We have been members of Green Valley Christian Church in San Jose, California since 1991. Our desire to be in Latin missions led us to attend Spanish language school in 1995 outside of the capital of Costa Rica. We stayed on to minister to children in the jungles of Costa Rica for our first mission post 15 months long. A real Robinson Crusoe experience with no electricity!
My wife, Esther, and I have been living in more civilized Grecia, Costa Rica since 98' with our 3 children: Gabriella, 10years old, Tommy, 5 years old and David, 2 years old. Our 2 sons were born in C.R.
Our ministry in Grecia started with a desire to minister as a mobile children's ministry group. We formed the "Rainbow" group from three families in our local Spanish church of Grecia soon after we arrived in December 1998. We minister the Gospel message mainly to children using clowns, skits, puppets, song & dance and films. We usually travel each month no farther than 100 miles. The team has traveled to Nicaragua 3 times since 1999.
Our mobile team helps churches reach children in their neighborhoods. We also help the churches with the follow-up discipleship by providing materials and have started many "Kids Clubs" where local children can come to a non-church setting, usually a home, to enjoy fun Christian activities and also get discipled. These are very successful and we continue to support these clubs.
Another part of our ministry is over on one of the world's biggest islands in a fresh water lake. Ometepe Island is in Lake Nicaragua, the 10th largest lake in the world. I have been traveling over to the island since 1999. From Grecia it takes all day to get to Ometepe Island by public bus. I have to cross over the northern border. It is worth all the time and trouble to minister what I call the other hand of the Gospel, mercy.
We have built one home a year since '99, these being very simple cinder block, tin roof, dirt floor homes that have no electric and burn wood for cooking as do most of the 45,000 inhabitants on the island. We also give out donated clothes, provide tin for roofs as well as help the poorest families with uniforms and school needs.
In most of Central America you have to have a uniform to go to public school. To outfit one child with all he needs to attend school is nearly $50. That may not seem like a lot to us but the average wage on the island is $4 a day!!! When a family has many school-aged children it's almost impossible to provide for all the children to attend school. Many go without an education and enter a cycle of poverty hard to escape.
Esther and I feel called to move to the island thereby having greater opportunities to minister. From Costa Rica I can only travel to Ometepe once, sometimes twice a month for just a few days and it's hard to accomplish much in such a short time frame. With our recently purchased 4 acres on Ometepe Island we can build our simple home as well as our Community Outreach Center/ Vo-Tech School.
The local community is very excited about our planned Center and school. What we envision is living among the people and being a blessing, showing mercy & love to them in many ways as Jesus did, our best example. We know many pastors on the island and want to work closely with them to reach out to the community. Our invitation is the whole community to come take advantage of our Center & school built to be a blessing for them.
Through our Vo-Tech school we will offer classes, free of charge, in vocational trades such as carpentry, arts & crafts, computers, as well as English classes. We also will have a special outreach to the younger children through puppets, films, skits, and computer programs. With our video projector we will show many animated Bible films each month and will draw many, since there are no theaters on the island.
We invite any and all church building teams, youth groups, individuals as well as skilled professionals, retired or not, to come down part-time to Ometepe to reach out to the poor, teach, build, experience the many opportunities to be a blessing and just love the children. A guest house will be built that can house the many church groups & individuals that we hope will be coming throughout the years to get exposure to missions in a developing country and experience a mission trip they will never forget! We want this place to be a beehive of activity, all for the glory of God.
Our home church as well as a few friends and family make up our financial support base, giving monthly to enable us to minister. We receive no regular salary. Our income is by faith and varies month to month. Our mission agency, "Commission to Every Nation" in Kerrville, Texas, helps us in many ways and gives tax-deductible receipts to our supporters as well as good pastoral care to us. If you have any questions or would like to send a team or partner with us, just e-mail us at tomfritz@cten.org or contact our friendly mission pastor at jackrothenflu@cten.org
Visit our web site at www.islandbreeze.net/costarica.html and learn.
Be a blessing today,
Tom & Esther Fritz