Saturday, April 2, 2011

Life in Costa Rica

Currently our family has been living in San Jose, Costa Rica attending language school for the past 8 months.  Our first trimester was a roller coaster of emotions as we attempted to adjust to a new culture, home, and in just leaving family/friends behind.  Yet God remained faithful in spite of the tears at times and feelings of being overwhelmed. We have always recognized the fact that this call is much bigger than we are and we have felt the pressures of answering such a call, but we recognize GOD is able, so we continue to rest in Him!
In just 2 1/2 weeks we will have completed our second trimester of language school...time is passing quickly! This trimester has been focused more on improving our conversational skills and we have had to write devotionals, our testimony, read newspaper articles (& explain the article) and/or stories from the Bible ~all in Spanish of coarse! Some days it seems like we are treading water, yet other days we surprise ourselves by using words we didn't even realize we knew in Spanish.  During this time here, we have sensed your faithful prayers and we have witnessed the provision of our Lord through the wonderful community of believers that God has encircled around each one of us to encourage us.

Each day starts at 7:30 am for several hours of class time followed by homework and hours of study. One of the biggest challenges has just been getting used to being back in school after so many years!   Our boys day is like an average school day, including the 45 minutes of Spanish each day. The lack of language learning has led us to start a tutor for each of our boys because we believe a huge part of their ability to adjust in Honduras will be the ability to speak the language of the FCM boys/girls. (They are enjoying this aspect of their time here!)

When we are quick to complain of our struggle to learn a new language, God reminds us of the blessing it is to be here in school especially as we hear of other fellow missionaries struggling to raise support in this fallen economy. Truly we can say that there is no other place we would rather be than right where God has currently placed us, we are thankful ~ most days :-)  While after a year we will by no means have mastered the language, we recognize that we are off to a great start. Our best training will be once we are living full-time in Honduras.
Presently we are set to graduate on August 12th and then head back to the States shortly after our graduation. We will have to remain in the States until our monthly support has reached the goal set by the board of Forgotten Children Ministries. We are about $1,500 a month short of our monthly goal set by the FCM board,  due in part to a decrease in our monthly support. We also hope to raise additional monies for our family to fly home each year on furlough & for vehicles in Honduras.  If you are not currently supporting us, then we ask that you prayerfully consider becoming a partner. Without your support, we would not be where we are today nor would we be able to get on the mission field. If you have a church or know of a church that would be interested in joining our team, please contact us. 

Thank you all so much for your continued support & earnest prayers! Your prayers are our safety net and each prayer unleashs the power of God to work in our lives. We would surely fail without you! So thanks again for standing with us. Please know that as members of our team, we will also be praying for each one of you.


Just as God calls people to go out, He also calls people to send...prayerfully consider being a sender today!   Matthew 9:37-38 ~ "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field."

*Prayer Requests:
*Need for monthly partners
*Our own spiritual growth
*Good health/safety
*Supernatural ability to learn the language
*Pray to find a home in a safe area of Honduras
*Fundraising for future vehicles/home furnishings
*Prayer for the FCM staff, boys & girls of FCM

THANK YOU once again for your faithful support & prayers!!

Con mucho amor,
Gordon, Christy, Jared, Zac, & Wil Diegelman

*People have asked how they can help, so we have made a wish list both at www.target.com and www.walmart.com ~ these are much needed items for our future home.

* Please take a few minutes to watch our video ~ the pictures tell a story of our time here in San Jose and the numerous amount of ministry opportunities for us in Honduras. We hope you will enjoy it! God bless you all!