Mineral Baptist Church

This is the staff for the week, Nazareth and Kimberly. They are ready and excited for what God will do this week.

We made it to Costa Rica!

We are ready and expectant of all the good things that God has for us this week.

We made it safe and sound to Upala. This is the community that we are going to be serving this week alongside Pastor Omar.

We had the opportunity to introduce ourselves to the church during the service. We said hello to them and they welcomed us so well.

We can really feel God's love through the church members.

Pastor Omar preached about how important it is to put God as a priority in our lives. Sometimes we are so worried about our daily tasks that we forget that the most important thing is working on our relationship with God.

We heard Pastor Omar's testimony, and he shared with us how God had called him first to be a follower of Him and them to become a pastor.

We had the opportunity to know more about the pastor and his family, and we can really see how they love serving the Lord, and also serving the people around them in the community.

We asked him for a prayer request, and we all prayed for him and his beautiful family.

We went to the supermarket and bought everything we needed for preparing the bags of food.

We had a lot of fun together looking for groceries.

When we were ready with the bags, we took a moment to pray over them. We prayed for those families that we are going to have the opportunity to meet this week.

We pray for God being in the middle of everything that we are going to do, say, and share with them.

We had a meeting with the youth group. We worshiped together and played a game.

Samuel shared a devotional. He talked about how the enemy always wants to tempt us, so that's why we need to recognize our weaknesses and give them to the Lord so He can make us strong, and in that way we can resist the temptation.

Today we visited five families. We got to know them and hear their stories and testimonies. We felt welcome in their homes, and we realized that God was there in each of the visits because we could really feel His love.

On our first day of VBS, Savannah taught about creation. The kids learned about what God did in those seven days.

We also sang, played games, and made crafts together. We had a blast with them.

Today, we had a wonderful morning with the elders of the community. We played bingo with them and also had a precious time of fellowship all together. After bingo we ate lunch together too.

It was beautiful to play with them and hear their stories.

When we finished playing bingo, Saira sang for us a beautiful song. She sang in Spanish and English, which showed us how wonderful our God is.

There's no barrier when we understand that all of us are part of the body of Christ.

On our second day with the kids, we taught them about Jesus' birth. Also we made a craft and played some games with them.

We really enjoyed spending time with the kids!

On our last day of food distribution, we felt very blessed and welcomed by all the families in the community. We were able to hear a lot of testimonies and powerful stories.

These families really encouraged us to be strong and still in our faith, even in the middle of the trials, because God is always faithful.

The last lesson that we shared with the kids was about Jesus' resurrection. We taught them about the importance of the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us.

We  made a craft, we colored crosses and also colored slap bracelets. We really enjoyed spending time with the kids.

After the lesson and the craft, we played with the kids, and we had a blast.

It was hard to say goodbye to them, but we know that the seed that we planted will grow someday.

At our farewell service, we were blessed to worship together as one church, led by Saira, and we really felt the presence of God moving between us during that special time.

After worship, the church members, Pastor Omar and his family, went up front, and they thanked us for all the work that we did together.

We appreciate each one of the words that they said, because we know that all of this happened because of God's will.

We also went in front of the church, and we expressed our gratitude for everything they had done for us this week, and we shared with them our favorite moments of the week.

At the end of the service, we prayed all together for the work of God to continue being done, wherever we are, here in Costa Rica, and also back home to the USA.

And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

Romans 10:15

It's always hard to say goodbye, and it's harder when you have to say goodbye to people that receive you very well, but we know that we are united through the Holy Spirit.

At the end we took time to say goodbye and say thank you for everything!

Happy Happy Birthday to Pastor Omar!

We couldn't have ended this week in a better way than celebrating the life and ministry of Pastor Omar. We truly loved the way he served us during this week and we wanted to honor him in this way.