Tamarindo Ministries

Hello Everyone,

We hope this letter finds you all doing well. It’s been about 4 ½ months since we’ve checked in via our update letters, so let me just jump in with some highlights of what’s been going on in our lives and ministry.

Family

Wolfie and Olivia are both doing well. Olivia turned 3 in June, and Wolfie turned 2 in August. I mentioned in the last letter that Olivia was swimming on her own… and now she has moved on to boogie boarding. Surfing can’t be too far off in the future!! Wolfie, we love that he loves to laugh. I think he may end up being the family comedian….we’ll see??

Stacey and I are doing well also. Stacey… continues to be a stellar mom and wife. In addition she continues to host women’s bible study in our home and mommy group on Thursdays. Juggling all of this and church life has it’s challenging days… but has managed to keep her sanity and faith in tact. As for me, I was kept busy balancing between church, family, café, Marriott gigs and weddings on the side. And by the grace of God I still have my faith and sanity in tact as well! Praise God! =) Fun news is that we were able to take a trip home to the US to visit family in September, and were blessed to get some quality time with our parents.

Café Café Interns-

This past summer, we were super-blessed to have Hannah Matthews and Raquel Rees serving with us at Café Café and with our church. Hannah plugged in with the children’s ministry at church, and Raquel was a regular part of our praise and worship team.

During the time that interns spend with us, I ask them to write a monthly report on how they are doing. One of the questions I ask is… “what relationships in your life have been most rewarding?” In their responses below I think you’ll get a glimpse into some of the ways God moves down here through the Café-Intern program.

Raquel writes…..“One of my favorite times is Discipleship on Mondays. It is such a good mix of intellectual feasting along with some heartfelt share-time. It’s also super encouraging to have Alex and Alvaro there as an example of strong men in their faith. Women’s bible study is also especially rewarding, and really, any time spent with Stacey. I have needed a female mentor for a long time….”

Hannah expresses that, “The community of believers here is unlike anything I’ve experienced in the states. I love getting to be friends with people of all ages. I have gotten to talk to Dave and Tamra a lot. I have enjoyed getting to hear about all of their mission experiences, and Dave has shared with me some really good Bible resources. I have absolutely loved getting to know Stacey. She is such an encouragement to me, and teaches me so much, whether she realizes it or not.…….. It amazes me how people I’ve known for such a short time, can talk about what the Lord is doing in everyday conversations while we hang out. It is a huge encouragement to me to have friendships so centered on Christ, but still able to have so much fun. Monday discipleship is one of my favorite times of the week. I think it’s awesome to get to learn more about God in a deeper level with three Godly men, and I’ve very thankful for Lyle and his spiritual wisdom that he shares with us.”

Did you hear that… I have spiritual wisdom!!! I’ve been praying for that!! =) Haha, Anyway…..It’s encouraging to see what God is up to through and among us through the eyes of visiting interns. Stacey and I are just thankful to be part of it all.

As for Marlen Rivera, she is still with us after about a year now, and continues to be such an awesome servant to our church and Café ministry. She’s a regular at the Café, volunteers with Christian Surfers, is always present to help with church events, and is a regular part of our church’s mission trips. Marlen has a true evangelist’s heart and giftings, and we are blessed to have her on our team.

Discipleship Group

We have been meeting on Monday mornings over the past 6-7 months, and have had some very fruitful dialogue together. The books we have been covering are “Reason for God” by Tim Keller, and we are now finishing up “Spiritual Leadership” by Oswald Sanders. This is one of my favorite parts of the week, and I think the same would be said by our group members.

New Intern

Over the past month or so, Stacey and I have been praying that God might send another intern. So what happens… for a while, nothing. But then just this week, we had a short term visitor to the area express that he would like to intern with us for the next four months!!! How awesome is that. His name is Daniel, and he will be with us at least through April. Thank you Lord!

Church-

Bible Study- I continue to a lead one of the men’s bible studies for our church. We’ve been going through Romans, and always have great discussion and fellowship together.

Prayer and Praise Night- A few months ago, there seemed to be an expressed interest among people in our church for a time outside of Sunday mornings to spend in extended song and prayer together. So, in August, I began facilitating a once a month, mid-week prayer and praise service. All who come are blessed by this time, and attendance is steadily growing with each event. I’m just grateful to see this spiritual hunger in the hearts of our church members.

Preaching

In July, I finished up a sermon series on the “I Am” claims of Jesus in the Gospel of John. As far as I can tell people were blessed by the messages…. I hope so anyway =) The experience was definitely a blessing to me.

Mission Trip Nicaragua

In September, I was part of the leadership team for our church’s mission trip to Nicaragua. The Café had collected a good number of clothes and shoes over the prior months that we were able to bless the poor with in Nicaragua. In addition to that, our group:

-built a cooking station for a church that feeds children who live and work in the city landfill area called La Chureca.

