Faithful Father

Once again I am blown away by my Faithful Father! His resources are abundant! (even in a down economy!) I definitely went into the end of the year with the hope and the faith that the Lord would provide my financial needs. I have seen Him provide in the past. But it still blows me away to see His children pray and give with a cheerful heart.

Through your gifts I will be able to have my timing belt replaced in my car, and because of the special gifts and increased monthly gifts I have received I can go into 2011 with an awesome jump start on the finances I'll need for the year.

Your partnership in ministry reminds me of Paul's words to the church at Philippi, "Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:17-19)

THANK YOU to God be the glory!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my God, who is glorious and worthy of all praise! I am thankful for His Son by whom I am adopted into His family! I am thankful for the Holy Spirit that enables me to communicate and be guided by my heavenly Father!

I am also thankful for all of you! If you are reading this it is because you are invested with me in the expansion of God's Kingdom. As I reflect back on this year, I want to apologize that I did not communicate better some of the things I was going through. I robbed you from participating and myself of the power of your prayers. I was discouraged by my lack of recruiting this year and having to cancel a few trips. However I was encouraged by the trips I was able to do and even a trip that got plopped into my lap fully-recruited and ready-to-go! I am also encouraged that I have a trip on the calendar for next summer (with churches committed to providing the team), and more trips in the works.

I will be mailing out a Christmas letter soon with more information and updates, but I wanted to get an update out to my electronic community because some of you are not on my mailing list. (If you don't think you are on my mailing list and would like to receive my Christmas letter, please email me your address chris.truax@e3partners.org)

The main thing I would like you to be praying about is my financial support. The Lord has always provided for me in this area and I have faith that He will again. There are two main reasons why my finances need your prayers, and two main ways you can pray about partnering with me to help meet these needs.

1. This year I have had a few of my monthly donors have to drop off because of life change (loss of job, having a baby, etc.). I really could use some of you to pray about committing to give $50, $100, or $200 a month for 2011. (Or those who already give, maybe you have the capacity to raise your monthly gift.)

2. I found out that my car needs a new timing belt. This is not a cheap repair. It will probably cost between $1000-1500 to replace. Please pray and ask the Lord if He wants to use you to help meet this need.

You can give to both of these needs by going to http://www.e3partners.org, then hover over the word "give" on the title bar, when the pop-up menu appears click on "Donate Today". On the form be sure to:

Choose "Other" in the Designation field. A blank box will appear.

Type in this information, "Chris Truax's Support Account" in the Other field.

If you are committing to give monthly be sure to change the type of gift to "recurring gift".

You can also mail in a check to: e3 Partners Ministry, 2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2600, Plano, TX 75075. Be sure to make out the check to e3 Partners Ministry, and include a note that says, "for Chris Truax's Support Account".

I pray that my desire matches Paul's in Phillipians 4:17, "Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account."

Panama: Stories, Stats, and Photos

Well, I have been back from Panama now for two weeks and you might of wondered if you would ever hear from me about the trip! Thanks for your patience! I do want to update you guys on what I saw God do in Panama this trip because you were a BIG part of it. You deserve to hear how your partnership and support impacted lives for the Kingdom!

First, from the very beginning I knew this trip was a blessing from God. I was feeling a little discouraged in my lack of recruiting and getting trips mobilized. Especially for this summer I had plans for two different trips that did not come together. Like I said, "I had plans"...the Lord had different plans, and as always His plans are far better then mine. This trip was supposed to be co-led by another e3 missionary, but he had been under the weather recently with different health issues. So the lady leader of the trip, reached out to those that do ministry in Panama asking if anyone was available to help her lead this trip. I jumped at the trip, excited about how the Lord provided even though it didn't look the way I was expecting.
This team was made up mainly from a church in Georgia near Atlanta (my old stomping grounds) called Hebron Baptist. We had 4 join us from PA. In fact one of those was another staff who was having trouble recruiting a team to Paraguay but the Lord provided our trip to join with. One team member was from Dallas, and it turned out to be a guy I had done ministry with before. He was on my Taiwan trip (one of my early training trips). It was great catching up with him! The team gelled nicely with each other and with the Panamanian believers we were partnering with.

We were working in Panama City the capital. We had 6 sites we were working in. Five were sites that we got to strengthen existing churches and one was a totally new church plant! I normally set it up so that I can rotate in between the sites during the week. This allows me to make sure everything is running smoothly in each site and help out where needed. This trip the Lord again had a different plan :-) (this is why we always train up our teams with the mantra, "Flexibility, Flexibility, Flexibility!"). One of my team members suffers from POTS. She goes through cycles of good days and bad days. Unfortunately, the trip landed on a bad cycle. In a bad cycle, all her joints ache, and she is in a lot of pain. On Sunday (our first day to go out to the sites) she needed to stay at the hotel and rest. She was supposed to be our volunteer site leader at her site. In fact the other lady we had assigned to the site was still learning the process because this was her first trip. So the Lord allowed me to go out to that site, and be the site leader. Our lady with POTS persevered well, and got to do some ministry, but never felt 100% or able to fill the role as site leader. That gave me the rare opportunity to spend the whole week at that one site. The Lord allowed all the other sites to run smoothly, and I was able to really plug into this site and get connected to the pastor and some of the church members. I got to experience a trip as a team member again and that was refreshing. Something the Lord knew I needed.

