LaMar and Joanna Salley and son Kevin arrived in May 2000 for language study and to assist in church planting in Costa Rica.
The church's first missions outreach to Costa Rica's interior was in the Santa Cruz area of Guanacaste in November 2001.
Heritage
In 1997, LaMar and Joanna Salley were appointed to Central America and the Caribbean. "We always knew that we would live in and base our ministry out of Costa Rica. Because of a large personal debt, we were not able to start pre field ministry until January 1999. We began praying for a veteran missionary to come and open the field and that is when we came in contact with the Colliers."
ABWE entered Costa Rica on September 1, 1999 when Paul and Patty Collier and son, Joel, arrived. They relocated from Paraguay with a vision to church plant and minister to new missionaries bound for other Spanish speaking countries - as they go through language study. Paul was appointed field coornator and comments, "We assumed that it would be easy to make a ministry move from Paraguay after twenty years of service to 'write history' as a new ABWE country to reach for Christ. Costa Rica is nothing like what we experienced in South America. The central valley and San Jose are generally culturally resistant to the gospel message. We have learned that there is a tremendous need of an ABWE ministry here!"
In 2005, Our tem grew as the Reillys transfered from Paraguay. Kevin serves as the director of Sojourn academy the MK school of a local Spanish Language institute, while his wife serves as a teacher.