Home in Costa Rica

Ron and Jeanie Burgin
Campus Crusade for Christ
Latin America and the Caribbean
http://www.burgin-costarica.blogspot.com/

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Home in Costa Rica!

Dear Friends,

We are home in Costa Rica after a longer than expected journey from Portland. Seven weeks have passed since Jeanie's hip surgery. The titanium implant is firmly in place and she is making good progress. She is walking a lot and getting stronger every day. Before the surgery, she could not walk more than a block, and that with a cane. She still has a lot of muscle soreness from the surgical incision, and that may last for several months. In spite of that ongoing pain, she is far better than she was in May. The doctor says she is good for 100,000 miles or 20 years, whichever comes first:) We are thankful for God's provision of a great doctor, hospital, and financial supporters who helped to cover our sizable deductible for the surgery. 

We were away from home for a total of nine weeks, and enjoyed my Mom and Dad's great hospitality in Portland. We aren't happy that Jeanie needed surgery, but we are eternally grateful for the special time we had with them. Some days were more painful than others for Jeanie, but every day was a blessing to be with my folks.

Pastor Rigoberto, Director Evangelical Alliance of Costa Rica

DVD partnership project

For the last several months I have been working with Pastor Rigoberto Vega, Executive Director of the Evangelical Alliance of Costa Rica on a plan for planting new churches throughout the country. There are approximately 2500 participating churches in the Alliance, from many different denominations. The plan is to distribute 3-4 copies of the JESUS Film on DVD to each of the churches with training to equip three member families from each church to open their homes to show the film and start new home fellowship groups. Just this week we have finished production of the DVD's! We will set a weekend for late August or September for a simultaneous national effort to plant new small groups. It is a huge endeavor, and I am thankful for our national partners who are doing the lion's share of the organizing! 

Please pray for the thousands of Costa Ricans who will hear the Gospel over those two days. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

10,000 copies of the JESUS DVD will be used to open thousands of new home groups in Costa Rica.

New office

This is our first full week in the new office. Jeanie has been busy buying all of the supplies and equipping our kitchen area to be a fully functional office. We have loaded down our little Corolla with a printer, a vacuum cleaner, cleaning supplies, dishes, paper towels, etc., etc. She has made us feel right at home!

Thank you!!

Over the past two months we have felt the support, prayer and love from our team as never before. We have been on the field for 19 years, and not a week passes without a reminder that God uses His people, working together, to accomplish His purposes. THANK YOU for your part in our ministry!

Copyright © 2013 CCC Latin America, All rights reserved.

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Hip Surgery update

Dear friends,
I just wanted to write with a quick update on how Jeanie is doing after her hip replacement surgery. We got to the hospital bright and early Monday morning, and Jeanie was ready to go. Surgery lasted about two hours and she was in recovery for another couple of hours. They transferred her to her room and she felt pretty good, but I have to say she was pretty much still under the anesthetic.
Later that same afternoon the physical therapist and the occupational therapist made a visit to help her get up to her feet and begin the process of learning to walk on her new hip. She was extremely nauseous and dizzy that first afternoon, and we pretty much had to give up until Tuesday. She did a little better on Tuesday but was still very shaky, so the physical therapist decided it would be best if she spent another night the hospital.
Wednesday morning we were released from the hospital, and made the drive back home. What a difference that extra day made. Jeanie felt much better and now, Thursday morning, she's feeling very well. She is still on medication, but is getting better every day. She's able to walk up and down the hallway, and I see a lot of hope in her eyes after many months of very limited mobility.
Thank you so much for your support during this time. We're looking forward to the future, and looking forward to getting back to Costa Rica.
Your missionaries in Latin America,
Ron and Jeanie

 

April Update

Ron and Jeanie Burgin

Campus Crusade for Christ, Latin America and the Caribbean

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

Greetings from San Jose!

