Our invitation to come and work in Panama was initially to work along side an existing ministry and plug into their active teaching network.
However that has fallen by the wayside and we are required to build our own network of contacts.
Over these next few months, we will be aggressively networking ourselves here to make more people aware of our presence in Panama and in Latin America in general.
Email and social network sites haven’t quite caught on with overworked pastors, so the best way to get in front of pastors is to start meeting with denominational leaders and personally visiting pastors.
Thus the goal is a face to face meeting with pastors.
Basic networking challenges.
The challenges here to networking are very clear. These are just observations and not complaints.
1. Transportation.
First off, we rely on Public Bus Transportation in Panama, and as such, the inefficiency of public transportation makes it difficult to get to places on time and at hours that are workable.
For example, it took 4.5 hours of transportation — waiting for bus connections and traffic to attend a 45 minute meeting.
2. Different understanding of time.
Last week, on two occasions, my appointments canceled on me after I made the effort to get to the meeting point. Of the first two, one called and apologized. The second didn’t show up at all. The third appointment showed up an hour late and never apologized for it. This different understanding and treatment of time require us to be flexible.
3. Travel schedules.
I’m wanting to meet with one denominational supervisor but he has been out of the country (he oversees 17 countries) that it’ll be mid October before connecting with him.
4. My language abilities.
I’m still learning and growing in my ability to speak the language, so conversations still feel clumsy.
5. Telephones
It doesn’t appear that telephone conversations are as common as they are in the US. Most cell phone minutes are expensive, and thus calls are really short. I don’t see people spending 60 minutes or more on their phone like I see in the US to make idle chit-chat and connections. I also have a real hard time understanding what is said to me on a telephone with the background noise.
How to Pray for Us
Be in prayer for our networking contacts. We must get out and meet and greet. To do that we have to overcome some of the obstacles that are in front of us.
Would you join us in Praying for a car?
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