Bloghttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/en-US2010-07-30T10:54:29ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.5 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Thursday, July 8thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/7/8/thursday-july-8th.htmlWil Bailey2010-07-09T03:16:37ZBack home in San Isidro after two weeks of overlapping teams, as many as 60 missioners at once! Marysville UMC from Washington state (our first west coast team ever) was here the last week of June. Salem in Ladue UMC from outside of St. Louis was here from last Tuesday until this Tuesday, and A 48 person team from Christ Church UMC and Discovery UMC in Birmingham, Alabama arrived last Saturday and head home this weekend. As you can imagine its been a very productive 15 days! We've gotten most of the metal work on all three cabins sanded and primed and a portion of one of the cabins has its first of two final coats. We've poured the concrete front porch on the Bathroom building next to the gym. We've framed up and back filled the 50 foot long wheel chair ramp that connects the cabin with the gymnasium. The walls of the bathroom have been plastered and sanded and are ready for sealant and paint. The exterior walls of the cabins have been scrubbed and washed with bleach. I was afraid they were going to need to be repainted, but the team has them looking like new! To top it all off, this weeks team dug the 6 foot deep hole for the septic tanks and the 50 foot long drainage field, bailed water out of said hole and drainage field, and today installed the tanks, assembled the cinder block drainage and shoveled the same dirt/mud that they dug out two days ago, back into the hole.

At the sanctuary in Piedras Blancas we've finished 90% of the electrical installation (enough for a well lit worship service there last night), plastered and sanded the walls and all of the bars for the windows have been welded and are ready to be installed next week. Like I said, it's been a pretty productive 15 days.

The Birmingham team, in addition to helping out on the work site all week long, also sent out teams to evangelize and do home visitations in Piedras Blancas. They visited around 200 homes in 3 days. By the second day they had close to a hundred kids following them from house to house! At each house they visited they invited the families to a worship service at the church in Piedras Blancas on Wednesday night. It was a full house and their hard work paid off as 6 of the people they had met this week accepted Jesus during worship! Another very humbling and very proud moment for Costa Rica Mission Projects.

We head back to the camp on SUnday with FUMC Rocky Mount (my home church) and a new team from Hominy Valley in Western North Carolina. Please continue to be in prayer for Yolanda and I as well as the rest of the CRMP team.

Peace.

]]>Friday, June 25thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/6/25/friday-june-25th.htmlWil Bailey2010-06-26T02:23:57ZAs Wil said in the last blog my name is Colby Ray and I am a member at Asbury UMC in Birmingham, AL. This is my third time to come to Costa Rica and work with Costa Rica Mission Projects, but this is my first time to spend my summer here doing volunteer work.

New Albany UMC, a group of nine just finished working at K37. While they were here they spent their time sanding, painting, and moving rocks. The team finished sanding one of the cabins and started to pain it. We should have the rest of the cabins finished soon. In front of the new shower house we are getting ready to pour a sidewalk to connect to the gym. Some of the team members pushed wheelbarrows full of rocks and dirt all day, to start the foundation for the sidewalk. It’s about half way full so that is one of the projects that the team this week will have.

Throughout the week there was a lot of time building relationships and making new friends. It is always exciting to meet new people and hear their story, hear what God is doing in their lives.

There is one new addition to the camp. A very long piece of bamboo with a TV antenna mounted on the top, so we can watch the World Cup games. Sometimes the signal isn’t that good so someone has to run outside and turn the bamboo until the TV is clear. Its funny because everyone yells once the signal is good. Well Wil told me that I am going to be doing some of the blogs, so I will be back on here soon.

In Him,

Colby

]]>Sunday, June 6thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/6/7/sunday-june-6th.htmlWil Bailey2010-06-07T12:55:46Z

It's been a busy week so I'll start at the beginning.... Asbury UMC got to K37 on Sunday night and we spent the next three days working there and at the sanctuary in Piedras Blancas. They worked on the gym, sanded and painted the metalwork on one of the cabins, and started covering the sidewalks. This task will serve a triple purpose: a) keeping people dry b) keeping the sidewalks from getting covered in slippery moss c) looking really cool when all of the buildings at the camp are connected by covered sidewalks. In Piedras they poured 3/4 of the sidewalks around the sanctuary. Not bad for three days work!

On Thursday we followed Asbury to another camp about half way between San Isidro and San Jose. We were met there by 30 children from La Carpio, one of the toughest and most impoverished areas of San Jose. We spent the next two and a half days rock climbing, rappeling, free falling, swimming in an ice cold river and most importantly smothering those kids with as much of God's love as humanly possible.

