Trusting in God

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NLT) Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

Psalm 37:4,5 (NLT)Take delight in the Lord, and he will give your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.

What we have been doing

Since we are still not allowed to visit the single moms in prison, we have continued to take them food. Because the prison does not supply them with toilet paper, bath soap, laundry soap etc. we have started to include those items as well. The prison does have a pulpería ( small convenience store), but it has been closed due to the virus. So now they really look forward to the care packages. We continue to write letters to the moms and include little Bible lessons. Usually there will be letters waiting for us as well. We really look forward to the day that we can visit with them in person.

Recently another one of the single moms wrote to us and told us that she wanted to change her life. That she wanted to be a good example and mom to her children. She also asked if we would help her too. We have started the application process with her, but it is in a very different way. Our last letter to her gave her some questions to answer. We are trying to see how serious she is and it is much harder because we can’t go and talk with her in person. At this time we have not committed to helping her, but we would appreciate your prayers as we pray about what to do and when to do it.

We have also been working on translating our mission/vision statement into Spanish. We feel like God is telling us now is the time to get this done. Cindy translated as best as she could and now one of our friends is looking at it to see what changes need to be made. Once she is done we will probably take them to a lawyer to make sure that this lines up with our non-profit here. Our organization here in Costs Rica was created about 4 years ago and at that time we were mostly working with their children and weren’t thinking about having a place where the single moms could live. So we need to make sure everything lines up.

Lastly, our current landlord has talked to us about fencing in all of his property and then building additional houses for the moms. His property already has coffee plants growing on it and we would have space to grow other things as well. Right now we are looking into growing vanilla and mint plants to make homemade extracts and we will also grow some herbs and vegetables. Not only will we use the extracts, but we hope to be able to sell them as well. We would appreciate your prayers to hear clearly from God if this is the right area for this project. For now, we will start growing things in pots. If anyone would like to see a copy of our mission/vision statement please send us an email.

We moved and a big praise report

Due to some driving restrictions that were put in place we had to postpone our move for a few days. We were so blessed by our previous landlord because he allowed us to stay these extra days for free. In fact, the day we were moving he sent us a message and said if we need to stay longer we could.

We have been in our new place for a little over 2 weeks. All of our neighbors are very friendly and we are enjoying the peace and quiet. We were recently introduced to a man named Oscar who has a big garden. Oscar sells his produce to the people in the neighborhood. We tell him what we want and then he goes and picks it. Now you can’t get much fresher than that and this is a great way to help out one of our neighbors.

As good as the fresh vegetables are, the most amazing part of our move is that God provided for all of our needs in Phase 1. In fact, because of a new donor we were able to buy a bigger refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer which could save us from buying those items in Phase 2. God has really been faithful to us and we feel so blessed. This also helped encourage us that this move was the right step!

Another big expense that we had was our yearly health insurance bill. This year the amount we had to pay was over $5700. We wanted to pay the bill in 2 installments, but then we would have had to pay an extra $500-$600. So after praying about it we decided to just put the whole amount on our credit card and trust God that we would be able to pay the bill off in full. We are so blown away by God’s goodness because right now we are only about $1000 away from paying the whole bill off. We still have until around September 5th to pay the bill off without getting any interest charges and we believe that God will provide the additional amount needed.

We are truly blown away by all of your love, prayers and financial support. We would not be doing any of this without you.

1 Samuel 30:24 (NKJV) For who will heed you in this matter? But as his part is who goes down to the battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies; they shall share alike.

Hebrews 13:15 (AMP) Through Him, therefore, let us at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.

Covid-19 Update

In just six short weeks we have gone from 1222 active cases to a total of 12,617 active cases. Not only have we seen an increase in cases, but we have seen a dramatic increase in deaths as well. Six weeks ago we had just 12 COVID-19 related deaths and on July 29 we had a total of 133 deaths.

For much of the last 6 weeks our area has been under an orange alert. What this means is that most business remain closed. If a store is allowed to open than face masks are required. Also the stores that have been opened have been prohibited to sell certain items. (ie pots, pans, clothes, food storage containers etc ) We have also had driving restrictions in place. Churches have also remained closed.

We are very happy to report that our area is going to be under a yellow alert starting August 1. This basically means that most commercial businesses will be open and we are allowed to drive later, but we still can not drive on Fridays and Saturdays. Also churches can open, but with no more than 75 people and face masks are required. At one time they were not allowing you to sing in churches, but we are not sure if that rule still applies.

For the month of August, Costa Rica has come out with a pretty complicated reopening phase. For example, if you are in a yellow alert things will remain as we described above. However, if you are in an orange alert there will be 9 days of open and then 12 days of near total shutdown and then 10 days of open. Costa Rica is also allowing international tourists again, but it is only from countries in Europe and Canada. Costa Rica is also requiring all tourists to purchase travel insurance and this insurance can only be purchased from INS (Costa Rica National Insurance Institute). This insurance is pretty costly as it is about $140 a week for a 30 year old.

Psalms 118:24(NKJV) This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Matthew 19:26(AMP)With God ALL things are possible.

Lots of Love and Blessings,
John & Cindy Thalheimer
Missionaries to Costa Rica

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Callie on guard at our new home!

One of the things we want to teach the moms is how to grow vegetables and herbs in pots. Showing them that you can grow food even if you don’t have yard space. We started with a tomato, mint and an aloe plant.