Manuel Antonio and the Vespers

God's Blessings on all of you this morning,


We went to a national park last weekend called Manuel Antonio National Park.  Is anyone aware of any national parks in the US named after a person?  I know Davy Crockett is a national forest, but I had never heard of a national park named after a person.  But whoever Manuel Antonio was, his park is gorgeous and the wildlife was a blast.  The animals there are so used to humans they'll walk right up to you, and I even fed a monkey by hand.  

But along with all the animals come tourists taking pictures.  Okay I admit, I wasn't much different, but I tried to stay out of obviously touristy situations like this one

But onto what God did during the weekend and kind of the week before.  We planned the Manuel Antonio trip expecting Allsion's boyfriend Amos and Kevin's mom to be joining us, but Kevin's brother had to have major surgery in the US.  It went miraculously, but that left us without two of our companions, and when Allison fell sick when we got to the Hotel, we were all really discouraged.  Amos, Esther and I spent a half day at the beach on Friday and that's all, but what God revealed to me was great.  


Working overseas is awesome, and to see God's beauty in another place, with new faces, new wildlife and landscape where you work to better the lives of men is wonderful.  But even in missions, it's easy to get the travel bug and that's exactly what hit us.  As I was walking on the beach, I was struck by how purposeless this trip seemed to me.  We were on a beach in Costa Rica, and didn't even care to stick around for the sun to set cause we had put in our hopes in something so fleeting.  It was really convicting actually.  In the midst of a short getaway, I wanted to be back in the office doing something productive, and here I was at the beach not to retreat with God but to 'vacation.'  And I tell you, you'll go from one mission to the next, one 'vacation with a purpose' and never be fulfilled if you are not already filled by God's Spirit and His presence.  When you go vacation, and do your mission trips, wait till God has something very special waiting for you when you get there.  I certainly have found that in working with eMi, and thank the Lord that he works to cleanse me still from the sight-seeing-do-everything-possible chasing after the wind.  


But things picked up.  Saturday Allison jumped out of bed ready to go, and this is what we saw.  We saw a bundle of monkeys jumping the trees and trying to snag a snack from an unaware tourist.  I gotta admit, as slick as they are, they can't seem to get away from the cameras, which 
really puts them at a 


disadvantage. This guy came down twice from his tree to see if he could snag my granola from my bag.  He was pretty ambitious, given the fact that I was standing within easy reach of it myself.  We had a couple of swipe wars, and 

afterward he ran away.  He gave me an awesome picture though, and he took it really well, so he should be proud.  We first ran into the perezosos though, which is both the spanish for lazy and sloth.  But it's even more fitting because perezoso ends in oso, which is bear, and the sloth is kind of like a lazy bear.

While Amos and Allison rested on the beach, Esther and I took off on a trail called "El Mirador," which literally means "The Looker," but in Manuel Antonio, it means the lookout trail, and this is why

This was a short, 10 meter offshoot before the crowded official lookout.  We saw the main lookout and came back here cause it was a lot quieter and much more peaceful.

 There was a troop of these guys about 5 strong, and they all came out of the woodwork when I pulled out my croissant sandwich, which they all wanted.  I had to deny them though cause I was hungry and it's not good to feed animals baked goods.  This guy was grandaddy, about a half a meter long.

 I had to stake these crabs out cause they'll go back into their holes if you get anywhere near them, or if you flinch.  I sat very still for about 5 minutes about 4 feet away to get these guys on camera

 Hermit crabs are always fun

 I thought these rock formations were really cool

 And the sunset finished the day.  I told Esther how sunsets are all the same, but you still can't stop looking at them because they're such a display of God's awesome glory.  And the clouds dress them so differently every time as well.

To make things even better, there was this awesome sailboat anchored in the perfect spot for the sunset. 

A couple of things more then I'll say goodbye till next time.  An awesome new bluegrass/folk group called the Vespers is about to release their second album on April 3rd and it's called "The Fourth Wall."  They're new so they're definitely influenced by and sound like a mix of the Avett Brothers and Mumford and sons, but with female vocals, and a ukelele sound to it.  They're super good and they also love Jesus.  I've seen a couple of their shows and have even gotten to talk to them some, but they're for real.  They told a bar audience that Jesus and spreading the gospel is the reason they play.  It was pretty cool, so if you like bluegrass, you should definitely check them out and buy their current and up-coming album.  Here's a bit more about their story. 

Keep an eye on my fundraising section.  I may have mentioned this before, but I still have $3000 to raise.

