Tuesday, September 9, 2014

September news from the Burgins

Ron and Jeanie Burgin
Campus Crusade for Christ
Latin America and the Caribbean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends,
Greetings from San Jose, Costa Rica!

Greetings from Costa Rica!

Over the months, we have shared about ministry activities and the vision we have for spiritual movements throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. This month I thought I would share a couple of stories from our life in Costa Rica: one about a man at our church who became a Christian this week, and another about a man who is finding a place to serve at Guadalupe Gathering Place. Typically in Campus Crusade, we tell stories of college students, but these men are older, with some tough life stories to tell.

I had met Roy a couple of months ago, but never really talked to him until this past weekend. He was sitting alone in the back of the old movie theater where we meet. He seemed a little older than our usual attender. In fact, he is 51 years old. As we talked, the story became very interesting. Although his English was not great, he had lived in Los Angeles for 25 years. He was very vague about why he came back. I have learned not to ask too many questions about people returning to Latin America after many years in the USA. (It frequently has to do with deportation following an arrest.) Roy is single and now works as a correctional officer in the prison about 20 miles from here. He has an 8 days on, 8 days off schedule, so we see him every other week at church.

As we talked I asked him about his relationship with Christ. He said, “Well, I’m a Catholic”. I told him that many Catholics were Christ-followers as well :) When I asked how he hoped to be received into heaven, he gave the traditional response about good works vs. evil deeds. I shared the Gospel with him and told him that he could be sure of his standing with God not because of what he had or had not done, but rather what Christ had done for him on the cross. He was so excited and prayed with me right then to ask Jesus to be his Savior. He said, “I will never forget this night!”

The second man is Mauricio. He is over forty with a great smile and a desire to serve. In fact, he is anxious to be able to help. Mauricio didn’t speak the first months at the church and indicated that he was mute. He is gifted however, in using puppets to teach stories to children. He came alive when we scheduled him to take the children’s ministry one evening. He brought his puppet stage and puppets and God used him with the kids.

A few weeks later we learned more. Mauricio has a cleft palate. He had surgery as a child to repair the outside, but the palate is still open. He was never able to speak. One Sunday, in a smaller group, he spoke to us. It was very halting and difficult to understand. He shared how God had given him the gift of speech later in life. For him to communicate he needs to know people love him and will be patient to listen, because it is hard both for him and for the hearer.

Mauricio’s story is the same for most of us. We want to be loved and for people to be patient to listen. He lives a very humble life of dependence on God. We are praying for a way for him to not only feel loved, but for him to be able to serve every week.

Whether in the USA or in Latin America, people have hard lives that only Jesus can heal. Will you pray for Roy as he begins his new walk of faith and for Mauricio as he walks day by day with the comfort of His Savior?

Prayer requests:

  • For our new grandson, Micah Stephen Burgin, 7 weeks old and growing strong.

  • For Guadalupe Gathering Place as we share the good news of God’s love and forgiveness.

  • For our Operations team as we serve our national ministries throughout the continent.

  • For Jeanie as she prepares for our first ESL classes here at our office building.

  • For our Operations Leadership Conference later this month in Greece. Leaders from around the world, including five from Latin America (Jeanie, too!) will be meeting to build vision and learn new skills to serve our missionaries on the field.

Thanks for your faithful support! We love and appreciate you

Your missionaries in Latin America,

Ron and Jeanie

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

July News from Costa Rica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends,
Greetings from San Jose, Costa Rica!

Exciting Family News!! We are thrilled  to announce the birth of our 9th grandchild, Micah Stephen Burgin, born to Stephen and Rachael on July 22nd weighing 7 lbs. 9 oz. Micah’s two big sisters, Leah and Rebekah, are very excited to have a baby brother! Micah decided to come 2 weeks early and surprise all of us! We now have 5 granddaughters  and 4 grandsons! We are indeed blessed! All 9 of them are age 6 and under making for pretty exciting family reunions!

We are in the rainy season here, but we always enjoy our morning walk in the sunshine. For the last several days we have been without a kitchen as we live through a minor remodel. We did some remodel work on the house we bought in Bolivia, but finished it all before we moved in. This is our first time living in the mess. Jeanie has done an admirable job of moving a temporary kitchen into our bedroom. (Think microwave burritos!)

We just completed a 3 week/120 hr. course in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). The course we took is not a degree program but rather a certification program. We have been teaching English in various situations here and in Bolivia but we both felt that we needed some more formal training in order to feel more confident in offering classes. We both gained much greater confidence in teaching English and are very excited about using what we have learned in ministry here in San Jose.  