Jeanie and I are back home after a month of lots of travel. Our trips were challenging, joyous, and exciting. I’ll take them in order:

Challenging…

Jeanie has been suffering from ongoing back and hip pain for nearly six months following a bad fall here in Costa Rica. Having tried Chiropractic, PT, medication, etc., we decided that the time had come to seek medical advice back home in Portland. Jeanie received successful treatment for her back ailment, but with an MRI, it is pretty clear that she will need hip replacement surgery. We are working with the doctors at Providence St. Vincent’s in Portland to set an early June date for surgery. We are glad that there is a clear diagnosis, challenged at the prospect of surgery. This has been a very hard time for Jeanie as she experiences for the first time some incapacity, and the need to leave the field to do what needs to be done. Please pray for Jeanie’s mobility and comfort as we wait for surgery.

Joyous…

After a few days in Costa Rica, it was back to Washington, DC to meet Colton James Hanks, Sarah and Dustin’s new baby. Colton joins Wesley, 5, and Cooper, 3, in a joyous, rambunctious house full of little boys. Colton is our seventh grandchild and we couldn’t be prouder.

Exciting…

We went straight from DC to our National Leadership Conference for the Caribbean region. As Operations Director, I was there to help our leaders plan for the growth we will see as God brings in a harvest of new believers. Most of our ministries in the Caribbean are focused on University students and it was great to hear the stories of what God is doing on campuses.

We had a free afternoon together to go see alligators on an airboat. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the place, the most intense storm in more than a year blew in with winds upwards of 60 mph and horizontal, torrential rain. Funny thing about it, we had more “team-building” as we watched the storm together than we would have had out on a loud airboat. Isn’t God good? (Andrew is in the picture - he came as our translator)

 

Training…

One of the most exciting parts of my job is recruiting and training new staff to serve our 500+ staff family in Latin America. This week we are working with two new staff people.

Massiel Vergara is a great answer to prayer. She is the new financial manager for our ministry in Panama. We have struggled for years to find the right person for Panama. We’re praying she’ll be the one! She is spending the week with our Area Financial Team in Santa Cruz, Bolivia getting some hands-on training.

Here in Costa Rica, we have just added Sebastian Sequeira to our team. He is a committed believer who will be working with me in the area of measurements and leading with information. With as many staff as we have and ministries in 26 countries, we have a system for staff to enter their ministry results online so that their leaders can track what is happening: numbers of new believers, numbers of new small groups, etc. Sebastian will maintain the system and train our staff in how to use it. Sebastian is a graduate mechanical engineer and super-fast in picking up new software. He is also a real answer to prayer!

Please pray for Massiel and Sebastian!

In the coming weeks we’ll be keeping you posted on Jeanie’s progress. Meanwhile we sure appreciate your prayer and partnership with us!

Your missionaries in Latin America and the Caribbean,

Ron and Jeanie

February Update: Congreso in Panama

What an awesome month! As you know, I am the Director of Operations in Campus Crusade Latin America and the Caribbean. My area includes administration and finance, fund development, technology, measurements, legal and communications. With 26 national ministries all trying to serve their local staff in these areas, we saw the need to bring all of our staff and employees in Operations from all over the continent for vision, training and fellowship. Our task, very simply, is to provide the services for our ministries to be able to double and triple in size in the coming few years, reaching thousands with the Gospel of Jesus.

We met together in Panama City, a beautiful city in the very center of Latin America. We challenged our staff to dream big as they consider their ministries in the year 2020. I gave them the assignment to write a fictional news story from November 30, 2020 describing their ministry. Their dreams went way beyond mine. Here is a sample of the 2020 dreams:

… The new systems have enabled Mexico since last year to send 100 missionaries per year to other countries in LAC.

… From Peru: these new staff members were trained to reach 15 indigenous areas where 15 non-Spanish dialects are spoken. We are now seeing active ministries in each of these areas.

My job, together with the team God has raised up for Operations in our area, is to continue to coach and develop these national leaders so that they are able to multiply themselves in the lives of others so that we will really see growth in movements of evangelism and discipleship!

