Couples Conference

View from our balcony in the hotel

We called this "Foster Freeze"

Water front from our hotel

Dennis begins to speak through his interpreter, Otto

This is the street where the church is located

Marsha begins her presentation, Isabel interpreting

Lunch at the church dining hall

Worshiping. The man on the right with the tie is the pastor of the church

Marsha listening to the beautiful singing

Worshiping - these people can really sing!

Dennis and Otto

Dennis praying for the pastors

We are back at the capital after our two day trip to Limon, on the Caribbean side. This is the main port for the country. There is a lot of commercial activity on the water front as large ships are loaded or unloaded, and big trucks come through carrying large containers. The problem is that the highway is only two lanes, so you are driving behind those huge trucks. It is a  slow drive. Carlos said it is not a long distance, but a long trip. We left San Jose in mid afternoon, but arrived at our hotel at about 6 in the evening. After we got settled in our rooms, we went downstairs for dinner. To our surprise our host, pastor Dennis (yes, his name is Dennis also), dropped by to say hello on his way to church. After dinner, we went straight to bed because we were very tired and had a big day ahead of us. We went to sleep listening to the waves.

We arrived at the conference site, which was the local Baptist church just a few minutes before nine o'clock. Some people were already there. As the church began to fill, we realized that about two thirds of the attendees were there without their spouses. Marsha had each person stand up at the beginning on the conference and state his or her name, their ministry and why they were there. That's how we found out that most were there because they were in charge of couples ministries in their churches. As I already said, only one third were couples. We were disappointed because the workshop is designed to get couples to interact to each other and discuss deep intimate issues. Dennis and Marsha went ahead and presented all the material. We know that they will take the information to their churches and hope that many couples will be impacted by the message. We finished at four o'clock and began the trip home shortly after, but first we went downtown and had some delicious ice cream. During both drive up and back, we had a great time of fellowship with Carlos, his wife, Otto, the interpreter, and the four of us. Although the trip is lo9ng, it was a great time with a lot of laughter. We were delayed half way because there was an accident blocking the road, but we got back to the capital at about nine thirty, ready to rest. As I said, the Lord will take the information and use it for His glory!

Today Dennis and Marsha will return to San Diego. We will spend the night at Carlos and Rosario's house to leave tomorrow morning for Guatemala.Until next time...from near the beach...