The office building where our office is located is a large new building that has literally hundreds of young Costa Rican professionals and is a wide open mission field. Our dream is to offer English classes in our office to these young professionals and then to use these classes as a way to get to know them and share the love of Jesus. We are both very excited about the doors for ministry that this could open for us and the great potential that it has for reaching young professionals for Christ. We appreciate your prayers as we move forward with this ministry opportunity.

Ron here: Jeanie is the guiding force in this effort, and I am the support personnel. With my other responsibilities, she will often be on her own.

We are seeing exciting growth at the Guadalupe Gathering Place, the new church that we have had a part in planting. This past weekend 24 of us gathered to begin a process of practical ministry training called MC2 (Multiplying Church Communities). These first sessions focus on learning the heart of God for reaching lost people and trusting Him to use US in the process. The reaction was phenomenal and, together with my colleagues Sebastian and Andy, we are looking forward to raising up a generation of young leaders.

The training is very interactive, using adult learning styles.

Prayer requests:

  • For Ron as he prepares the next generation of Campus Crusade operations/administrative leaders
  • For Ron as he team-preaches through Luke with his Costa Rican colleague, Sebastian.
  • For the church as we continue to receive new people who don’t know Jesus.
  • For our ongoing MC2 training.
  • For Jeanie as she seeks God's wisdom for the timing and details of our new English outreach.

Thanks for your faithful support! We love and appreciate you
Your missionaries in Latin America,

Ron and Jeanie

Monday, May 19, 2014

May News

Ron and Jeanie Burgin
Campus Crusade for Christ
Latin America and the Caribbean

http://www.burgin-costarica.blogspot.com/

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Dear Friends,

Greetings from San Jose, Costa Rica! We are enjoying the change of season here as we move from the dry season to the VERY rainy season. We have suffered from a drought, so the downpours are very welcome. We are wrapping up several ministry activities this month. Although Costa Rica does not operate on the US school calendar, many of our activities do.
I (Jeanie) have had the wonderful privilege of meeting weekly with an amazing group of young women. These girls just finished their 9 month mission experience as part of the GAP program here in Costa Rica and I was their small group leader.  Spending time with these girls reminded me of my initial time on Campus Crusade staff in the mid 1970’s when I worked with High School girls in Chicago and Orange County, California. These girls face the same struggles as those I ministered to 35-40 years ago.

They love Jesus and want to follow Him but the pressures of this world sometimes overwhelm them.  We spent time together in the Bible and discussed various issues that they face as young Christian women. We discussed such topics as dating, sexual purity, theological issues, spiritual disciplines and just how to live more completely as a follower of Jesus. The issues are the same as they were years ago. When Ron was out of the country we even had a couple of slumber parties at our home and they loved getting out of their group living situation and having special time together.   I love spending time with young women and look forward to keeping in touch with them as they go on to the next thing in their lives.  One of them is headed to Clemson University in South Carolina in the Fall and I have already sent her the information about CRU on her campus. It was tough to say goodbye as they graduated this past weekend!
The GAP program is part of a Mission called SCORE International.  This 9 month program is designed for students just out of High School or midway through University who would like to take a year to explore missions and another culture.  The program is designed for up to 35 students who come to Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic and spend 9 months studying Spanish, taking Bible classes and ministering with various mission projects to get hands on experience ministering in another culture.  We feel this program is very solid and would recommend it to any young people who may want this kind of experience. 
If you know any High School graduates who may be interested in 2015/16 you can direct them to this website. www.scoreintl.org  The program is full for this coming September-May. (There may be a few slots left for male students).
Prayer requests:

  • For Ron as he prepares the next generation of Campus Crusade operations/administrative leaders
  • For Ron as he team-preaches through Luke with his Costa Rica colleague, Sebastian.
  • For the church as we continue to receive new people who don’t know Jesus.
  • For the GAP students as they return to the USA, and for the new group that will be coming in August.
  • For Jeanie as she wraps up another semester with her Women’s Bible Study.
  • For a big children's outreach we have planned for this coming Sunday. We will be showing the JESUS Film for Children.

