Thursday

Today we held an evangelistic meeting in the nearby town of Alajuela. One of the ladies at church owned a restaurant in Alajuela and she let us use the place. In fact they have fellowship meetings there every Thursday from 9-10:30am. Again this is to accommodate the restaurant and shop owners that cannot break away from their business on Sunday Morning.

The service went well. We lead worship, ChowLing and Edith gave a testimony of their conversion and Pastor Stanley gave the message. There were no new comers during the service. It looked like our visitation on Tuesday did not produce any results. However, after we ended one guy walked in who wanted to attend the service. So ChowLing and Kenny talked to him.

After that we had free time. Pastor Stanley and ChowLing did some more personal visitation in the local area around the missionary house. The rest of us went to a shopping mall nearby. There we saw a shop that was selling some very nice cakes and we thought about that ChowLing and Jenny’s 28 year anniversary was today. However, we could not keep it simple, so we device a plan to surprise them.

Brother TK Mak had invited us to have dinner at his restaurant in Ciudad Colon. So we thought that was the perfect place and time to pop the surprise. So at first we surprised them with a very small cup cake explaining that we could not find anything better. Then we asked them to close their eyes and pray. Then we swapped the small cupcake with the real cake that we also bought. It worked out really well since both of them were very surprised.

Brother TK Mak said to his wife “I love you” as a result of the brother’s retreat. See what a happy couple!

Wednesday - Brother's Retreat

Brother's Retreat in Sabanilla

We lead the brother's retreat in a "Centro Pastoral" which is located 30 minutes from San Jose nested in the beautiful hills of Sabanilla.

We had 17 brothers join the retreat. This was a very special time for them because they had to take off from their busy schedule and leave their business with their wives or partners.

We conducted the entire program which consisted of singing, ice-breaking games, sharing, a message from Pastor Stanley and most important, their question and sharing time about issues with marriage and children. It was a very open discussion and they got a lot out of it. One key thing that they learned is the importance to tell their wives "I love you." It was very difficult for them because of the difference in culture. It was also very helpful to have our wives give their perspective.

We had time to talk with a lot of them at the personal level. They shared their problems and heartaches. They cried too! Please pray for these men as they have a heart to have a good family.

Tuesday

The "Iglesia Christiana China" have services every Tuesday at 9:30am to serve the needs of restaurant and shop owners. These folks cannot break away on Sunday mornings so this service was setup specially for them.



They started with a prayer meeting at 8:30am, which was followed by Sunday School and then the Service. Mr Sit who is another local pastor working there gave the sermon.

We then split up into 6 groups. So the ten of us along with 8 of them went to Alajuela to visit folks at their business. Most of them are in restaurant and small corner store business. We are putting a gospel service on Thursday in Alajuela and we invited them to come. We visited 24 business

The second lady on the left came to Christ after the group with Kenny and Virginia visited them.

Kenny almost lost his backpack on this McDonalds. A stranger came and approached their table and offered to buy them tea. We was kind of annoying, but somehow Kenny thought that something was wrong. Immediately he reached to grab his back pack and to this surprise it was moving. Someone behind him was trying to take it. After Kenny shouted something (fairly appropriate I trust) the two guys ran out the back door into a car that was waiting for them. Good safe by Kenny.

CCM Missions House

We arrived safely in San Jose, Costa Rica on Monday. This time we got all our luggages and no one was missing any of their bare necessities. Here are some of the pictures of the place we stayed. On the right is Mr Lam who is one of the local pastors. He is suffering from Leukemia. Please pray for his recovery

Here is the guys room

A nice take out dinner

Now a question: Is this healthy to eat?

We had a not too small a discussion on the subject

First day - Travel

Here we are, at the Austin airport on the first day of our trip. There was the usual long AA check-in line, then the security checkpoint.

We meet Dr Wan at the Austin Airport. He took a midnight flight from California and then arrived in Austin this morning 8:00am. There he waited for us. He came back from another trip Saturday, was home on Sunday and is traveling again with us today. We are so grateful for his guidance and admire his dedication to God's work.

Short Term Mission Team

Austin Chinese Church
Cantonese 2011 CCM Short Term Mission to Costa Rica

Team Member (Left to Right): You-Kin, Dr Johnny Wan, Edith, Chow-Ling, Jenny, Vicente, Melody, Pastor Stanley, Virginia and Kenny

Mission Date: July 18-28

Cities: San Jose, Alajuela, Cartago

Mission: Evangelism, Teaching, Worship

Mission organization: Chinese Christian Missions