What’s next on the calendar?

February 24-26 National Leaders conference in San Jose

February 26-March 11 Back to Oregon. Jeanie has continued to suffer from back pain and we will be going back to Oregon for a complete work up there.

March 18-22 Washington, D.C. to meet a new grandson.

March 23-26 Caribbean National Leadership Conference.

Praises:

VERY successful Congreso in Panama for our Operations people from throughout Latin America.

Our residence visas in Costa Rica were approved! A few more details ahead, including registering with Costa Rica Social Security. (Oh yes, we will begin paying taxes in Costa Rica)

Prayer requests:

Please pray for a definite diagnosis and treatment plan for Jeanie when we go to Oregon.

Please pray for our daughter and son-in-law, Sarah and Dustin, as they expect a new baby boy in the next couple of weeks. Pray for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.

Please pray for our son Andrew as he finishes his sophomore year at University of Florida and plans a summer of missions in Bolivia. Pray that God will use him in a mighty way.

In San Jose, things are moving ahead with our architect and builder for the build out of our new office space. We hope it will be complete by the end of April. Please pray for all the details of our construction project: Materials, schedule, no cost overruns, permits, etc., etc.

Please pray that God would raise up an assistant for me in Costa Rica who is particularly capable in IT.

Trusting God in the hard times

Dear Friends,

Greetings from San José, Costa Rica!

After a wonderful time in Portland with our family (well part of them anyway) for Christmas and New Year’s we headed to Norfolk, Virginia for the birth of our beautiful new granddaughter, Rebekah Joy Burgin. We arrived Saturday night and she arrived Sunday afternoon! Our timing couldn't have been better. We were able to spend the next 4 days getting to know her and just being with Stephen, Rachael and Leah as they welcomed little Rebekah to their family. Here I am with Rebekah:

We have been back in Costa Rica for 10 days now and are adjusting to getting back to real life. Ron is in full swing with the final plans on our new office space for Campus Crusade Latin America. He has been meeting with the owners of the building and with a lawyer to finalize the lease agreement as well as with the architect who is designing the interior space. There are lots of legal things to learn in setting up an office in a foreign country but Ron is on top of it all! Here he is in the unfinished office space:

Our return here has brought with it some challenges for me (Jeanie) as well. Many of you know that in October I slipped on some spilled water on a tile floor just after teaching my ESL class and injured my lower back. In Oregon I received a diagnosis of a sprained back and began physical therapy. I had been making some progress and experiencing some relief from the pain. However, after returning here the pain became so intense that I really could not walk as each step brought excruciating pain. Monday we made the decision to seek medical help by going to an Orthopedic/Spinal specialist here in San José. The Lord led us to a wonderful doctor who gave us lots of his time an answered all of our questions. He has prescribed medication to get the pain under control and then additional physical therapy with a therapist that he works closely with to monitor progress. He feels like with the physical therapy that surgery may not be necessary. The surgery option will be visited again in 6 weeks. Please pray with us for the following requests.

· That the pain will be under control soon.

· That the physical therapy will be effective

· That surgery will not be necessary

· That I will be able to travel to Panama for a ministry conference in February and to DC in mid-March for the birth of our 7th grandchild!

· That the Lord will give me a positive attitude and hope in the midst of pain and suffering.

During these days the Lord has been speaking to me through His word about trusting in Him in the midst of circumstances beyond my control. I have never had to deal with extreme physical pain before and it has been very difficult for me to be hopeful and to trust that God has a purpose in everything he allows in our lives even when they make no sense to us. Just this morning in the One Year Bible passage for today He spoke to me in the account of Peter walking on the water in Matthew 14. Here are a few things He used to encourage me this morning.

· In the midst of the storm Jesus said, "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid." 

· Peter immediately wanted to go to Jesus and when Jesus said "Come" Peter responded with great faith by getting out of the boat and momentarily walking on the water.

