Archives for December 2008

Annual Report 2008

December 16, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

This year has been a success and has been challenging in many ways.

Because of the significant overlap with our work with Evangelismcoach.org, we are branding everything we do as Evangelism Coach International.

This allows Brenda’s work in evangelism training through crafts and Sunday School training to fall under the same branding: from Alaska to Chile.

Together, we did a total of 27 conference events in 3 different countries.

I released my first book for purchase on how to welcome church visitors, (see http://www.welcomechurchvisitors.com) and launched the www.EvangelismBookstore.com.

I provided coaching for 3 individuals and two churches.

During the summer of 2007, our family was in the US for 6 weeks to raise funds, supporters, and attend the PRMI family camp.

Networking

Most of our time in Panama this year was focused on networking and giving conferences as they come. We encountered a huge setback last year when the ministry that invited us here closed down, leaving us to have to rebuild our own network. I’ve been seeking to connect with people who can open doors for us.

We have to adjust from our original plan and we’ve been discerning our next steps.

I continue to work on language acquisition.

Plans for 2009

Our target is to plan for 15 events in Panama, 12 events in the United States, and up to 3 events in other countries in Latin Americas. We did 30 events last year, but the majority was in the US.

We seek to grow more events here as our network grows. We realize this plan may be very aggressive, but it is our dream to minister in this part of the world.

I will continue to pursue language acquisition and certification.

We plan on releasing at least three more e-books, and developing a CD/DVD distribution strategy to repurpose a lot of my teaching to generate revenue from online sales.

It is also our goal develop our support base to a sustainable level that supplements our speaking fees and online sales in the US.

Pioneering for PRMI

Part of my plan is to network for PRMI into Latin America on the back of the networking that we are doing on our own. PRMI material is part of my ethos and I would like to have PRMI teams join me.

Right now it’s a season of networking and introducing the ministry of PRMI through the connections that I build through evangelism training.

Continue to pray for the growth and impact of our work. We are grateful to our supporters who pray for us and invest in our work.

Caimito Children’s Congress

December 15, 2008 by ecoach 1 Comment

Brenda and I finished our workshop at the 1st Children’s Ministry congress for the area of La Camima.

This congress was an outgrowth of the Teaching Children’s Workers in Arraijan in July of this year.

Because of common issues lack of finances and accessible transportation not every one can come to a leadership conference like the one in January which was about 2 hours outside of the city, or the one in July that was about 30 minutes away from the city.

As Brenda and I were praying this morning, it dawned on us that nearly all the attended arrived by foot, or by taxi. In the very small parking lot (which is plot of land), it was just our car, and the car for the other speaker.

Meet Raquel

One of those attendees, however, Raquel, was inspired to organize one for her local area. She managed to gather about 40-50 men and women from approximately 10-15 different churches. I am unaware of the final count.

Raquel is the children’s pastor of this little church. She’s been investing in that church for 12 years, and now some of her students from 12 years ago are now sending their children to Raquel to participate in the Children’s ministry.

In spite of the lack of resources and difficult access to training, se has perserved and their church of about 50 members is currently ministering to about 200 kids on a weekly basis. The church has already added a children’s classroom building, but already it is overflowing (see the video).

When we first met Raquel and Christian to plan this meeting, we heard their heart for this area. We heard stories of at-risk kids, and then we heard about the hardships and challenges of ministering in that environment. We heard their heart about training other children’s workers who couldn’t get to these conferences so far away. She approached Brenda and I about doing something for them in their little area.

Getting to the Congress

Though we rented a car, at times we felt like a 4×4 was more suitable for the road conditions. Heavy construction equipment from a local mine has destroyed what may have been a road. Potholes, washouts, missing pavement marked this road once we left the developed area.

The area would be considered rural. Google maps doesn’t do well out there. I tried embeding one, but the embed didn’t work.

The Children’s Leadership Workshop

Brenda did a 2 hour workshop on creativity for creating crafts and object lessons.

In this country where more than 1/3 live on under $100 a month, money to buy craft ideas is not easy to spend. It’s not as if you can go to Wal-Mart or a Michael’s.

Instead, Brenda helps children’s workers use stuff that is already in a house: toilet roll tubes, styrofoam trays, egg cartons. This particular lesson was on creativity — how to find the ideas and how to brainstorm. Almost as close to costing $0.00 as you can get.

For example: Brenda made this scene out of paper towel tubes, paper towels, a cut up toilet roll tube, some rubber bands and some shredded paper. I think the total cost may hae been under $1.00 for the yellow paper.

I gave a 1 hour lecture in “heavy” Spanish on getting and maintaining a vision for Children’s ministry. It was a challenge to prepare that in Spanish, and I was grateful to have gotten it done. This makes the 5th workshop I have given entirely in Spanish. I’m growing in confidence and I’m told growing in fluency.

How do you keep a vision for ministry even when kids rebel, when there are no resources?

