Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica

Puerto Viejo is a small, relatively quite town located on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. This coast is unique to the country with it’s noticeable Jamaican-Caribbean influences. There are over 32 nationalities represented by the people living within the province, making Puerto Viejo the international melting pot of Costa Rica. People from Spain, England, Japan, Peru, Brazil, the United States and Canada among many others, have made this small fishing village their home. One thing that makes Puerto Viejo noticeably different from much of the rest of Costa Rica is that there is relatively little Catholic influence. Due to the fact that this side of the country was largely first settled by people of Jamaican descent, many of the local residents’ religious beliefs are protestant in origin.

On the other hand, many of the people that have moved here from other countries are involved in a variety of New Age religions. Puerto Viejo is surrounded by beautiful beaches and the rainforest, both of which go hand in hand with the interest in yoga and other forms of New Age worship. Life in Puerto Viejo for locals and foreigners alike is all about unwinding and forgetting life’s worries for a while… or forever. Unfortunately, life’s worries are never far away and impossible to get away from for long.

The town is filled with locals, tourists and foreign residents all going about their daily business. Upon entering the town, one of the first things you’ll notice is the large numbers of youth and children that hang out in front of the schools or wander about the streets. For many in town, life is centered on the surf but when there is no surf, there are many bad influences competing for the interests of the youth. Drugs and prostitution are both significant influences and have had a very negative impact both on locals and non-locals alike.

We have two goals that govern everything we do.
1) We have a desire to introduce people to Christ and see them come into relationship with Him.
2) We want to see them grow to maturity as Christians.

In an effort to provide both physical and spiritual alternatives to what is available in town, we constructed a skate park and youth center in 2006 with the help of many churches and individuals. The Concrete Jungle skate park is open four days a week and is usually filled with kids. Friday evenings we host a youth night with alternating Bible studies, movie nights and barbeque nights. On Sunday evenings, we host our house church where we come together with both locals and foreigners to share in a meal, worship in song and study the Bible together.

Our goal is to use the skate park to introduce kids and youth to Christ and to simply bless the community. Through the house church, we hope to go deeper, eventually raising up local leaders to start their own house churches in the neighborhoods where they live. In the future, we hope to open a music café and coffee shop as an additional tool for building relationships and introducing people to Christ. We want the facilities to both glorify God and bless the community by providing things that the community cannot provide for itself.

Finally, every year we host short term mission teams which help us achieve our long term goals of sharing Christ and discipling new believers. These teams engage in a variety of construction projects, outreaches and other ministry opportunities. With the help of many mission teams, we have been able to assist the community in repairing and maintaining local schools, building playgrounds and teaching English classes, all of which help us to build long-term relationships with the hope of offering the hope that exists only in Jesus Christ.

Your friend,
Barrett

To find out more about them, please visit their web site
To see their August, 2009 newsletter, please click this.