Thanks for your faithful support! We love and appreciate you
Your missionaries in Latin America,

Ron and Jeanie

Monday, March 31, 2014

March / April update

Dear Friends,

It is hard to believe another month has passed (I wonder how many times I have started a letter that way over the past 20 years?). This has been a month full of travel, preaching, and new challenges. Our years always seem to start slow because of summer vacations in January and February in Latin America. The jolt of activity in March always comes as a surprise!
This month I made my very first visit to our ministry in Trinidad and Tobago. Very often my visits are determined by need: leadership change, administrative/financial crises, etc. Trinidad has always been the small, but effective ministry that doesn’t cry out for help. Nonetheless, we had made a calendar for regular audits, and Trinidad was on the list. Just as I suspected, their systems and accounting look just great. But much more important, their ministry in the lives of students is flourishing.
Trinidad

Many years ago we began the youth ministry called Crossroads in Trinidad and Tobago. The government of Tobago was so impressed with the biblical values presented in the curriculum, that they have partnered with us for the past several years to reach all of the high school students. When I say partner, I mean they actually fund a great deal of the curriculum. It is wonderful to see secular officials value the outcome of our work in the lives of students.
I got to speak at the University of the West Indies one afternoon. I spoke on God’s faithfulness to a thousand generations, and our personal responsibility before God to leave a Godly heritage, starting with our own life. It was great to see the response of the students and hear them think of applications in their lives. Please pray for our ministry in Trinidad and Tobago as they reach each incoming generation of high school and university students with the Good News of the Gospel!
I have written about our new church plant, the Guadalupe Gathering Place. This month we said goodbye to our founding pastor, John Lovell, and are moving forward in faith with the leadership God has raised up. We are teaching through Colossians, and a couple of weeks ago I preached from Chapter 3 on the role of husbands. With our very youthful congregation, the concept of becoming a Godly and responsible husband is vital, but often not really on the radar screen of the average university student. Please pray for me as part of our elder team and for the church as God brings growth.
Last week I was in Guatemala with part of our Latin America leadership team to coach our national leadership team. Some teams need more direct help than others, and this is a season for Campus Crusade in Guatemala when they are facing many direct challenges both from within and without. Please pray for our leaders there that they would seek God and love people as they take the ministry in new directions.
This week we have 30 leaders from all over Latin America and the Caribbean converging on San Jose for a week to step back together and review our progress over the last three years and refine and sharpen our vision toward 2020. They will all be arriving later today and our meetings begin tomorrow morning. Please pray for clear thinking and openness to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit. The decisions we make will impact our 500 staff around the continent, and through them thousands of others.
Thank you for praying for the situation in Venezuela. We decided to remove all of our North American staff from that troubled country. Please continue to pray for our national staff who remain in Venezuela: God’s provision for them, safety, peace.
Well, that’s the update! We appreciate your faithful prayer and steady support as we trust God to reach people.
Your missionaries in Latin America,

Ron and Jeanie

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

A New School Year

Ron and Jeanie Burgin
Campus Crusade for Christ
Latin America and the Caribbean

http://www.burgin-costarica.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new school year…


Dear Friends,

The school year begins again in Costa Rica in February, and just like September in USA, February is a month of beginnings and re-launches in church and mission life. More on that in a minute!
Jeanie and I are back from a quick visit to the USA where we got to … meet a new granddaughter!!! Eleanor Grace Tolbert (daughter of Patty and Luke) is our eighth grandchild, but the excitement for us is just as great as it was when Wesley was born six years ago. They are each such a precious treasure!! It becomes increasingly difficult to pry Jeanie away to return to Costa Rica:) Here is a photo of Jeanie with little Eleanor Grace:

Last week we barely escaped the snow and ice that paralyzed the Carolinas for a few days, and aside from a a brief detour for our luggage (with Tillamook cheese inside) we made it home intact to our beautiful 75-80 degree weather. We are thankful to be home.

What a privilege to serve with our Latino brothers and sisters. I have shared a lot over the last year or so about our involvement in a new church plant, Guadalupe Gathering Place. Our young, dynamic lead pastor, John Lovell, is returning to Georgia in a month. On the one hand it will be a great loss for us - what a great preacher he is! On the other hand, he has been preparing us for his departure. I have served for two years as an elder/pastor in the church so I would appreciate your prayers during this transition.

The young Costa Rican who works with me in the Campus Crusade office here, Sebastian, has been preaching more at the church and is a great communicator to the young Tico audience. This past Sunday night he preached on Colossians 3:1-17 and did a great job. We have side by side translation into English so that everyone will understand. I was the translator for Sebas. In a couple of weeks I will be preaching on a later passage in Colossians and Sebas will translate for me!

Here is a photo of the two of us from Sunday night. Please pray for our growing congregation. We have many people with deep spiritual and physical needs.



Jeanie is back into the swing of ministry. We are just beginning the school year here and women’s bible studies and ESL class are beginning again. Today there were 22 women in the study that Jeanie teaches. Tonight she will be back together with the GAP girls small group. Tomorrow evening we will be back to teaching our English as a second language classes. And then on Thursday I will be leading the small group study here in our office. The people who come to that study are workers here in our building. Please pray for us as we minister.
I will be traveling to Trinidad in three weeks to meet with their leaders. While I’m there I will be doing an audit of their accounting system. I am looking forward to being with them. (From their perspective, I am not sure anyone looks forward to an audit, however!)

