Melvin Engineering Gives $1000 to Team Tractor

The Employees of Melvin Engineering give $1000 to kick-off the Tractor Project. This money was given and David Melvin was given a small replica of the tractor and a certificate for Christmas 2011 showing that this money was being donated.

Team Tractor Project - $20,000 Goal

The Team Tractor Project grew out of a vision by Bill Snyder. Bill and his daughter went on their 1st international Christian mission trip, sponsored by International Impact Ministries, with a group of middle school and high school students from Celebration Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL to Costa Rica, in June, 2010.  The group  helped a second generation missionary family by working with them on their coffee farm in the Talamanca Mountains.  Bill went again with another group of students to the same location in August, 2011. 

This missionary family has been in the Talamanca Mountain jungle area since 1952 learning and writing the language of the native Chirripo Indians or Cabecars, as they are now called.  This Indian tribe is one of the eight indigenous ethnic groups in Costa Rica.  The missionaries' goal is to give the Word of God, in written form, to the Cabecar Indians.  The Cabecar New Testament was dedicated after 40 years.  During this time Aziel and Marian Jones raised eight children.  One of their sons, Timothy and his wife Katie and their six children live on the coffee farm and are now beginning to translate the Old Testament.  Timothy told me it is expected to take the next 20 years.

Timothy is incredible with building buildings and repairing and maintaining everything on the farm.  He does it all with mostly old, worn hand tools - no motorized equipment!  The basic equipment on any farm is a tractor.  They would love to have one...but the cost is impossible...it knew that it would take a miracle. 

IIM and their volunteers have taken on the project of raising money for a tractor. 

Nicaragua Need/Opportunity

Bro Oscar Corea has identified property in Nicaragua that is needed for the feeding and sports ministries that IIM supports in Nicaragua. There are 8 lots that he is working on with the owner. He is willing to sell the lots for $4000 each and throw in the 8th lot if we buy the other 7 lots. That makes the property $28,000. Currently $11,000 has already been raised leaving $17,000 to be raised. We are planning to put a warehouse on this property that can be used to store the food and equipment for the ministry. This ministry feeds 9,000 children a day and host evangelist sports events for youth and children. Oscar and the team are making a tremendous impact for the Kingdom. This property would allow storage of the food and equipment, housing for the translators and sports fields for baseball and soccer. It would be a tremendous asset for our existing ministries and help launch new ministries in the future. If you or your group could help in any way, contact Bro Charles Pinkerton.

Touching 1 Life at a Time For Christ

As Charles feeds this child on a trip to Nicaragua he shares the love of Jesus and reminds me of feeding my own children. I can hear my wife saying are you going to take a bite with him every time. Just like telling them about Jesus, it seemed like the right thing to do. Lots of new trips have been added to the website for 2012. Check out the dates and get your group scheduled soon. The 2012 IIM mission year is shaping up to be a busy year!!!

Celebration Baptist - Costa Rica Photos

Our Team's girls singing
Amazing Grace at Messenger of Hope.

Feeding program feeding

Feeding program puppet show

Mountain school craft

Charles at the end of our trip...hahaha!

Celebration Baptist - Costa Rica Photos

Sewing class for the women
of Grande de Oro led by women
and girls

Construction project for men and boys
on the Jones farm in mountain

 

Pastor Juan Johnson is starting a
new chruch school and we gave
him supplies and $$
(this is a new relationship for IIM)

Park picture with Charles
and all the kids

 

Four of our boys that had
a pick up game of soccer
with some neighborhood boys.

Three ladies from Special Needs organization.
We gave them supplies, clothes, and $$
They, too are a new relationship for IIM.

