Thanks to strong connections built by previous missions trips, Encuentro Ministries joined up with a missions team from Costa Rica in late June to serve with Appalachia Reach Out (ARO), a Nazarene Compassionate Ministry that serves the Appalachia region of the United States.
More than 200 people from 14 different churches across the United States and Costa Rica came together to form the multi-national missions team.
Over seven days, the team with Encuentro Missions completed a variety of projects in Kentucky and West Virginia. The team members assisted with flood restoration, home and building repairs, and collaborated with local businesses and schools to provide aid and services to the community. Additionally, they hosted Vacation Bible School and sports camps.
Dwayne Milles, director of ARO, said it was the largest group that had ever conducted a short-term missions trip with his organization in its 53 years of existence.
Stephen Sickel, global coordinator for Nazarene Missions Teams and Partnerships, is thankful that the partnership with Encuentro Missions offered a unique opportunity to many participants.
“The partnership with Encuentro is valuable and helps mobilize youth groups and multi-generational groups to serve in both the USA and around the world,” Sickel said. “It takes partnerships like the one between Encuentro Missions and Global Missions to extend our reach and collaboration with others to bless communities through the churches and ministries around them.”
According to Shawn Evans, director of Encuentro Missions and lead pastor of Valparaiso Nazarene Church in Indiana, the connection with the group from Costa Rica came during an Encuentro Trip in 2024. Over two weeks, Encuentro brought 1,300 participants for missions work in Costa Rica, specifically working with the North and Central districts of Costa Rica.
Evans challenged his connections in Costa Rica to put together a team to join the 2025 trip—and they did! A team of 19 people, to be exact, made their way from Costa Rica to the United States for a missions trip.
Evans said connections from the previous year’s trip to Costa Rica were apparent right from the start.
“There were teams that worked on the pastors and lay leaders’ churches [in Costa Rica], and they were now working side by side,” Evans said. “For the Costa Ricans, who have always hosted us, they were now participants and seeing things through a different lens.”
Elimellec Juantá, pastor of Sublime Gracia Church of the Nazarene in Costa Rica, said it was a privilege to join the team on the trip.
“This experience allowed us to live firsthand what we have so often received from our North American brothers and sisters: the gift of compassionate and selfless service,” Juantá said. “Listening to testimonies of what God was doing in that place strengthened our faith and helped us better understand the intercultural experience that our North American brothers and sisters also live when they travel to serve in Costa Rica and in so many other countries in our region.”
Services and worship music were translated, and the groups mingled around and worked together throughout the week.
Evans emphasized that these missions trips built meaningful relationships and strengthened the unique connections with the team that served at ARO.
“People are excited and wants to complete the project,” Evans said. “People don’t cry over concrete at the end of a trip. The reason why people are emotional when they leave is not the house or church they built, or the wall they poured. What gets them is the relationships they made in the name of Jesus.”
