A 6.0 earthquake had just rocked the city.

Centered about 60 miles Northeast, 28 miles down, it was enough to startle us.  (Just north of El Provenir on the map below).

The weirdest sensation.

A growling rumble wakes me up (thinking it was a passing truck or something).

Increasing rapid vibrations as the window blinds tremble.

The bed in which we were sleeping begins to vibrate side to side with a rapid frequency.

Suddenly the entire building is swaying and the furniture is moving across the floor.

It’s like being on a boat that is tossed by waves, when you can’t grab your footing.

Venetian blinds banging against walls and windows.

It’s over.

Within 15 minutes, a 6.2 preliminary report is found online, and revised within moments to 6.0.  (Source: US Geological Survey)

Panama newsgroups and twitter are all full of chat messages – did you feel it?  What were you doing?  You ok?  How is your building?

Some of my friends slept through it.

Others were awakened, like us.

Damage reports

Because of its depth in the earth (28 miles down), damage discovered seems to be light.  Building cracks, drywall cracks, a few trees that fell over.  No reported injuries.  Some loose canned goods fell from grocery store shelves.

For us, we have a new crack in our ceiling, but we live in a steel reinforced cement column structure.  Other than that, it’s just our nerves that shake a little.

Panama’s Earthquakes

Panama has seismic activity.  Most is often in the western provinces of Chiriqui near the border with Costa Rica.  The US Geological society has a record of reports since 1990.

According to published reports in La Prensa, a 6.3 struck in 2000, 6.0 in 1995, 7.3 in 1974, and 6.9 in 1951.  No pattern, but you can see that it happens.

Reflections

The earth is not supposed to move like that.  It’s not supposed to rumble and groan.  But in reality it does.

We normally don’t think of the power involved to sway cement buildings and rattle the earth from a pressure point 28 miles down.

I suddenly think of just how small and powerless we humans are in comparison to some of the forces of nature.

The building rocking back and forth felt like I was but a grain of sand being sifted by a gold hunter.

But I’m also compelled to think on the sovereignty of God and the sustaining power He gives us.

The prophets use imagery how the earth shakes when God speaks to communicate the power of God (Habakkuk 3:5-7).

Mountains will bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of His name.

I simply have no words left and will simply worship.

UPDATE:

Three aftershocks have been reported.  Sunday night, 11.10pm, a 5.3 aftershock was recorded and felt.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

A friend of mine said this the best in his most recent letter to their supporters:

I really do not like sending out urgent pleas for help – it is rather humbling.

But I am so committed to doing this work that God has called us to and we are all seeing such wonderful fruit that is giving glory of Jesus Christ that I am willing to ask for help.

First from God and next from all of you!

I know that humbling feeling.  I’ve been wrestling with God over it for a few weeks in my own prayer time.

As we step into July, our work here faces a shortfall in its monthly support, as well as short term project needs in the next 60 days.

The global economy affects our work, much as it may have affected you personally.

Praise the Lord for Sufficient Provision

We give glory to God for how He has supported us through his people and the work of EvangelismCoach.org since we first moved here 2 years ago July.   The work here has been sustained for nearly two years without pleas for urgent support.

We’ve seen

• Timely gifts,
• Hallway offerings
• Offerings at events
• Paid speaking engagements,
• Online Book sales (How to Welcome Church Visitors)
• Several supporters join our team monthly – without being asked.

We’ve seen the end of our bank accounts and timely last minute provision out of the blue to sustain us a few more months.  We can give story after story of last minute provision from surprise sources.

We can also promise you that living by faith this way is also very hard on the intestines – the body still feels the stress, even if the mind is at peace in trusting God.

So many of you believe in and support our work that has taken us into 4 different countries (with a 5th one coming this August) to give evangelism training in two different cultures.

As you have walked with us via our newsletter or intercessors list you’ve heard how we’ve seen

• People come to faith in Christ,
• Some healings, both physical and emotional
• Church members refreshed and encouraged to share their faith
• Several kairos moments of ministry where the Lord has used us to advance His kingdom

We can tell lots of stories.

Learning from Paul

When Paul went to Corinth, he worked alongside Aquila and Priscilla, making tents and doing ministry on the Sabbath. Once Silas and Timothy arrived, he was able to devote himself full time.

Paul didn’t start full time in his new city.  Instead, he had to establish his base of support, either from his business, or from another form of support.  In this case, I think he was able to grow his business to the point of handing it off to someone else to manage.

Paul had to be bi-vocational for a while, before being able to be full time in ministry.

This is the season we are in now – building support and building our business to the point of setting us free to minister full time here in Latin America.

The Reality of the Present

While we have seen sustaining provision to cover our immediate expenses, we’ve not yet had enough to set aside funds for future needs that we see coming.

We have some urgent project needs connected to us being here that we simply have no savings to cover.

We are asking God for provision and look forward to being able to tell stories of this provision.

