Our Final Days

This morning we met with Margaret Weir who is the chaplin at Roblealto and has been a missionary here for 39 years. She is a remarkable woman of God and has been an encouragement to us this year. We met at the McDonalds across the street from the office and as we sat down from coffee, a young man came up to hug Margaret. Richard had grown up at one of Roblealto's child care centers and Margaret was a big part of his childhood as she celebrated birthdays with his family and cared for Richard and his sister at the center. He shared with us that his father was a drug-addict and his family had many problems when he was growing up. Richard talked about how much he appreciated Roblealto and how he knows God because of his time here. He now preached about God wherever he goes and is a beacon of light to the other employees at McDonalds. God's joy just radiated off Richard's face and I couldn't help but cry. THIS is why it has been such an honor for us to be part of God's work at Roblealto.

We have been spending the last few days wrapping up our projects, cleaning, packing, and of course, saying good-bye. I thought I would be so excited about going home, and I am, but it is much harder to leave than I expected. The staff and children at Roblealto have become a family for us and I have shed many tears as we've said good-bye. We've been at the houses of our favorite foster homes, we've had coffee and lunch and dinner with people, we've processed our experience and shared that we want to come back to visit. And it is just very hard because we love everyone here so much. They took us into their lives for this year, prayed with us, loved us, and encouraged us. And they are doing such important work with the children of Costa Rica. Mark and I have such admiration for their commitment and love. Not only are they friends but they are brothers and sisters. As Anabelle, the Christian Education director, just prayed for us, we will see them someday in heaven, if not before. This is a promise we are grateful for.

Our flight is on Thursday morning. We return to the whole Goff family being together for the weekend since Laura and Ryan are coming in from California. We are excited to spend time with family and friends in Minnesota and will be doing some traveling for Mark to preach and interview. God willing, we will know soon where He is leading us next! We hope to get to Toronto to see Mark's family in September before starting at a new church.

As always, thank you for your prayers during this year and in this time of transition. We love you all dearly and are grateful for your support of this year of mission. We praise God for what he taught us and how he changed us this year. Hopefully, we will see many of you soon!

Final group

Wow. We are down to 10 days left in Costa Rica. I think it is just starting to hit us that this experience is almost over. It is so very bittersweet. We will miss people and Roblealto so much, but we are so excited for this next step of leading a new church (God-willing!)

On Friday, we went to the morning devotions at the Central Offices. Verna Brennaman, a life-time missionary at Roblealto, spoke and shared on the virtues of being happy and thankful. She had us look at Psalm 136 together and reword this psalm so that it was more personal for our own lives. Mark and I have been trying to read a psalm together before going to work every day and we had just recently read this psalm. And we had been talking about how we could write a psalm about all of the amazing things God has done for us this year and how faithful he has been. So, here is my psalm of gratitude for our year based on Psalm 136. ¨His love endures fovever.¨

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good to us.
His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of gods, who is above everything else in this world.
His love endures forever.

To him who alone has done great wonders in our lives,
His love endures forever.

who made all of Creation for us to enjoy,
His love endures forever.

from the Costa Rican mountains, to rainforests, to beaches.
His love endures forever.

To him who led us to Roblealto and provided positions for us there,
His love endures forever.

who found us renters for our condo and a house to rent in Costa Rica.
His love endures forever.

To Him who provide the funds needed for the year,
His love endures forever.

and friends and family to pray for us.
His love endures forever.

To Him who gave us strength, energy, and a passion for our work,
His love endures forever.

who kept us safe and healthy.
His love endures forever.

To Him who provided us with two churches and wonderful friends,
His love endures forever.

and comforted us when we were homesick.
His love endures forever.

To Him who helped us with the language,
His love endures forever.

and was the reason we connected with the Costa Ricans across culture and background.
His love endures forever.

To Him who is leading us now on our next adventure,
His love endures forever.

who will never leave us nor forsake us.
His love endures forever.

To Him who has provided, is providing and will always provide.
His love endures forever.

We give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever!

July!!!

Happy belated 4th of July to everyone! We had a fun day at our house having some good friends over for lunch, eating as American as we could with grilled hamburgers, baked beans and homemade apple pie! It was really fun to have some of our closest friends to our house. We are finding that we are starting to say ¨good-bye¨ to people and we are trying to spend as much time with them as we can now that we have less than a month left. We fly home July 29th and the time is flying!

Two weeks ago we had a great group from a new church in South Carolina. God really touched their hearts and we know that they´ll be back to serve again! They really connected with the children and were impacted by their time in Los Guido where they saw the land for the planned 4th child care center. They were excited to help raise money for that project and we pray that they will bring the message of Roblealto and the plans for the new center back to their church.

Mark and I are finishing up some projects as we prepare to go. The children are on vacation for 2 weeks from the Bible Home and are at home with their biological families so we don't have any groups right now. Mark is working on a mission trip video and I am organizing the files from our laptop that we want to leave with our department for future use. We hope some of the things we've started will continue after we've gone! On the 19th of July a friend from Ridgewood, Chuck Webster, his daughters and some of their friends are coming for a week and we will help host them as our last group. We pray, as always, that God will touch their hearts as they see Roblealto first-hand. It's always such an honor to show God's work in the children to people who are new to Roblealto.

Mark has been interviewing around in various LCMC (Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ) churches in the states and one, in particular, has really stood out for both of us. Although it is outside MN :( we feel that God is at work in leading us there and we continue to pray for his wisdom and direction. We are really excited for this next step! We will be home for August and likely September, so we hope to see many of you then! Thank you for your prayers for our future. God is good!