Blessings,

Brad

Bendiciones de Ecuador

Blessings everyone,


Bendiciones are blessings and I hope to share some of those that I brought back from Ecuador in the trials and sweetnesses of our design trip.  I looked over the names from the project poster I put up, and was reminded of each person those names represent - a brother or a sister I now know and will look forward to meeting again.  


As our plane was landing in Ecuador, a wave of thoughts hit me and one of those was that from the air, Quito looked nothing like I thought Latin America should look.  It looked surprisingly similar to rural Germany or Switzerland, the mountainside outlined with the lines of pines that mark farm boundries.  Secondly, I though, I'm really far from home.  But I felt as at home as I did in Georgetown, Texas.  I dearly miss beloved friends and family, but I felt no farther from my brothers and sisters than when we would go our separate ways about Georgetown.  I felt as near to the ones I love as I wold shortly after saying goodbye.  In a song, Rich Mullins says to God "I am home anywhere, if you are where I am," and the reality of that hit me really warmly when we landed.  The Holy Spirit is with us always, and is such a uniting force that neither distance nor silence can break the unity of God's house, for its mortar is God's everlasting Spirit, and it's bricks are his persevering saints.  


Upon leaving the airport, we were immediately introduced to this couple

Daniel and Ana Gonzales,

the faithful directors of WOL Quito, Ecuador

Israel, whom he and his wife are expecting their first child in a month.  It's a son!

And José Rosales, whom we all called Pocho (Dan and I are the only ones who got his real name)

Daniel and Ana testify by their joy to the sweetness of God's presence, whose tenderness, mercy, and hospitality all are manifest in their blessed marriage.  God's faithfulness has deepened their joy through their gut-wrenching journies.  Pocho and Daniel are both Argentine.  Ana is Columbian and God introduced them all through Word of Life, and married Daniel and Ana before moving them to Quito Ecuador about 22 years ago.  I got to ride with Israel from the airport in his vintage VW bug, and we spoke like brothers who had just met.  God's spirit is an awesome family maker.  And Pocho never took off that devious, joyful smile, and filled our time with endless good humor.

In interacting with the leaders, it was evident that God litters the ground these people walk with the fruit of His Spirit that they carry, and it was a joy to give them an awesome camp design in exactly the way they wanted.  My job was to run the rod for Stuart, one of the two Surveyors.  Without boring you, surveying works by the communication between an instrument with a 3-D 360 degree swiveling head that measures the direct distance between it and a prism on a rod.  Using angles, trig, and subtracting the height of the rod and the instrument, it can pinpoint the relative location and height of each point.  You move this rod around to blanket the site and develop a contour map of this very steep site.  What this means for me as the rod-man is that I walked places I never thought should be plausible for a man to go.  This picture was taken at eye level, 

and 4 feet behind me the ground was above my head.  And that was  my view the entire way.  I probably walked a few miles a day running the rod.  Usually when I walk that much on that steep a slope I get to the top of something (usually a mountain) but this time, I helped to draw an invaluable rendering of the campsite.  

After completing our work, we spent a day experiencing Quito.  We visited "La Mitad del Mundo" (the middle of the world), a museum dedicated to the equator.  Afterward, we ate at a pizza shop in Old Town, Quito and visited the Ecuador White House.  We couldn't go inside cause we were foreigners.  But we did get to explore the towers of the Basilica del Voto Nacional in Quito.  

A couple more photos, from the campsite, this is our team minus Eric.  The next one is under a bamboo bunch that was about 50 feet tall and each stalk was wider than a football.  The flowers are from La Mitad del Mundo.

Left to Right:  Sam, Mark, Barbara and Fred, Dave, John, Kevin, Stewart, Me, Breanna, Dan, and Jim

God is beautiful.  He has since the ancient days revealed himself to man through his creation, and Ecuador is an exceptional example to his manifest beauty.  On Wednesday I got sick, and as I was told, sickness can be an attack on us cause when I was sick I wanted nothing to do but try and sleep, all the while neglecting to foster my relationship with the Holy Spirit.  I neglected the ultimate healer of all sickness, and as I did, I felt more sick both physically and spiritually as the week continued until I started to bounce back from my infirmities.  I woke up from a few days of lying in pain and not being myself, realizing how connected physical and spiritual health really are.  So I want yall to pray for me to grow in intimacy with God through sickness, which has already hit me more in the past three weeks than it did in the previous three years.  But mostly Pray that I would sit in God's presence in prayer at all times, fully open and interacting with His Spirit.  If you pray this for me, it could possibly be more effective than any other prayer.  I bless God for each one of you, your prayers and love, and may His light shine upon you to reflect His beauty to the world

Brad