Celebration Baptist - Costa Rica Photos

Puppet Show

Charles at the local school program

 

Ladies cleaning up from
Construction Dust

Men building a sidewalk at
Messenger of Hope

Girls cleaning the pavilion
floor of IIM

More Work with the Kids

 

Costa Rica Update - Day 5 & 6

Family and Friends,

Monday morning, our team loaded up our gear and took the two hour bus ride to Grano de Oro, home of Timothy and Kiery Jones, missionaries to the Cabecar Indians.  It is a beautiful drive through the mountains, first on gravel, then on mud roads.  Once we arrived, everyone was put to work cleaning or doing construction projects throughout the missionary compound.  The ladies on the team also were able to spend time teaching many of the women of the village how to crochet.  After a long, muddy day of work, we gathered together in the evening to listen to Timothy and Kiery's account of how God put them together and how he guided their missionary work to the Cabecar.  After World War II, Timothy's father was led to this remote area of Costa Rica to teach the Cabecar about Christ and to help translate the New Testament into their language.  He first had to help them establish a written language.  Timothy has continued this work by updating his father's translation of the New Testament and by translating the Old Testament.  They are also working on an audio version of the Bible in the Cabecar language.  This is a very brief description of their work.  We look forward to sharing the details with all of you in person at a later time.  The Jones’ have an amazing ministry, and everyone was so blessed by being able to take part in a small way.

On Tuesday the team performed our puppet show and did crafts with the children at the Indian school in Grano de Oro.  After a quick lunch, we headed back to Turrialba.  We were all sad to leave the mountain.  Once we were back in Turrialba, we performed the puppet show again and distributed clothing at the local feeding program.  Some of the kids were also able to share their testimonies through our interpreters as a part of our presentation.  This has been a big step of faith for many of them.  Please pray for them as we continue to share our faith on this trip.

Thank you for your prayers.

Louie and Suzie Serna.

Tallahassee Family Team - Day 4 Costa Rica

This morning the old men among us shuffled their sore bodies to the coffee pot to seek recovery from Saturday's labor of laying a concrete sidewalk in front of the church.  We opened with a lesson among the group from Matthew 10 followed by a service in Spanish at the church founded in 2005 by IIM, Messenger of Hope.  Pastor Pinkerton spoke and Ruth Martinez, the resident Pastor's wife, translated his message about Judas' act of betrayal of Christ even after 3 years of walking with Jesus and observing his miracles. Pinkerton reminded us that even such closeness and knowledge of Christ is not sufficient without a relationship in Jesus.  Several local people came forward in response to an alter call for prayer and we and others touched them and prayed for them. (God translated.)

After church we lunched on a traditional Costa Rican meal of beans, rice, fried plan tans and fish, chicken or steak at a local restaurant then walked to a nearby shaded, city park followed by ice cream (2 scoops for most).  This afternoon we gave clothes and other supplies to Pastor Juan for a new school being started by a church.  Then we gave clothing, soccer balls, games, toys and toiletries to ladies from a special needs organization.  Both groups were very pleased to receive the items and the gifts should open doors for relationships for other teams. Our children played soccer and American football with local children in the unpaved street adjacent to our resort.  (Both balls went over the neighbor's fence...more gifts.)

This evening we ate Tamales, beans and rice (all excellent), enjoyed the rain under the pavilion, and made crafts--even Dad's were gluing stuff. 

We celebrated Rhodes Heath's 13th birthday with a Costa Rican pound cake and Joy and JoJo made a special gift for Rhodes.  

Peace

Heath familia 

Tallahassee Family Team Update - Day 2

Hola friends, family and prayer partners! 

Today everyone was up very early.  When it gets daylight around 5am each day I guess it's hard to sleep late.  Around 9:30am we headed to our first puppet performance at a local public school.  We had visited this school last year and they were very excited to see us return.  Our kids did a great job with their performance and we handed out many gift bags to the teachers and goodie bags to a classroom of children.  They were all very excited and thankful to receive their goodies.

After lunch we headed to an orphanage that we visited last year.  They have about 10 kids at this orphanage and many of the kids we remembered from last year were no longer there.  We hope that these kids have found a family.  Our kids did another great job with their puppet performance.  After the puppets we had several stations of games setup for the children to play;  bubbles, bowling game, frisbees, ballon animals, sidwalk chalk and badmiton.  We all stayed busy and had a great deal of fun playing with these kids.  They brought a smile to each of us and believe we brought a smile to them as well. 

