Well, we started early. Most of the team took an early trek to the top of a hill where you can see the whole city, but not yours truly...I slept in. Felt a little like a slack, but I got to fire off the blog, spend some extra time in prayer and QT and still be comfotably ready and waiting when Steven, Lao and Tomis got here to pick us up.
Interesting personal note: When I was a child in rural Alabama, a missionary from Paraguay named Ken Watkins came to my church...I was 3. He took a liking to me and I latched onto him and called him "My Missionary". Ma has a picture to this day of Ken and I. I never kept up with him after that much (had Ma write a letter, I think). Steven mentioned being in Panama and I casually mentioned Ken and Steven knew him and his family had stayed in his house. He said Ken pioneered much of the mission work today in Paraguay and shared a story about how one time Ken was preaching and men rode up on horse back, horse whipped Ken and broke all his equipment...but he stayed. "My Missionary" is the bomb... Steven also knew a friend of mine that went to school with him and his wife at the University of North Alabama and again at Mid-American Seminary in Memphis...small world.
We went to Iglesia Bautista El Dorado today and met with Tomis and Lao and a few others who work with the Panamanian Chinese students out of El Dorado (I remember some of their names, but not all...Claudia, Mauricio, and a few others).
From there we went to Panama Christian School, which was a very short walk across a parking lot from El Dorado. There we met Willy, a chaplain at the school and Eduardo, a school official...they are working hard using the school as a very efficient tool to share Jesus to Chinese students. It's a private school and it's been here for 10 years (adding a grade each year -- they have retained 10 students from the original 1st grade class of 27). The school has garnered such a great reputation so far, that all types of Chinese want to come to their school...some travel 2 hours one way. They pay tuition to come and 75-80% of the students ARE NOT Christian. The school requires them all to take mandatory Bible class and they all have to memorize Scripture for a grade...parents get to hear them practicing...pretty cool, huh? The school has a serious mission and have a great vision to reach parents.
Larry, Jeff and Sharon got to speak to an assembly of 9th-10th graders...good times. They speak English, Spanish and Chinese. The school administrator believes that Central America will be the sending ground for the next major force that will TRULY reach the whole world. The main 3 languages here are English, Spanish and Chinese and those will carry you throughout most of the world. They don't have the stigma that Americans do across the world...so we'll see.
We went to eat at a hole in the wall Chinese restaurant and it was great and we talked a LONG time how we could get plugged in to ministry here in with them. LOTS of ideas, lots of brainstorming and some concrete short-term projects, long-term projects that are possibilities...now we have to put them in gear...GET READY.
We prayer walked (but honestly, mostly continued brainstorming with Tomis, Lao, Claudia, Mauricio and others) about how we could help them or be a resource or whatever.
Good productive day...we leave in 20 minutes to meet the Joberts, Cliede Cooper (a local church planter and HEAVY resource for us), Tomis, Lao and others for supper (or whatever they call it down here). Thanks for praying...don't quit.
*** We need to have at least one more trip this year...we have a college aged trip coming in July, but we need to probably look at another trip in later in the early Fall...FULFILL YOUR RADICAL COMMITMENT HERE. Get ready.
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