The last few weeks in Minnesota have been a blur for us: reconnecting with friends, cabin time, preaching in Portland... We can hardly believe that we have been back that long and that a month ago we lived a completely different life in Costa Rica as volunteer missionaries. We miss our friends and our work there very much. But we are excited to find out soon what our next missionary role will be.... and where!
Tomorrow morning we are headed out to our second preaching and interviewing engagement for this month. We are off to Peoria Illinois to interview at a wonderful new LCMC church. We are excited for a road trip together and nervous for the importance of this trip. A lot is riding on the next two weekends. Of course it is God's leading that we are waiting on. We are conscious that if God intends for us to begin our new ministry in Peoria, he will make that clear to both us and to the church. We have full faith. As Mike Garrett told us prophetically in Costa Rica, "God is telling me to tell you: Trust me!" We have seen that prophetic word fulfilled in many ways.
We ask for prayers for these next ten days as we get to know the congregation and anticipate a vote on Aug 29th.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, July 19, 2010
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.
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!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Groups are back!
We had a great time last week hosting a group of college students from Virginia. These were social work students who were in Costa Rica for 3 weeks to take a social work class and Spanish class and then came for a week of service to our temporary foster care, the Bible Home. Most of the students were not believers, but what they saw here was a true witness of God´s love and work. We had good conversations with them and, even more, they fell in love with our children and saw the children´s faith and love just radiate out of them. We appreciated the students good attitude and patience in painting in 2 of the houses. One of the house mothers shared what a difference having freshly painted rooms has on the children´s motivation. We are so grateful to have groups coming throughout the summer. It was a department goal to have 15 groups this year and I am happy to report that we will have reached that goal by the end of the summer. Praise God!
Another goal for our department was to increase the number of sponsors for our children. Right now only about 60% of our children are sponsored so the goal was to get 300 new sponsors. Our biggest source of new sponsors this year has been our volunteers who have come and seen the impact of Roblealto on the kids and want to continue their partnership. In some cases, 50% of the groups have become new sponsors! But we want to continue to seek out new sponsors because of the difference it makes on the children. I translated a letter from a child to her sponsor the other week and she said, ¨It makes me happy that I have a friend in another country that thinks of me.¨ Obviously the monetary support makes a difference on our programs, but the deeper impact is that a child will feel loved and cared for by someone in another country! This is such a blessing on our children. Will you consider becoming a sponsor? Check out the video above and/or take a look at our website for more info and to sign up! The cost is just $30 a month. Click here for website.
Thanks for considering sponsorship and for your continued prayers and support of our year here! Much love!
Another goal for our department was to increase the number of sponsors for our children. Right now only about 60% of our children are sponsored so the goal was to get 300 new sponsors. Our biggest source of new sponsors this year has been our volunteers who have come and seen the impact of Roblealto on the kids and want to continue their partnership. In some cases, 50% of the groups have become new sponsors! But we want to continue to seek out new sponsors because of the difference it makes on the children. I translated a letter from a child to her sponsor the other week and she said, ¨It makes me happy that I have a friend in another country that thinks of me.¨ Obviously the monetary support makes a difference on our programs, but the deeper impact is that a child will feel loved and cared for by someone in another country! This is such a blessing on our children. Will you consider becoming a sponsor? Check out the video above and/or take a look at our website for more info and to sign up! The cost is just $30 a month. Click here for website.
Thanks for considering sponsorship and for your continued prayers and support of our year here! Much love!
Saturday, June 5, 2010
In some ways May was quiet (we didn't have any groups at Roblealto) and in other ways, it was busy! With just 2 months left, Emily posted a list of places in CR we want to see before we leave. One was Guanacaste, which is the northwest part of Costa Rica with a lot of beaches and where a lot of Americans travel. It was VERY hot, but we enjoyed the beach and the time we spent time with our good friends Mike and Kathy who invited us on their wedding anniversary trip. :) We also just had our final visitors - two of Emily's college roommates. We enjoyed taking them to the Caribbean side, which we had yet to visit. It was really hot there too and we decided we are thankful to be living in the cooler central valley. But it was great catching up with Liz and Liz and showing off this beautiful country. They enjoyed the animals, the Spanish, the ocean, the coffee, and the relaxation as they are both exhausted teachers.
This coming week, we will be working with a group of students with a Spanish Academy who are doing some painting at our temporary shelter, the Bible Home. We are happy to be done with our marketing project: researching new church contacts for Roblealto. We have 840 new contacts for them to advertise to and we'll be sending out a mailing to invite the churches to come on a mission trip before we go. It's exciting to think about all the new churches that could get to know Roblealto's mission! Emily continues to enjoy helping with translating letters and reports when she can.
The job search continues and we appreciate your prayers. We're grateful for a couple of interviews Mark has had and for a couple of preaching dates he's set up for when we return. We'll see where God leads! Much love!
This coming week, we will be working with a group of students with a Spanish Academy who are doing some painting at our temporary shelter, the Bible Home. We are happy to be done with our marketing project: researching new church contacts for Roblealto. We have 840 new contacts for them to advertise to and we'll be sending out a mailing to invite the churches to come on a mission trip before we go. It's exciting to think about all the new churches that could get to know Roblealto's mission! Emily continues to enjoy helping with translating letters and reports when she can.
The job search continues and we appreciate your prayers. We're grateful for a couple of interviews Mark has had and for a couple of preaching dates he's set up for when we return. We'll see where God leads! Much love!
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