Last October I was able to take four men from Carolina Forest Community Church (CFCC) around Costa Rica to visit eight different pastors. The goal was to find one church that they would pour all of their missions efforts into. This church was so serious about partnering with one church in Costa Rica that they stopped all of their previous mission trips to focus on making a huge impact here.
Last week CFCC took their first trip with 10 people to an amazing church in La Cruz partnering with Pastor Gerardo.
You can read the Trip Journal here. This church is about a 10 minute drive from the Nicaraguan border. The goal of this first trip was to build genuine relationships with the people and begin reaching out to the community.
This goal was definitely achieved! We spent time ministering to Pastor Gerardo and his family, helped finish a building holding two classrooms, and ministered at an elementary school.
We also were able to minister by taking bags of groceries to about 20 families. This is becoming a huge ministry that we are incorporating into many of our summer trips. As we go, we split into two teams with each team having a translator and church members as well.
One of our groups went into a home with a mother and four children. Get this... they had NO FOOD and prayed that morning that God would provide! God goes to extreme measures to love on His children, bringing a team from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to feed a family!
Our week was all building up to an "Epic Feeding Night" as the team called it. About 250 people showed up! It truly was "Epic" because the Pastor told us only 10% of those in attendance were from the church. Did you catch that? The community was drawn into the local church by loving on them all week and many people put their faith in Jesus that night!
Carolina Forest Community Church returns in November to continue their long term partnership!
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