Mission to the Americas

Serving Ministries and Missions in Latin America

June 2011 Church Baptisms

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The entire dialogue is in Spanish, but I tell a little about the contents below.  It was made for the church on Sunday.

If you know how to dub it or subtitle it, I can use your help for the English speaking audience.

We celebrated baptisms today with Communidad de las Buenas Nuevas.

Pastor starts with a brief explanation of the events of the day, followed by the three baptismal candidates.  At the end, Pastor invites people for the next baptism service.

Feed readers: You many need to click through to see the video.

Community Exegisis: High School

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We visited a high school in our community as part of the community exegesis for our church plant, Comunidad de Las Buenas Nuevas Panama.

Colegio Richard Neumann is one of three public high schools on a stretch of road we can see outside of our living room window.

Students regularly walk past our building in the afternoons to return to the public bus stops for their journey home.

Every day, we observe hundreds of students moving around the city, just blocks from where we live.

How can we begin to reach them?

First visit to one of the high schools

We met with the school director to learn about this public high school and learned there are 1700 +/- students in this one, the smallest of the three on the street.

Because of space issues, one shift runs 800 in the morning, and about 900 in the afternoon.  Students come from areas all over the city, as the school is not organized like districts in the US.

Though the school is physically located in a “rich” area of town, the “rich” can afford to send their kids to private school.  These students come from the more “humble” areas of town.  As he rattled off those areas, it became clear those humble areas are also areas of urban poverty, what many in the US might call “the hood.”

We also learned of a school for troubled kids, with current enrollment of about 500 students. This would make the 4th public school in our neighborhood.  Students kids from the same areas that had already had encountered the judicial system or had discipline problems.

Issues of the community

The director told us of physical needs of the school: athletic equipment, jerseys, shirts, etc.

But as we met with some other teachers, they told us of other social issues that they confront:

  • Teen pregnancy
  • Delinquency
  • Absentee parents
  • Broken families
  • Apathetic or addicted parents
  • and the lack of positive character development.

They quickly rattled off the number of pregnant students in the various tri-mesters of pregnancy.

As we heard these things, we grieved on the inside.

These are the people on the margins in our community.  Surely, our church can do something!

This lit an explosive passion!

Our first reaction was one of “why haven’t we visited sooner?”  This sparked all sorts of creativity.

Our second reaction was brainstorming ways our church can minister to these needs:

  • Setup prayer booths near the public bus stops.
  • Buy athletic equipment.
  • Volunteer to clean up after events.
  • Offer to organize English conversation classes.
  • Lead assemblies for the students on character, life, and morality.

We also realize that our church may find that people from the margins may not come to our church initially.  Social class divisions run strong in our culture.  However, it is our prayer that our church could give itself away in ministering to the community.

The amount of need is overwhelming.  Given that this is one of four schools, we still need to visit the others.

Pray with us that the Lord will guide our discernment process about what we can do here to make a difference in our community.

Prayerwalking Panama Viejo with Vida Joven

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Driving to the Panama Viejo neighborhood is easy on a late Saturday afternoon.

Once I found the right spot (not an easy task since I wasn’t familiar with the area), I met with the Panama Viejo Young Life team to join them in a prayer walk for their neighborhood.

We spent about 2 hours walking their community, praying for the various areas on our journey.  Each spot they shared with me had some significance, some call to prayer, some reminder of events that will happen or have happened.

We began at the soccer field, an artificial turf surface where some kids were practicing their skills.  The team is working to build relationships with kids at this field.

From there, we meandered on to a church that is working with the community.  We spent some time praying with the pastor and asking God to bless their work.  The worship team was practicing and the pastor was there praying for the Sunday services.

As we walked to the next place, I listened in to the dreams of these Young Life leaders – dreams of reaching kids for Christ and bringing hope to a community infested by gangs and other poverty related problems.

Poverty is visible at every corner.  But the neighborhood is alive with birthday parties and celebrations.  The music is loud, the adults are gathering to drink, and others are getting their hair done by neighbors who might know what they are doing.  Some are grilling their dinner out of tire-irons that hold the charcoal.

Right now, the neighborhood is “at peace,” I’m told, very unlike January when Vida Joven’s work had to stop because of violence in the community.  We prayed at one corner that was a hot-spot of gang conflict, asking God to bring His peace to that area.

Next to the church is the gym where Vida Joven will have its meetings.

The first meeting was coming up the following weekend, so we spent time interceeding for the Young Life Club meeting

As I walked the neighborhood with eyes wide open, it didn’t take much to hear and see the community need.

As I listened to the heart of these Young Life leaders, it’s clear they have gotten God’s compassionate heart for the area.  As I regularly teach other churches to get a heart for the community, these leaders get it.  They are spending themselves in that community, looking to reach kids for Christ.

It’s a privilege to walk along side of them and encourage them in their ministry.

 

A kairos moment of networking

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This week, I’m attending an international missions conference here in Panama.

It brings together mission organizations, missionaries, and mission pastors from nearly every Spanish and Portuguese country in Latin and South America, as well as Spain and Portugal, for four days of networking, training, and growth.

Since part of our vision is working along side mission agencies providing evangelism training, this congress is an important networking opportunity for our ministry and for the ministry of PRMI.

Part of networking is listening to a ministry’s needs and sharing how my content that might be able to help them, or how the ministry of PRMI might be able to help as well.

Would you join me in prayer that I would build new relationships and

  • Serve those who are here and help their ministry in some practical way
  • Have kairos moments in the hallway to pray with missionaries.
  • Connect with decision makers who would invite our evangelism training.
  • Connect with decision makers who would invite PRMI

The conference is in Spanish, so I’ll need additional mental and physical strength to stay with it.  If you have ever tried to function in a language not your own, you know that extra level of concentration still needed to pay attention and follow what is happening.

While I do have a level of fluency necessary to understand participate, it is still a huge drain on the level of physical energy.  The language is not yet “second nature.”

Teaching Kids How to Worship Jesus

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Brenda spent some time in January, teaching at a Bible camp for about 40 kids from the Caimitillo community.  This is the fruit of an ongoing partnership with Pastora Raquel that you can read about in other places in our blog.

Listen in as she shares some of the story of what was done and what it has meant to the church.

Thanks to one of our contributing churches for the funds to help acquire the supplies, send some of these kids to camp, and transportation costs!

Thanks for praying for us

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