"But you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit comes on you;
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Pastor Dan Keck

Pastor Dan's Message
August, 2013
Volume 17,
No.8

Wow! God is good! (dramatic pause here!) Thank you all for your amazing generosity! As many of you know, throughout the month of July we collected items for a daycare center in Costa Rica. Look at them all! Coloring books, crayons, pencils, construction paper, writing paper, toys, stuffed animals! Your gifts even surprised Pastor Joe Tursi, who personally delivered them to the synod office of The Lutheran Church of Costa Rica. (You may remember he filled in for me a couple of Sundays when I was gone this summer and lives in Costa Rica part of the year.) In his words through email, “The last time I took stuff was from (another church) and it was only one normal size suitcase so we had minimal costs. Its just that YOUR people are so much more generous; a good thing!!!” 

You see,the bag that we sent with all of the items was overweight and over-sized, which means lots of additional baggage fees! And actually, that was only part of it! The rest will go with a group from Southport in February! Anyway, we sent the additional funds needed because we felt it was an important enough mission. But…this mission is a “God thing”…bigger than we can imagine because I heard from Pastor Joe when he arrived at the airport, that even though the bag was overweight and over-sized he wrote, “The attendant was very nice when I told her what the contents were for. She let us slide on the size requirement which was very nice of her.” So the extra funds we sent for over-sized baggage will go directly to the children’s ministry in the Costa Rica Synod and not to the airline! Wow! God is good!

KMLC does some really great things in our community, being witnesses in our “Jerusalem” as it were. I am really excited about the new opportunities that are before us to be witnesses “to the ends of the earth”, Costa Rica in this case! And I know other overseas missions may be on the horizon! Sending these things to the children is a great first step. I would like us to strongly consider and pray about another opportunity for us to be witnesses “to the ends of the earth”.The opportunity to actually take the love, joy and grace we receive from God, that we share with others in our own neighborhoods and to actually take it to Costa Rica, being the hands and feet of Christ! To go and share ourselves with and learn from the folks of the Lutheran Church of Costa Rica and Costa Rican people! To make new friends and build new relationships! And to extend the ministry of KMLC beyond our borders and into places we may have never dreamed of! We ALL can be apart of this as the relationship between KMLC and the Lutheran Church of Costa Rica continues to develop through the many gifts we all have been given! We are the Body of Christ…and with him, “All things are possible!” Wow! God is good! – Pr. Dan