greetings from Lebanon! We will be sending out our updates via email for the next 6 months until we get back to the US. If you want to keep up with our travels please join our mailing list by clicking on the "Join Our Mailing List" link above.

Blessings,

Douglas, Karen and the boys

On to Europe

Hey all! Our journey has officially begun. After a whirlwind exit from Costa Rica we spent a wonderful week with my family in Houston Texas. It was over way too fast bit we are excited for our next leg of the journey.

We are currently at the Houston airport waiting for our flight to Amsterdam where we will spend a week with friends and then from there on to our next destination.

We will post when possible but have no idea when and where we might get internet access.

Pray that our bags arrive with us and that we have a smooth flight.

Blessings,

Douglas, Karen and the boys.

Almost there!

Hello Friends and Family,

We are so excited to give you a quick update on the progress of our fast approaching trip. Just over a month ago our airline had a great deal on tickets and with the help of some friends were able to purchase the tickets but we are still needing to raise the funds to cover most of the cost. We have also had a lot of extra expenses as we prepare for our trip so if you would like to help us with some of these costs it would be a great blessing and encouragement.

It is crazy to think that we leave for Houston in less than two weeks. We will spend a week there with Douglas' family and then head on to Amsterdam for a conference and from there on to other locations. We posted more details in our last blog post so if you want you can read there.

We have rented a storage unit to store our belongings here in Costa Rica. It is nice and not to far from our house. We have already started moving items but the big move will be this coming Friday/Saturday. We are still praying about our van, whether we should loan it to someone while we are gone or just store it.

Please be praying for our family as we say good by, some of our friends will not be here when we get back and that has been very hard already. Pray for the boys as we travel around a lot this next year and for their home schooling that we will continue to stay on task. Pray for our packing process that we will not stress out too much and will be able to get everything done on time. Pray also for all of the tasks that have to be done as we tie up loose ends here in Costa Rica. A big answer to prayer, we had a family offer to take care of our dog, Sparky, while we are gone. The boys are so happy!

Also so you all know we will be more discrete in our communication, using email more and putting less on the blog/facebook.

Thanks for all your prayer and support. God has already shown himself to be so faithful in this whole process. We will see you all in December!

D&K