Thank you so much for your faithfulness with us as we continue to ministry in Costa Rica and help lead Campus Crusade throughout Latin America.
We appreciate you!!
Your missionaries,

Ron and Jeanie

Copyright © 2014 CCC Latin America, All rights reserved.

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Thursday, January 16, 2014

A Week in the Life . . .

Ron and Jeanie Burgin
Campus Crusade for Christ
Latin America and the Caribbean

http://www.burgin-costarica.blogspot.com/

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A week in the life…


Dear Friends,

We had a great two weeks in the USA over Christmas and New Year's with all of our children and grandchildren. The greatness was tempered by the serial discomfort of the norovirus moving through nearly all of us in the few days before and after Christmas. Nonetheless, what a blessing to be together!

Back home again
This first week back has been full of the kind of mundane legal activities that any missionary lives through, and that I rarely write about. In fact, I remember thinking no one back home would want to read about that stuff - not very spiritual. But the work was so all-encompassing this week and God was so faithful, that I just have to share about it.
Social Security
One of the requirements we have for residency here in Costa Rica is to join the Social Security system here. The SS System is partly for retirement, but mainly it is the single-payer health system. Once in the system you have access to the doctors and hospitals (not quite as nice as the private system, and longer lines, but a good service for the average Tico). When we registered the woman made us register as individuals, and would not accept that we are a married couple. As a result, we have paid double premiums for a year.
The solution was to request a new, official marriage license from Oregon. Send it to the Secretary of State in Salem for Apostille (authentication). Get it to Costa Rica. Pay $65 to have it officially translated and then present it at Social Security. A little nervous, we went to the right office, presented our documents, answered a lot more questions, and were finally approved as a married couple. The next step was to take our approval document to the local clinic in our neighborhood and get Jeanie a new registration card that shows her as my dependent. All of the new documents had to be scanned and sent on to our attorney to be presented in the national Social Security office where they should make the adjustment to our account that should save us $70 per month for as long as we are in Costa Rica.
New Corporate Bank account.
Over the past six months I have been working with our attorney to incorporate our Campus Crusade continental office here in Costa Rica. We presented our papers and the government approved our “Asociacion” in October. Our next step is to open a bank account to receive our regular funds from the US and pay local bills here in San Jose.
I went to the Banco de Costa Rica with our Corporate paperwork to open the account. Not so quick, bub. I needed a Personeria Juridica, another legal document that listed our tax number (they didn’t tell me I could get that right there at the bank for $6). In addition, I would need a certification from a CPA ($100) certifying our expected income and expenses. I tried to explain that I didn’t know what to project until we had a few months’ experience, but to no avail. Many phone calls and details later, I got the certification and the personeria, and now I’m ready to go open the account. This may not sound like a victory, but having all of the paperwork ready is a great relief!
US Passport
I have the fattest passport that most immigration officials have ever seen, and it invites lots of comments when I enter the US - and extra questions. The funniest incident was when I told the agent that I worked with Campus Crusade and he made me quote the Four Spiritual Laws. (I passed the test :)  Anyhow… My passport expires in September and for most purposes you can’t travel with less than six months before it expires. In the past, to get a new passport, I have had to send in the old one, an application form and the $110 fee. I went to the U.S. Embassy on Thursday morning with only two weeks before my next trip. To my surprise, they let me keep my passport in case of emergency travel, and told me that I would have to present it to pick up the new one. That was a great relief. No one living overseas likes to be without their passport.
Car license plates

My Costa Rica license plates for our Corolla were old and faded, and I was afraid that the transit police would stop me because of it. Friday afternoon I went to the TICO equivalent of the DMV. I now know how to get new license plates and only had to wait an hour or so in a couple of lines. I was thrilled, but on the way home my “check engine” light came home – Oh well, that could wait until the next week!
As a missionary, I don’t like to spend time on this kind of stuff, and I bet in your life, you don’t either! What encouraged me was that even in the sometimes-intimidating trivia of life, God is there. For us to minister effectively here, we can’t ignore or postpone the requirements of life. Procrastination in Costa Rica is as bad as procrastination in the USA.
What a great privilege to serve our fellow staff in Latin America! We are so excited for what God has in store for us in the next 12 months!!
We pray that our Heavenly Father will bless you abundantly in 2014!
Your missionaries,
Ron and Jeanie