This morning Don Hugo and I drove back to K37 for the official inauguration of the camp. I got a lump in my throat when we walked up to the gym and saw about 600 people worshipping there. After four years of hard work by hundreds of missioners, God is using that place for exactly what we have hoped for...to draw people closer to Him. I only wish that all the teams who have worked so hard there over the last four years could have been there to see it. We'll be working there through the summer to finish the gym and bathrooms, re-paint everything and leave it like new in August.

Finally, when we got back to San Isidro I swung by the church and picked up Colby, a volunteer who will be working with us until August. Colby is a member of Asbury UMC and has come for the past three years with the teams they send to work with us. We're looking forward to seeing how his understanding of missions grows and watching him communicate that with the other teams coming down this summer. Colby will also be contributing to this blog from time to time.

No team this week but we already have a long list of things to do...please pray for the CRMP team as we head into this busy Summer season...

Peace On Earth

Wil Bailey

]]>Thursday, May 27thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/5/27/thursday-may-27th.htmlWil Bailey2010-05-27T13:38:58Z

Just got home after our first week back at K37. The team from Herndon Va. has been washing, painting and cutting metal bars for the windows of the sanctuary at Piedras Blancas, painting the columns that hold up the roof of the gym, and pressure washing the slippery sidewalks. They also laughed A LOT! The team worked with us last year on the San Buenaventura parsonage and we were glad to see so many familiar faces again this year.

We've been building the retreat center at Kilometer 37 for the past 4 years. We've spent more time there than on any other project since we started Costa Rica Mission Projects. So, even though we'd been away since last August, pulling up once again with the truck and trailer full of tools on Sunday afternoon, seeing William and Macho waving to us from the parsonage, unlocking the gates on all of the cabins...it all felt very familiar. Our team is excited that this year we will be able to turn over the keys to the District and the facility will be fully operational. It feels good to walk around the camp knowing that the lives of the people, young and old, in the Golfito District will be impacted by the time they spend there. Our prayer is that it will be a place where they can feel God's presence, fall in love with Him, and become the kind of servants that He calls all of us to be.

We have a lot of work ahead of us this Summer, but with the help of the hundreds of missioners who are coming to work with us, I'm confident that we'll get it all done. Thanks Herndon UMC for getting us started and thanks in advance to those of you who are preparing for your trip.

Peace on Earth

]]>Saturday, March 27thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/3/27/saturday-march-27th.htmlWil Bailey2010-03-27T16:58:41ZWeek two in San Isidro is in the books. We've ripped out the old ceilings and put in new ones. Once they are painted it is going to look so much better than before! The electrical has been totally re-done. Years of add ons by different people had created a spider web of sorts. It's been sorted through now and we have a much safe, much simpler electrical system. The walls in the upstairs bedrooms have been plastered and two of the four have been sanded. They will all look like new once we get a couple of coats of paint on them. We're also reinforcing the trusses that hold up the second floor and making wooden tables and benches for the new Sunday school room. We'll be working here for two more weeks before about a month long break.

It's been about 4 years since we've worked with teams here at the Methodist church in San Isidro and it's so nice to be home! Of course we love working and staying in the different communities, but it sure is nice to sleep in our own bed...and not just 2 nights a week, but every night!

We now officially have no more weeks available for the summer. We weren't sure how the calendar would fill out this year with the struggling economy, but it looks like we're going to end up with 30 teams. We are so thankful for everyone who has supported us and our work over the last 7 years. Please continue to pray for Yolanda and myself and for the missioners who come to work with us.

Peace on Earth

]]>Saturday, March 13http://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/3/13/saturday-march-13.htmlWil Bailey2010-03-13T15:16:53Z

It's always tough to leave Chanuguena. It's a community that over the past 6 years we've grown to love and really feel like we're a part of. We're excited about the work that was done there this year. The new Sunday school building is done, the sanctuary is finished as well. There are 10 beautiful pews in the sanctuary and tables and chairs for the kids and youth in the new building. All of that was part of the plan. What wasn't part of the plan was getting to know Henry, a new member of the church in La Bonita who very quickly became a part of the CRMP family. Henry had some needs that became apparent to us and through the generosity and hard work of our volunteers he now has a new house and fertilizer, weed killer and enough seed to plant several acres of Tikiski (it's a vegetable, trust me). We also were made aware that another church member's home had a dirt floor and was missing a couple of walls, so this week we took care of that too. It was wonderful to be able to do some work for individuals in addition to the church project we had planned on. I think Sidney, the owner of the second home we worked on, summed it up the best when he was saying good bye to the Duke team yesterday. Instead of thanking them for a new floor, walls and windows, he thanked them for having shared this week with his family. We are so, so thankful that Costa Rica Mission Projects has been able to share another season with our brothers and sisters in Changuena. To those of you who have worked with us, prayed for us, or supported our work in any other way..."well done, good and faithful servants."

