Frisco Bible Church Missions

 It has now been a couple of weeks since I returned from Costa Rica and I am still processing how the trip impacted me and what God has been doing. However, it is time to put some of these thoughts down. It was an amazing experience to share God’s love with the wonderful people of the Pavas neighbor of San Jose. My main take away was how God’s love transcends language barriers and every other barrier that I might think is there. Just being willing to show God’s love to others is an amazing blessing to both parties. When we first arrived in San Jose the team at HOPE Partners was very welcoming and help to prepare us for the week ahead. They helped us to understand the poverty of the families and the needs of the children. The Hope Partner leadership was simply amazing to work with from start to finish. One thing that they shared with us was the idea of ‘stopping for one’. It can be overwhelming to deal with extreme poverty, but when you make a difference in one life it is more than enou

  Hi Y’all, Carol Burke here bringing you my personal highlights of our time in Costa Rica. The Lord called me to participate with our team in being his hands and feet in the work he had for us to do in San Juan, Costa Rica. We partnered with Open House Church and Hope International to paint a wall of the Hope Center. It was more an artistic piece to brighten the wall and to encourage the neighborhood. We also came alongside the children who participated by providing a mini VBS teaching His word, playing together, games and a little craft to compliment the Bible story. My personal take on all that transpired was in doing the great commission. I had the opportunity to connect with one girl in particular. This was mostly because she spoke English. We talked about Jesus and I came to discover  she had already accepted Jesus as her Savior. One of the things that the director of Hope Center, Ashley Gonzles brought to our attention was, like Jesus, we as His children just need to help one

Day 6!! Today was our “touristy day”. We got to La Paz Waterfall and Doka Estate coffee plantation!  At the waterfall, we also got to go inside their animal sanctuary, which had jaguars, sloths, birds, snakes, cows, and monkeys! The falls were absolutely breathtaking, and we loved basking in God’s beautiful creation!! At the coffee plantation, we got to see how the coffee is made, from bean to roast, and of course we got to sample some (this group LOVES their coffee).  It was a blast to see the beauty of Costa Rica today. We are so thankful for the time we were able to spend here.  In our debrief today, we talked about the stages that you go through after you get back from a missions trip (exhaustion, depression, etc.) The full article we read from will be linked here: http://preparemymission.com/4-phases-everyone-goes-through-after-an-international-mission-trip/ The main point of this is even though life goes back to normal, we don’t have to.  Please pray for our team as we process al

 Day 5 has arrived!! This morning, we finished the mural! We weren’t expecting to, but it got done! It looks so beautiful, and is very encouraging. It’s already having an impact! When we were done, there was a Tico riding his motorcycle past the wall. He stopped and told us it looked great. The Hope Center staff told us this is one of the biggest murals that they had ever done, and to that we say: “We’re from Texas, and everything is bigger in Texas!”.  After that, we had our regular time with the kids. The gospel was presented by Denise today, and it went great! They kids were much more attentive than we expected. We also asked them about previous Bible stories from the beginning of the week, and they remembered! Praise God!  One cool thing that we did with the kids was Character Quality Certificates. All of our team got together and wrote down the names of all the kids, and a word to describe them. These words were unique to the child, and no one had the same word. At the end of the

  Done with day 4, and we want more! Look at all the progress done on the mural! We got very far today (despite a paint spill… oops!) It is going to say “eres importante” which means “you are important”. It will be encouraging to those in the Pavas community to see a bright beautiful wall on the side of the Hope Center that tells them they have value. We don’t think that we will be able to finish it completely in our trip, but when the next group comes they will finish it up. We are glad to be a part of it. Today, our Bible story was the parable of the Good, Smart American— oh wait, we mean the Good Samaritan.  The point of the story is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. We also read from 1 John 4, which talks about how God is love, and a love for others flows from a love of God.  Our craft was gospel bracelets! If you don’t know what those are, we will link the meaning here: https://pin.it/6ePLVv9 This craft

 Day 3, yippee!! Today was our second day at the Hope Center! We continued to work on the mural wall. We did a second coat of the blue, and are now doing these cool triangles on it with pretty colors. It is coming along quickly! We can’t wait to see what the finished project will be! Later, we were with our groups again. Today we learned about Daniel and the lions’s den. We made a lion craft out of felt that the kids can take home (shout out to @cmitchell.05 for helping us prep those!).  We also did some jump roping while repeating spanish rhymes as a game. It was hard for those of us that didn’t know the words, but still fun to jump around.  After the Hope Center, our wonderful translator and friend Valeria took us to Pop’s ice cream as a treat! It was muy delicioso! One thing not pictured is our debrief time that happens back at the hotel in the evenings. During that time, we get to talk about and process what God is doing through this trip. A theme for us that we have been talking a

  Day 2 is through!!  This morning our team started a mural that will be going on the outside wall of the Hope Center. It will be seen by the people of Pavas who walk by. This mural will be bright and colorful, sending the message that their community is important and valued. We are excited to be a part of a beautiful masterpiece.  Speaking of masterpiece, today our lesson was about how God created the earth. Our craft activity was finger-painting, signifying that we are made in God’s image, so His “fingerprints” are on us.  We thank God for the opportunity to meet the kids today! Please pray that we would learn all their names, and be representatives of Jesus and His unconditional love.  As you can see, we are having a blast already! We are so glad to be a part of what Hope Partners International is doing in Costa Rica.  Picking up trash!! John helping to put together the scaffolding Commander and chief (aka our missions director Denise) explaining the plans for the afternoon Our skit