Leadership

Aaron and Cassie were both raised in Michigan and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior at a young age. They met at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI and were married in 2002. Their dream was that one day the Lord would lead them to serve in full-time camp or youth ministry, and over the years they have shared many stories about how deeply their growth and development as followers of Jesus Christ was impacted by experiences they had at Christian camps.

Thirteen years and many adventures later, the Lord called them into full-time ministry. They were commissioned by United World Mission in 2015 (now Mesa Global) and moved to Costa Rica in 2017 to further their Spanish language training and start building relationships with local churches. In 2018, they moved to the NW region of Guanacaste and witnessed firsthand the great need for unifying the body of Christ and restoring broken churches and families. Many pastors and leaders had a passion to serve but needed biblical training, encouragement, and counsel. The Gortmakers desired to help meet this need but lacked a place to regularly host overnight events at an affordable, accessible location. Despite this challenge, they used their home and rented various facilities in order to offer day classes, conferences, and camps to more than 100 evangelical churches in the region. Then with the Lord’s leading, in 2020 they joined Árbol de Vida and began purposefully developing the camp property with the goal to host overnight camps and trainings on-site and expand on-going ministry. Today, there is a spirit of hope and determination in many of the pastors and families who had felt completely alone. A growing number of local churches are excited to receive biblically sound resources and essential training which equips them to teach effectively, strengthen families in their community, and advance the Kingdom of God.