We’re working at trying to use our business to generate revenue but the economic climate of the US has canceled all my speaking invitations at least through October.

What you can do

We need

• to expand our monthly support base and
• A generous outpouring of gifts in the next 60 days to meet some urgent needs connected to us being here.
• Invitations to do paid evangelism training in regional conferences.

Here is what you can do.

• Give thanks for all the gifts that God has already sent and pray for His blessing on all those who enable this work through prayer, participation and giving.
• Please pray that we will have wisdom to be good stewards of every penny and ask the Lord to move people to give.
• We need to pray in an average of 3,000 a month just to keep everything going.  5,000 a month would be ideal to help us save for August 2010 and not be in this situation again next year.  And every gift helps!
• So please pray for provision in the form of regular monthly small gifts! Each one makes a huge difference and we are so grateful for all those who already do give like this.  Your dollars go much farther here in terms of buying power for groceries and fresh fruits.

Here is how you can act

1.  Download and print our partner response form

You’ll need a PDF reader to view it.

Print it out and stick it with your devotional materials as a prayer reminder of what God might be calling you to do with us.

Whether you choose to donate or simply pray for us, still print this out.

You can print and distribute to mission committees and prayer groups.

2.  Donate.

• By Credit card: Automatic recurring contributions or make a special offering by visiting our support page.  I’ve put up a video screen cast to show you how.
• By Check: Mark your gift for the Mission to Americas.  Make check payable to PRMI and mail to PRMI, P.O.Box 429, Black Mountain NC 28711

We need people to join our monthly team as well as one time gifts.

Our desire

We long to see the church in the Americas equipped to do the work of evangelism.  We invite you to join with us as you are called and empowered by the Lord to do so.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

We spoke with a young boy, 14 years old, who was in the detention home because he had been snagged by the police for robbing people.  When I spoke with him longer, he was stealing in order to provide food for his family.  It was clear that the Lord was touching his heart during the drama and message from the teenagers, and in our post drama conversation, he offered his life to the Lord — receiving God’s forgiveness for his actions (the state will be another matter).

The team also got to know a young woman from Somolia, separated from her family — who all had been killed in the fighting.  She was smuggled out of the country, but when she landed in Panama, she was promptly captured, arrested, and because she is underage she was sent to this home.  Her companions on her journey were thrown in a Panamaian jail while immigration figures out what to do with them.

Each story at this orphange is unique, and uniquely sad.  I’ve been there before, but it doesn’t get easier hearing the stories of each child as to why they are there.

Join us in Prayer and Support

Continue to pray for our ongoing work of our family in Panama.

Continue to pray that we increase our levels of monthly support to keep working in fulfilling our calling here.

Consider joining our monthly Support team or make a special gift to help us continue?

Keep up with our news and get instant updates by clicking here.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

We got to join them for that outreach.

During setup, several of the team members broke up into little groups and went inviting people to the drama.  Brandon served one team to help give the invitations.

As with the church planting park outreach on Saturday, the Crestwood team used the same dramas:

• Ragman
• Man of Miracles

Crowds gathered to watch, see and hear.

Different teens gave a brief testimony and then one of the adults gave a brief invitation to conversation and prayer.

After the dramas and invitation, the team broke up in to little groups and went and prayed with individuals.

The Sovereignty of God in Evangelism

As we conversed with people who wanted prayer after the dramas, the sovereignty of God became very obvious.  People who were

• desperately seeking God found themselves hearing of God’s love for them.
• running from God found themselves confronted with God’s pursuit of them.

For example, in our conversations:

1.  An immigrant from Nicaragua seeking employment in Panama City left his church 3 years ago, but this day felt God’s tug on his heart to walk in the ways of the Lord again.  We’ve invited him to join our church plant.

2.  A teacher from the rural province where I taught in the Darien was in the city after abandoning his family felt God’s call to repentance and return to his family and church.  We referred him to pastor where I preached his hometown.

Those were our conversations.  I only heard about one team who spoke with a gang member who left the church a few years ago feeling confronted by God’s love to leave that life and get back to walking with the Lord.

I’ve yet to hear some of the others from the team about what they had.

Join us in Prayer and Support

Continue to pray for our ongoing work of this church plant.

Continue to pray that we increase our levels of monthly support to keep working in fulfilling our calling here.

Consider joining our monthly Support team or make a special gift to help us continue?

Keep up with our news and get instant updates by clicking here.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

While we are not yet meeting on Sundays, we’ve been meeting as a leadership team for several months praying for our neighborhood (Corregimiento De Bella Vista,  Church planting in Our Context), building relational connections with people, and even celebrated a baptism in our pool (Why we do this).

Beginning in late July, we’ll begin meeting in a house on Sunday afternoons.

Partnering with a missions team.

This week, a missions team from Richmond Virginia helped us with a park outreach and some other street outreaches.  They provided the dramas, brought us some literature to distribute and it’s been a blast having them.

The goal of our partnership was to help us make contact with people.

