Trip to Costa Rica

Last week we went to Costa Rica. It was a great trip. The principal reason behind it was to support a big Young Life event in San Jose on March 15th. It was an event which both attracted new kids to the ministry and also gave US donors a glimpse of YL's activities in Costa Rica. About 100 donors attended along with over 700 teenagers from around Costa Rica.

Rebeca was asked to go to be the speaker for club. It is not easy to speak to that many people, especially when they have varied backgrounds and points of view. She did a great job. I (Roy) was asked to go on the trip to help with logistics. There is a great new program in Central America called Camp On Wheels (COW). Since YL cannot afford to have camps in every country, in Central America they have created a huge trailer full of games, adventure equipment, a mobile kitchen, a circus tent, and many other supplies. With this, they can greatly improve the camping experience at facilities the local ministry is able to rent. It is a great idea that is just starting out. In order to get a jump start on use of the COW for this big event, they asked a couple of experienced YL camp guys to come and help set up for this event and begin creating procedures for future use. It was an interesting project, and fun to see it all come together. The team in Costa Rica did a great job and worked really hard. There was a circus tent for club, and inflatable climbing wall (I know - it sounds crazy, but it worked great), carnival games, soccer, basketball, hockey, food, and many other attractions for the kids. They had a blast. At the end of the evening, we gave every student a T-shirt. 700 kids is a lot of people to manage, but we thought we had a good plan: different lines for different sizes, with someone holding a sign in front of each line. But the MC made the mistake of yelling "FREE T-SHIRTS", and a stampede broke out. It was pure chaos for about 15 minutes, but nobody got hurt, every kid got a T-shirt, kids got on the right buses, and a great time was had by all. And they all heard a great presentation of the Gospel. It was a beautiful event.

In addition to a lot of hard work preparing for the event, we were also able to spend a couple of days with Rebeca's aunt, uncle, and cousins who live in San Jose. I had never met two of them, and had spent very limited time with the others, so it was great to get to know them more. We had a great time with them, and even got to hike up a volcano one day. David was a trooper in all of the travel. Rebeca's cousin is a professional photographer, and took some great pictures of us.

David Joshua Clifford Aguilar

On Sunday, August 26th at 8:45 am, our son David Joshua Clifford Aguilar was born. He weighed 7 lbs and was 20 inches long. David is doing very well thankfully. Mother and father could use more sleep, but otherwise things are good. The birth was pretty smooth as births go. Thanks to all for your prayers, gifts, and notes of support and encouragement!

David - an hour after his birth

 

David with exhausted dad in hospital

David and Grandma

Outreach Camps 1 & 2

Camps have gone really well so far. Tons of kids have come. Nine months ago there was this crazy challenge to bring 540 kids and  leaders to camp this year when last year we brought 297. We knew our field ministry could do it by taking the easy way out, but doing it right would be a huge challenge. Young Life believes that leaders should already have a relationship with the students before arriving at camp. The leaders should share in the camp experience with the kids, then continue to strengthen these relationships after camp in the neighborhoods they come from. The cheap way to bring 540 kids and leaders to camp would be to simply round up a bunch of kids who wanted to come to camp. That's relatively easy. The challenge is forming lasting relationships.

It appears that our leaders have built those relationships with those they are leading. And now in camp 3, we are only 85 people short of 540. We think that next week we should reach the goal. Yet numbers are only a small part of all of this. The great thing is hearing snippets of stories about how kids have been touched by their time here. Then I get to touch base with friends on field staff and hear more about these kids later down the road. Many of them return to camp for follow-up camps, then training camp to learn how to be a leader themselves. And in what seems like a blink of an eye, two or three years have passed and these same kids who appeared to have no future are now in college and have people who love them who have continued to walk with them and share their joys and hardships. God-filled relationships are a beautiful thing. I look forward to sharing updates in the future.

Outreach Camps Start!

As I write kids are arriving from all over the country for our first outreach camp of 2012. Their excitement is infectious. If we could only harness all of that teenage energy, we would solve the world's energy problems... or at least lower our electric bill!

This is a fun time for us at camp. While there are last-minute details our staff is rushing to attend to, we are also enjoying hearing the kids arrive. Dominicans are loud people in general. You can hear the buses coming from 100 yards away. All this joy reminds us of why we do what we do. We love providing the space for these kids to have the best week of their lives.

