Mission to the Americas

Serving Ministries and Missions in Latin America

Church planting in Our Context

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Calle 50 Panama City PanamaI live in a city of nearly 1 million people.

I prayerwalk the 3 neighborhoods regularly and have discovered a few observations:

  • Less than 5 churches in the entire area.
  • Condominium towers from 4 stories to over 50 stories.
  • Very popular night clubs and restaurants.
  • Streets known for hookers at night.
  • A smattering of single family houses.
  • Lots of office buildings
  • Lots of pedestrian traffic during the weekdays.
  • Very empty on the weekends.
  • Residents generally middle to upper middle class.

Housing

Apartment towers have 24 hour security and access to them is by being buzzed in by a resident.

High density housing even among single family houses means that your next door neighbor’s wall is likely less than 3 feet away if not directly attached as row houses.

Single family houses are hidden behind walls and gates.  Windows and doors are covered with iron bars painted to match the color scheme of the house.  Border walls have razor wire or broken glass in the cement to keep people from walking on them.  Some families have their own private security guard that sits at the entrance.

Privacy and fortress like security is a key description of housing in our neighborhoods.

People

As we people watch in some three or four parks, we see families, lots of children, and nannies.  The parks begin to fill up with people as the afternoon wears on, and the sun starts to set.

Live-in nannies are common in our part of town who are likely receiving salaries of about $300-400 a month.

Some parks seem to attract more children with their parents.  One park seems only to attract the nannies and children.  It’s an observation to keep watching.

Questions in our mind

  • How do we build relationships with our neighborhood?
  • How can we discover the community needs as we are in the parks?
  • What kinds of park-based outreaches can we do to start ministering to the need?

Would you join us in prayer as we seek to discern this?  We are participating in Launching a New Church in the city and this is part of our prayerful discernment about our neighborhoods.

Prayerwalking my City

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Yesterday and today (Thursday and Friday), I (Chris) had errands to walk.

As I meandered my way to my destinations, I spent the time praying for the city, praying for the people, and asking God to show me how to love this city and minister to it’s people.  We desire for God’s name to be glorified.

Calle 50 Panama City Panama

The question that I’m asking God to show me is “What binds this city?”  “What are its spiritual needs?”

Two events happened today walking home from an errand.

Try to imagine with me

I stopped to sit on a platform and do some people watching and praying on a busy street.

Veneto Hotel Panama

Backpackers, lost tourists, homeless, and street vendors are all common sights.  I am often given a invitation to a over-priced taxi, or to buy cheap pirated CDs from a walking vendor.

Trash overflows from the cans.

Indigenous women and men from the Kuna people sell their molas and other handiwork.

Vendors sell knock off Ray-ban sunglasses and hawk newspapers.

The urban poor search trash cans for recyclables.

Beggars lean against the wall holding out little foam cups hoping for a spare change from a tourist.

This street has erotic shops, an active strip club and massage parlor, and I’ve often overheard male airline passenger share tips that high priced panama hookers are easily available on this street to service the casino and hotel patrons.

street vendors panama city

“Do you want a young girl?”

A young man, malnourished, tries to scrape a few bucks by managing the parking in front of a busy plaza.

Common practice in the city.  He tries to stop the flow of traffic to help people back out, cross the street, and directs people to park their cars in the stall.  Typically, folks give him a quarter to “watch their car” for his service.

My attention is drawn to him as I watch his efforts.  People don’t respect him.  He takes authority, as if he’s a traffic cop. Some people share their quarters with him.  I watch him also asks tourists for some change as well. He’s working hard. Confident in his steps.

He sees me sitting on my little bench and approaches.

“Friend” he calls me.  I find that I’m assuming he’ll hit me up for money.  Then he begins to say that

“If you want women, young women, I can hook you up.  I know where they are.  18, 19, 21.  They are pretty, they’ll do what you want, and you can have as many of them as you like. . .”

There is an eagerness to his voice.  I am both stunned and humored.  I let him continue to describe the fleshly beauty and the temptations that he offers (though I am not tempted).  He’s selling me the services of young girls.

