Picking up the Pace

Life is picking up the pace for us here in Paso Marcos.  The good news is we now live at Centro Emanuel and have internet! When it works, that is.

In a nutshell here is what has been happening:

• Dental teams came from San Jose for clinics in February, March and April.
• Ron Sweet, a professor at University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), brought finance students during spring break to interview partners in our micro finance project.
• I (Paul) had some dizziness and numbness on my right side and my doctor admitted me to the hospital for tests.  The results showed a tiny area of bleeding in my brain that caused my symptoms.  The doctor advised me to rest and return in 3 months for more exams.  We thank the Lord my dizziness is gone and the numbness is starting to subside.
• Julian, one of my workers, cleaned and organized the shop at Centro Emanuel. He and I have cleaned gutters, repaired leaks in the waterline, and checked off many items on the maintenance “to do list”.

  

  Professor Ron Sweet (center dark blue shirt) and
  the UTSA students hiking near Paso Marcos.

• We renewed our residency cards in Costa Rica and praise the Lord for His help in that complicated process!
• Rebekah Jones and her husband Joel Stoll joined our mission team.  She grew up here and is a dentist and Joel is from Switzerland and is a carpenter.  They are the age of our kids, so we are excited to have the “younger generation” working with us.  They are starting a community center and dental clinic in Grano de Oro just a half hour further into the mountains from Paso Marcos.  This town borders the Cabécar Reservation and will be their staging area for trips to the interior where they are getting permission to start a dental clinic to serve the Cabécar communities.

Lunch break for Paul and Julian.

Looking ahead, May is going to be an exciting month for us because our daughter Joy and her husband Patrick are coming to visit!  We want to show them around and introduce them to our friends in Costa Rica.  They asked to help us with a project while they are here and, since they both love to read, we suggested they bring books for the Centro Emanuel Library that will open here soon.  We know adults and children who cannot read and want to address this need. There is no library in Paso Marcos or in any of the communities or schools around.  Joy and Patrick have been collecting books in Spanish and invited friends and family to get involved at www.Gofundme.com/pasomarcoslibrary  It is great for our kids to be part of our ministry in this way!

We are thankful for your faithful prayers and financial support. In our last newsletter we said we needed to purchase a car and we are happy to report we are over a third of the way to raising the needed $15,000.  We appreciate all of our friends, and especially those at Medord First Baptist, who made contributions to this fund.  If you want to make a donation you can do so at http://theabbotts.webs.com/donate    All of this enables us to continue volunteering in Costa Rica.

Serving Christ,

Paul and Bridget