· But then he takes his eyes off Jesus and places them again on the circumstances and he sinks.

· Peter's immediate response is to cry out to Jesus, “Lord save me!"

· Immediately Jesus reaches out his hand and caught Peter. "You of little faith," Jesus said, "Why did you doubt me?"

· Then when Peter was safely in the boat WITH Jesus the storm calmed down and the response of all the disciples was, "Truly you are the Son of God!"

Matthew 14 closes with these words that give me hope for today. "And all who touched Him were healed." Whether or not I am physically healed from this back issue, my prayer is that I will keep my eyes on Jesus and get back in the boat with Him and stay there!

Thanks for your prayers,
Jeanie

October Update from Jeanie

Greetings from San Jose!

We can hardly believe that we have been here in Costa Rica a little over 8 months!! In many ways it seems like yesterday that we arrived and in others it seems like we have been here forever! So much has happened and we are finally beginning to see God open up doors of ministry for us here. We miss our friends in Bolivia but know we are right where God has called us and each day brings new opportunities to be an influence for Jesus to those around us. Here is just a short update on our lives here.

Travel: Our position on the Leadership Team for Latin America/Caribbean requires travel, especially for Ron, to various countries in our area to encourage our staff but also to training conferences to be better equipped to assist our staff. This past month he attended a 10 day conference in Turkey for Operations Leaders of Campus Crusade from around the world. He came away encouraged about how he can come alongside our staff and help them be more effective. Then the next trip was to Germany for a training in crisis management with Campus Crusade leaders around the world. While he was gone I was able to spend a few days in Norfolk, VA with our son and his precious family. We are now ready to stay home for a while!!

New Area Office: Ron is in the process of setting up an office location to serve our ministries in 25 countries. That requires meeting with lawyers to set things up correctly as well as finding a location and equipping it with all the necessary things to be a fully functioning office for our leadership team. We will be glad to move the office from our bedroom to its new location!!

The Gathering Place: The Gathering Place is the name for a new church plant here in San Jose that we are privileged to be in on the ground floor. Ron is an elder in the new church and now leading the small group ministry and writing the materials for our groups each week. Our target group to reach is Costa Ricans who want to improve their English or already speak English fairly well. There are many here that fall into those categories who are seeking answers to spiritual issues and the church is growing!

ESL (Teaching English): Through the contact of another missionary we have become involved in an ESL ministry each Wednesday evening. The leaders of this ministry are helping us learn how to use English classes to reach Costa Ricans with the Gospel. Our ultimate goal is to multiply this ministry to our new church, The Gathering Place. We have been averaging about 90 students each week. We are leading the Beginning level and have about 25-30 students in our section. This is fun and I am learning so much!

GAP Students: The lead pastor of the Gathering Place is also the Bible teacher for a ministry to young people (age 18-25) who want to take a GAP year between High School graduation or mid-college to have a year away in another culture to focus on language study, Bible and Missions. These students are also part of our new church plant. This ministry is a fantastic training for our future missionaries! I (Jeanie) am leading a small group of girls each week as part of this program. I love being with them each week and influencing them in missions and their walk with Christ. These students are also using the small group material that Ron is writing for our new church.

Family update: Our kids and their families are all doing great! Stephen and Rachael are expecting baby #2 the first week of January and all is going well. They are adjusting well to their new life in Norfolk, VA and Stephen loves his job as Assistant Professor of Science Education at Old Dominion University. We are proud of Dr. Burgin. Leah loves her new school and she is so precious!

Patty and Luke and their 2 precious little girls are in Camden SC where Luke continues to serve on the staff at Malvern Hill Baptist Church and Patty is a happy mom at home with her little girls.

Sarah and Dustin are in DC and enjoying their life on “The Hill”. They are expecting another baby boy in March to join almost 5 year old Wesley and almost 3 year old Cooper! They are open for any suggestions for boy names!

