Notice the picture (how can you miss it!). I thought I'd include this picture as an example of how important it is to make sure you are standing in the right spot in terms of the background! It reminds me of one of those costumes worn by the Carnival dancers in Rio de Janeiro! Judy is beautiful, but my headgear is something else!

I hope writing once every two months on this blog is not a chronic disease! Well, a New Year's resolution for next year will be to do the blog thing at least once a month. But, the lack of writing is not due to lack of things to write about! There's a lot...for example, this week I "enjoyed" some time in the hospital for what was to be an angiogram (as a follow- up to my annual physical exam) and turned out to include an angioplasty. These last few days have been spent resting at home and enjoying the Christmas season.

Since the robbery, insurance covered some of the loss and donations from individuals came close to cover the rest. The greatest losses were the personal items such as keepsake jewelry.

November was a rush of activities with a team spiritual retreat, a Church Planting Coach clinic, a Willow Creek Leadership Summit, and various meetings and planning sessions as we look to next year in ProMETA. And, it looks like we are going to have our largest enrollment ever in terms of students beginning a new quarter. God is so good!

Robbery, Strategy, Networking

Well, as you can see, the last entry was nearly two months ago. But, so much has been going on that I keep delaying uploading a post. We will be getting a prayer letter out the beginning of November but thought I'd just post a few things here.
On the 27th of September we were broken into here in Costa Rica. (Notice the new "razor wire" protection on the wall we recently installed!) Although the losses were not heavy, certainly not as bad as our colleagues in Peru who also lost musical instruments and passports, knowing that someone broke into our house while we were at church is rather unsettling. The hardest losses were the laptops.
The week before the robbery we spent five days in strategic planning meetings for ProMETA. Ted Kautzmann, ProMETA's academic dean flew down from Minnesota and the three of us who live in Costa Rica went over an agenda that, even with five days set aside for strategic planning, we still did not finish! Not sure what that means!
The week of October 12th, Ted and I met in Puebla, MEX for two reasons. We needed to meet with the vice-rector and the academic dean of a major university and we attended a four day conference on "spiritual formation in Christian universities and seminaries" for seminary and university presidents and academic deans. Other than catching a stomach virus (fortunately not the H1N1 type!), it was a great time. Now to recover!

Back in CR after two long months!

The summer was a metaphorical whirlwind of activities. We kept trying to get our summer prayer letter out between trips and as of today, it is still only half finished! Judy and I left Costa Rica together on June 24th and returned a week ago today. In between those dates we traveled from Miami to Chicago and then Keith went back to Costa Rica for nearly a week and then to Venezuela for nearly two weeks returning to Chicago to rejoin Judy and then go to a family reunion in Dubuque, IA for three days. That was followed by meetings in San Antonio, TX and then on to Florida where Alexandra and Gregory were (finally!) married. The picture to the right was taken a couple days before the wedding. Both are still in school and felt like it was time to tie the knot - they've known each other since the late 90's. Now Judy and I are back in San Jose, CR and are glad to be able to schedule a routine. Once again we realize the incredible value of prayer and how praying for one another is such a key to carrying out God's desires. We hope to have our next prayer letter out soon before the end of the week!

We begin two months of travels

These next two months, Judy and I will be doing a great deal of traveling. We will be visiting nearly a half dozen supporting churches while mixing in a four day trip back to Costa Rica for a very important meeting and then two weeks in Venezuela. So, this summer will be quite busy. We also plan to be at an Anderson family reunion the last week end of July prior to leaving for meetings in San Antonio, TX. Then, the summer will be capped with the wedding of our youngest son, Gregory, to his sweetheart of the last eight years, Alexandra. August 22nd is the big day. We return to CR on the 24th.

Teaching in Guatemala

Lately, I've not had much of an opportunity to travel, so last week end's trip to Guatemala was a special time for me as I traveled with Dr. Enrique (Quique) Fernández to Sumpango, just outside of Guatemala City. Ten churches were invited by the "Los Olivos" Free Church and nearly all of them responded by sending their pastors, elders, deacons, and deaconesses. It was very special to be in the home country of Dr. Fernández and to be given a special tour of the various areas where he did ministry prior to joining the EFCA. The teaching on leadership was shared by four of us with four different areas emphasized: Dr. Fernández taught on strategic planning, Dave Christianson focused on trust and empowerment, Oscar Chiquitó (an elder from the host church and recent recipient of a masters in International Economics) on leadership and community development, and my area was shepherd leadership. The response from the church leaders was quite positive and we sensed God's leading and presence during the entire week end.

Great spiritual retreat!

The final days of April the ProMETA team had two wonderful events, one of them being a spiritual retreat. Jim and Leta Van Meter led our three days with the theme "Come away and be with Me!" And, it was incredibly restful. Times of worship, prayer, bible study, personal reflection, and long periods of rest in the afternoons all were bundled together resulting in us returning to the office with renewed strength. In the picture you can see Judy participating in a late-afternoon event. We enjoyed moments where we gathered in smaller groups for games, study, prayer, etc. and relished one another's company! The retreat was held at a Catholic retreat center about a 30 minute drive from our house in San Jose. Because we were the only group there, it was very quiet and peaceful.

