Him We Proclaim

Image By  Chris & Lara Pawluk It's so awesome to see God's faithfulness through this whole process to get to Costa Rica. God has been present through every step, and his perfect timing is becoming more and more evident. Two years ago in October, we were in Minneapolis applying with ReachGlobal. On the way to our meeting to find out if we were accepted, a double rainbow painted the sky. It reminded me of God's promise to Moses and of His faithfulness. The last month has been crazy with hope and wonder if we would make it to Costa Rica in August. Two weeks before we were cleared to go, we were overwhelmed with the question "will this happen?" On an evening when I was most discouraged, a rainbow again painted the sky. It wasn't about my wishes for timing or even a result of my effort. God is the only one who is faithful, and He assured me that He would be faithful in getting us to where He's clearly led our family. Just 4 days later, we had the ...

Pura Vida! Literally translated, 'pure life', this is a common greeting with Ticos. We are happy to announce that we have arrived without hassle and are almost all the way settled in! Quick facts: Left for airport 8/19 at 6am Arrived in CR with all of our bags at 1 pm CR time (currently on mountain time--but CR doesn't do daylight savings and time stays the same year round) No problems or taxes in customs (9 bags, 3 carryons, 1 guitar, 2 personal items)  Dinner and groceries provided for us for the first week.  Set up with internet at home within 24 hrs of calling the company. What!! Language school orientation starts Monday, first youth group event is Saturday 8/31 Patrick is doing very well considering the time zone, and loves his new room! (pics below) Story Our last days in the United States where a whirlwind. We had a bittersweet time at our church on our last Sunday, and had the house [mostly] taken care of by the time we went to bed Sunday ni...

I just finished reading the book of Judges, and I came away from it utterly ashamed of man's sinful nature. So I decided that the book of Acts was the best book to read next. It is always so encouraging and hopeful to see the Holy Spirit work in building the Church knowing that the same part of the Triune God is at work in all believers lives. I read Acts 3, I was encouraged, convicted, and full of thanksgiving for Jesus Christ. You can read the text here: Acts 3:1-10 . I'll just summarize since, sadly, I so often overlook it when people quote Scripture. It was a normal day for a lame man: being carried to Beautiful Gate outside of the temple to beg for alms. As he was being carried in, Peter and John approach the gate. As was the lame man's source of survival, he asks Peter and John for alms. So use to gazing from one worshiper to another with hopeful anticipation for help, Peter and John have to declare "Look at us" to get his attention. It works, and the ma...

So I finally edited the second part the IYG videos sent to us. Thank you everyone who helped out! I appreciate it so much. I hope the you are able to step into the youth group for a minute through these clips.

Today I worked with Signature again. We're building a team challenge course. In the mud. We've gotten our machines stuck an embarrassing amount of times. It's been raining many days, and all of us workers are betting that there used to be a septic tank right where we park the machines and store the tools, and slosh through ankle deep mud. Gross.  Yesterday we sunk anchors for for the guy cables. Guys are those cables you might notice coming down from  towers and poles. Their purpose is to provide stability for a structure, so when the wind blows, or the tower is stood upon--and it rocks, the guys hold it in place.  Using a skid steer, we screwed these six foot steel anchors into the ground. (This is not the actual machine--we were deep in the woods and mud valiantly fighting off mosquitoes and man-eating vines) We drove 8 anchors in for one side of the course. Today, I attached cable to the anchors, and my fellow workers attached the cable to the structure. ...

(Students can skip to the bold text.) Quick update: I have been sick this month for about two weeks. I was able to make it to some meetings and a wedding, but I spent a lot of time in bed. This is strange because I rarely get sick enough to stay in bed... ever. The last time that happened I think was the Spring of 2009, when some wonderful dishcrew people brought food up to my Culby 4 dorm room (thanks, Diego!) and my wonderful girlfriend got me a can of soup. Ok, so she wasn't my girlfriend yet--I actually asked her out on our first date on our way back from taking me to the urgent care center (full disclosure here--not my brightest moment). (she said yes, and ended up marrying me, so I must have done something right later on!) But I digress. We're full steam back to raising our support now (support raising doesn't get much attention when you have a 102 fever). We've reached the point where might just know enough people to reach our full budget now. We'r...

*This Article or Blog does not reflect the opinion of ReachGlobal or the EFCA. This Article is based on personal research, experience, and opinion.* This last weekend my mother in law had an open house for her art and for our ministry. When asked about the demographics of our sending team many had a common question: Why do only two churches support you? We have over 75 households supporting us--and two churches. The question came not as one of suspicion (if there are only two churches, you must be doing something wrong) but one of disbelief (how could they not want to support you?) While that was flattering, with all modesty it was a good question. We know many missionary candidates and field workers who have similar church statistics. Not only that, but we were advised numerous times to not   try and connect with churches because of the low result ratio and the bureaucracy behind the long time spent waiting for churches to make a decision. I saw my parents finish their support...