Road trip to Texas and New Mexico

Our family had the opportunity to take a road trip to Texas and New Mexico to visit friends. November 4th - 12th.

Our first stop was Borger, Texas, which is just North of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle. My good friends Chris & Jennifer Ruzicka live there. Chris is the associate pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Borger. Bill Sizemore is the Senior Pastor. It was great to visit with them and see what God is doing in their church. They have a growing Spanish ministry there as well.

Our next stop was Lovington, New Mexico. Three years ago we had a chance to share discipleship with a Spanish speaking church there called Primera Iglesia Bautista. Juan Carlos Soto is the pastor there. The pastor's daughter, Karla, turned 15 years old and had her quincienera (kind of like a sweet 16 party in the USA, except much more elaborate). I had the priviledge of preaching at her party. We had a wonderful time fellowshipping with the people there. It is a growing church that is faithfully taking what they have received and are sharing it with others.

Lots of driving, but it was a great time. A friend generously loaned us a dual screen DVD player for the girls to use on the trip. It did a great job of passing the time for our daughters.

Our first Prayer & Support Team meeting - This Sunday the 29th

Our first Prayer & Support Team meeting will be this Sunday, October 29th, at 5:00 pm. It will be held at the home of Kyle & Amy Batts. We will share more about our trip and the vision that God has laid upon our hearts for ministry in Latin America.

If you need directions or more information, email me at rblackstock@gmail.com

Our Discovery Trip went great!

Our Discovery Trip to San Jose, Costa Rica was a success. We accomplished all of our goals and had a great time.

Here are some of the highlights:

- Tour of the Language Institute. We got to tour the school where Keeley and I and our two girls will be studying Spanish during our first year in Costa Rica. It is a well run facility, we are excited to begin our studies there. The classes for the girls will be really good too.

- It rained every day we were there. Costa Rica has two seasons, wet & dry. The wet season is from April to December, the dry season from January to March. The rain usually starts in the afternoon and continues on into the night. Temperatures were cooler than we thought they would be too.

- We had an awesome time getting to know missionaries Greg & Sue Kedrovsky and their three kids. They were very gracious hosts and it was enjoyable to talk about the ministry with them. Having lived in Costa Rica for ten years now, they have a lot of experience and wisdom that we can learn from.

- Our girls survived without us. We made it through the week without them, but it was really hard. This was our first time away from them for more than a day.

Check out the pictures from our trip at: http://picasaweb.google.com/rblackstock/

Discovery Trip to San Jose, Costa Rica - October 7th-13th

Keeley and I will be flying to San Jose, Costa Rica for a week on October 7th. The girls will be staying with a couple from our church who they are familiar with.

We have three main goals for this trip:
1. See Costa Rica in person and check out the city
2. Visit the Spanish Language Institute we will be attending next September
3. Spend time getting to know Greg and Sue Kedrovsky who are KCBT missionaries in San Jose

We will be sure to take lots of pictures, so I will post some after we get back.

Look for updates after the trip!