Making a difference

Two Sundays ago, Buenas Nuevas Panama took a Sunday to serve a local church in a servant evangelism project.

We went out to a community near the airport, one that is known to be a dangerous and violent place, often drug related or gang violence.

In fact, recent government statistics released yesterday indicate one homicide for every 10 hours.

The church we served meets on the back patio of the pastor’s house.

The tin roof provides a little shade from the hot sun, as people gather around to heard the word of God proclaimed.

You can see the iron bars on the doors and windows.  This is common on every house I’ve seen in Latin America.

Like wise, this structure is still being renovated as the Lord provides the cash for the pastor to make renovations.  They do not qualify for any kind of loan, nor are the offering sufficient.  The pastor is an iron worker and has some work selling cast iron furniture frames.

Recently, there has been a huge crisis in garbage collection in this city, and the result is, this community reeks of rotten garbage.  If you’ve been to a landfill, you know the smell.

Poor areas like this do not get the attention that the rich areas do. The rich areas have their garbage picked up daily!

After the service, the distribution begins inside a living room that measures only 8 ft by 12 feet, nearly 25% of the 2 bedroom house.

Changing lives

If you have participated in servant evangelism projects like this, you know the profound blessings and wonder that you feel as people express their appreciation for what you have just given them.

• Toys for children.
• Shoes for men, women, and children
• Clothing.
• Cold medicine.

That day as I stood in the back (in the hot sun) listening to the pastor remind people of God’s call on their life, and the simple beauty of the gospel, I was overwhelmed with the sense of

• struggles that pastors have in this country
• the urgency the gospel
• the simplicity and beauty of the work of Jesus
• our calling to serve and give ourselves away here.

It was hard to fight the tears.

I watched the drama called “Praying for you” set to a hip hop beat like this one, that highlighted a mother praying for her wayward children who were invovled in gangs.  This was their reality in this little church.

We were but a little light in a sea of chaos, crime, and gangs.

We hope to continue to give ourselves away in this community.

As Buenas Nuevas Panama launches this weekend, we hope to establish a church that has service to the poor as one of its DNA.

It is truly more blessed to give than to receive.