Well, I've been on mission in Panama for the past week, and God worked through us in amazing ways. We presented the drama (an allegorical presentation of the Gospel) in the slums, in schools, on busy street corners and shopping areas, in a Kuna village in the jungle, and in a beautiful touristy area. Every time after we did the drama, we would talk to the people who had watched it. God opened many hearts to our message, and so many people--adults and children alike--were saved! However, we learned as we did the drama in the beautiful and rich touristy place that people who think they have everything they need are not as receptive to the Gospel as people who have nothing. As Walker told us, Jesus plus nothing equals everything. When we get to a point where we realize that nothing will satisfy us but Him, we have everything we need.
Here's kind of a play-by-play of our trip...
We spent Monday and Tuesday doing our drama in various locations (street corners, schools, etc.). One of our sites was in slums that were so dangerous we had to have a police escort in. Walker told us that Awe Star had not even been allowed to go there for three years. We prayed as Walker and the translators went to ask for an escort, and God answered our prayers and gave us a police escort. Also, in the same place, it started raining during the drama. We prayed that God would stop the rain so that we wouldn't lose our crowd, and the rain stopped. We also went to a school for special needs children and had the opportunity to perform our drama for truly the "least of these." Praise God for the boldness He gave us these days as we shared our testimonies and the Gospel with people in several differenet areas of Panama City, and praise Him for preparing the way before us.
We left Wednesday morning for the jungle, riding the bus for a couple of hours then a canoe for a couple of hours. We finally arrived at the Kuna village that afternoon. The women church members and some children greeted us and helped us get moved into the hut where we would all (30+ of us) be staying. The girls stayed in tents inside the hut, and the guys slept under mosquito nets in the same hut.
While we were in the village, we were able to perform the drama two times. It was the first time the Kunas were able to hear it in their own language, and the chief told Walker that he had understood it for the first time. Though the chief did not accept the Gospel, we praise God for opening his heart to understand the message.
Also, we were able to love on the Kuna children and share the love of Christ with them as we played with them and talked with them throughout the two days we were there. After we had kind of a VBS with the children on Thursday, they continued singing all day the Spanish songs we taught them! Praise God that they are probably still singing about His joy and peace today!
Well, after not showering for a couple days, running around with the children, and doing our drama twice, we were quite sticky and smelly. We had the wonderful experience of going up the beautiful river to clean up a little bit on Thursday. It was so awesome to look at God's beautiful creation, to get in some cool water, and to smell good for at least thirty minutes!
After we cleaned up and had dinner on Thursday, we just played with the children until bedtime. A little girl named Liliber came up to me and wanted me to hold her. I ended up carrying her around for over an hour! She didn't talk to me for a while, but after I had talked to her and sung to her for a little while, she started asking me to get our picture taken. We also sang the VBS songs with some other little girls for a long time. These girls were so precious!
Not only did God do these amazing things while we were in the village, He also did something awesome as we left. The Kunas were worried about us being in their village because when Christians had previously come, floods came soon after, and the Kunas blamed it on the Christians. However, as we left the village in the canoe, God placed a rainbow in front of us. It was so beautiful! We could even see both ends of it! This was just another reminder to me that God is sovereign and that He is with us.
Well, when we got back to civilization, we showered and got ready to do some shopping. We got to shop in a market that had a lot of the stuff we saw in the village, and we also got to go to a HUGE mall and have some great food and time to relax. I think this was a really great time to recharge a little bit and to get ready for Saturday.
