Property Purchase  
 
From the base Director – Terry Keith

In 1974 my wife and I moved to Costa Rica on the invitation of a friend to pioneer a ranch in the jungle in the south of the country. We soon fell in love with our new home and its warm hospitable people. Costa Rica is unique in many ways: They abolished the army in 1948. They pride themselves in having more teachers than policemen. They have protected 24% of the land mass as national reserve. Much of this is in the mountains where the water sources are plentiful. After decades of evangelism by western missionaries the country is over 20% evangelical. There are 13 mission agencies currently operating in Costa Rica, training and sending Costa Ricans to the mission field. By 1985 God had led us to sell our ranch and cattle and go into the ministry full time. The mission we were led to join was Youth With A Mission (YWAM) an international, interdenominational mission agency. Currently YWAM has 20,000 fulltime workers in 1,200 mission bases located in 173 countries. YWAM is a faith based mission which means that everyone from the founder to the short term volunteer receive no salary but are required to raise their own support. From the time we joined YWAM in 1985 we wanted to establish a training center in Costa Rica. We believed and continue to believe that Costa Rica and Central America are key in world missions. Well in 1990 we were released to come down here with a small team to start the work. Over the past 17 years our base has done evangelism, built homes, ministered to pregnant women, developed soccer ministries, done disaster relief and much more. We have trained over 300 students who have been sent out to work in almost 30 nations. After 17 years of ministry we believe we have firmly established our purpose for being here but have had no property of our own during all these years. We moved from one rental property to another until 1998 when we found the 6 acres we are on today. The property is located about 15 minutes from the nearest city in the northern mountains of the central valley. It is covered with large cypress trees, flowers and pasture. Our average temperature is 72 F and we get about 100 inches of rain a year. We currently have capacity for about 50 people but unless we build we cannot continue to grow, and we cannot build unless we purchase the property. For the last two years we have been asking the Lord if we should buy this property and God has confirmed to us that we should proceed. We recently met with the owner and he has agreed to sell. The owner had an appraisal done which came in at US $436,000. The appraiser noted that $56,000 of the improvements had been built by us over the past nine years so the owner agreed to reduce the price by that much which would put the sale price at US $380,000. At that price the property would be valued at $16.50/square meter. A recent study of property values in our area showed that the properties range from $25-$60/square meter. We need $10,000 as earnest money when we sign the contract, but the rest still needs to be negotiated. We have applied for a loan for 80% of $380,000 which is all the bank will give, but we would rather not go into that much debt. We believe God can supply what we need if we just trust him. If you or your church would like to help us purchase this property please contact us at the address below. Also, please check out our Tree Project as a very creative way to raise funds for our property.

Terry Keith

Director
YWAM-Heredia
Costa Rica

Juventud Con Una Misión
Apartado 1444-3000
Heredia, Costa Rica

(Checks sent to this address payable to Asociación Juventud Con Una Misión)

Tel/Fax: 506-2-267-7063
Email:ywamcr@racsa.co.cr
Website: http://www.ywamheredia.com/

For tax deductible donations please make checks payable to YWAM, enclosing a separate note stating that it is for YWAM Heredia and send it to:
YWAM Tyler - Accounting Department
PO Box 3000
Garden Valley, TX 75771-3000