-helped with the La Chureca feeding program and distributed clothes, shoes and dresses to the kids at the dump.

-visited a Christian orphanage bringing infant/toddler clothes and supplies.

-brought food to and shared the gospel with a poor at an impoverished barrio called Manchester.

-built class room dividers and did roof repair for God’s School in Manchester.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support of our ministry. We are grateful for your encouragement and prayer covering. Please see below for our prayer requests, and be sure to let us know if there is anything we can pray for you on.

Grace and Peace,

Lyle, Stacey, Olivia, Wolfie

Prayer Requests:

· Prayer in thanks to God for sustaining our family in life, faith and ministry.

· Prayer for Lyle and Stacey, that we would continue to grow in deeper in our prayer and devotional life.

· Prayer for open doors for us to share the gospel with people at the Café and with our non-Christian friends in Tamarindo.

· Wisdom and discernment regarding the future of the Cafe/Intern program. Funds are running low… and we praying for a good season this Dec-April.

· Wisdom/Discernment for Stacey and I as we pray about ways to reduce our cost of living.

To Make Donations to our Ministry "click here"

Hello again everyone,
As you can imagine, a lot has happened over the past 4 months since our last update. Our family is doing well aside from a nagging cold/cough that we’ve all had our bouts with over the last month or so. High fevers with the kids had us a bit worried as we’re still only figuring out this parenting thing. Blood tests, a couple of trips to the doctors, shots for Wolfie. What an adventure. One night we were up late with Olivia during our recent trip to the U.S. She had a high fever… and this just so happened to occur shortly after the Swine Flu thing broke out. We prayed hard, worried through the night, and thank God she was fine the next morning. But it was a scary moment for new parents like us. Anyway….. on with the update.

The Kids
Wolfie is a great kid. He is full of laughter and has a tender heart. During Easter Sunday, the kids were taught the song, “hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest”… and now, every so often Wolfie (and Olivia) will spontaneously burst into song singing these words, “Osanna, Osanna, Osanna haaayes”. For Stacey and I, we couldn’t have greater joy than to see our kids already learning to songs in praise to God. I imagine it brings a smile to their heavenly Father as well.

Olivia gives us a lot of joy. While she’s in her “terrible twos” right now…… She has plenty of occasions of sweetness in her. Getting a cup of water for Wolfie, or getting his binky/pacifier and putting it back in his mouth for him. Hugging her brother until he gets annoyed with how hard she likes to hug….lol. Olivia has also learned to swim on her own over the past 3 months. Next comes surfing!!!... I hope. Below is a pic of her at her birthday party last week. She's the one in the pink bikini.Ministry with Stacy and Lyle
Stacey has been managing well as she juggles the responsibilities of being mom, wife, follower of Jesus, bible-study leader, part-time baker for the café, and homemaker. I’m pretty amazed at my wife and how she “does it all”. While I’m often the one reminding her to slow down and not overdo it, I have to say there is part of me that admires how well she does in all of these roles she plays. One highlight of the past four months has been the women’s bible study she lead on Beth Moore’s Breaking Free study. She led the study in our home on Tuesday mornings, and it was a true blessing to all of the women involved. Interestingly, the study consisted not only of locals, but also had a mix of international visitors: A woman from Czechoslovakia, a woman from Finland, a woman Turkey (whom I mentioned in the last update letter) and our friend Kai who is originally from Canada. All of these women were/are in important seasons of transition in their lives, and I’m confident that they would all testify that time they shared in this study was a true blessing.

As for me… I’ve been pretty busy as well. Making a life/ministry down here doesn’t come easy. To make ends meet, I perfrom music 3x a week at the Marriott and once a week at Witches Rock surf Camp. In addition I officiate weddings and play music for people having Desitnation Weddings here in Costa Rica. While those things allow me to meet our financial needs down here, more than anything my heart is in what God’s been doing in the ministry realm. In recent months, two ministries have surfaced mostly by means of God working in the hearts of people in our congregation. First, a men’s bible study has formed out of a core group of 4 guys from the area of Tamarindo and the beaches south of us who are hungry to grow in their faith as we fellowship weekly over coffee and scripture. We meet at the Café every Friday morning from 8-10:30. Not only has it been an encouragement and blessing for all of us, I think it is also catching the attention of our regulars who come in and out while we are meeting on the front porch. Second, about 3 months ago, I proposed the idea of forming discipleship group with some of the young 20 something folks whom God has brought forth to be leaders in church an ministry in our church and in the area. They were instantly eager to start, and since that time we have been meeting regularly on Monday mornings from 8-10am for prayer, bible study, and discussion revolving around Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership, and Tim Kellers’ Reason For God. For added richness to our discussion, we have also include our Café interns in the group. I have to say that these to events are both highlights to my week. Their enthusiasm and hunger to dig into their faith and into ministry is contagious. God is doing great things in our church and in our area, and we are grateful to be a part of his plans here.