Saturday was a big day. You see, Walker and Kristin turned Saturday over to us. Yes, a bunch of 14-18-year-olds led a day of Jesus ministry in Panama (with quite a bit of assistance from our wonderful translators and bus driver). But really, we were in charge of pretty much everything but the locations of our drama, transportation, and overall safety. This opportunity to be student led really taught us that we truly can be adults (as Walker taught us all week) and do ministry ourselves. It also taught us the importance of being a leader, but also the importance of being a follower--submitting to authority, as Walker had taught us the night before. God really empowered us to lead and to follow on Saturday. We were able to do the drama five times, which was exhausting, but entirely worth it. God orchestrated the weather in our favor; when it rained really hard, our drama site was covered, and the rain cooled us off nicely. We were able to bless many children who followed us from site to site---some of them saw us three times! Also, the poorest of the poor in Panama saw and heard the Gospel, and numerous people accepted Christ. At our first site, my responsibility on my ministry team was to "distract," to pull any kids aside so my team could talk to the adults. Well, God constantly reminds me that His plan is His plan, because I ended up sharing with the kids I pulled aside, and Ryan (our team pray-er) became the distractor for me after he and Mary Amanda were finished sharing with the adults. I was able to lead four young girls to Christ at that site. This experience was yet another reminder that God is sovereign, that he had gone before us, putting those four girls by the adults my team would talk to, and putting my ministry team together as he did.
God affirmed for me through this trip that He is bigger than any language barrier, any timidity, any danger, anything. He can work through anyone who is willing. One thing that is a struggle for me is leading people to Christ who I will not be able to follow up with myself. Last week, God really showed me that He is bigger than me, that He has the power and control to take care of discipleship. We provided the names of people who were saved to locals who will follow up with those people. God taught me that I have done the work, and now I can just pray for those people and trust that he will continue and finish what he has started in them. It amazes me that God brings people to himself through American teenagers who perform a simple drama, approach Panamanian children and adults, and read the Gospel in Spanish off of a card. I think that the fact that he draws people to himself in this way shows how powerful he is.
What an amazing week we had in Panama! Obviously, God moved in power---in us and through us. I believe that all of our lives have been changed in some way, and the lives of numerous Panamanians have been changed as well. I covered a good number of stories in this post, but there are, of course, many more. Please ask me or anyone else who went to tell you more about our experiences in Panama!
Also, as I wrap up this post, I just want to say that not only did we learn and grow a lot through ministry, we also learned a ton from Walker's teachings. He taught us from God's Word multiple times daily, and these times were so beneficial, even life-changing for all of us. We learned how to live as Godly adults, and how to treat each other as men and women of God. We learned what it means to be like Jesus, to get our hands dirty in ministry. It's really hard to sum up everything I learned here, but seriously, ask me about what I learned, and I would LOVE to tell you more!
Here's kind of a play-by-play of our trip...
We spent Monday and Tuesday doing our drama in various locations (street corners, schools, etc.). One of our sites was in slums that were so dangerous we had to have a police escort in. Walker told us that Awe Star had not even been allowed to go there for three years. We prayed as Walker and the translators went to ask for an escort, and God answered our prayers and gave us a police escort. Also, in the same place, it started raining during the drama. We prayed that God would stop the rain so that we wouldn't lose our crowd, and the rain stopped. We also went to a school for special needs children and had the opportunity to perform our drama for truly the "least of these." Praise God for the boldness He gave us these days as we shared our testimonies and the Gospel with people in several differenet areas of Panama City, and praise Him for preparing the way before us.
We left Wednesday morning for the jungle, riding the bus for a couple of hours then a canoe for a couple of hours. We finally arrived at the Kuna village that afternoon. The women church members and some children greeted us and helped us get moved into the hut where we would all (30+ of us) be staying. The girls stayed in tents inside the hut, and the guys slept under mosquito nets in the same hut.
While we were in the village, we were able to perform the drama two times. It was the first time the Kunas were able to hear it in their own language, and the chief told Walker that he had understood it for the first time. Though the chief did not accept the Gospel, we praise God for opening his heart to understand the message.
Also, we were able to love on the Kuna children and share the love of Christ with them as we played with them and talked with them throughout the two days we were there. After we had kind of a VBS with the children on Thursday, they continued singing all day the Spanish songs we taught them! Praise God that they are probably still singing about His joy and peace today!
