Michael, VTI team leader, reports on the recent trip to Costa Rica by a team from Westpointe Community Church in Grande Prairie:
Pura vida! This is what they say in Costa Rica when asked how they are, how the day is going, how the meal was…. Costa Rica was full of special times to reconnect with several friends made during my visit in 2006…and meet several new people to be thankful for… pura vida!
It was a privilege to be in Costa Rica with the team (14 youth and 4 leaders) from Westpointe for 10 days! We were able to assist the church in La Fortuna (5 hours from San Jose, the capital city) in a number of ways, including a mixture of outreach and practical work, visiting people in their homes, handing out Bibles and praying with people (one of the highlights of my time there)!
During the door to door visits we invited the community out to our program, to share how Zaccheus had a life changing meeting with Jesus. It was clear that we were "reaping" the church’s persistent, prayerful efforts. For the first time, many people from the community came to the church's outreach efforts. After the program, the younger children sat in one group to make a paper tree craft with us, while the older children made a bracelet to tell the wordless book story.
Is it REAL?
Our Encore Team (Carmen, Cara and Cayla, aka the 3Cs), our second year team, is back on the road in Saskatchewan and Manitoba through to mid-February, visiting churches and schools. Check out their schedule 
The 3 Musketeers, alias the 3 C's: Cara, Carmen & Cayla, comprise our new Encore team for 2010-11. All 3 completed 9 months of ministry on Friends & Followers 2009-10 in south Asia and North America (along with 8 others). They are eager, in Cayla's words, to "inspire other believers to consider what God has called them to do here on earth; to passionately seek and live out God's will for their lives." They start a new session of training on September 7 and will be travelling to churches and mission conferences and helping to lead GAP (summer) and Spring Teams in 2011.