Café Café
Some of you may remember me mentioning our Café Intern Marlen in the last letter. She was originally to be here for only 3 months and well….. 3 months turned to 6, and now 6 months has turned into committing to serve with us for an additional year. Marlen has been instrumental in the Café ministry, leadership of the Tamarindo Christian Surfers ministry, as well as hosting weekly youth group meetings at our church….. and did I mention being a regular on our Church’s missions/outreach events. We are grateful to have her with us for the coming year.
New Interns- Just last week, we had 2 interns arrive from Houston named Raquel and Hannah. They are college students at Texas A&M, and will be with us until mid August. Already, Raquel has plugged into Sunday music at church, and Hannah is pretty pumped to help with the children’s ministry on Sundays. In addition to serving, as I mentioned earlier, they will also be participating the Tuesday discipleship group while they are here. We are thankful for them and pray that they are blessed as they become part of our ministry community.

There is so much more that has been going on, but as as was the case with the gosple of John, if we tried to record all that Jesus is doing in our area, there wouldn’t be enough books to contain all of the stories. We are truly blessed to be part of the work God is doing in our area.
Thank you all very much for your prayers and support of our family and our ministry.

Grace and Peace to you,
The Watson Family

PRAYER REQUESTS
• That God would give us wisdom, discernment and openness to anything “new” that he have us do in our community to be a witness to non-believers in our area.
• For God’s continued growth of our Church community in depth of spiritual maturity, and in numbers as our heart is to reach unbelievers.
• For God’s continued financial provision for our church and for our ministry in these uncertain times economically.
• For our faith and obedience to Christ to Grow every day.

Seasons- Tamarindo Ministries

Hello Everyone,

Greetings from the warm sunny climate of Costa Rica!! (Had to add that in. I hear it’s been freezing up there!…haha) In all honesty, I do miss the seasons of the year…even Winter. The cycle of natures life and colors turning and changing… then returning again and starting over. Hopefully we’ll see some of that in our economy right… clearly we are in a season of hard times, but we trust that in time (and as we see it, in God’s time) the season will turn. I was talking to a friend yesterday, one of our café regulars, and I think he summed it up well. “ We all just have to hunker down and ride it out”. And so I pray God’s grace for us all as we hunker down and ride out these times…. That we may be the salt of the earth and the light of the world especially in these hard times. That God’s grace, kindness, and joy will be especially evident in and through the church.

By the grace of God our family is doing well. While we all have had our bouts with colds here and there, we are doing well and we are thankful for it. Wolfy- is learning 3 syllable words.. which is amazing to us. His vocabulary has grown and now consists of the words papaya, zapato, banana,hello, mama, daddy. He also has shown and interest in drums and guitar. Olivia- has also grown in her communication skills… forming 2-3 word sentences. She loves to break into spontaneous dance which resembles a combination of ballet and hippie-like free dance. Closing her eyes, she gets lost in her own world of free expression. Sometimes I’m not sure of whether to encourage this theme of freedom… or fear it’s implications for future boundary and disciplinary issues…haha. We love seeing our kids grow. One touching moment to share is from bed time. One night I asked, “Olivia, do you want to pray?” She answered a quick, “yeah!”. So we all closed our eyes… not knowing what to expect because she’s never prayed before. And she began to pray, “blah….blah God, blah…blah-blah mommy, daddy, wolfy, lola, poopa, grandma granpa…blah blah-blah… blah… Amen”. What a blah-blah-blah blessing to us!!

Ministry Highlights

Mommy Group- has had upwards to 15-20 moms in attendance with their toddlers… .and the event has continued to be a place where God forms relationships of care love and trust between women from our church and non-Christian women in our community.

Women’s Bible Study- Stacey and Jen have been co-leading a womens bible study for the past 2 years or so, but have recently “split” the bible study into two meetings; one in Tamarindo in our home, and the other on the beach in Playa Avellanas. Stacey is now facilitating a 6 week study on the Beth Moore study Breaking Free.

Tamarindo Ministries/ Café-Café - Through our web presence, the Café has been a success as a connecting point. Last month,we were found by a couple from Turkey that had recently become Christians (last October). The husband had converted from the Muslim faith to Christianity, and the wife from New Age philosophy and spirituality to Christianity. This has been a radical transition for both of them. Ebru is now in Stacey’s bible Study, and Achmed is plugged into our men’s bible study. Please keep them both in your prayers as they build a foundation of faith in Christ… their names are Achmed and Ebru.

Thanks! Thank you Lord for …

The Hill family… Wes, Jeanna, Hayden, Landen, Aubry- for blessing our family, our ministry, our church, and our community. The Hill family truly a part of our ministry family here during their stay in Tamarindo from September-December. We truly miss having them with us…. And hope they will be able to serve with us again in the future.

