Happy New Year from Costa Rica! As we look forward to a new year of ministry opportunities, we also look back on 2012 and can see God’s hand touching and transforming lives. God is at work and it is a privilege to be eyewitnesses of his power.

Ministry Sites

We have watched as the sports site, along with the women’s social work/microbusiness site, came alongside a young teenage couple, Byron and Fiorella, and empowered them to continue their high school education while raising their newborn son. We cheered in December as the children at the Tutoring Center one after the other brought news that they had passed and would be moving on to the next grade in 2013. (Our school year in Costa Rica starts in February and ends the beginning of December). We celebrated at the Woodshop as the new students finished their first projects. We celebrated at the social services site to see children faithfully coming and learning to respect others and themselves.

Students

We wrestled with our semester students and outreach participants about how to apply what God taught them in Costa Rica to their lives so as to continue to be instruments of change in their world. Through the ups and downs of life and ministry and the many challenges that presented themselves in 2012 God proved faithful and was at work bringing hope and transformation.

New for 2013

• We are excited to welcome a new group of semester students this spring to work alongside our gifted staff.
• We look forward to welcoming new North American staff members that are currently raising support as well as a new Costa Rican staff member or two.
• We are eagerly anticipating hosting outreaches and watching God transform North American and Costa Rican lives as the two cultures come together.
• We are working hard to raise the funds to purchase the Tutoring Center and Woodshop to give us more permanence in the neighborhoods where we work.
• We are praying that God would guide us as we seek to launch new ministry sites. Above all, we are excited and humbled to walk daily with our God and to watch as his love, mercy, justice, and grace transform people’s lives to bring hope. To follow what God does in 2013, become a fan of SI Costa Rica’s Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/sicostarica.