A Message from Rick and Judith

Judith Grossman asked me to post this note as a follow-up to the golf tournament recap.

Wow! We are speechless when we think of all the hard work that went into making the Golf Tournament happen! Thank you to every organizer, every giver/sponsor, every volunteer and every player!!!!

So much is already happening down here through La Gaviota Blanca and the projects we are sponsoring and your support, especially to help fund the December outreach, will open even more doors in the community. We are expecting 150 kids between the ages of 5 and 11 to come for the Vacation Bible School that Threshold is bringing in December. Last year we had more than 50 kids receive Christ during this outreach and we are praying for that same kind of impact again this year. Please pray along with us for this!

In the meantime, the building that Threshold refurbished for us has hosted a bunch of outreach events for children and for youth in the past three months and the response within the community has been very positive. We are in that stage of building trust which is so crucial to the longterm success of a community ministry, especially with kids and youth. Because our town has a history of competitive and negative relations between churches, we are working very hard to help the community understand that this is a Christ-centered INDEPENDENT ministry that desires to work together in harmony with ALL the local churches.

One project that is helping us get this message across is Proyecto MORFO -- a project we have initiated that is designed to combat the most serious of social problems that confront our youth and children. Problems like drugs and alcohol, the sexual/commercial exploitation of children, the disintegration of the family, domestic violence and abuse of all kinds.

To that end we are planning workshops and trainings in partnership with Focus on the Family (Costa Rica) on a regular basis over the next year at La Gaviota Blanca's building in the center of town. We will also duplicate these workshops in Palomo, a small town with some of the most severe problems, just down the road and across the river from Orosi. In this way, we hope to host as many as 200 people at each workshop.

Topics for parents include: Raising Secure Children and Communication Between Parents and Children. For children we are planning to discuss Values in my Life and How to Make Good Decisions and for adolescents: How to be a Successful Youth, Developing My Identity, etc. We are also going to have prestentations on the prevention of drug abuse, how to respond when a child reports abuse and other topics regarding social risks and/or violence.

We currently have a youth group meeting in the building on Saturday nights and have recently been approached to open the building on Sunday afternoons for a kind of coffeehouse for the local youth -- a place to hangout and talk and play games, a place that is smoke, alcohol and drug free -- to be hosted by some Christian kids who have a heart to reach their friends.

All of these things are free to the community as the people here have very little, but of course, everything costs money! So we are extremely thankful that the Lord has laid this place on YOUR heart! The Golf Tournament will enable the team to come here in December to work alongside of 25-30 local youth who will build longterm relaionships with local kids. These seeds will be nurtured and they will grow and these lives will be transformed and this community will never be the same thanks to your commitment and generosity!

We hope to see many of you down here in OROSI one day soon!

With love from Rick and Judith