I hold up my left hand, showing him the gold band around my fourth finger

“A Ha” he exclaims, leaning back to change his tone and sales pitch.

He’s obviously disappointed.

Refining his eagerness, he starts affirming my decision to stay with one woman and how all the hookers in Panama are infected and that’s its not good to use them because I might get a disease. . .

I chime in: “It is God’s perfect will that sex be expressed inside a marriage between one man and one woman.  I want to be pleasing to the Lord and always honor my wife.”

The shift to God’s calling in marriage quickly stops everything.  Knowing that he won’t get a sale out of me for his services, he then says “Friend, can I have some spare change to buy a soda?”

I turn down his offer.  I know he won’t buy a soda.  He’ll simply add it to the pile of change in his pocket he’s earned from parking cars.

Do you want a taxi?  A woman?

I resume my walk, pondering why was this offer made to me.

There is a section of this street where I’m always offered a taxi.  It’s a pattern that happens every time I walk this street.

A slightly overweight driver points to his car and offers “Taxi my friend?”

panama-taxis-024

Looking him in the eye, I smile and decline his offer.  “No thanks.”  Sometime the drivers attempt to make other conversation with a quick follow up question — “Where you from?” or “Where you going?” or something like that.

Today was different.

“You want a woman?  I can get one for you.”

Stunned, I simply hold up my left hand to show him my wedding band.

With a laugh, he says “that don’t mean anything.”

What are its spiritual needs?

I walked home continuing to pray for my city.  In the time that I’ve been here both as a tourist and resident, this is the first time I’ve been offered women and girls.  I’m sure it happens.

However, I’m also certain that God has shown me an insight into some of the spiritual bondage of this city related to prostitution.  He’s answering my prayer.

For now, he’s guiding me to pray for these men, for these women.

While that profession is very old and I can’t do much about it, I can certainly pray that the Church in this country can reach men and women for Christ and bring healing to the bondage that prostitution brings.

Praying for a Car

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We continue to praying for a car.

Now that we have been here for a year, we are looking to obtain a car so that we can increase our reach and availability to churches. 

Our transportation situation limits our opportunities and puts a transportation burden on the churches that what to have us come. 

Up to now, we have been using a variety of means.

That means buses and taxis, or rental cars, or walking.

Diablo Rojos – Red Devils

bd8cre2We now have a deep appreciation for what a majority of Panamanians use to get around town.

Buses run .25 and sometimes complete a route. 

There have been times when the bus driver asks the passengers if they can “cut out a loop” and take a short cut. 

 

WaitinforabusHere is a picture from the local newspaper about the crowds at bus terminals: 

Sometimes buses have refused to stop and pick up passengers. 

Just this week, four buses refused to stop to pick us up.  We jumped on the 4th one when it was trapped at a traffic light.

We can certainly tell stories of the inconveniences, dangers, and journey lengths, but in print it would sound too much like complaining, rather than a description.

Simply put, our reliance on buses have limited our mobility, wasted hours of our time, and thus our availability to fulfill our calling.

Panama Taxis

More Panama Pics 011 Some taxis are nice, like the one pictured.  Others are dangerous and falling apart.

However, many times they don’t want to take you places and if they do, we’ve been gouged a few too many times.

Rates are unpredictable, even though there is a chart, but who cares about the rules.

The largest challenge with taxis is that drivers are in control.  If they don’t want to take you where you are going, they will reject you.  Once you put your groceries in the trunk, they’ll charge you extra.

Try getting a taxi in a rain storm around 4.30pm.  Doesn’t happen.

Rental Cars

We have rented cars when we need them for 3-4 days at a time, when we go to conferences and need to transport our gear.  AVIS is our primary rental agency here and we use them as needed.  It’s not cheap, but it allows us the freedom to go.

How can you pray?

We continue to praying for a car.  Join us in prayer for the funds for a car.

Poverty in Panama and Calling the Church to Action

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Panama is a country where, according to La Prensa (2 Nov 2008), almost 1,000,000 people live below the poverty line.

