March and April 2011

Assembly measures for these months are available at:

http://carlosulatecostarica.blogspot.com/p/statistics.html

There is a video on Youtube you might want to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b45VNSpbVDs

Two people were added through baptism —a young lady, and a single mother. They are attending faithfully. Many people continue to visit.
The church is little by little becoming autonomous, in other words, they already carry out activities and make decisions in which I don't have to be involved anymore. Hopefully, there will be a time when they will be able to function as an indigenous church —self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. "Indigenous" means that it has elders, it supports its own preacher, and it is able to plant other churches.

Raquel, Rebeca and waiters

Example of an activity in which I was not involved: Daniel Delgado, Raquel Urquilla, Milady Masís, and Noris Milanés formed a committee to carry out what they called a Romantic Dinner. 24 married couples attended. The youth group helped as waiters. They even dressed as waiters. Luis Montero (the young man wearing a bow tie) not only wore the most complete waiter's attire, he also did a great job at serving. A lesson on marriage was taught by Herman Chandler, the preacher in Cañas, province of Guanacaste. Roxana and I wered invited and were delighted to be there as guests. 

Example of a decision in which I was not involved: A wall was torn down in order to enlarge the auditorium. Roofing of that section has been completed, and finishing is underway. We are finally having Sunday morning services where nobody has to sit outside. The atmosphere is cooler (actually not as hot), and there is room for up to 120 people sitting comfortably (actually less uncomfortably). The money spent was little more than one third of what the remodeling committee had originally thought. The budget went down from 8.000 to 3.000 because the Facilities Committee postponed the remodeling of the restrooms, and found another contractor. The 3.000 dollars being spent this time had already been collected in a period of three months. The two children classes, whose rooms were taken for this enlargement of the auditorium, are now meeting in the rooms left by the Nicaraguan family that was living there as guardians of the building (this family just moved back to Nicaragua). Everyone was invited by the Facilities Committee to participate in the tearing down of the wall. So, I was there, one Saturday mornig under the Committee's orders.

Wednesday nights are something these days. Attendance has slowly risen to 50 (The last report was between 30 and 40 in January). The only explanation for this is that people are hungrier for the Word of God. What we have is just a normal Bible class, with participation, of course, from those who want to make comments.