Rainy season

The sky is falling, the SKY is FALLING! As I write this, the deafening roar like a freight train surrounds and penetrates every fiber of my being. Forget raining “ cats & dogs” right now it’s raining “ cows & horses “!

We are in one of the two main seasons of the year. There’s rainy and then there’s rainier. It’s a scary feeling in me that heavy rainfall evokes. Rising rivers, landslides, the primal search for shelter, it’s all so elemental. At the same time it’s a fact of life here in the rainforest home of the Nest. We must carry on, and so we do. God has supplied such a powerful vibrancy in His creation , I’m grateful but I’m still scared of it all as well.

Life as missionaries can sometimes appear so one-dimensional, like there’s a singular occupation to just reaching lost souls and winning them to Christ. But there is so much more that goes into this intention. True, that prioritization is a daily juggling act, and without an intimate prayerful relationship with God, who’s to know which balls to throw into the air? That’s where torrential downpours ( both spiritual and physical) come into focus, it definitely resets priorities. God has a way of sorting things out if only we would let him. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

So what’s happening at the Nest today besides a lot of mud?

Well, this weekend is our annual summer youth camp. Our outreach staff have stirred up quite the enthusiasm this year despite the weather. Without any visiting churches or volunteers we are stretched a bit thin, but we have reinforcements on the way from a local community down near the Panama border. We help them with staffing their camp and in return they help us. These camps for us have provided the most fruitful time for kids coming to believe in Jesus, so be in prayer over the Nest on this next week. The camp is July 17-18.

We also will be having 4 German Christian youth volunteers arriving in September whom will be here with us for an entire year! We’re super excited to be partnering with this German based volunteer program, and to see them learn and grow their faith as they assimilate as staff in our Nest family. So we’re busy building them some new staff housing.

As some of you may know, our big beautiful boom of a vanilla bloom, turned out to be less than hoped for. But not altogether unexpected. We have a vanilla expert flying in from Mexico in a couple days, who will stay for a week evaluating, teaching, and preparing us for the next bloom and harvest early next year.

Also be in prayer for some needed repairs at the Nest. Pretty much all of the houses including our large Casona building, have the support posts rotting through. All of them will need to be replaced in the near term Unfortunately when they were initially installed, protection from the inevitable rot was clearly not enough. In the intervening time however we’ve learned a much improved method of charring all of our posts before they go in the ground. Charring simply means lightly burning them, which acts as a very very long term solution to the process of rot. Anyways, that’s an issue.

Our main little entrance bridge was also heavily damaged by a fallen tree last week, and we will be required to build a brand new one, believe me that is much easier said than done!

Our little tractor quad is also out of commission for at least a week as it’s up in San Jose for its regular service and check up. Not having such a useful machine to do our heavy lifting means it’s back to carrying everything on our shoulders.. like the good ole days.

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Praise God for two specific answers to prayer. As you might recall the little mishap with our truck and the flooding river? Well one of our dear supporters gifted us with a snorkel which I installed last week. Not that I necessarily WANT to take the truck for a swim, but now at least it’s ready.

In regards as well to our need for a stronger security perimeter around our Nest village, an incredibly large donation for that very purpose has been received with humility and kindness. God continues to be so very generous to us through this servant whom always remains anonymous and whom embodies the biblical spirit of giving, to God be the glory…for ALL of it. I will begin the installation when I return from the States in August.

All of these challenges are, will, and have been met with a “ can do “ attitude. God is SO into what we’re doing here, He is for us!! With that abundance of truth, we carry on.

Karina & I will be traveling back to the States at the end of July for a 3 week visit back home. It’s been an entire year away, so we looking forward to seeing family again and celebrating Karina’s mom’s birthday. Also on the list are doctors visits, going to church, house maintenance, and maybe a movie theater if we can afford it! All the things we used to take for granted but which now seem like a big wonderful deal.

I’ll also be zipping up to Canada for a quick visit with my family as well before we both return down here to the Nest and jump right back into the work, God willing and with all our happy might.

With Love and Gratitude

James Beach