]]>Thursday, Feb 25thhttp://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/2/25/thursday-feb-25th.htmlWil Bailey2010-02-26T04:56:07Z

Week six is in the books and we're almost done with the new sunday school building in Changuena. The team from Hayes Barton spent the week installing ceilings and electrical in the bathrooms, painting all of the bars for the windows (they decided everything is John Deer green!), and building tables, benches and pews. Next week we'll be painting walls and installing sinks and toilets in the bathrooms. After that we're basically done!

We've decided to help out a couple of members of the church in La Bonita whose homes need some work. One of the things we (CRMP) are trying to do this year is be mindful of the needs of the families in the communities where we work. Sometimes its easy to get blinders on and stay so focused on the church building projects, that we miss out on other opportunities to serve. So the next two teams will be helping us totally rebuild one church member's home and repair another one. We are so grateful to the team members who were here this week who helped us work through the discerning process of how best to help these families, and for their generosity in making sure that the work will get done.

Below is a picture of Henry's house. Next week we'll pour him a concrete floor, put up "Hardy Plank" walls and a rust free, tin roof!

]]>Thursday, Feb. 4http://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/2/4/thursday-feb-4.htmlWil Bailey2010-02-05T04:31:38Z

Just got home from week four in Changuena. The new team from Peachtree Road UMC in Atlanta did an awesome job this week. I've never seen a group as happy at 4:30am as they were. Hugo had more company for his pre-dawn coffee than he ever has before! The walls have been plastered and some have been sealed, so they're ready for paint. We paved a sidewalk/ramp from the sanctuary to the sunday school building so Pastor Humberto and get around without any problems. He enjoyed riding a "wheely" all the way down the hill to the new building. Monday night they had a church leaders meeting in the new building. Tuesday night they had youth group in the new building. Wednesday night we decided we may as well go ahead and have worship in the new building! Clearly the new facility is going to be well used. Humberto was telling me that there are a couple of local community groups who have already asked permission to use it as well. It's exciting to see a church reaching out into the community in so many different ways.

Dr. Shannon got more popular every day and made several house calls during the week. Being used as God's healing hands in a situation like that is a very moving experience.

The team asked if we could invite the whole community to the church for a meal before they left, so last night we had a good old fashioned Costa Rican style pig pickin'. About 175 pounds of pork, yucca and plantains, not to mention a big pot of "cracklin'". Those of you from Eastern NC know what I'm talking about!

I spent several hours this week working with the back hoe in different parts of the community, most recently the elementary school. It's not often that they have heavy machinery available in an area like Changuena. We never imagined when we bought the back hoe how versatile it would be.

All in all it was a great week. Lots of good work got done, the new building is that much closer to being finished, and we had lots of fun with 13 new members of the CRMP family.

No team next week and Yolanda and I will be away the following week while a veteran team from Conway UMC is here, so I won't post again until after the 20th of Feb.

God Bless

]]>Thursday, Jan 14http://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/1/14/thursday-jan-14.htmlWil Bailey2010-01-14T23:51:57ZHeading back to Changuena in the morning, but with a heavy heart. Can't stop thinking about the people of Haiti. A friend from Seminary arrived in Haiti on Monday with a volunteer team en route to Fondwa, a rural community I think about 25 miles from Port au Prince. Her husband and the organization she went with haven't heard from them yet. They are prayerfully hopeful that the group is fine.

It will be strange to have no access to media for the next 6 days. I hope that much progress will have been made by the time we get home next week. Regardless, our thoughts and prayers will be with our brothers and sisters in Haiti and all those who have committed to helping in the aftermath.

Peace

]]>Thursday, Jan 7http://www.costaricamissionprojects.com/blog/2010/1/7/thursday-jan-7.htmlWil Bailey2010-01-08T03:09:52Z

Back to work! I can't think of a better way to start 2010 than working with our friends in Changuena. Our first team this year was a group of college students from Arcolla UMC in Dulles, Virginia. They painted, shoveled dirt, cut metal, dug trenches and poured a ton of concrete. About 60 sacks in two days! The dining area outside the church kitchen is now paved, the kitchen is almost ready and there are side walks around three of the four sides of the sanctuary. The team did a great job and we look forward to working with Arcolla again.

Hugo and I will go back up with Huguito, Felipe and Kike on Sunday to work all day Monday. Hopefully we can finish the kitchen and the bathrooms so they are ready for FUMC Rocky Mount who roll in on the 14th.

The church in Changuena represents SO well why we are here doing this. Their faithfulness and commitment to being a witness to God's love in their community and their desire to reach out to other communities is inspiring and we are blessed to be a part of their mission in Changuena. We hope that the new sanctuary and the Sunday school rooms we'll break ground on next week, will soon be full of people learning about and experiencing God in their lives.

Peace on Earth.

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