“Faithful is He who called you who will also do it. Brothers, pray for us.”

I Thess. 5:24-25

January 2018

With all of you we face the calendar and adventures of a new year. The Lord goes before us. As we write this, we enjoy the gatherings of family and friends in Ohio for a brief holiday visit, but just as much, we are excited to return to the ministry in Costa Rica.

Please follow along in prayer, and perhaps, too, you may be led to help financially in a venture.

• There is an ever-present need in the greater metropolitan area of the capital of San Jose where most Costa Ricans reside. Pastors are bi-vocational and need training according to their availability. We are working with the Evangelical Free and other national Baptist pastors to train 40-60 pastors for a week of training three times next year. The training will take place at the Spanish Language Institute facilities. This program, Lord willing, will result in a completed theological training with certification. The goal of this training is also an aid in the Latino missional movement. (For more information, click here.)

In this regard we are asking for your help.We have two churches willing to support the second and third training session—each of which cost about $4295. However, for the first session, starting February 5, we need to quickly raise that amount to cover transportation for the pastors, materials, meals, translators, facility rental.

If this is a need with which you could help—even in the smallest regard—please click here to donate through Push Pay through our home church.Under “Giving Type,” choose Grace Global Ministries. In NOTES, indicate the gift for “Pastors Training, Metropolitan San Jose, Costa Rica.” To donate via check, please write check out to Grace Global Ministries, with a note “Pastors Training, Metropolitan San Jose, Costa Rica.” Send to Grace Global Ministries, PO Box 12, Cedarville, OH 45314.

• Kevin is excited to be working with national pastors on a chaplaincy program that if pre-approved by the Costa Rican Government will allow Evangelicals, Lord willing, for the first time in the history of the government of Costa Rica, to work as chaplains in hospitals, in prisons, and to minister with the national police department. At this moment, to be a chaplain in any of those organizations, one must be a Catholic priest. This opportunity came out of meeting with pastors interested in the Awana Lifeline prison ministry and is especially of the Lord in that Kevin recently graduated with his masters in divinity, with a specialization in chaplaincy.

• In regard to the Awana Lifeline prison ministries, we are planning, printing, and designing with national pastors a program that will commence in March 2018 with the training of 100 church-approved workers who desire to go into the prisons and jails of Costa Rica. The training will take place at the Spanish Language Institute facilities. We look forward, too, to hosting Dan Bostrom, Kristi Miller, and Mike Broyles from Awana Lifelines as well as Bob Rohm, the director of our mission agency, Grace Global Ministries.

• Another new adventure in 2018 will respond to the realities of new missionary commitments by Europeans, Americans and Canadians. In the last 75 years, the Spanish Language institute has trained over 16,000 evangelical missionaries and their children in Spanish language and Latin culture—primarily through a year-long educational program. However, in today’s culture, many evangelical missionaries are answering the call of God with 2-5 year commitments instead of lifetime commitments. As a result, they have less time to prepare in the essentials of learning the Spanish language and culture, which in turn, affects gospel outreach to the Americas.

The institute plans to implement a program by which missionaries would have training in Spanish language and culture adaptation before and after they come to Costa Rica and through distance learning. This is a very real need in the missions’ world that no one in the Americas, that we know of, is addressing.

At The Spanish Language institute, we are asking the Lord at this time to confirm our desire to serve even more within the purposes of the Great Commission. Our question is “Does the body of Christ want to equip evangelical Latinos who have been called to missions with a tool so that they can enter other countries including low access countries as "tentmakers" as modeled by the Apostle Paul?”

The idea is to offer to Latino missionaries a certification of teaching Spanish-as-a-second-language to enter difficult-to-reach areas of the world with a profession. We would also train in basic English training for those who need it, in cultural adaptation skills for a new culture, and in basic means of evangelization in a new culture.

All these ventures may seem at first glance to be a lot, but none of this we are doing on our own. The Lord has blessed us with many national ministers with whom we accomplish these goals.

Another important prayer request is for the completion of our documentation for our visas. We still await paperwork from the US end, and we have to submit all translated documents to the immigration offices in early January.

Still, too, we need prayers for comfort for each family member as we journey forward through life here without our daughter Colleen. We are comforted still that she is present in her eternal home, but we still miss her here with us.

With faith in Him,

Kevin and Tia Reilly