Our present Café interns Marlen and Josh. Marlen had completed her commitment to serving with us last December, but has extended her time with us to April. In addition to continuing at the Café, she will serve as leader of our church’s youth ministry. She has been a great asset to the ministry team her, and continues to bless us with her heart to serve our church and community. Our newest intern, Josh, arrived in early January. Josh has plugged into the Café ministry with ease, and he has been a blessing to us in serving our church with his music talents (drums/guitar).

Grace and Support- We thank God for his grace that sustains us in life, marriage, parenthood, and ministry. And we thank God for friends and family like you who pray for and encourage us.

Grace, Peace, and Blessings to you all!!

Lyle, Stacey, Olivia, and Wolfy

Prayer Requests-

Achmed and Ebru- God’s grace and mercy in their transitions of life and faith.

Lyle and Stacey- for our marriage. For daily balance between our family commitments and our call to ministry.

Café Café – for God use the coffeehouse as a “light”, shining forth grace, kindness to all who enter our doors.

THANK GOD FOR CAFE INTERNS

Hello Everyone,

We hope this letter finds you doing well. It’s a rainy afternoon here at the Coffeehouse. No better time for writing and catching up with you. All is well here with our family. As for the kids, Wolfy started walking a couple of months ago. And Olivia… she in the midst of potty training??? What an interesting life experience for the family. So we have this system where, if Olivia goes to the potty in the toilet, she gets to take a small fist-full of peanut MnMs, from aclear plastic jar we keep next to the toilet. Picture it; Daddy, Mommy and Wolfy all crowded around the toilet giving Olivia hi-fives while saying “yeah kaka” for our smiling daughter. I never in my life imagined I’d be part of such an event… but it does keep life interesting. Anyway…

Stacey continues to co-lead the women’s bible study on Tuesday mornings while also facilitating Mommy Group on Thursday mornings. Both events continue to attract new comers and are going strong (Below- Mommy Group on Olivia's Birthday) even in the rainy season. Right now, Stacey is leading the women’s bible study through a Beth Moore video/study series on the book of Daniel, and they are having some spiritually rich discussion. Last week, she boasted, “everyone was in tears…”. I’m guessing that was a good thing… right? In addition, Stacey will soon be taking on a ministry on Sunday mornings for mothers of toddlers at church. She has designed a “kid coral” to keep toddlers safe and entertained during church worship. We should have that up and running by the end of October.

Lyle- As for me, I have been leading Agape Group every other Wednesday night up until about a month ago. At that point, we finished our study on the Beatitudes (Lloyd-Jones), and now we are considering where to go next with the group. Aside from Agape group I’ve kept a pretty full schedule with leading church worship, landscaping the church, and working through a low-season to-do list at the Café. In addition to the above activities, here are some other highlights of the past several months.

Café Café-
Interns- It has been our vision at the Café that we would have interns come and serve at the Café in the community, and it has been such a blessing over the past several months to see this vision realized through a number of interns that have served with us. .
Kristina Clark served full time at the Café from April-July. In addition to Café responsibilities, she also served our church community by leading our church’s youth group on several occasions and going on a weeklong mission trip to Nicaragua. Kristina plugged into ministry in on so many other levels that this letter wont permit me to include. In short, we hope to have more interns with a heart like hers in the future.
The North Carolina Crew- During the month of June, the café was blessed with five recent high school graduates (Morgan, Drew, Laura, Burcu, and Katie) who served in a variety of ways. Collaboratively, they; worked the Café 2-3 days a week, taught art classes at CEPIA (a local organization helping at risk youth in the area), co-led our church’s youth group, sealed and painted parts of our church, volunteered with Tamarindo Recycling Program, and volunteered helping with a local law firm. It was disorienting just watching them run from here to there serving in so many ways. THANKS GUYS!
Keith Holmes has been our most recent intern…. And flew back to California just yesterday. I call him “ the anchor”. He really held the fort down while Stacey and I were in the U.S. visiting family and attending the Willow Creek Leadership Conference in Virginia Beach. Keith has been a blessing as he has helped out with our church’s youth group and served on our church’s Nicaragua Missions trip in early September. We will really miss having him around.
The Hill Family- Wes, Jeanna, Hayden, Landen, Audry arrived from California about a month ago for a 3-4 month family Sabbatical. The Hills found us through our website about a year ago, and finally got to meet in February during a "scouting" visit they made. We have been grateful for them as they have been super pro-active in plugging into the Cafe and ministry in our area. We are grateful for their friendship as well as their heart to serve.
Marlen Rivera arrived about a week ago from Houston, TX. On her first day, she followed me around the shop with a pen and paper writing down list of “things to do” around the Café. I thank God for Marlen!! What a blessing. Since her arrival, she has also found her way to serving at the welcome desk at our church and helping out with “kid’s club” at the local Calvary Chapel church plant.
Book Lending- We recently… finally… have gotten around to cataloguing our “lending books” at the Café, and we are especially excited to get this list out to our church folks in the area. In sum we have
• 220 Misc. Christian Books (Yancey, Lewis, Graham, Jenkins, Lucado, Eldredge, Willard etc)
• 19 Christian Ed Videos
• 45 Audio Sermons-Bible Studies (Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Calvary Chapel, etc.)
• 40 Marriage and Family (Gary Chapman, Chuck Coleson, Charle’s Swindoll, Leslie Parrott etc.)
This is an incredible resource in a place where there are no “real” bookstores. The closest book store with books in English is in San Jose (4hrs away). So… “THANK YOU” to all of you who have brought, mailed, smuggled books down for our lending program. In addition, we thank those of you who have brought used books for us to sell as well. I haven’t come up with the numbers, but I know at a glance of our records that our used book sales have helped greatly to supplement our Coffeehouse business/ministry. Thank you!

