Through God’s sovereign working, we’ve received an invitation to do a workshop here in November in a church out in a very poor suburb of Panama City.

According to the pastor, this suburb has over 63,000 residents, only 3% of which are professing Christians.  I’m told there are approximately 45 churches trying to serve this residential area, with most memberships under 100 people.  This suggests an large unreached population.

The church itself is on a main road.  It is a one room structure with a metal roof, and thus it gets very hot inside when the sun is out, or very impossible to hear when it rains.

The walls are made of whatever material can be found.  Picture is the block wall.  The back wall is unfinished wood planks, or 1/4 plywood on some battens.  Other times it’s tin.

We attend a prayer meeting on a Saturday morning in this structure to help plan the event in November.

Instead of a Sunday morning time, when the sun would overheat the building, the workshop will be on a Thursday evening after working hours.  This will present a logistical challenge for our team to get there on a school night, in the dark, and without a car.

Pastor leads up a pastors association and his dream is to have several churches squeezed into this little one room church for an evangelism workshop.

Yes, that is a stake holding a piece of plywood in place.

We had rented a car for the weekend to make sure we were able to get out there.  Even with a car, it was still about 45 minutes from where we live.  I can’t imagine the bus trip during rush hour traffic.

The community needs are so great (one block away is a intersection that at least 3 gangs fight for control over – it’s the border between them all).  Crime is a concern being the “gringo” in a poor neighborhood after dark.

The lack of resources is clearly visible in the structure of the church, as well as a little thank you gift we received: a bag of lemons from the tree in the back yard.

Pray for this little church, the workshop, and the logistics of how we will get there.

The Darien is the most eastern province of Panama.  Leaving at 4 in the morning to get to class by 8 am, we travel through the mountains, unpaved roads, fog, farms, teak forests, and jungle to get to a town that doesn’t exist in Google maps.

Off the tourist trail

We drive past clapboard shacks and open sided gazebos with hammocks.  Poverty is visible in terms of housing, and I suddenly find myself wondering about literacy levels.  The next day I am to preach on personal devotions in the Bible and suddenly wondering – will the people be able to read?

We stop at police checkpoints along the way, producing the necessary documents. 

I (Chris) am an unusual sight – tourists don’t usually come this way.  No matter how hard I try to blend in, my white skin and north american looks are so rarely sighted that I get stared at as if I’m a space alien.  I’m definately out of place and off the tourist trail.  This leads to all sorts of scrutiny from the police checkpoints – where are we going, what are we doing, why am I in this area.  The photo below gives a feel for what we were experiencing, though it’s not my documents they were looking at.

One check point makes us stop and take about 10 minutes to answer questions.  We assure the policeman that we were only going 5 more minutes up the road to a church on the right, to teach a class and then we’d be leaving. 

He requests my passport (which I don’t have since it’s at the immigration office getting stamped), so I can only give him my version of the US Green Card and a photocopy of my photo page that I always carry.  I get a lecture on needing to carry my passport at all times, particularly in this area which is full of police checkpoints.  He tells us he could get in trouble for letting us pass without the proper documentation.  I make a mental note — to ask why my ID card issued by the government of Panama not sufficient to show my status as a permanent resident.

Eventually, he lets us continue to our location – Centro de Restauracion Cristiana (Restoration Christian Center).   A mission of the Foursquare denomination in the town called Aqua Fria (Cold Water).

Most of the residents work the farm fields, if they work.   There has to be some form of economic means here, though I wasn’t told just what it was.  

The church is a single room concrete structure for a sanctuary, still under construction.   The town itself has no running water, which is only trucked in by tanker on certain days.  

No indoor plumbing.  Behind the church was a partially enclosed structure with a palm frond roof that housed a family.  You can see their laundry drying behind the church bathroom below.

The common transportation is bus, taxi, and horse.  In fact, the class was distracted by a horse that had gotten loose.  A farmer came and lassoed the horse with ease after cornering it at the fence.  

For those that have car, a 4×4 is the most common form, as most of the roads are simply dirt trails.  The main road at this point is mostly unpaved, and full of ruts and loose gravel.  We put along at under 35 MPH, dodging left to right to avoid potholes

As we arrive, the car is parked under a mango tree.  It’s fruit is in season.  There are mangoes all around the ground.  I’m taught how to recognize a freshly fallen mango – the stem from where it was connected to the tree is still oozing sap.

About 15 students from around the area gather monthly for their class on cross cultural missions.  Today, I’m the professor, and the subject is person evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit, the foundational course for EvangelismCoach and for PRMI’s Evangelism Dunamis Project.

