Welcome to the Costa Rica Base

Dear Friends of Nicaragua and Costa Rica,

Let us introduce ourselves.

We are Charles and Sarah Kaye, typical products of the American way. To any observer, our early lives would seem far from preparatory for the mission field. Charles was blessed with the finest education, including degrees from Harvard and Wharton and a solid start in the investment banking business. Sarah received her degree from Virginia and went on to earn a CFA. Like ambitious young people of every generation, we were drawn to careers in New York. Unknown to each other at the time, we settled into the hedge fund industry and lost ourselves to the excitement of New York in the 80’s. But the Lord interrupted the party, and by the time He was done we were both turned to new lives and ready to begin again.

We married in the mid 90’s, having met as next door neighbors tending roof gardens above the city. Our early relationship grew within the community of Redeemer Presbyterian Church which nurtured our faith and drew us into the orbit of missionaries who encouraged a more radical view of life than the pursuit of success and comfort. Beginning a family late in life, we debarked for rural Virginia and what turned out to be seven years of unlearning city ways, before feeling ourselves ready for something completely different. With our eight year old son, Banks, and seven year old daughter, Willa, we’re now settling into a new life among the people of northwest Costa Rica and southwest Nicaragua, with the mandate to build an AIM base for the area.

The call to mission:

About two years ago we began to feel drawn to Central America and its people. What began as an initial ‘back road’ vacation led us to American missionaries working in areas not normally visited by tourists, people who took to heart the words “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”( John 20:21). Over a number of trips we worked beside Ana M., who serves the river people and refugees in the tropical basin bordering Nicaragua and Costa Rica. We came to know Dr. Frederico Randolfo who trains Central American men and women to serve in closed countries, particularly among Muslims in northern and central Africa. Through our travels we’ve seen men and women of God establishing bases to serve and represent the Lord in difficult places where there is no safety net and virtually none of the comforts we take for granted. Our hearts were breached by the orphans in San Isidro and the homeless shoe-shine boys in Masaya.

Charles, Sarah, Banks and Willa Kaye
After some trips we were tired of deprivation and relieved to be back on our farm in Virginia, and after others we longed to be back in the jungle among our new friends. For Charles in particular, these trips touched a long dormant desire to be involved in missions. However, we both noticed that with each trip our imaginations were stirred toward how we could bring help and hope through the Gospel to places of much darkness and despair.

Over the summer of 2005 we began to outline plans for a mission base that could bring people from the States to work with communities and local churches in remote parts of Central America. Through our friends on the ground in Nicaragua and Costa Rica we knew we had access to those people needing help. We toyed with the idea of going on our own without any sending agency, partly out of stubbornness and partly because we didn’t know much about the sending aspect of missions work. Almost from the outset, we’d heard the name ‘Adventures in Missions’ tossed about but hadn’t given it much thought.

View to the Santa Rosa Peninsula, Costa Rica

Typical Nicaraguan House on Ometepe Island