That’s approximately 33% of the nations population

About 385,000 of those do not have the earning power to even cover the basic human needs for food and shelter.

The reports point out that some earn less than $95 monthly, some under $64 a month.  8 out of 10 in the comarcas (where the tribes live) survive under $36.  Extreme poverty covers 80% of this regions population in 2007 (down from 89% in 2001).

According to the index of Global Competitiveness at the 2008 World Economic Forum, the education system in Panama is ranks 108 of 132 countries evaluated.  Sixth grade math scores were the worst in the Americas.

Implications

Poverty is not unique to Panama.  I’ve seen poverty in other central American countries. I’ve seen images in real life that have seared my soul with such pain that I can’t bear to see it again.  Images that have stayed with me and will not get buried in the recesses of memory.

So many problems come alongside poverty, as well as so many solutions.

I’ve been reading Walking with the Poor, by Bryant L. Myers.

The book looks at principles and practices of transformational development.

The book explores poverty, causes of poverty, and calls the church to action in engaging broken systems that cause poverty.  He lays forth a strong case that poverty is a “deficit, entanglement, lack of access to social power, powerlessness, and the lack of freedom to grow” (Myers 81).

Poverty is a complicated issue that involves all areas of life — physical, personal, social, cultural, and spiritual.

I live and work in a country where poverty is more visible than the suburban America where I lived before.

The gospel is relevant to people such as these.  But what difference does evangelism make in their life?  Can it lift them out of their poverty?

This is the question that Myers seeks to get at in this book.

For example, he presents a simple chart about solutions to the cause of poverty (p.81).

View of Cause, Proposed response

Poor are sinners, Evangelism

Poor are sinned against, Social Action and justice

Poor lack knowledge, Education

Poor lack things, Relief / social welfare

Culture of the poor is flawed, Become like us / ours is better

Social system makes them poor, Change the system

Certainly poverty has many causes and many possible cures.  It is beyond the task of our family to challenge the system, but rather to focus on Evangelism and helping churches engage.

Evangelism calls people to personal transformation — to step up into the purposes for which the individual has been created.

Evangelism calls people to societal transformation — to participate in the work of the Kingdom of God.

The picture is not complete

Evangelism as traditionally practiced by many in Latin America (based on my observation on 10 countries) by itself is not a solution to poverty.  The focus is on salvation for a better life at in eternity.

Get saved and you’ll live forever.  Who wants that?  Everyone!  Life sucks for so many people in this region that a presentation of the sweet by and by is most appealing.

Yet what is missing is what I would call

1.  incorporation into a local church and

2.  obedient service to the world.

There is a vital component to helping people join a local community of faith.  The church can grow and become a vital part of the transforming the local community.  The church can nurture the faith of people and call more people to participate in the work of the God.

The second part  is obedient service to the world.  There is a calling to go back and seek to transform the world and culture, to be salt and light, to work for justice and fight for the oppressed.  The kingdom of God is not about you, but about advancing the reign of God into the world.

What’s your vision?

Organizations abound to serve the poor that do not have a kingdom vision.  Some want to extend their branding (think some Fortune 100 corporations).  Some want to give their profits away because they want to avoid paying taxes.  Some have altruistic motives to simply serve the poor, and based on their worldview, work at the appropriate solution.

Meyer’s book points that your worldview as to the cause of poverty will form your solution.  Mine clearly does.  The article in La Prensa cites that poverty is rooted in lack of education, and thus the solution is for the Government to improve the education system.

Ours

Part of our calling here in Latin America is to help the church get beyond the soul recruitment and to cast a vision that new believers and the church can engage the culture and transform it.

I’m not talking about political control like the Religious Right’s strategy in the US.

I’m talking about the church being involved in solutions for poverty, fighting for justice for the oppressed, and proclaiming the Good News.  The church can be the salt and light to to the world and needs to be.  By having a kingdom vision, the church can address the human needs.

The kingdom of God is such an awesome message that we give ourselves to it’s cause.  Think about how you can support us in our vision

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