How do you perservere in your vision when the going gets tough?

I focused on getting filled again with the Holy Spirit, praying for your vision, and recruiting others to pray for you and serve with you. It may seem basic to some of us, but these things always serve as a good reminder to refresh the weary.

Our video

Finally, I’ve put together a brief video that I hope will give you a feel for what we did.

To do a workshop like this, we have to rent a car for the weekend. Continue to pray that we’ll receive more workshop opportunities as well as funds to pay for our expenses. To advance our work in Latin America, see directions at Donate Online to Support our Work

Panama City Traffic Contrast

December 8, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

The other day, we took a journey to our kid’s school to hear our son’s book report.

It took a combination of 4 buses, and because of construction and holiday traffic, about 5 hours round trip. Traffic volume is a known problem here and this time of year is the worst it gets as people do their Christmas shopping. Going to the mall on Saturday is a bad idea. Did that.

I’m not complaining, but simply describing for our friends and supporters a picture of our life.

Near our house, a new interchange is being built as part of a highway project to facilitate traffic flow. Because of land locking, the only way to rebuild the interchange is up. This causes all sorts of traffic flow issues during construction, particularly when lanes have to be closed to move these beams or to put the supports in for the concrete forms.

The image here is the new set of bridges being built to elevate a highway around one of the local malls.

You can get a feel of the traffic around it in this picture.

The volume of traffic is heavy though these photos may not show it well. It moves at a snails pace as several lanes of traffic (I think 8) condense into 3 in front of the mall. There at the mall are hundreds of people daily being dropped off by taxis and getting on/off buses. Not a well designed intersection and thus the elevated highways being constructed.

We play Frogger when we cross the streets to walk to church or to the hardware store. Traffic moves slow enough that you simply take your life into your own hands, step into it and hope you don’t get hit. It’s like parting the Red Sea.

Most times traffic is a jammed as what you see in this photo from our big window:

Imagine this scene with impatient drivers, lots of horns blowing, and sometimes 3 lanes coming from the two side streets (from the bottom and the top).

The street from the top is a two way street, but often, impatient drivers will pull into the oncoming lane to rush up ahead of the line.

If someone turns off the main artery (from the right side of the picture) and there is a car there going the wrong way, no one moves anywhere and angry drivers blow their horn. This time of year, that road stays packed like that almost from 7am through 6pm at night. If the traffic light at the end of the main artery is not working it might take 30 minutes to an hour to move a few feet, as cops try to their best to faciliate traffic flow.

However, on Mother’s day and on 3 days weekends, the same interchange looks like this:

One can get around the city quite easily because a great number of people have gone to the interior to celebrate the three day weekend. This is the second 3 day weekend in a row. December has many holidays here.

Just a glimpse of our life. Continue to pray for us that we get a car so we too can get out of the city on weekends like this, and to faciliate our work here.

Children’s Evangelism Workshop December

December 3, 2008 by ecoach 1 Comment

: Training Childrens Workers

December 13, we will be conducting a Children’s Evangelism Workshop in Panama, in the Las Cumbres area north of the city.

Brenda will be doing work on more crafts, which will be put up on her website, and I will be giving a lecture on Child Evangelism.

UPDATE:

Brenda will be doing a training for Sunday school workers who work among high–risk kids — defined as abandoned, abused, or parents who are addicted.

I will be doing a workshop in Spanish about the vision for evangelism and missions for kids. 90 minutes in Spanish is still intimidating to me, but I’ve got about 15 days to prepare.

As we listened to stories of the social problems that plague this neighborhood from crime, poverty, and broken family systems, our hearts break, in the same way Paul was distressed walking the streets of Athens. “We don’t have resources” and “We don’t have enough training” is what we kept hearing during our meeting this week.

We hear (as well as see in our own experience) that the greatest hindrance to ministry to children is leaders who don’t or can’t prepare. Brenda’s workshop is to cast a vision — you prepare because you want to reach children — not babysit. It is also to provide a practical skill — how to create crafts from household recyclables.

We heard of pastors who don’t have a vision for reaching children because they can’t give an offering, and one desired result of our training will be pastors catch the vision for evangelizing children.

Brenda and I have worked in some housing projects in Richmond. Those are good places compared to what we are likely walking into. Those places have pastors who lead churches that care about children. Those places have children’s workers who want to reach kids. Those are places where churches have resources to invest.

We’ve been given a giant task, as well as responsibility, to cast vision and call people to evangelize and disciple children, to call the church to a higher level of calling and commitment. 14 churches are sending their pastors and children’s workers to this event. Please pray.

It is also our hope that Brenda and I will be able to prepare a DVD of teaching ahead of time that we can sell as a take away. Pray that we can get the filming and editing done next week.

Pray for:

Preparation Time.
We’d be obedient to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Anointing to teach and cast that vision
Provision to cover the rental car we need to get there.
Personal Safety in the area.
Anointing in Spanish for me and Brenda.