Trip to the U.S.- Stacey and I were able to travel home for three weeks during July-August visiting family in Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina. It was a blessing to be with our family for an extended time…. as we are usually only with family for two weeks. Highlights were a trip through Milwaukee visiting Stacey’s old stomping grounds, visiting my Uncle Ed in NC, and having Olivia and Wolfy get some grandma and grandpa time.

Mission Trip- Upon returning home from the U.S., I went on a mission trip with our church. The experience of being amidst such poverty was a powerful reminder of how blessed we are to have healthy families, homes, three meals a day, etc. While there our group worked on three projects simultaneously: building a zinc roofed “home” for a poor family of four, laying a floor for a “children’s church” area at a local church, and repairing concrete benches at a children’s feeding area in Managua’s city trash dump. Our church will be making about six of these trips a year. We are excited to see how God will work in Nicaragua and in our hearts as we serve in this way together. You can find out more about our projects at www.costaricachurch.com/id13.html

As you can see, we have been incredibly blessed in our prayers that God would send 'laborers for the harvest". God is good. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. We'll be in touch again in a few months. Until then....

the Grace and Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

The Watsons

Prayer Requests
Protection- protection of our home and family as there has been a wave of crime in our area lately.
Growth- in our individual relationships with God.
Selflessness and humility- in our marriage
Opportunity- to share the gospel with our non-Christian friends.

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We Are Thankful

Hello Everyone,

We hope this letter finds you all doing well. If I had to sum up the following update in one sentence, it is "We are thankful". Both Stacey and I have felt very blessed in this season of life. Of course we have our difficult days, but overall, when it comes to the things that really matter in life, we feel very blessed. Thank you all for your prayers as we sense God's grace carrying us every day.

FAMILY

Olivia and Wolfgang
Olivia has been a lot of fun lately as she has learned to say a few words. So far her vocabulary consists of: mommy, daddy, oopee (short for Wolfy), caballo, agua, and of course the inevitable and ever popular among toddlers “NO”. I understand that her next word will be “mine” right??? Haha…. anyway. We’ve also come to find that Olivia is a huge fan of horses. We’ve taken her horse back riding, and she laughs/screams with delight when the guide takes her galloping in open field. Now, whenever she sees horses… in fields, on TV, or in picture books she screams “caballi”.

Wolfy is also growing into his own. Highlights for Wolfy are that he started crawling a couple of months ago, he recently got is first tooth, and that he loves his big sister.

Stacey- Stacey has kept plenty busy lately as she was recently involved with helping host the annual Womens’ Retreat held in nearby Playa Flamingo. In early April, about 150 women from English speaking churches/ministries in Costa Rica gathered for fellowship/worship/and Bible teaching. Aside form this, in addition to being wife and mom, Stacey continues serving in co-leadinging the womens' bible study on Tuesday mornings and hosting Mommy Group on Thursday mornings. Please pray for Stacey as she has huge heart for her non-Christian friends, and has been pretty bold in sharing her faith with her close girlfriends. Please keep Stacey in prayer with regard to gifts of evangelism as she desires for her friends to know the fullness of life in Christ.

Lyle- In recent months, I have been blessed with more of a sense of rhythm in life. I’ve had more regularity in my routine of taking walks and exercising, and I’ve had a good run of taking Wednesday mornings for extended time of reading/prayer/reflection. Both of these are crucial for me as they help to ground me spiritually, mentally and physically. Please keep me in prayer in this regard. I am thankful that this rhythm of life is coming back to me as it has been years since I’ve experienc a sense of routine.

MINISTRY SNAPSHOTS

Easter Sunday- we had about 225 people from our community in attendance at our Easter Service… the most we’ve ever had on a Sunday morning.

Church Building- Beach Community Church received a couple of very significant donations moving the building campaign forward. We have held a couple of significant prayer events held at the church site over the past couple of months. And this past weekend, since the floor pavers and thatched roof were completed in recent weeks, we were able to hold our first fellowship/BBQ event on the church site. Exciting times!

