Elgin church helping in Costa Rica

Church in the Word's Tim Krauss has an invitation for anyone who craves high adventure and maximum impact: Come with us to Costa Rica.

The Elgin church is planning a weeklong jungle excursion in February to feed a hungry village in the mountains of the Central American paradise. Only the travelers won't be hauling nonperishables up the mountainside, but lumber and chickens.

"We're going to be helping them put together a chicken farm that'll be a feeding tool for the village," Krauss said. A worm farm and fish farm are in the works for a follow-up trip.

The worms will feed the chickens, Krauss said, which provide villagers with protein-rich eggs. Nitrates from chicken droppings will enrich the water the fish swim in, producing algae to nourish the fish, which will also feed the villagers.

"The circle of life kind of takes over," said Krauss, associate pastor for youth ministry and missions. "This will actually bring some type of sustainable food to them."

Krauss said the church also wants to take a medical team to serve in the village, and they're hoping to establish an ongoing relationship with this Costa Rican community near the Panamanian border.

But the villagers' physical needs aren't the only thing the congregation will be concerned about, of course. They'll also be actively preaching the Gospel, just as they did in recent trips to Guatemala and India.

Krauss took 11 teens to San Pedro, Guatemala, this summer to help build a house for a war widow and mother of three. "She was just living in this cardboard thingy," he said.

The students also helped with a vacation Bible school and participated in a dinner and Gospel presentation for more than 500 Mayans and Guatemalans.

And they prayed -- a lot. They "prayer walked" through San Pedro and prayed over the nearby city of San Juan. They prayed for people they met, including one deaf and mute girl that several of the students gathered around.

"We prayed for her, and she started to hear," Krauss said. "And a little bit after that, she started to speak, too. That was pretty incredible. We saw her a couple of days later, and she was getting better and better."

But Krauss has seen remarkable healings before, he said, though he never quite gets used to them. On a summer trip this year to India, he said, the missions team took careful statistics, finding that 700 people responded to the Gospel message and more than 120 experienced some kind of healing after church members prayed for them.

For information about applying for February's Costa Rican adventure, call Krauss at (847) 658-8888.

CROP Walks: If you'd like to make a global impact without actually leaving the country, several CROP Hunger Walks this month will give you just that opportunity.

Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty is a "wonderful interfaith, interdenominational way to fight world hunger," said Tessa Barnes, congregational outreach coordinator for the Great Rivers Region of Church World Service, which sponsors the nation's 2,000 CROP Walks annually.

One quarter of the funds raised by CROP walkers stay in the local community. In Crystal Lake, for example, proceeds from next week's walk will benefit McHenry County PADS and the Crystal Lake Food Pantry.

The other 75 percent is used as needed by Church World Service, Barnes said, for humanitarian relief projects.

Over the years, millions of walkers have raised millions of dollars to fight world hunger.

"We just celebrated a birthday in 2007," Barnes said. "We're 60 years old."

If you'd like to round up some pledges and lace up your own walking shoes for a good cause, this is the time to do it. Nearly 100 walks of up to 10 kilometers each are scheduled in the area during September and October, and these are among the upcoming:

• Cardunal Area (Carpentersville-Dundee-Algonquin): Sunday at 12:30 p.m., Joy Community Presbyterian Church, 108 S. Lakewood, Lake in the Hills. Call (847) 428-8454.

• Crystal Lake: Sunday at 1 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 236 W. Crystal Lake Ave. Call (815) 459-0785.

• Bartlett: Oct. 21 at 1 p.m. Living Lord Lutheran Church, 1044 Congress Drive. Call (630) 837-7950.

• Elgin: Oct. 21 at 1 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 216 E. Highland Ave. Call (847) 888-3654.

• Tri-Cities area (St. Charles-Geneva-Batavia): Oct. 21 at 1:15 p.m. Batavia United Methodist Church, 8 N. Batavia Ave. Call (630) 584-8492.