Sorry for the late update. :(
I have some hectic and intensive days that my team and I had before the CIMA. But for a few days already I can call it done. This post I want to divide into three parts. I want to start with the time I had while my parents where here.
Time with my parents
My parents arrived two weeks prior to the CIMA here in Costa Rica. They used this time to visit a Swiss organisation that works amongst the natives of Central America and to enjoy some free days. I had the chance to spend New Years Eve and the first few days of the new Year with them at the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.
January 2nd we started with our last preparations for the international CIMA. Also my parents helped out where ever they could. And I can say in the name of the whole team that we where thankful for their help. During CIMA we barely had time to hang out and talk. Most of the days I was working till the the first few hours of the day. But still I had the chance to find some time to quick talk to them and catch up with them.
On the same day as CIMA finished they returned to Brazil.
International CIMA 2017
CIMA was a roller coster for my emotions, strength and thoughts. But I don't want to scare you here.
Let me start from the beginning. About in November we realized, that we probably are not going to reach our goal of 600 participants. That meant, that we set our new goal at 500 participants, which again also influenced our Budget. We had to cut in every area the budget as much as we could. We had a few financial supporters but not enough to cover all the cost. The opening day finally was here and so was the rain. This ended up in mud slides on the road that connected the capital city with the city where the CIMA was held. This led to the delay of participants, speakers and exhibitors. This all was a big chaos but already in the second day we had most of it under control and we noticed that our main hall was full of participants. We counted the list of registered people more then once and we were surprised. We had more then 600 participants. On the last day we had about 600 participants, more then 50 speakers and about 40 pastors and some exhibitors. This meant that at the end we had about 700 people at the CIMA. This was a huge answer to our prayers. We thank God for this!!
During CIMA most of the Team and some volunteers were constantly running around and organizing things. About half way through the CIMA a lot of us started feeling the lake of sleep and all the pressure, including myself. I reached a point in my life that I've never been before. I was physically, emotionally and mentally tired. My batteries were 100% empty and it was probably the worst time for me to be so tired. I had to rest and completely relay on my team and over all on God. Why the worst time you might ask, well it was the second last day of the CIMA. A lot of the participants needed information about their missions trip. Everyone wanted an immediate answer to their questions. We also had to set the teams together and to get some last minute things done. We needed every single person of my team during this time. I'm really thankful for my team that supported me during this time and gave me the opportunity to take the rest needed to operate again.
All of us still had the chance to listen to the speakers and their messages and we were all really blessed by them. During most of the time I also was translating the main sessions from Spanish into English. January 15th most of the teams left on their missions trips and also here I'm thankful to God because we didn't have any incidents with their departures. The week after
CIMA was still filled with a lot of work and no rest was in sight. My team and I traveled to the near by locations where we had teams doing their missions trip. We went to visit the teams and record some interviews of the participants. Well this was more or less the international CIMA 2017.
Thanks of keeping me in your prayer.
