兔子先生系列麻豆

Extra

 

February 2024

Alumni pair ministering to the world in Costa Rica

As a member of the Wayland track and field and cross country teams in the late 1980s, Paul Dreessen met many international students. He had the pleasure then to not only compete alongside them but also to serve them as a student representative for the Baptist Student Union.

Decades later, those early experiences must have been a precursor to his current role as senior pastor of the International Baptist Church in San Jose, Costa Rica, an English-speaking, multicultural congregation he serves with wife Dina, also a Wayland graduate.

The Dreessens surrendered their lives to serve the Lord as students, but they admit they never imagined they’d have spent 20 years leading such a unique church. Open to missionary service, the couple says when they told God they’d go anywhere, this just wasn’t on the radar. But they aren’t complaining.

“We tell people many times if you’re going to have to live and serve in another country, Costa Rica is about as good as it gets. There’s great weather, and it’s a beautiful country,” laughs Paul. “We live just above the valley, have mountains all around us and can get to the ocean. We have to be completely honest and say it’s not so bad.”

The starting blocks

Both say the journey really began at Wayland, where they met and married. The daughter of a WBU former student Daniel Rivera, Dina came to WBU in 1983 and studied business and sociology. Paul came in 1985 on a track scholarship, ran the middle distances and was on four indoor track national championship teams.

He met Dina his freshman year and the two got engaged as she was wrapping up her degree in 1987. She went home to San Antonio to plan the wedding while he continued his education, and after the two married in 1988 they came back to Plainview, starting their life in married student housing. He graduated in 1989 with a history and Bible degree.

“Wayland was where we both sensed a call to ministry, and we both came from Christian homes,” said Paul, noting the couple moved immediately to New Orleans for him to pursue a Master of Divinity degree in preparation for ministry.

Open to mission service, they wanted to gain some additional experience and then moved to Houston, where Paul served as a youth pastor and eventually was named senior pastor. Dina was working at Union Baptist Association. During their 10 years there, they had a daughter and Dina fought a battle with cancer.

In 2001, an email came to Dina’s director about the need for a pastor at the young International Baptist Church in Costa Rica, a growing congregation that had only interim pastors but had just completed a new building. She shared it with Paul and the two began praying about the opportunity. After a six-month process and a visit to the country, the Dreessens were officially hired to serve the church – he as pastor, she as administrative assistant. Fairly quickly, Dina put her experience in Wayland’s choir into action as worship leader for the church, a role she still holds and enjoys.

Curves and straights

The couple and their daughter, then nine, moved to Costa Rica without much previous knowledge of international churches. It didn’t take long for Paul and Dina to realize this congregation was much different than anything they had encountered.

“It’s fully English in the service and almost all the groups are as well. We reach people from 20-30 nationalities every Sunday, and we have counted about 106 countries that have come through in our 21 years,” said Paul. “Costa Rica attracts a lot of expats from the U.S. and Canada, we have several universities and multinational businesses here, and if you want a service in English we are the primary church here.”

IBC San Jose has also planted churches, one on the coast of Costa Rica and one in Panama City, Panama. They joined the International Baptist Convention, based in Frankfurt, which connects similar churches all over the world. Paul even served as president one term, and Dina was on the search committee to hire the new general secretary.

Dina led the women’s ministry before handing that off to other leaders, and she says the church works with several local entities to expand its ministry.

“We have two universities involved here, the University for Peace, which is a graduate-level program, and United World College, a high school program for students from all over the world. We have been hosting Bible studies for them at our house for several years,” she says. “For two years now, I’ve been involved with MICN, the Missional International Church Network, a worldwide network of churches of all denominations. I’m in charge of implementing all the big events each year, and I’m working on one in Bali, Indonesia; Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Rome, Italy; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s really exciting to be part of that network, and it all coincides with the international church movement.”

Just like any church work, serving an international church brings its unique challenges. The congregation does include local Costa Ricans, many of whom speak English, but the church also offers simultaneous translation for non-English speakers. They often get visitors who simply want to practice their English skills, particularly from the universities in the area. But Paul says they minister to whomever comes through their doors, and that changes often.

“If we were to drop you into our service, you wouldn’t know other than the diversity of the congregation that you weren’t in the U.S. Our building is very modern, and we broadcast live every Sunday online,” he says. “We continue to grow and reach people because we’re always a transitioning church. We can count on one hand or two those that were here when we came, and within a four- or five-year period we almost have a whole new congregation coming through. Even our Costa Ricans, because they are professionals, may relocate to the US or another country.”

Clearing the hurdles

Paul said leadership development is challenging as the families move away and new leaders must be raised up. But the growth they were experiencing just before COVID – which saw attendance drop like churches across the world – is finally almost restored. IBC has two services, with about 500 in attendance combined. And the transient nature of the congregation just means the Dreessens must operate more like missionaries and be more intentional in winning souls and building disciples.

“We just had to get the mindset that people are here and some may be here a long time and some not. We’re just going to love them and get to know them, invest in their lives and send them off to their next place,” says Paul. “We have stories of many who were not believers when they came and became believers. We’ve had young people come through the church and are now ministering in other countries.”

