The Darien is the most eastern province of Panama. Leaving at 4 in the morning to get to class by 8 am, we travel through the mountains, unpaved roads, fog, farms, teak forests, and jungle to get to a town that doesn’t exist in Google maps.
Off the tourist trail
We drive past clapboard shacks and open sided gazebos with hammocks. Poverty is visible in terms of housing, and I suddenly find myself wondering about literacy levels. The next day I am to preach on personal devotions in the Bible and suddenly wondering – will the people be able to read?
We stop at police checkpoints along the way, producing the necessary documents.
I (Chris) am an unusual sight – tourists don’t usually come this way. No matter how hard I try to blend in, my white skin and north american looks are so rarely sighted that I get stared at as if I’m a space alien. I’m definately out of place and off the tourist trail. This leads to all sorts of scrutiny from the police checkpoints – where are we going, what are we doing, why am I in this area. The photo below gives a feel for what we were experiencing, though it’s not my documents they were looking at.
One check point makes us stop and take about 10 minutes to answer questions. We assure the policeman that we were only going 5 more minutes up the road to a church on the right, to teach a class and then we’d be leaving.
He requests my passport (which I don’t have since it’s at the immigration office getting stamped), so I can only give him my version of the US Green Card and a photocopy of my photo page that I always carry. I get a lecture on needing to carry my passport at all times, particularly in this area which is full of police checkpoints. He tells us he could get in trouble for letting us pass without the proper documentation. I make a mental note — to ask why my ID card issued by the government of Panama not sufficient to show my status as a permanent resident.
Eventually, he lets us continue to our location – Centro de Restauracion Cristiana (Restoration Christian Center). A mission of the Foursquare denomination in the town called Aqua Fria (Cold Water).
Most of the residents work the farm fields, if they work. There has to be some form of economic means here, though I wasn’t told just what it was.
The church is a single room concrete structure for a sanctuary, still under construction. The town itself has no running water, which is only trucked in by tanker on certain days.
No indoor plumbing. Behind the church was a partially enclosed structure with a palm frond roof that housed a family. You can see their laundry drying behind the church bathroom below.
The common transportation is bus, taxi, and horse. In fact, the class was distracted by a horse that had gotten loose. A farmer came and lassoed the horse with ease after cornering it at the fence.
For those that have car, a 4×4 is the most common form, as most of the roads are simply dirt trails. The main road at this point is mostly unpaved, and full of ruts and loose gravel. We put along at under 35 MPH, dodging left to right to avoid potholes
As we arrive, the car is parked under a mango tree. It’s fruit is in season. There are mangoes all around the ground. I’m taught how to recognize a freshly fallen mango – the stem from where it was connected to the tree is still oozing sap.
About 15 students from around the area gather monthly for their class on cross cultural missions. Today, I’m the professor, and the subject is person evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit, the foundational course for EvangelismCoach and for PRMI’s Evangelism Dunamis Project.
Teaching in the Darien
Men and women, pastors and ministry leaders gather monthly for a cycle of 2-3 years in preparation for cross cultural missions.
I spend about 5-6 hours teaching personal evangelism in Spanish, and they spend about 5-6 hours coaching me and gently correcting my Spanish. I can tell from the interactions that they get the idea of cooperating with the Holy Spirit in the work of personal evangelism.
My Spanish continues to improve. I still struggle with verb tenses and proper use of pronouns and prepositions, but my vocabulary continues to grow. They tell me how freeing this teaching is, from the self condemnation of evangelistic failures (because they have defined success so narrowly as getting a prayer out of someone.
Before starting, I give a devotional that morning on the Preciousness of Jesus that was based out of my devotions this past week. We move into motives for personal evangelism, and step into a wonderful Karios moment of worship, giving thanks to God for such a precious gift in Jesus.
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Continue to pray for our ongoing work.
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[…] teaching at the Missions Institute in the Darien, the next day (Sunday) I get to preach at a different church. The pastor of this church was one […]