Saturday’s Park Outreach

We are in rainy season here, so for nearly 30 days, we had been praying for a dry afternoon.  Yet in God’s sovereignty, we experienced a thunderstorm about 2 hours before our outreach was scheduled to start.

This caused a skateboarding festival in the park to be delayed for hours.  The end result is that instead of families being in the park, we had nearly 200 young skateboard enthusiasts.

That was our audience, but once their games resumed after the ramps dried up, they had their attention elsewhere.

We made meaningful contact and conversation with about 10 people.

We learned about the skating subculture here, and I had conversation with some 20-somethings about their faith and about their struggles.  We are making follow-up connections this week working at recruiting these new contacts into our weekly bible study.

Brenda ran some crafts for the smaller children that eventually arrived and served as translator for the team when they spoke.  Here, one of the young people is giving a personal testimony about their faith in Christ, and Brenda’s translating for them.

Personal Joy

Part of the joy of ministering as a family is watching my kids serve as well.  Brandon’s fluency in Spanish has grown to the point where he could provide some translation work on a conversational level.  Watching him serve that way brought joy to this dad.

Anakarina and Brandon both were distributing literature (Who would deny taking stuff from a kid?) and helping out with the crafts and dramas.  Anakarina played the lost sheep during an improv skit.

Join us in Prayer and Support

Continue to pray for our ongoing work of this church plant.

Continue to pray that we increase our levels of monthly support to keep working in fulfilling our calling here.

Consider joining our monthly Support team or make a special gift to help us continue?

Keep up with our news and get instant updates by clicking here.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

Youth With A Mission Panama is providing all the logistics of the trip.  We are grateful for their cooperation and organization.  That enables our family to give our selves to the team and serve them as needed.

Pray for good weather for the team outreaches.

Pray for Saturday’s park outreach with the church we are planting.

Pray for other outreaches that are on the schedule.

As with most teams, this is the first time out of the country for many of them.  Pray they will be able to enjoy their experience and that some will begin to discern a full time calling into missions.  Some will experience culture shock, so pray for the grace for the leaders to help them process it.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

Spending the night

We had spent the night at pastor’s mother’s house, a new structure still being built, built out of cement block, decorated with ceramic tile.  

I unexpectedly find myself rejoicing at indoor plumbing.  In comparison with the outhouses I had seen at the church, and most of the housing I had seen and expected to stay in, staying in this house felt like being honored like royalty.  An audible gasp escaped my lips as we pulled up in the driveway, to the amusement of my driver. 

At night, from the back porch, I could see the Southern Cross – a constellation that is not visible from where we used to be in the US.  It looks like a giant kite in the night sky.  

The only sounds were of typical night creatures — frogs, crickets, locusts, with the occasional mutter of a horse or moo of a cow.  Quite the contrast from the city.

I crash pretty quickly from teaching in Spanish all day, so visiting was not something I got to do well until the next morning.  

Fog covered the farm fields.  The cool damp morning air smelled clean and refreshing.  The only sounds were chickens clucking for some food, cows, and the occasional gunshot where farmers were scaring away birds.  

After a small breakfast, we travel across the rutted dirt roads, around several farm fields to arrive at the Foursquare church right on the main highway.  Our vehicle is covered in clay mud from the trip through the soggy road of red clay.

The pastor leads two churches on a circut, but for this occasion of my visit, he had the churches meet together.  

Like the one I taught at yesterday, this church is a one room structure.  For Sunday school classes, they uses some open sided gazebos that also serve as classrooms for a private school during the week.  The school has about 200 high school students that meet 1x a week in a collection of these gazebos.

I took the picture above to show a sample classroom.  It had been full of youth group aged kids.  

During the week in my devotional time, praying for this Sunday, I felt led to share a message on having a daily time in the word of God.  Sermons are fine, but we each need to spend our own time in God’s word.  We pray for our “daily bread,” not weekly, monthly or yearly.  

I had written out a manuscript ahead of time, as that is what I still must do for preaching to help weed out lots of grammar mistakes in Spanish.  Where I got stuck with a word (some words don’t just roll off the North American tongue), the congregation pitched in.

After the service, we were invited back to the pastor’s house where we shared a meal.  The house didn’t have a stove, so the meal was prepared in a pot over the open fire in a lean-to off the back of the house.  

It was still good, but I found myself deeply grateful for the effort they were making to honor this American guest.  I felt humbled at their meager living arrangements, yet grateful that we don’t live that way.   We are still very blessed economically.

While waiting for the food to be prepared, I was given a lasso, and a task to try and get a fence post.  What cowboy’s make look really easy, I discovered was near impossible for me.The gentleman who drove me on this trip is trying to do this particular task.  It’s not as easy as it looks, I promise.

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 available 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?

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

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?

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

If you’d like to know what specific project needs we have, simply give me a call at 804/335-1445.  It’s not an international phone call.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.

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.

.

©2009 Walker's Mission in Panama. All Rights Reserved.