Paul and Dina return to the States every few months to visit family, most of whom are in the San Antonio/New Braunfels area, including their grown daughter and now three grandchildren. From their home, they can be there in a relatively short flight, making it easier than living overseas. And they don’t have any intention of leaving Costa Rica until the Lord nudges in another direction.

“The calling is really what keeps us here. The uniqueness of the ministry is super fun, even though it’s transient and can be crazy and adventurous,” said Dina. “And I think it’s just the place God has had us and where He wants us to be. We knew we wanted to invest our lives here but didn’t know it would be 21 years later. It’s the place in the world – and we’ve had opportunities to go all over the world with it – that he’s called us to invest, to plant and to love people for Jesus. It’s our little nook in the world.”

 

Evangelists pen devotional book for couples to connect

Authors and alumni Sherman and Tammy Aten recently visited Wayland’s Pioneer Store to sign their new book, Touching Base: 52 Devotions to Connect with Your Spouse.

“Tammy and I were excited to share our first couple’s devotional book with our West Texas friends and family at our alma mater, WBU,” said Sherman Aten, who also serves on Wayland’s Board of Trustees. The signing was the first bookstore event for the couple.

Released in November 2023 by Harvest Creek Publishing and Design, Touching Base: 52 Devotions to Connect with Your Spouse grew out of the Aten’s work with the couples comprising the Board of Directors for Aten Ministries.

“In this one-of-a-kind marriage devotional, we share some of our most intimate, vulnerable stories,” Sherman Aten said. “The book is to be used weekly for an entire year, with 52 easy-reading chapters. No matter what stage of life you're going through, you'll quickly see that you are not alone, because we have all been there and done that. We’ve learned the importance of touching base consistently in our marriage relationship.”

Based in Granbury, Texas, the Atens have been serving in full-time ministry since 1990. Many know them as worship leaders, evangelists, or Three2One Marriage Conference hosts. The couple traveled 20 years as a family with their son and daughter ministering in worship through revivals and concerts. Today, they spend an average of 30 weeks per year ministering as a couple in the U.S, as well as internationally in churches based in Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Wales, Romania, Russia, Venezuela, South Africa, Philippines, Ukraine, Portugal, Spain, Pakistan, and Turkey.

The couple says that God has developed in them a hunger for authentic worship as well as a passion for Godly marriages and family through their Three2One marriage ministry. The book is available on Amazon .  For more information on the Atens' ministries, visit their website . 

 

Devotional: Compassion needed here

The dictionary gives about 30 synonyms for the word “compassion.” Words like sympathy, tenderness, tolerance, kindness and charity.

Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.

The opposite of “That’s a tough situation. Hope somebody will help them.”

Sure, we can’t support every charity. But that doesn’t absolve us from supporting any to the extent we can – children’s hospitals, destitute animals, food for the hungry, wounded veterans, to name a few.

True compassion is demonstrated in action: We don’t just say to a sick friend, “I’m thinking about you.” We take a meal to their home, fold their laundry, clean the bathroom, listen to them

recount their physical woes.

Jesus demonstrated his compassion in healing the sick and feeding the hungry – the multitudes he probably didn’t know on a first-name basis, any more than we might feel compelled to help victims of natural disasters or great calamity even though we’ll likely never meet them. The book of Matthew recounts several instances of Christ feeling the suffering of those who came to hear him preach.

But Jesus also demonstrated compassion on an even more personal level when he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. John 11:35-36 says Jesus wept when he went to Lazarus’ grave. It made an impression on those who witnessed that deep emotion: “See how he loved him.”

Sometimes we learn details about the lives of our friends, our relatives, our business associates, our students – details that could push anyone’s heart to the breaking point.

That information may be gleaned by really knowing and caring about each person, treating each with dignity and respect, practicing empathetic listening.

As we feel led to help in whatever way we can to alleviate the problems and suffering of those “far away,” a whispered prayer might be: “God, you have been compassionate to me. Help me have that same spirit toward my friends and associates I see almost every day.”

Danny Andrews is a 1972 graduate of Wayland and served as the director of Alumni Relations for ten years, retiring in 2016. He spent many years in newspaper reporting and as editor of the Plainview Daily Herald. Retired now in Burleson, Danny and wife Carolyn, a WBU Ex, have three children who all attended WBU: Brandon, EX, Kayla, EX, and Brad, BA'07. 

 

In the Mix

This month's history recap continues a series about some of the historic buildings on the main campus in Plainview, where Wayland was founded in 1908.

While most students on the Plainview campus have called various dormitories home over the decades, for a special group of students, "home" was the married student apartments located on the northwest corner of campus near the Hilliard Field. Three identical complexes were home to 8 apartments each, reserved early in their history for only married students. Allison-Conkwright, Goodpasture and Collier Halls are still in use today, with few changes over the decades. 

The three partially brick buildings were added in 1960 and 1961. In years where married students were quite common -- after wartime, for instance -- the apartments stayed full, as did some

temporary structures called homettes. But in the last few decades, students marriying in school or coming already married has declined to such degree that the apartments are more commonly used for seniors or honor students these days. Not much has changed in these structures over the years. The university picked up both the Llano Apartments on 7th and Oakland streets and the Marquis Apartments at 8th and Fresno and those also are home to married or older students.

 

听