This is Carlos (one of the pastor's main disciples), our driver, guide, evangelist, disciple and friend. Everyday we would learn a new type of vehicle that Carlos was good at using; from cars to buses (specifically "Diablo Rojos" a form of public transportation), back hoes to dump trucks. We also learned he was a good mechanic, but what was cool to see is that he knew God had gifted him in these areas to give him open doors to share the gospel with friends and co-workers.

I shared while on the trip that we got to go to a house and teach the people there how to use their Bibles. This next picture is the man of the house. Once he learned how to look up a passage he started devouring more and more.

We got to go back to this house a few days later. Only one lady from the original group was there, but a new guy (probably a son or son-in-law of the man above) was there. We shared the gospel, teaching him how to look up scriptures in the Bible, and both prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior!

Another cool story is when we shared with these two ladies (picture below), we asked them if they had a Bible and they went and got one. We started going through a gospel tract and helping them learn how to look up scriptures. We quickly discovered that the "bible" that they were trying to use was a Jehovah's Witness bible. We allowed them to use our Bibles to look up the scriptures. While we were in process one of the ladies stopped and pointed to the old book and said she did not like it, and that these new books (the Bibles) were the Truth! They both prayed to receive Christ and we gave them the Bibles and she got rid of the old book! Here they are studying the scriptures...

The personal stories of how God calls people into a relationship with Him is why we go! Here are the numbers that show the impact of what God can do in a week, if His people step out in faith and obey His calling to go and make disciples!

16 North Americans

68 Panamanians

508 People Heard the Gospel

301 Prayed to Receive Christ as Lord

120 People were Discipled

1 Church Planted

5 Churches Strengthened

PRAISE THE LORD!

Thank you for being a part of what God did in Panama!

To see more pics from my trip, check out http://gallery.me.com/crittertruax#100158

Glory to God Panamanian Style!

Well we just finished our Victory Services in our mission sites. That is where we give glory to God for what He has allowed us to see this week! I was at the Mananitas site (1 of 6 sites) all week and got to see the Gospel shared with 53 people and 22 of them prayed to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior! I will be able to report the totals from all sites, stories, and pictures once I return from the states and I have had a chance to catch my breath.

One of my visits to a house stood out to me, we were able to present the Gospel to 5 adults and they were attentive, but at the end they just started asking if Baptists (which was the denomination of the church we were partnered with) and Catholics were the same. I asked them if they believed the Bible was God's Word, and they said "yes". I said we also believe that. I then proceeded to pull out our e3 track which is laid out like a questionnaire with Bible passages by each question that holds God's answer. I asked them if they had a Bible and they pulled out a few. We then started to go through the questions. I found out quickly that they didn't know how to lookup a verse, so I started to teach them how to do it. I taught the head of the household first and then moved on to help someone else. By the time I got back to the head of the household he was on the third or fourth question and he was just devouring God's Word! What a great site to see, someone having the Word of God unlocked for them! Then we had the whole group look at question 5, which asks if good works save you. Many of them answered "yes". The verse for question 5 is Ephesians 2:8-9, which clearly says we are saved by grace through faith. You could see their eyes change when they started to understood this truth from God's Word!

Please keep praying for the mission sites! My American team is done, but the work goes on! Many new babies in Christ that need to be spoon fed the milk of the Word, and the Panamanian churches are the ones that are here to do it for the long term.

Many coming to know the Lord

Thanks for your prayers! I have been enjoying seeing the Lord work through our team. Especially the first timers that have stepped out in faith. They are seeing God turn there uneasiness into boldness, and allowing them to see lives transformed before their eyes. In the one site I was working in today we shared the gospel with 34 people and had 13 pray to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior!

Please keep praying for the health of my team. The team member with POTS is still not 100%, but is able to go out to her site and serve for about half the day. I have another team member who has been getting lots of nose bleeds (they are not life threatening but distrupting). And I have a team member who is suffering from poison ivy, and keeps find new areas that are effected. Thanks for lifting them up to our great Physician.

Two more days of ministry! Pray my team has strength to finish this race well!

Worshipping in Panama

We had a great day worshipping with our Panamanian brothers and sisters! Some sites did more training, and prayer walking. Some sites already went out to talk to people about Jesus and how they can have a relationship with Him. We got quite a bit of rain today that disrupted some plans, please pray that the weather will not effect God's plans this week and that we are always flexible to change our plans to match His. Also please pray for one of my team who was sick today and stayed at the hotel all day. She suffers from Potts and had a flare-up (which, if I understand correctly, makes all her joints ache). Please pray that she is able to go out this week, either from healing or divine strength to endure the pain. God has her on this trip for a reason, let the result bring Him more glory!