Work Crew Week 1

We have a great team of folks from our field ministry that help make this happen. This includes staff, student staff, and volunteers from the field ministry in the DR, plus some friends from Young Life's Latino ministry in the US. Our work crew is a group of 18 people, most of whom are high school students who became Christians in the last couple of years. For them, this is an experience that is almost as impacting in many cases as their outreach camp experience. They work hard, but also form lasting friendships and get discipled by adults who really pour into them.

Kids Arriving from the city of Bonao

Please pray for the kids who are attending camp this week. We are expecting 158 kids and leaders, which is a very full house. Together with our Assigned Team (support personnel), we have 194 people sleeping at camp, which has 174 beds. Right now we are really glad we put two toilets and a shower off our conference room, because we have set up bunks for 16 boys there. Pray for safety, fun, and openness to the message that Diony, our camp speaker, will be sharing.

After this week there are still 3 more weeks of camp remaining. We still need funding for camp scholarships. If you are interested in helping with that, it costs an average of $70 to send a kid to camp, but any amount would be appreciated. The easiest way to give is through Young Life's online giving site. This link will connect you there and pre-populate the page with our account number and info for camp scholarships. Thank you. Stay tuned for more info.

New Life

I have always loved the Spring. While it can be a bit messy, it brings an explosion of new life. Spring this year is especially exciting for Rebeca and me as there is new life growing in her womb. We are excitedly awaiting the birth of our fist child around August 27^th. While pregnancy can be hard and uncomfortable, it is also an amazing process to experience, as this tiny creature begins to move around and announce he is there. While there are preparations to make, mostly we are just thankful that the pregnancy has been normal and healthy so far. When we first found out that Rebeca was pregnant, he was about the size of the hot peppers that grew in her grandparents’ yard when she was a child, so the nickname Chiltepito stuck. We have not yet decided on a name officially, but it will be something easier for non-Spanish speakers to say than his current moniker. 

Sonagram from May 4

He will be born in a modern hospital in Santiago called HOMS. It is about 45 minutes from our house on normal days, about 17 minutes when a soon-to-be father is driving his wife with labor pains. We like the hospital, like the doctor, hate the doctor's policy of not making appointments. This is a common practice here. We try to get there by 7:30 am but generally the doctor arrives between 10:00 and 11:00 and we see him around noon. Oh, the joys of the Dominican medical system! We have gotten good at planning a morning of work we can do on our laptops in the waiting room.

Spring 2012 Work Teams

Spring at Pico Escondido means Spring Break work teams who come from the US to help us with all sorts of projects. They are a very important way for us to do all sorts of significant improvements to camp. 255 people came from all over the US during seven weeks of work teams from February to April. 

Sidewalk to new dorms

The big project this year was cutting a sidewalk into the hillside to improve access to our newest dorms, Barrancolí and Cua. We also turned two storage rooms into an apartment for our student staff, painted, did landscaping, worked on two community service projects, and changed the entrance to the gym bathrooms. Thanks to all who took part! If you are interested in being a part of a work team in the future, watch this video to get a glimpse of what it is like. 

Partner with Us

Great things are happening through Young Life in Latin America. God has blessed this ministry. Pico Escondido has grown a lot in the last four years, adding a gym, playing field, new infrastructure, and two new camper dorms. We have also grown a lot in the number of people that utilize our facilities. Vida Joven, Young Life’s field ministry in the Dominican Republic, is growing so much that even with the addition of two new dorms in 2011 we are having to add an extra week of summer camps just to keep up with the need. We are expecting 540 kids at outreach camps this summer. There are many more that need Jesus in their life. We have the ambitious goal to double the size of the ministry within three years, then double again in the following three. We have already seen how God is blessing this “Double-Double”. But there are big challenges. We need your help to accomplish this. Part of this is support of Rebeca and me. I have always tried to live frugally. While we continue to do this, I am now married, have an adolescent brother-in-law living with us, and we are expecting our first child at the end of August. Please consider supporting us in this ministry. Our need is urgent. We are at the lowest funding balance I have experienced in the last 10 years. The easiest way to give is through Young Life’s online giving site. Please click here to go to the site now. Via this link, if you want to give toward our salary and regular expenses, all you will need to do is add the amount, confirm whether this is a recurring gift, and how often. If you are more interested in giving camp scholarships, click here. Thank you very much for your support.