Tomorrow will be filled with a lot of different activities from pouring a new sidewalk in front of the church, painting kitchen cabinets, cleaning the pavilion area and tiding up the Messenger of Hope Church worship area.  We so appreciate everyone's prayers and support and know that we couldn't be here or do it without you!  Continue to pray for our safety and that we will allow God to stretch us over the next several days.

In Christ,

Johnson Family

Tallahassee Family Team Update

Dear Family & Friends,

After a 5-hour bus trip to Orlando, a quick night's sleep at Comfort Suites, spending 3 hours at the Orlando airport; flying in an airplane for 3 hours; surviving customs in San Jose, Costa Rica; and a 2-hour crazy bus ride up and down mountain roads to Turrialba....WE ARE HERE!!

We arrived in beautiful, sunny and hot Turrialba, Costa Rica and hit the ground running!  So far, we have unpacked all of our suitcases, sorted items we will be distributing and enjoyed a great dinner of salad, green beans and carrots and macaroni and cheese!  The kids were ecstatic to have mac-n-cheese for dinner!! (This was the first time our cook, Indra, has ever attempted this dish....and she did a fabulous job!)

Our theme for the week is trusting God.  Tonight's devotional was on Matthew 10:1-10.  We are excited to see how God will work through our group this week as we learn to trust Him.  The kids on our team are preparing to share their testimonies about how they have trusted God with the children we will be ministering to.  Please pray that God will speak through their testimonies.  Tomorrow we will be performing our puppet show at a local school and at an orphanage.  We are all excited for the opportunity to love on these children while distributing gifts and sharing the love of Christ.

Many Blessings, 

Louie & Suzie Serna

Remodeling the IIM Compound

A mission team from Celebration Baptist Church worked on some remodeling of the IIM compound in Turrialba, Costa Rica this past summer. Below are pictures of the work in the kitchen that this team performed summer 2011.

 

 

 

Celebration Baptist in Costa Rica

Today was a wonderful and different experience from the rest of our trip. We spent the morning playing with children at one of the orphanages for little ones aged 0-12. And yes, everyone picked out the kid they wanted to bring home. We'll be checking bags before leaving in the morning to ensure no new children have joined our team as "translators".  This evening we went to a feeding station to help serve food and play with the kids of an impoverished neighborhood. They had a ball with our goody bags and balloon animals. And we had a ball watching them play.

Todd and Bobby finished the kitchen cabinets in the house. They look fantastic! Their hard work has certainly paid off.  

Please pray our ride is on time (2:30 am) and we have a safe drive to San Jose. Please also pray for the driver as he returns to Turrialba by himself. And please pray for the flights home.

Celebration Baptist in Costa Rica

Today was a very busy day for all. We ate an early breakfast so we could get back to our projects and put in a full day. Bill and Rodolfo went back to working on the house with Timothy. They made great progress on some of the upstairs flooring. The remaining group went to plant trees and continued to dig the septic tank. At the end of the day, about 200 of the trees were planted and the septic tank hole is now around 4 1/2 feet deep (5x5). Our fingernails may be permanently dyed red from working in the clay. You could say we'll be bringing a bit of Costa Rica back to our everyday life.

Celebration Baptist in Costa Rica

Today was a busy day for us. Rodolfo and Bill helped work on constructing a house. Melinda taught Abby and John their school work so that Timothy and Katie could focus on going to town or getting other things done. The rest of the group began digging a hole for a septic tank. They broke down trees and roots, shoveling away. Sticks and stones didn't break any of our bones! In fact, other than a few minor scratches we are all still healthy. Definitely an answer to prayer. Timothy was very encouraging. He made sure we understood that what we do is a huge help to them. It enables them to get things done and focus on ministry.

Tomorrow we will continue work on the septic tank and the house. We will also begin planting 400 Cypress trees. Please pray for no rain and continued safety for all.