Well, after not showering for a couple days, running around with the children, and doing our drama twice, we were quite sticky and smelly. We had the wonderful experience of going up the beautiful river to clean up a little bit on Thursday. It was so awesome to look at God's beautiful creation, to get in some cool water, and to smell good for at least thirty minutes!
After we cleaned up and had dinner on Thursday, we just played with the children until bedtime. A little girl named Liliber came up to me and wanted me to hold her. I ended up carrying her around for over an hour! She didn't talk to me for a while, but after I had talked to her and sung to her for a little while, she started asking me to get our picture taken. We also sang the VBS songs with some other little girls for a long time. These girls were so precious!
Not only did God do these amazing things while we were in the village, He also did something awesome as we left. The Kunas were worried about us being in their village because when Christians had previously come, floods came soon after, and the Kunas blamed it on the Christians. However, as we left the village in the canoe, God placed a rainbow in front of us. It was so beautiful! We could even see both ends of it! This was just another reminder to me that God is sovereign and that He is with us.
Well, when we got back to civilization, we showered and got ready to do some shopping. We got to shop in a market that had a lot of the stuff we saw in the village, and we also got to go to a HUGE mall and have some great food and time to relax. I think this was a really great time to recharge a little bit and to get ready for Saturday.
Saturday was a big day. You see, Walker and Kristin turned Saturday over to us. Yes, a bunch of 14-18-year-olds led a day of Jesus ministry in Panama (with quite a bit of assistance from our wonderful translators and bus driver). But really, we were in charge of pretty much everything but the locations of our drama, transportation, and overall safety. This opportunity to be student led really taught us that we truly can be adults (as Walker taught us all week) and do ministry ourselves. It also taught us the importance of being a leader, but also the importance of being a follower--submitting to authority, as Walker had taught us the night before. God really empowered us to lead and to follow on Saturday. We were able to do the drama five times, which was exhausting, but entirely worth it. God orchestrated the weather in our favor; when it rained really hard, our drama site was covered, and the rain cooled us off nicely. We were able to bless many children who followed us from site to site---some of them saw us three times! Also, the poorest of the poor in Panama saw and heard the Gospel, and numerous people accepted Christ. At our first site, my responsibility on my ministry team was to "distract," to pull any kids aside so my team could talk to the adults. Well, God constantly reminds me that His plan is His plan, because I ended up sharing with the kids I pulled aside, and Ryan (our team pray-er) became the distractor for me after he and Mary Amanda were finished sharing with the adults. I was able to lead four young girls to Christ at that site. This experience was yet another reminder that God is sovereign, that he had gone before us, putting those four girls by the adults my team would talk to, and putting my ministry team together as he did.
God affirmed for me through this trip that He is bigger than any language barrier, any timidity, any danger, anything. He can work through anyone who is willing. One thing that is a struggle for me is leading people to Christ who I will not be able to follow up with myself. Last week, God really showed me that He is bigger than me, that He has the power and control to take care of discipleship. We provided the names of people who were saved to locals who will follow up with those people. God taught me that I have done the work, and now I can just pray for those people and trust that he will continue and finish what he has started in them. It amazes me that God brings people to himself through American teenagers who perform a simple drama, approach Panamanian children and adults, and read the Gospel in Spanish off of a card. I think that the fact that he draws people to himself in this way shows how powerful he is.
What an amazing week we had in Panama! Obviously, God moved in power---in us and through us. I believe that all of our lives have been changed in some way, and the lives of numerous Panamanians have been changed as well. I covered a good number of stories in this post, but there are, of course, many more. Please ask me or anyone else who went to tell you more about our experiences in Panama!
Also, as I wrap up this post, I just want to say that not only did we learn and grow a lot through ministry, we also learned a ton from Walker's teachings. He taught us from God's Word multiple times daily, and these times were so beneficial, even life-changing for all of us. We learned how to live as Godly adults, and how to treat each other as men and women of God. We learned what it means to be like Jesus, to get our hands dirty in ministry. It's really hard to sum up everything I learned here, but seriously, ask me about what I learned, and I would LOVE to tell you more!
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