With the Pennings

Please be in prayer for us at this time. As I wrote about before this ministry trip, our family took a vacation (mixed with my ministry trip) for 10 days here in Costa Rica. We were supposed to be flying home this afternoon (Saturday 1/12/08) but had some unexpected immigration issues to deal with.

As we were boarding the airplane to go home, we were pulled aside by immigration. Kyle was not permitted to leave the country, so we had to make some adjustments. It's hard to explain, but basically it is this. Kyle is Costa Rican, born during the time we lived here for eight years. He is a minor (he'll be 18 on January 27!!!) and every Costa Rican minor must have paperwork done ahead of time by the parents giving him formal immigration permission to leave the country. We knew about this law from when we used to live here. But we assumed that it applied only to Costa Rican residents, not those living abroad (as with the case of Kyle). So Kyle and Carla and I had to stay behind and the other four family members went on with the homeward trip as planned.

On Monday Carla and Kyle and I have to spend a day doing paperwork at the immigration office to get this straightened out. It is a formality so it will work out, but nevertheless, this has been a frustrating day for us, as you can well imagine.

We anticipate that the paperwork will take us all day on Monday to straighten out because we have to go to different government places to get the right paperwork done in order to be able to leave. If we get the paperwork done by Monday noon (not likely!!!) we will try to get out on the Monday flight (probably on standby because we are told the flight is booked solid.) But we are currently scheduled to return now on Tuesday.

Please pray that the paperwork will go smoothly on Monday so we will be able to get back to our family and our work and (for Kyle) school.

Thank you for your prayers,

Rev. Eric Pennings

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your prayers regarding the “immigration problems” we had upon leaving Costa Rica after our family vacation time there as per the note I sent out to you last Saturday. We were able to get the paperwork done on Monday morning, which went much more smoothly and quickly than we had anticipated. We had confirmations for flights out today (Tuesday), but we decided to go the airport on Monday afternoon and try to get on the flight on “stand-by”. We were told the flight was over-booked by seven seats, so the chances were minimal. However shortly before the flight was scheduled for take-off, we were informed that we were able to get on the flight. We came home after midnight last night. Carla is back to work today, Kyle is back to school, and I’m back in my study playing “catch-up”. Thank you for your prayers during this unexpected “glitch”.

This trip included some ministry activities during the first half of the trip.

•        Instituto Farel – This institute is the URCNA leadership training institute. The director’s daughter was married during our trip there. We know this pastor and his family very well from our Costa Rica ministry days with the Christian Reformed Church, and had the privilege of attending the wedding. I met informally with several members of the board to get caught up on how things were going and to make plans for this year.

•        Complete a Video Conference – I completed a “video session” for my participation on two sessions of a course on “World Religions” for MINTS to be produced on DVD/Video. My two subject areas in this course were “A History of the Christian Church” and “Sikhism: An Apologetic Method of Evangelism”.  

•        MINTS in Esparza – I met with Rev. Eduardo Aparicio to make plans to open a MINTS Study Centre in Esparza. During our eight years of ministry in Costa Rica (1986 to 1994) the first years were dedicated to planting a church in this town. Rev. Aparicio was one of my students during my last four years as director of the Costa Rican Centre of Reformed Studies. On the day of my departure from Costa Rica in 1994, Rev. Aparicio was ordained as the pastor of the church our family had been establishing there. It’s a privilege to be able to work with him again as we are in the process of establishing a MINTS Study Centre in his church.

•        Preaching Opportunities – In addition to attending (with the family) the church being established by Rev. Bill Green’s ministry team, the “unexpected extra weekend” gave me an opportunity to preach in a “mission post” of the URCNA mission effort there (Los Cuadros) whose pastor is also studying at Instituto Farel.

The second half of the trip was our “family vacation”. Each of the kids paid their way for us to celebrate our 30^th anniversary of marriage. The anniversary date isn’t actually till September, but the best time to visit Costa Rica is in January. We spent several days on the beach. Ryan’s girlfriend (Amanda Calvin) and Angela’s boyfriend (Andrew Veldman) joined us for this memorable vacation experience.

CWiPP Conference - Next week (January 21-28) I will be travelling to California where I have been invited to attend and participate in the yearly CWiPP Conference (Christian Witness in a Pagan Planet) hosted and directed by Dr. Peter Jones, visiting professor (formerly full time) at Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, California. Their website describes the ministry as follows: “For God's glory, CWiPP exists to equip the Christian community in general and its leaders in particular to recognize and effectively respond to the rising tide of neopaganism.” Please pray for God’s blessing as church leaders from around the world will be gathered to understand and address ways to minister in the context of a neo-pagan influence in society and cultures around the world.

Fund Raising Efforts – A month ago the HCM treasurer asked me to send out an “SOS” regarding the critical state of the ministry budget. He informs me that there has been a generous response to the urgent request for funds, for which we are very thankful. The current financial status continues to be “on alert” but the committee is thankful for the response of God’s people to the ministries financial needs.

Rev. Eric Pennings and family