Agape Group- ….Stacey had been gently nagging me for several months, encouraging me to intiate a small group bible study including several couples in the area who are all involved in ministry. She, being the more relational of the two of us, took more of a sensitivity to this desire among the group. So, I think it was around Early December, we finally hosted what Stacey and her friend Jen have coined “Agape Group”. It has consisted of Stacey and I, three Costa Rican couples, and two couples from the U.S. Everyone involved has a local ministry or church that they lead at some level. We meet every other Wednesday night from 6:30-9:30 for a meal together, followed by worship, prayer, and bible Study. Recently I have been facilitating a study on the Sermon on the Mount taken from Martn Lloyd-Jones’ messages on The Sermon on the Mount. It’s been a blessing to all of us to be part of a group that meets on a regular basis....growing deeper friendships and deeper in faith together. We are thankful.

Café- The Café continues as a great way of making connections with people in the community. 1. A couple of months ago, a young woman came in looking for a bible, so I gave her a bible. Short of the story, she ended up attending church, bible study, and singing with the worship team. 2. Several months back a young man, recently out of a rehab program, introduced himself to me. Over the past several months, we have helped find him housing, bought him food for meals, and I spent the first couple months of our friendship discipling him 1-2xs a week through Purpose Driven Life. While he is still struggling getting on his feet and going through "growing pains" in more ways than one, he attends church regularly. Our hope is to be a community of love to him as he continues to grow. 3. Three people, in their early 30’s came into the Café. One of them, a woman, was asking if we had the book “The Secret”. She shared how it was all the rage. She expressed how she was looking for purpose and success in life. I shared with her that I am a pastor, and after having given my opinion of the book I offered her a copy of Purpose Driven Life. I told her to that she should consider it's message amids her search for answers for her life. She took it and said she would give it a read. - We are thankful to be a place where God creates encounters like these. -

Interns- On March 12^th, we were blessed with an addition to the team here in Tamarindo. Kristina Clark, from Virginia Beach, VA., has been serving as an intern the Café as well as helping with the Youth ministry at Beach Community Church. By the time she leaves, she will have been with us for four months of service. It would take pages to convey the many ways Kristina has served while with us during these months. In sum, we just want to say that Kristina has been a huge blessing to Stacey and I, our kids, the church, and the community. We are VERY grateful for her time with us, and it will be sad to see her go.

Future Interns/Help- God has somewhat overwhelmed me with the number of folks who have recently expressed interest in volunteering/serving with us in Tamarindo. First, for the month of June we will host 3 recent high-school grads who will serve at the Café while also plugging into the Church and other local non-profits. Second, there is a recent college grad from Azuza Pacific University who will be joining us for 3 months serving in a similar capacity as Kristina has. He will be arriving in early July. And third, the Hill family will be coming to Costa Rica in August on something of a Sabbatical. They will be helping at the Cafe, with the worship team at church, and possibly in tutoring English to local Costa Ricans. How awesome...thank you Lord!

Open Mic- I recently started hosting an “open mic” night at the same restaurant where I play every Monday night: Witches Rock Surf Camp. (This extra gig has come at a time when most musician’s gigs are getting cut because of lower tourism). I pray that this will not only be a job, but a ministry to those I meet along the way.

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and support.

Grace and Peace to you,

The Watsons

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Stacey- wisdom and gifts of evangelism in sharing her faith. Balance between caring for family, ministry, and the other things in life that compete for her energy, time, etc.
• Lyle- for a rhythm in life. Keeping faithful to extended time of prayer/reflection/reading on Wednesdays. Taking time for exercise/walking/surfing. For continued guidance in ministry.
  
• For our Family- Protection of our marriage, and blessing in our marriage. Protection of our children (found a large scorpion on the moquito net next to the crib).
• For fruit to be born in our ministries- people nurtured in faith, people coming to faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Ministry Update February, 2008

Greetings Everyone,

We hope this letter finds you all doing well. Stacey, the kids and I are all in good health, and life has been good. We have fared the “Dengue Season” without any cases in our home, despite the fact that we have to battle them daily in our house. (Dengue is a mosquito born virus w/ symptoms kind of like Malaria/the flu… can be deadly). I’ve had Dengue twice since moving to Costa Rica, so I go after the mosquitos with a vengeance.... to keep the family safe from them. It's kinda funny but I often wish in my mind that I could shrink down to mosquito size, and duke it out “mano a mano” with them. Anyway….we finally got around to rigging up Olivia’s mosquito net last night… helps us all to sleep a bit more at ease.

Now… in thinking about how much there is to communicate in our update letters, sometimes I get pretty overwhelmed, so I think I’ll just begin with some random snapshots of what’s been going on. The last time I wrote was November 10^th, and here’s what’s’ been going on since then.