Meetings in Bangkok

Greetings from Bangkok. I have been in ReachGlobal meetings for 3 1/2 days now with another 1 1/2 days to go. Once a year all the global leaders meet together for fellowship, training, networking, and strategic planning. Because it's always difficult to find a place that is centrally located to all staff, the venue changes every year. This year the meetings are in Bangkok (next year in California). The flights totaled nearly 36 hours of travel (either Costa Rica is at the end of the world, or Bangkok!) I leave for CR on Saturday and then fly with Judy to Florida on Monday for visa work and a couple days of R & R during Holy Week. I've been able to stay in touch with Judy daily via a webcam and Skype - hurray for technology! One of the strangest things while here has been my email correspondence. All my e-mails arrive during the night because of the 13 hour time difference so I have an entire day to answer them before the next wave of mail rolls in! Thanks for your prayers.

Parents visit us!

It was wonderful to have my parents and Judy's mom with us for nearly a month. They arrived on Feb. 21 and left on Mar. 20. We kept very busy with my dad preaching two Sundays and leading a men's breakfast. We also had all of them be in two of our ProMETA team meetings and even asked them to share experiences with the team. The wealth of Christian ministry experiences was something worth sharing with the rest of the team. We also asked my dad to help us record the audio portions of one of the ProMETA courses, one that had nearly 45 Power Point presentations to go with the content of a new course called, Old Testament Backgrounds. So, my dad spent nearly two weeks at the office recording the audio tracks to go along with the visuals. That was quite special.

A wonderful week in Boston!

What a wonderful time! Because I (Keith) needed to be at a conference the week end of February 20th, Judy and I spent nearly a week in Boston with Kris, Hanjo, and our two grand daughters, Kyla and Kiara. We took a day trip to the beach and "enjoyed" being there in below-freezing temperatures! Not much like Costa Rica! But, the week has gone well and tomorrow we head out of Boston, Judy back to Costa Rica and I travel down to San Antonio for the conference. A highlight for us here was our visit to their church plant and preaching with Hanjo translating into Korean (the church plant is primarily focused on Korean students in the Boston area - the church planter is a Korean student at Gordon Conwell Seminary). Next week I'll be headed back to Costa Rica arriving on Wednesday. Thanks for your prayers.

LATN Team Retreat

It was great for the entire LATN team to be together in January. All ReachGlobal missionaries from Latin America had just meet for one week in Costa Rica (Jan 14-21) and because all our LATN/ProMETA staff were in country, we took advantage of the ocassion and added three more days to our time with our own retreat, Jan 22-24. Staff from Spain, the US, and Peru were able to join those of us living in Costa Rica. The primary focus of our time was spent on spiritual formation issues, but we also spent a few hours on the implications of becoming accredited. In this particular picture, Dr. Ted Kautzmann, ProMETA's academic dean is sharing with the team some of the implications. We are planning on having at least two retreats each year for the purpose of spiritual formation. We will also bring the team together once a year for a week of working together face to face. As you can well imagine, these tend to be busy, but great times together.

Earthquake in Costa Rica

We thank God that our LATN team is doing fine and that as far as we know, there has been no damage to our offices as the result of Thursday's 6.2 earthquake. The epicenter was less than 30 miles away! The earthquake struck at 1:21 pm and our building shook back and forth for about 20 seconds. Over 1500 aftershocks were reported as of yesterday. The death toll last night was at 15 but there are still 100s of people missing, so we're not sure what the final count will be. As far as churches are concerned, many of the churches with which we have contact were far enough away from the epicenter to have suffered damage. I am still waiting to hear from a Free Church pastor regarding the dozen or so churches he works with. We are looking at various options were we as a team can help out (it may be giving donations through one of the local churches), but for the most part, the government and the Red Cross are the ones handling rescue operations. We would certainly appreciate your prayers.

Christmas and New Years!

Christmas and New Years are always special moments of the year, and this year was no different! New Years in Latin America is unforgettable. This year we watched fireworks from the balcony of our house - spectacular! As you can see from one of the many pictures we took, we were treated to a beautiful 20 minute demonstration of colors and sounds in the sky so typical of Latin America!

And for Christmas we were able to take advantage of some bargain airfares to Ft. Lauderdale to be with Gregory, his fiancé, his future in-laws, friends and supporters. We also did some paperwork on our resident visas for Costa Rica, although less than what we had wanted. The picture to the left shows Judy, Gregory, Alexandra (his fiance) and Doris (her mother) making Venezuelan hallacas much like the Central American tamales. Making " hallacas is a tradition at Christmas time and we were thrilled that even during our short visit we were able to make over 50 of the banana leaf - wrapped delicacies!