Andrew is almost mid-way through his Sophomore year at the University of Florida and enjoying his business classes and being involved in the music ministry at his church and also Campus Crusade, not to mention rooting for the Florida Gators every chance he gets!

Christmas 2012: We are so excited to be in Oregon for the month of December. Andrew will be joining us there for his Semester break. We will be planning a meeting for our friends and supporters during that time. Specific details will follow within the next month.

We are so grateful to each of you for the part you play in making it possible for us to serve here with this ministry. We know that giving is a sacrifice and we do not take it for granted.

Thank you so much,

Ron and Jeanie

September 2012

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

September 17, 2012

Dear Friends,

Hi from San Jose! I hope you are well and beginning to settle into the fall routine in the USA. There are special things we miss at every time of the year, but we always think fondly of warm Indian summer days in the beautiful Northwest.

Last June when I wrote, Jeanie and I were settled into our new home in Costa Rica. My job as Operations Director for CCC Latin America was going well, but we were wondering how God could possibly use us personally here in San Jose. After many years of exciting ministry and great relationships in Bolivia, we were feeling a little lost.

What a difference a couple of months can make! God is really beginning to answer our prayers in significant ways. In fact, we will soon have to begin prioritizing our opportunities!

The Gathering Place

Jeanie and I are on the leadership team of a new English Language church plant here in the city. There are thousands of Ticos (Costa Ricans) who speak English, and are very interested in any opportunity to practice. This gives us an opportunity to invite them to church, when they may not otherwise darken the door of a Spanish speaking congregation. Tomorrow we are setting up tables in front of a Call Center with coffee and snacks and an invitation to church. There are call centers all over San Jose with thousands of Ticos taking customer service calls from the USA (I know…)

One of our missionaries from the Gathering Place is a young Tico named Jairo (left) who ministers to poor kids just a few miles from our home with sports and after school programs. We will be partnering with Jairo in a few weeks to show the Story of Jesus for Children, giving the kids a clear opportunity to receive Christ and begin a discipleship process.

AMCA House

We met another missionary couple here in San Jose who runs a ministry called AMCA House. One of their outreaches is an ESL program that meets every Wednesday evening. Jeanie and I did a similar activity in Bolivia. We will be teaching the beginning level course. Last night at our first meeting there were more than 50 people. We have total freedom to share our faith and to invite folks to church.

Alianza

Last May I met the leaders of the Federacion Alianza Evangelica Costarricense (the national association of Evangelicals in Costa Rica). These pastors took on the responsibility of hosting Josh McDowell in August, inviting 700 pastors and leaders in their network to come hear Josh. Through that contact, many other opportunities are opening up. I preached in a couple of their churches. Now we are exploring the possibility of a formal partnership to use the JESUS Film to plant new churches. Some of the older pastors remember the JESUS Film back in the days of 16mm film projectors, but there is a whole new generation of pastors ministering to young people and adults who may know very little about the life of Jesus, or why they would need a Savior. With the JESUS Film, they learn about his life, teaching, death on the cross, resurrection and invitation to eternal life. We are trusting God for great things!

This will be a month of a lot of travel for Jeanie and me, but it is exciting to begin putting down some roots in our new home country. Thank you so much for praying for us!

Your missionaries in Costa Rica,

Ron and Jeanie

Prayer requests:

· Our residency visas are in the final stages of processing. Pray that the visas will come through by the end of October.

· Pray for our daughter Sarah and daughter-in-law Rachael. Both are expecting babies in early 2013.

· Pray for our contacts with Costa Rican pastors, that God would open the doors to partnership with the JESUS Film.

· Jeanie has been experiencing a lot of pain down her right leg. We will be in Portland in December and the doctor appointment is already on the calendar. Pray that God will bring healing.

· Pray for Jeanie as she continues her Spanish tutoring. She is really showing progress and increasing confidence.

· Pray for me (Ron) as a give leadership to the CRU leaders around the continent.