Born Again Identity (Nov.-Dec)

I taught a 5 week Adult Christian Ed series called Born Again Identity, which covered the foundational things of our Christian Faith. Keeping in mind that Adult Christian Ed is a fairly new concept in our church, the classes were well attended and there was some meaningful dialog and discussion that took place.

BCC Sailing Day (Nov. 14)

As part of my responsibility as Associate Pastor at BCC, I organize and facilitate events revolving around Fellowship… so, I reserved Catamaran that holds up to 70 people, and we had a Church Sailing Day. It was a great success in terms of inter-generational and cross cultural fellowship and everyone just having fun and getting to know one another better. We also had a time of worship as the sun set... and a simultaneous spectacular rainbow. It was a very special time shared together.

Tamarindo Christmas Caroling Event (Dec. 16^th)

Partnering with a friend of ours that coordinates local events, BCC held it’s first ever Christmas Caroling outreach in Tamarindo. The beauty of the event was that it was held as an event under the sponsorship of APMT (Associacion Pro Mejores de Tamarindo/ Association for the Betterment of Tamarindo). With this arrangement, over half of the people in attendance were the locals of the locals… non-Christian locals. We sang carols interspersed by the reading of scripture regarding the birth of Christ. It was pretty awesome. I was also interviewed by the Tamarindo News following the event and was given the opportunity to give a message of God’s love for the people in our community through the local paper. God is on the move here…

Pastoral Care (Nov.-Dec)

Stacey and I were honored to be able to offer pastoral care to some friends of ours named Kathy and Dale. Dale had been battling cancer for over two years, and as he sensed his time growing near, Stacey and I were invited to offer spiritual and emotional care . We met with them over several weeks prior to his passing and one last time the day before Stacey and I flew home to the U.S. for Christmas and New Years. The next day Dale died. It was an honor and privilege to assure both Dale and Kathy of God’s grace. Dale left this life with the assurance and hope that, because of Jesus Christ, death does not have the final word for those who trust in Jesus. (Dale on far left)

(January) After our return from the U.S., I was called by the Tamarindo News editor to come and pray with a woman who was on vacation whose husband had just drown due to rip currents. He drowned while learning to surf.

BCC Associate Pastor… One more year

I may not have mentioned before, but the part time Associate Pastor position that I currently serve in at BCC is a position that comes up for yearly evaluation. Last week my position and perferomance were evaluated, and praise God that the Elders Board decided to keep me around for another. Stacey and I are grateful… and able to breathe a little easier with regard to the future.

Christmas w/ CEPIA

A local organization called CEPIA has been a great blessing to many troubled youth in need in our area. Though they are a secular organization, we see value in partnering with non Christians who share God’s concern for kids in need. Our hope is that might be ambassadors of Christ as we work alongside them. BCC sponsored about 60 kids at this event, and about five of us from the church helped to distribute the gifts. At the time of distributing gifts I was given the opportunity to share a brief message of God’s love for each of those kids.

Café Café

While we struggled financially through the low-season, things are back in swing. And regardless of the finances, Café Café continues to be an invaluable part of the ministry we do here. Several weeks ago I invited Sylvia, one of our Café regulars, to come to church. She said, "I know I should go... I used to go, but since I got married, not so much."
This week, on a different occasion, she came in to get a coffee to go and asked, “do you take donations for your church?” I was caught a bit off guard, but answered, “Yes… of course”. How cool to think that God has been working on her heart. He is on her mind during the week, pursuing her. My mentioning this, of course, has nothing to do with the $50. It's that God is moving in her heart. And what a privilege it is for us to get to partner in what God is doing in her life.
We have also had people come in for prayer from time to time, and we are grateful to know that our Café is being perceived as a place that people can come for spiritual encouragement and prayer.

School Supplies for Local Kids

Most of you are already aware that, as part of our ministry at Café Café, we collect school supplies to distribute to underprivileged local kids. Well, over the last year, we have been blessed through people who have contributed about 75 backpacks.... and many school supplies to fill them with. A special thanks to Kyle and Colin and their church in Ireland, and to Jim and Jeanne and their church in Washington State. Thanks to people like them, we were able to distribute school supplies to local flood victims in Filadelfia area, and to kids in areas surrounding Tamarindo. In Filadelfia, we partnered with Youth With A Mission based in nearby Nicoya, and we distributed second-hand clothes that we collected at Cafe Cafe, along with back-packs, and basic food needs. Just this past week in Tamarindo, we worked with a Calvary Chapel church plant (Costa Rican/Spanish-speaking) to distribute about 23 backpacks, to ad to the 10 more that were given out earlier in the year.

I hope this gives you a glimpse into the big picture of what God has been up to in our area of Costa Rica. Thank you for your continued prayers. We know God’s grace sustains us daily. Blessings to you and your families.

In Christ,

Lyle, Stacey, Olivia, and Wolfie

Prayer Requests

-Thanks to God for His provision and and sustenance of all our needs.

