The third and final team from Myers Park UMC will wrap things up tomorrow.  Three weeks ago they started by putting the first columns in place.  Today we put the roof trusses up, finished back filling the interior of the house so we can pour the concrete slab next week, and continued plastering the walls.  In 12 actual work days, we've built what is starting to really resemble a home!  I am so grateful to our brothers and sisters at Myers Park who, since their first team came to work with us in 2003, have understood this ministry and fully embraced a partnership with CRMP and with the Methodist churches in Costa Rica.  We're already making plans for the project they'll work on next year and I'm sure it will be as successful as always.

We'll spend the next few days trying to enjoy a little bit of Holy Week while also preparing for next week's teams.  We'll have a full house with a total of 28 people for several days.  That should be a big help for getting all the concrete mixed and poured, getting the roof on the house and hopefully finishing the plastering.  

The heat is still very intense, so please continue to be in prayer for everyone's health and safety on the work sight.  Peace on Earth.

Week two in San Buenaventura is pretty much in the bag.  The second team from Myers Park UMC powered through intense heat (97 degrees in the shade one day), had fun with the kids, drank tons of water and Power Aide and in the mean time got ALL of the concrete slabs put in the walls of new parsonage.  Kike has started welding the roof structure, so by the time team number three leaves we should have the roof on and finish the back fill inside the house  so we can pour the floor.

Myers Park schedules their teams around Spring break so that families can come work with us together.  Several of the young people who are here this week have been coming for the past four or five years.  It's been great seeing them grow up and seeing how passionate they are about service.  I've been told by their parents that sometimes it's the kids who are the driving force behind getting their families to come.

The backhoe is sick, but spare parts are on the way from San Jose and we should have it back together and running for the next team.

We're injury free and haven't had serious issues with the heat so far.  Please pray that that remains the case throughout this project.

     On Thursday the 12th of March we packed up all of our tools and supplies and left Changuena, where we'd been working since early January.  After seven teams (28 days on the work site) we left the new sanctuary ready to be used.  Pastor Humberto is now having worship services there on Wednesday and Sunday nights.  I will never complain about spending part of the year in that area!  Being up in the mountains, in a small rural community is so refreshing.  We're already looking forward to going back next January to finish the church kitchen and bathrooms and build the new parsonage.  The friends that Yolanda and I, and the teams who have worked in Changuena over the past 5 years, have made there are some of the best friends we have.  It is such a special place that you really have to experience it to understand.

      On Monday, March 16th, the first of three teams from Myers Park United Methodist Church form Charlotte NC, started work on the new parsonage in San Buenaventura.  As always with a new project things are a little slow going at first, but everyone fell in to a rhythm and by the end of the week we had all 60 or so of the columns in place.  We usually gets lots of curious looks for a while when we start work in a new community, but a bunch of the kids from the elementary school next door have been coming by to play with the young folks on the work team, and hopefully it won't be long before the rest of the community feels as comfortable around us as they do.

     This project is particularly special to Yolanda as the Methodist church in San Buenaventura is where she first began to understood what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ some 15 years ago.  I'm thankful that the path that God has lead this ministry on has, for a season at least, brought us to San Buenaventura.