Brian and Kay Jacobs doing ministry in Central America
In early 2001 my husband and I decided that we had been so blessed in life that we wanted to give back. We counseled with our Pastor as we felt we wanted to volunteer in a third world, Spanish speaking country. We wanted to do more than a week or two traditional mission trip.
Our Pastor suggested we move to San Jose, Costa Rica to attend language school and immerse ourselves in the culture of the people we would be serving. We rented our house, closed down our Real Estate/Remodeling business and moved to San Jose.
We attended language school full time and I volunteered to be our school's student tour director, so we were able to do many trips on the weekends and explore Costa Rica.
After a year in school and pretty fluent in Spanish we joined a Mission Organization, Youth For Christ. They had a need in Honduras and so we moved to San Pedro Sula, Honduras from San Jose, Costa Rica in June, 2003.
My husband was there to help build a youth camp by recruiting mission teams from churches nationwide. We hosted teams of youths and adults and it was a very exciting time as we saw the construction of the camp come together.
In my spare time I volunteered in a public hospital as a self appointed women and childrens advocate. In third world countries women have very little value and the poorer you are the less the value or voice you have.
I also volunteered in a malnutrition clinic/orphanage one and a half hours outside of the city in the mountains. The children would be rescued from dire circumstances. They would be very malnourished, full or worm and parasites. Most of the children would then grow up there as their families were too poor to feed and care for them.
We moved back to Parker in 2005 and my husband, Brian and I have resumed our businesses. It was a very rewarding experience and we hope to make trips back to Honduras and Costa Rica participating in short term mission trips.
