Turrialba Volcano

We managed to have a one night get-away with our teammates, Cam and Kerry Woolford, last weekend. We took advantage of one of the single language school students who will be leaving us in December to go serve in Colombia. She took care of the kids while the parents took a trip up the volcano to stay at the Turrialba Lodge. The lodge itself is rustic in style and since it is the coldest time in Costa Rica, as well as being higher in elevation, we gravitated to the wood burning stoves in the main building.



The lodge also runs a lecheria, or dairy farm and had many animals on site to enjoy. Below is a picture of the sheep waiting to be milked. Since they don't give a lot of milk, the cheese is rather expensive, about $10 a pound!



This little guy was an orphan sheep that escaped and couldn't find his way back into the fence. Once we caught him, we gave him a few strokes and put him back with the others.



The scenery is incredible since the volcano is on the lodge property. It erupted about 20 years ago but is now active again, spewing smoke daily since April. We spent most of our time just enjoying the outdoors and the other animals on the farm.



On Saturday morning we rode up to the crater of the volcano on horseback. Despite the 2 hour trip up, it was well worth the pain from the saddle as we gazed at this incredible display of nature's power. Below are some pictures of the crater and the smoke that seeps continuously from the side of the volcano.

I snapped this picture of the clouds because it reminded me of a screensaver I had seen. You can tell how high up in elevation we were by this shot!

This plant is referred to as a "poor man's umbrella." Fitting name, wouldn't you say?

Roca Viva Ladies Conference

On October 23rd and 24th we were privileged to have a missions team consisting of 5 ladies from Northbridge Church in Kalamazoo, MI. The ladies specifically wanted to serve Roca Viva Baptist Church in areas of need and developed their entire trip around ministering to their sisters overseas.




On Friday, they helped Roca Viva host an outreach activity, Sabores de Roca Viva (Tastes of Roca Viva). Each woman was encouraged to invite a friend and we were excited to have close to 45 in attendance! Grace spoke on five types of friendship every woman needs with an invitation to learn more about our church and the friendship of Jesus Christ via the friend that had invited them. In addition to the wonderful variety of food, the entire night of fellowship seemed to be enjoyed by all! The activity generated much interest in the church and further events and we are preparing a small cookbook of the night's recipes to give as a gift on followup visits to the ladies.

On Saturday, the ladies hosted a Women's Conference for our church ladies at the restaurant of one of our members. Despite some technical difficulties, the event was a blessing to all in attendance. The ladies shared on specific topics relating to the difficulties we saw currently affecting our ladies, such as forgiveness, abuse, and unity.

In addition to these topics, several of the ladies share topics on how to start Women's ministries in Roca Viva. Each woman received a gift bag including the book "El Poder de la Mujer que Ora" (The Power of a Woman Who Prays). Although the bags were a personal encouragement for the ladies, they were encouraged to use the book as a way to start a small group or discipleship relationship with other ladies. Others shared testimonies of their salvation and experiences discipling and being discipled in their walk with God.