Celebration Baptist in Costa Rica

Today has been a wonderful Sunday. We were able to participate in the services at Mensajeros de Esperanza. Katrina shared a testimony about how the birth of Marshall had brought her back to Christ and Audrey shared about how the experiences with her grandmother's cancer years ago. The Lord used that experience and her mother's testimony to better show her what it means to be a child of God. Our group enjoyed a great time of worship with the congregation. At the end of the service our group gave the church a Proclaimer. A Proclaimer is an audio Bible that can be charged by cranking a handle, plugging it into an electric outlet or by solar power. The Proclaimer allows a group to select the book, chapter and verse so that everyone can study together. This is a resource that will allow the church to have a Bible Study or Church service anywhere.

Prayer Request

Please be in prayer for our soldier as he is serving in a tough area currently.

Nicaragua Construction Needs

A feeding shack is badly needed at a new feeding site. As you can see the photo above, when it rains they have a hard time cooking for the children.  They are in severe need of a new church building. The one they have is made out of cardboard. They have over 300 children at this site and there is a great need. We need $500.00 dollars for a good cooking shack and $9,000.00 dollars to build a new church. This includes space for the pastor’s house and his family in the back of the church.

In the photos of the dump area different families need homes. They currently live in cardboards and plastic homes that are not safe for the children. You can see a model concrete house we raised the funds to build the pastors house for $4,000 dollars we could help a family with a nice concrete house safe for the children with a concrete floor we can help make the difference and will give us the opportunity wide open to share Christ love with over 200 hundred families. These people have been in this condition for over 11 years and no government or anybody has ever helped them in any way. They believe in us because of the feeding program. We help make the difference and point them up to Jesus.

Nicaragua Soccar Camp - 25 Saved

      

We just did a one week indoor soccer tournament where we had 36 local teams playing. The gospel was shared with street kids and youth during the tournament. We shared refreshments with the players and even sandwich at the final games at the end of the week. The winning teams had to come to a youth church service at our church to receive their trophies where a plan of salvation was presented and 25 street kids prayed to receive Christ. We have found out tournaments are very effective for the kingdom. The reason we didn't have more teams was because we limited the number that could register. We could have had a lot more teams. This is something the Lord is laying on my heart to do at least every three months in different areas. I'm telling you it's so easy to get them to play soccer and then share the gospel, but we need the resources to buy trophies, indoor soccer balls, pay referees, buy refreshments etc. This would be something great to do when we have a team here to do missions.

New Information on Haiti

Check out the new Haiti Mission Project List and Guidelines on the Haiti page of the IIM Website! These are new guidelines that Israel has just put out.

TN Team in Costa Rica

The Team from TN arrived in Costa Rica Saturday evening. Caleb Hodges, a young powerful pastor and Bro Charles (IIM) preached in the two Sunday morning services at a local church in the city of Yurrialba. God’s power and spirit were very evident in these services with over 300 decisions during these two services!

The TN group had a children’s activity at 4PM at the Messenger of Hope church. Over 100 children came out with their parents! This proved to be an awesome time filled with Bible stories, ice cream, goodies and gifts. During this activity many young parents were reached who had been previously unchurched.

Sunday night 4 men left out headed up in the mountains to work with missionary Timothy Jones for a few days. Please continue to pray that the group has a mighty week here in Costa Rica!

A Hungry Child

The feeding Units that Oscar Corea serves as the point man for in Nicaragua meet a desperate need for the nation's children.

Nicaragua

Oscar Corea works with about 4000 kids each year in sports programs to provide hope and share the Gospel each year. In to the sports camps he works with over 60 feeding units that feed over 9,000 children each day. Oscar needs a simple structure to cook/feed under when weather is bad for some of the feeding units.

Haiti Mission Work - Israel Francois

IIM Contact, Israel Francois has the following update regarding the work on mission efforts in Haiti. Haiti still needs money for tents so that people have shelter. Several families have been helped through a combined effort by partnering with Umbrella for Haiti. This is a 1 million tent project with help from many sources out of South Florida and other areas. Many of the Haitian refuges are in South Florida and need assistance with food, housing and medical treatment. Medical treatment has been very limited since most do not have insurance. We will be announcing several mission projects into Haiti soon. These mission projects will allow IIM volunteers many different opportunities to help in Haiti.

