Rebekah and Caleb

This Sunday our home church, Newport Mesa Church, had Robeck Day in the children’s ministry.  Rebekah and Caleb are their missionaries.  We are so grateful for all that NMC has done for the kids over the last 3 years. They continue to make them feel like they belong there.  Here is what the kids shared about living in El Salvador.

Rebekah and Caleb Robeck live in San Salvador, El Salvador with their parents, John Mark and Cristina Robeck.  They serve together as missionaries with an organization that builds houses and roads, digs wells for clean drinking water, helps families build chicken coops, and pools for fish so that they have a good source of protein to eat, and so much more.  The organization also invites students from Vanguard and Southeastern to come and learn in El Salvador.  When students are in El Salvador, Rebekah and Caleb work really hard to make them feel at home.  They enjoy spending time with the students at the beach, hiking volcanoes, or just hanging out.  This helps the students to not feel homesick.

San Salvador is a very big city with lots of neighborhoods.  Each neighborhood is called a colonia or colony.  Our neighborhood is called Colonia San Francisco, just like the city of San Francisco in California.  Rebekah and Caleb live in a house that is near soccer fields, grocery stores, a big stadium where there are concerts, movie theaters and a lot of other things that are similar to Orange County.  But there is one thing that they can do that people in Orange County can’t.  On Christmas, New Years, and any other day of the year, we get to shoot off fireworks, really big fireworks that fly up in the air almost one hundred feet and explode with colorful sparkles.  It almost feels like being at Disneyland.

Even though they are missionaries, Rebekah and Caleb enjoy a lot of things that other kids enjoy.  For example, Rebekah’s favorite color is pink, and Caleb’s is blue.  Caleb enjoys playing video games with friends and spending time skateboarding, bodyboarding at the beach, or playing basketball on the team at school.  Rebekah enjoys reading, and watching movies with her friends.  Rebekah is also on the basketball team at school, and sings on the worship team at church.  Caleb loves to eat a Salvadoran food called pupusas, but his favorite meal is albondigas soup, albondigas means meatballs.  Rebekah loves plantain chips and pizza.  Our family makes pizza at home every Friday night and watches a movie with homemade popcorn.

Both Rebekah and Caleb have worked hard to memorize a few bible verses too.  Rebekah’s favorite verse is 1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.”  Caleb’s favorite verse is John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  Both of these verses remind the family about why they do what they do.

You can pray that God continues to keep Caleb and Rebekah safe and health as our family serves the people of El Salvador. 

Con Mucho Amor, Cristina