-For the women's bible study that Stacey co-leads.... that God would continue to be a place of refuge, welcome, encouragement, and grace for those who come.

-Wisdom for Lyle as he discerns how to best serve the church and community... discerning where to invest time, energy and resources. So many possibilities/needs in the area.

-God's sustenance and provision for our every need... spiritually, emotionally, physically, monetarily.

-Protection of our family and marriage.

-For God to open doors to share the gospel with non-believers/seekers.

To get more involved or support us financially, find out how on our website www.tamarindochurch.com

Hello everyone,

We hope this letter finds you all doing well. Most of you on this mailing list are living in the U.S. and are probably experiencing the crisp cool season of Fall. Well…down here, we are in the heart of what we call “rainy-season” or “low-season”. Last month we endured about 10 consecutive days of heavy rains, of which you might have heard about in the news… major flooding in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. On the other hand beauty of this time of year, in addition to lush greenery, is that it gives locals some time to slow down and enjoy things like a good read, lingering conversations with friends/strangers, and time to visit with family. And for me… it makes for good time to write an update letter. So here we go….

Family-
For those of you who didn’t know already, the Watson family has just had a new addition… a new baby boy in the family. His name is Wolfgang Thomas Watson, and he was born on August 29^th/5:45AM/3.5 kilos/20.25 inches. Stacey, Wolfie, Olivia and I are all doing well…. enjoying the “diaper years” together. After Wolfie’s birth, my (Lyle) parents came down for two weeks to help with the adjustment to two babies, and Stacey’s parents will be visiting in November.

Café Café -
The café continues to be a great place of outreach…. Especially in the rainy season. Slower business has made for more meaningful interactions with locals as they aren’t’ in such a hurry to get back to work. Thank you for your prayers in regard to this ministry as we sense and see God moving as salt and light through the Café.

New news with volunteers at the Café is that two new youth ministry interns at our church (Brandon and Leanne)… have been volunteering at the café on Mondays. This is a Godsend as it allows me a day to take care of responsibilities at the church, errands, and other behind the scenes sort of stuff. In addition, since they’ve come, the Café has become a fairly regular gathering place for youth events such as movie nights, scavenger hunts, etc.

(PICTURE)Just last weekend, the Café served as a roadside site for our “reflector program” outreach that Stacey began a few years back. Unfortunately Costa Rica has one of the highest incidences of roadside fatalities in the world. This is partially because many Costa Ricans use bicycles for transportation back and forth to work each day. In fact, just last week a man was struck and seriously injured by a car right in front of the Café. With this in mind, every so often Stacey rallies the youth group to set up roadside sites to stop cyclists and place reflector tape on their bikes. In addition to the reflector tape, they give out booklets in Spanish containing a short message of God’s love for them and the Gospel of John.

Other ways that we have been able to interact with the community through the café are:

• People meeting with clients for business meetings
• Meeting for Women’s ministry event
• Local womens book reading group
• People meeting here for Spanish lessons/tutoring
• The café is a drop-off point for items being collected in a relief-effort for flood victims.

Just last week, a couple came into the café and asked about the church… then confessed that they were really “scouting out” the type of church we are, then I saw them at church the following Sunday. More than anything, it is exciting for Stacey and I to see the Café coming to maturity as a place of ministry and connecting with non-believers.

Beach Community Church (BCC)
My role at Beach Community church continues to be primarily in worship leading, but lately I’ve found myself in the realm of publicity and web design (www.costaricachurch.com). In addition, I will be leading my first ever Adult Christian Ed class at BCC on the core values of our church. Please pray God’s guidance for me as I prepare and lead these lessons.

Stacey has continued to co-lead a womens bible study in Playa Avellanas (15 minutes south of us) and the women’s “mommy group”. The bible study continues to grow in depth of relationship and in numbers. And Mommy Group continues to be a success in providing a place of community and encouragement for women in the area. If you could be a fly on the wall when Stacey comes home from these gatherings…. It’s exciting for me to hear each week what a blessing these groups are for the women who come.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and support. Please see the prayer requests below to know how to support and pray for us.

Grace and Peace,

Lyle & Stacey

Prayer requests-

• Adult Christian Education Class- that people would be encouraged in their identity as Christians and strengthened in their faith.
• God would meet our financial needs…. Blessing the Café, providing alternative means and opportunities for Stacey and I to earn additional income, and increased financial contributions to our ministry.
• Blessing of our outreach efforts through the Café, through the Church Christmas caroling events, and through the daily witness of our church community.

How to Get Involved

You can contribute financially through our non-profit sponsors at ACI. There are instructions on making contributions and a link to ACI on our website at www.tamarindochurch.com.

• Please donate used books to Café Café.
• Donate second hand clothes or children school supplies for local poor families.
• Contact Lyle to make donations of books or clothes. (tamarindochurch@aol.com)