LATN Costa Rica Staff Retreat

This a wonderful time of year as we hear from many of you thanks to your Christmas cards and letters. Thank you to each one and please know that we do want to pray for you and your needs, so let us know.

We have just returned from Costa Rica and are thrilled to share with you some of what we experienced. Thank you so much for your prayers for the Team Building Retreat which we had with our Costa Rican staff, Jan. 29 to Feb. 3. God answered many prayers above and beyond what we asked or even imagined — just like He promised! Thanks to Jim and Leta Van Meter for once again leading us so effectively. We learned so many things: how to listen better, how to communicate more effectively especially in the midst of disagreements or conflict, more about ourselves and each other team member in terms of personality, ways of taking in information, processing it and our strengths and weaknesses. We shared parts of our life stories, played some group simulation games, and looked at our overall team personality with strengths and weaknesses. We together signed a team covenant of Biblical principles which we agreed to abide by and we memorized Colossians 3:12-14. What a beautiful summary and vision it gives us:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as God forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

We do not have to go long through a day to know that we desperately need God’s help and Holy Spirit to empower us for that kind of attitude and character. Pray that for us, in our family and in our LATN family as well. Pray for Martha, whose main responsibility is for team health.

We were just reflecting how God has answered prayers for just the right personnel for our team at just the right time. Back in 2001, Mark and I were alone in Costa Rica, when our teammate Juli Kautzmann had to return to the US with her family because of breast cancer. God healed Juli and brought the Kautzmanns back to us. Since then God has added people who have just the right skills for what we need! We have been focused on building our curriculum and now we are getting ready to expand our student body. What do we need for that to happen?

• We need a registrar- God sent us Judy Musselman who has many years of experience as a registrar in a university and missions experience in the Dominican Republic in Spanish.
• We need a librarian and researcher- God sent us Kara Pedersen who has a degree in library science and missions experience in Brazil.
• We need more computer programmers- God sent us Mark Seaman of Christ Community EFC in Greeley to donate a day a week to help us from Colorado.

And the list can go on of others God is continuing to send us. Thank you for your prayers and please don’t stop because we are building the staff and infrastructure for a continent wide institution — a huge undertaking in any part of the world and especially in Latin America where financial resources are scarce. Pray that God will provide a graphic artist, fund raisers, short term team coordinator, instructional designers, more computer programmers and lots of online facilitators. Some of these people could serve as volunteers from the USA/Canada.