BCF - Melvin Engineer Team Update from Costa Rica

Construction work on 2nd story of Ed Building

More construction on Ed Building

Plaque of dedication thanking the mission teams

BCF Students leading in worship

A group of students from the Baptist College of Florida are working on a mission’s project in Turrialba, Costa Rica. The BCF group is working with a crew from Melvin Engineering Company, Marianna, FL have been doing construction work on the rooms and ceilings of the 2^nd story education building at Messenger of Hope Church in Turrialba. They are continuing work done in Jan/Feb by Melvin Engineering which put the 2^nd story on the education building. In addition to construction, this group is also leading in some praise and worship. The church was so happy about the efforts of this group they place a plaque of dedication to thank the teams.

Oscar Corea and family

Mission Team Oscar Corea and his family are doing a great work in Nicaragua. God has blessed them with the opportunity to feed over 10,000 children a day.

History of Work in Jamaica as we begin 2011 season

In 1978 a group of Florida pastors formed a partnership with church's in Jamaica. The purpose was to assist with leadership training, VBS, construction and medical teams. Charles Pinkerton (IIM) has been involved in the 'Jamaica Baptist Mission' since the beginning. About 14 years ago he became the director of the project, along with Bob Bishop from Chiefland, FL. Bob was a contractor and served the project until about three years ago when he retired.


The average number of people going to Jamaica each summer is about 60, with highs of over 300, and lows of about 25. At one point the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention took over the project for a three year period.


They then gave the project back to Jamaica Mission and we have continued over the years building churches, repairing roofs after storms, houses for pastors, and repairing school and college buildings. In 2005 when IIM was formed the mission in Jamaica was put under the umbrella of our Central America and Caribbean ministry. Our leadership team grew to include Skip Eastman, Jim Watkins and Steve Smith. Currently the team consists of Wynemia Pickles, Jim Watkins and Chris Serigo, along with IIM director Charles Pinkerton. At present we have a group of about 45 going to do VBS and light construction. We will work in 4 church's, one regular school, one girl’s school, and a community project. Its not to late to sign up for Jamaica if you have a group of youth, a SS class, or others group that might be interested call Charles at 334-685-4128.

Medical Mission Update - Nicaragua

Our 14 member medical team had a tremedous week at 5 different locations seeing over 1200 patients and feeding 1800 children. Our nurse is examining a mother and daughter while the young ladies in the pharmacy fill prescriptions. Medical missions are desperately needed in Nicaragua.

Update from Jason - US Military

As I prepare to go to sleep tonight, I can hear chanting in the distance.  The Shia are celebrating the Day of Ashura in which they remember the martyrdom of two of Muhammad’s grandsons in AD 580.  For the past nine days, the Shia held processionals in the streets in which some of the men traditionally beat their backs until they are bloody.  Today is the climax of the celebration when some Shia men add the cutting of their heads to the continued back beating.  A bloody ritual, no doubt.  But against this backdrop of different worldviews and cultures, I want you to know that the love of God is alive, active and still in the business of changing people’s lives.  I see it every day and it’s happening because people are joining together and praying for the souls of service members in Iraq.  Through your intercession, I praise God tonight confident that many are finding eternal hope in the Lord.

Cost Rica - March 2011

The project consisted of 53 people on the ground in Turrialba, C.R. They were broken into two teams. The construction part was to take off the existing roof of Messenger of Hope Church by removing all the zink roofing and cutting the existing metal frame and rolling it on its side on the existing church roof.

The team then added metal to the existing frame and for the floor joist to hold the materials for the floor. Metal studs were used instead of wood. Then they rolled & welded old metal room frame back into place, welded it together...walled it inside and out, and put new zink on the top. This was done in eight and half days at the same time others on the team did work at local schools, orphanages and day care center, two feeding programs a VBS and a youth retreat. A huge thank you to the construction teams, members of the David Melvin staff, youth who headed the other ministries, pastors Paul & Britt from RCC. God blessed and we had an awesome time eating grill cheese, fried chicken, and home made tamales. Thank You Lord for the salvations and lives touched.