Teaching in the Darien

Men and women, pastors and ministry leaders gather monthly for a cycle of 2-3 years in preparation for cross cultural missions. 

I spend about 5-6 hours teaching personal evangelism in Spanish, and they spend about 5-6 hours coaching me and gently correcting my Spanish.  I can tell from the interactions that they get the idea of cooperating with the Holy Spirit in the work of personal evangelism.

My Spanish continues to improve.  I still struggle with verb tenses and proper use of pronouns and prepositions, but my vocabulary continues to grow.  They tell me how freeing this teaching is, from the self condemnation of evangelistic failures (because they have defined success so narrowly as getting a prayer out of someone.

Before starting, I give a devotional that morning on the Preciousness of Jesus that was based out of my devotions this past week.  We move into motives for personal evangelism, and step into a wonderful Karios moment of worship, giving thanks to God for such a precious gift in Jesus.

Join us in Prayer and Support

Continue to pray for our ongoing work.

Continue to pray for growing comprehension and communication ability.

Finally, continue to pray that we increase our levels of monthly support to continue making teaching like this avaiable to churches and regions that are like the Darien.  

Would you consider joining our monthly Support team or make a special gift to help us continue?

As I continue to teach mission classes for IPET, last night took me to the heart of Colon.

Again, the descriptions below are not complaints, but an attempt to describe for you some of the places to which we are called to serve. It’s easy to read negativity into these descriptions, so don’t.

The tourist book reads “If you have no business over there, do not go.  If you go, expect to be mugged.”  When I asked to walk down the street to get a soda (about 6 houses), I was taken by car, not allowed to walk by myself.

While I do not fear for my personal safety, the locals know that I’m a prime target and they keep me safe.

A white man in Colon

Last nights class was on worldview.

To help introduce the concept of worldview, I asked the class of Colon residents

“You see a white man (like myself), walking on the streets of Colon alone. What do you think?”

The answers came rapidly and without 2nd guessing:

• “A lost tourist in danger”
• “A gringo”
• “Someone about to be robbed.”

Does this give you an idea of how a white face like mine is perceived automatically?

Can I have 10 bucks?

When I parked the car, a rough looking, unkempt man on a bicycle passed me on his way to some unknown destination.  A white 5 gallon bucket hung off the handlebar.

As I got out, he immediately made a u-turn in front of an oncoming car and approached me.

“Fulo” he called me.

“Listen, I haven’t eaten for days, would you give me 10 bucks?”

This little white face of mine says “money.”

Going to Public School

I enter the school where the class is located – a cast iron gate blocks the entrance. (sample picture from somewhere else)

I open it and as I enter the building, some well meaning but startled people in the hallway quickly ask me what am I looking for.  I’m out of place.

The class meets on the 3rd floor.  As I go up the stairs, I begin to feel like I’m in an movie.

Imagine a war movie and entering a rundown cement building – holes in the cement wall, chipped tile everywhere, dampness, minimal lighting and indescribable smells.

The bathrooms have no running water and reek.

Window unit air conditioners run, but do not dehumidify.  The smell of dampness and mustyness irritates my allergies, but by God’s grace, I still function.

White boards have no pens or erasers (as teachers supply their own).

The condition of this school is not very different from the conditions that are often featured on the evening news – the public education system is known for not attending to these conditions.  This was one of the motivating factors in the recent presidential elections.  (As an aside, in recent weeks parents and students celebrate soap in the bathroom — thanks to the swine flu in Panama).

Class begins

I get a deep joy out of teaching these missionaries in training – in spite of the surroundings and discomfort I feel (my North American worldview).

The class is an introduction to worldview, using much of the Ignite material from PRMI, plus lots of personal illustrations from Panama life that I have encountered.

We get to spend about 3 hours talking about a concept that is new – including several illustrative examples of worldview and cross cultural living.

The examples that they then gave me made it clear that they got the concept.

The story that got me

A class member was doing some mission outreach with an indigenous tribe.

This tribe cooks over firewood outside.

The classmate had tremendous sympathy for the major effort it takes to cook a meal – gathering the wood, preparing the fire, etc. She thought a great idea would be to give the Indian lady a stove and a tank of gas to help them cook their food with greater ease.  What a great way to help!

When she returned again after leaving a stove and tank of propane, she arrived to discover that the lady of the house was still cooking with firewood, but on top of the stove which they had put in the fire circle.

The stove was ruined, of course. She felt awful that her investment had been ruined yet after the class last night, she realized she was trying to help where help wasn’t really needed.  Her solution only caused greater problems for the cook.

That cross cultural misunderstanding became very clear last night and helped my student interpret what happened.

.