Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

1 Chronicles 4:10

This was my prayer when 2016 began…God knows that I long to serve him every day more and believe that he heard my prayers. Many timew we forget to pray to God but He does not forget about us. Since the moment that he heard our prayers, He takes our prayers and answers them in His time, like He did with Jabez.

Boca Ratón Florida

To begin the year, I had a great bleessing to be able to go to the United States for a leadership training with a church in Boac Raton, Florida. A few days before the training, I was sick for three days with fever, infection, and no energy to get up. In the beginning, I was upset but later I understood that God wanted me to rest as I came from months of work, stress, and hadn’t been able to rest. God uses wasy that we don’t understand many times. Thanks to God, after three days I could get up and begin with the training. We had team time, beign challenged how to be better leaders and overall was a time of fellowship between missionaries from different parts of the world. I will continue for three more years in this program, preparing and improving in the area of leadership.

ILM PANAMA 2016

Logistics Team

International Director Lawrence Tong 

Leaders OM Malaysia

Althought I can’t believe it, twelve years have passed since attending my first ILM (International Leader’s Meeting within OM). Normally these meetings take place in Asia every year, where about 400 OM leaders from around the world come together. It was a great challenge personally as I was in teh area of logistics for this event. We were a team of seven people from different countries, with different ideas and working styles, but God used us in complementary ways. Ia m thankful for God for this beautiful opportunity to serve at a different level better. He has given me strength to do it, and helped me to be able to communicate better in English everyday, as all of these meetings are in English.  (Now I understand better why I had forced rest in the United States). We spent many months prior in preparation for the ILM, communicating with leaders in more than 110 countries, collecting itineraries, organizing transportaiton, hotels, and endless other things. Glory to God because He prepared me to be able to serve and learn from others who have more experience than I do….Thank you Elina for letting me be part of your team!

Celebrating 10 years of serving God in full time ministry

Wow, I didn’t remember that this year I was celebrating ten years of serving God full time with OM Costa Rica. The most beautiful part of all was to celebrate it in El Salvador, with Sophie, my mother, and a group of 30 people for our Global Impact Outreach. After almost twenty-six hours on a bus, we arrived and during teh week were more than challenged to remember that God has called us to serve and go to the ends of the earth. While team delegations were in churches, leaders trained us with different themes. Thanks to God we returned to our country very blessed, although challenged to serve more with OM Costa Rica and others preparing to leave for the field.




A Great Challenge, A Great Responsibility

During these two months, the OM field leader took a sabattical (time of rest) and he wanted me to be in charge of the office and team. In the beginning I was afraid to, but more than that I asked how I could be a leader. I know that God has given me the capacity to be a leader, but the issue is to move forward in action and do it.  I want to give thanks to God that he has permitted me to have this experience where I could put into practice in my years in OM, also the leadership training, and it has been a great challenge.  Thanks to God for the team has been great and joined together with me. Although I know two months was short but it has helped us to get to know one another better and serve more closely together.

 

I LOVE ROMANIA

In my years to be with OM Costa Rica, I have had the great blessing to be able to know missionaries from many countries, but there was someone very special with whom I shared six months – my friend Lumi (Romanian missionary who married a Brazilian and serving with OM Brazil). When I was with her, I could learned about the needs of Romania, the poverty, and the contempt for the gypsies that moved to this country. I remember saying goodbye to her, with tears in my eyes, as told her, “I will go to your country and see.” Four years later, I am leaving in May with a group of Costa Ricans after nine months of training (Talamanca), preparation, learning about the culture, raising support, and one more time I have seen the faithfulness of God in this trip. Thank you to each person, family, and church that has been able to be a part of this. We will be in two different places, wroking with children, women, and churches sharing the love of Jesus.

• That I would be continue training in the area of leadership and be used by God more in this area.
• That God would permit me to spend more years serving with OM.
• That God would help us be a team conformed to the heart of Christ, and we can listen to Him more daily.
• That we will continue mobilizing and sending more Latinos into the world for missions.
• For protection during our trip to Romania (our luggage to arrive complete).
• For wisdom, grace, and unity for our group as we leave for Romania.
• For Sophie as she continues growing, that she will be conformed to the heart of God and during my time away, she will be safe and calm without sickness.

I give thanks to God for these 10 years that he has permitted me to live. It hasn’t been easy, no one told me what to do, but I can only say that it has been the best time and decision that I have made in my life. My daily prayer is that I can continue praising and worshiping God regardless of what comes next.

Thank you to each church, friends, and family that have supported me with prayer and with donations. This has made it possible to continue to serve God. Without you all, I would not have been able to do it. Thank you all for these years that you have helped tow the line. At times I wanted to let go but did not let me because He knows I've been created with purpose and that “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Rachel & Sophie

Serving with OM Costa Rica

If you want to support me financially write to:

 raquel.lopez @ om.org 

or Contact your local office of OM (if you are out of Costa Rica)

In Costa Rica, deposit at National Bank

$: 100-02-107-600147-7 or

¢: 100-01-107-000471-1

 (Detail  it is an offering for Raquel Lopez)