Ministry finished strong

Our American team of 13 was able to work with many translators and other Panamanian believers to plant 4 new churches and strengthen 2 existing churches! Many seeds were planted and many souls were harvested! The trip changed many lives: the new believers, the fallen away believers, the believers who worked alongside us, our translators, the pastors, and us. We come back changed with a renewed heart to seek His glory in everything we do. We ask prayer for these churches and the great amount of work they have ahead to follow-up, disciple, and grow these baby Christians, and have them continue to gather as a church for God´s glory.

Planting a church

What do you see in this picture? An open field, two men talking, a gate, trees...

I see a new church. This plot of land was donated for a new church building, but you do not need a building for the church to meet here. Open fields, a large tree, open houses are great places to use for a newly planted church. We can easily get caught up in the thinking that a church is a building, or that a building is required before you have a church. Jesus taught us though that the church is the gathering of His people. This week we are working in four sites and planting churches by evangilizing and discipling and gathering the believers together and developing leaders, but the work is just begining in these sites. My American team will be finishing up ministry tomorrow morning, and then we will be gone. What will happen to the new believers, what will happen to the seeds planted? This whole week we have been working alongside the Panamanian believers, and modeling ministry so that they can continue the ministry when we are gone. The Panamanian believers have committed to the discipleship, and follow-up of the new believers. Also they will provide the needed leadership for these new baby churches. So the work continues, and because it continues please pray for the continued work in Las Vueltas, La Rivieria, Auguacatal, and Chiriqui.

Taking the Bible for granted...

...if you have been a believer for a while you probably take for granted that you understand how to use the Bible. Not that you understand all what the Bible says, but you understand when someone says ¨John 3:16¨ they mean the book of John in the New Testament right after Luke, in the 3rd chapter, 16th verse. For a baby Christian they have no clue what John 3:16 means. Today one of my team, Bryan, got the priviledge of teaching about 20 new believers how to ´unlock´ the reference code so that they can easily read and look up passages on their own. They were so excited they did not want to stop digging into the Word.

The entire team is doing well. Talsy is feeling better and Kevin was able to join us today to translate. Here are some more pics from the day and evening meetings...

Some plant, some water...

...and I sometimes get the priviledge of being involved in the harvest. Today was a great day and many of my site teams have not even checked in for the evening yet. Today we got to split in our 4 site teams and worship with them in their churches celebrate Pentecost and the Global Day of Prayer with them, and then go out into the communities to begin our ministry of sharing the Gospel, discipling, and gathering people together for an evening meeting. I spent the morning with one team and got to worship Iglesia A.G. at Chiriqui. Through translation I heard the pastor preach about the power of the Holy Spirit and how before the disciples were blessed with the Holy Spirit they had lack of faith and fears, but once they had the Holy Spirit to rely on they went out with power and authority preaching the Gospel and performing miracles.
Then I went in the afternoon to check out our site team in Las Vueltas with our Panamanian Coordinator Moises Vega. We got to join the team in going out into the village. We did a lot of prayer walking and easy conversations to get a feel for the area, but we came across an 68 year old man named Marcos sitting by a tree with his friend. We started talking with him and realized through our conversations that the Lord had and was at work in Marcos. We shared the EvangeCube with him and he said he finally understood it, he prayed immediately and is now my brother in Christ. Here is a pic of him...
More to come about all the sites and the great things he is doing through this team of 13 people from the USA, our great team of translators, and other Panamanian believers!

Please be praying for more low lying fruit! Please also pray for Talsy Vega, our other Panamanian Coordinator, and Kevin, a translator, who are both sick.

Great opening rally

Hello Prayer Team,

The team made it to David safely and we had a great opening rally. Here are a few pics...

Moises and Talsy Vega our Panamanian country coordinators.
Pitt´s site getting to know each other
Jimmy´s site figuring out what tomorrow will look like.

Gotta go for now more later...

We made it safely

Hello Prayers,

We made it safely, and Tara our lady waiting for a passport also made it! We also received all our luggage as well! Today, we head to David from Panama City, 7 hour drive, please pray for safe travel. More later...

Another praise but prayer needed

I talked to our campaigner (Tara) and her mother that are waiting for the last passport. The mother told me she had chatted with a friend at work about her daughter's passport situation. The next thing she knew her friend was on the phone. It turns out the co-worker's father works for the passport agency! (God is too cool!) If Tara can get to the DC office Friday morning early the co-worker's father is going to make sure she gets her passport. We need to keep praying though for Tara to get her passport in time, and to make it back to Richmond for her 2:51pm ET flight. Thanks for interceding for her!

Unfortunately it looks like Ruth, our Peruvian that was waiting on her VISA, will not be able to join us. Please pray that the Lord lift her spirits and provide her other opportunities for ministry.

God Provides!

Hello Prayer Team,


I have some great news and also a continued prayer request. Three of my Panama team members received their passport!! Two of them actually went down to their nearest passport agency and would not take no for ananswer :-). Praise God! We still need prayer for one team member who is still waiting on a passport, and one team member who is a Peruvian who is waiting on her VISA (a small window of opportunity tomorrow for both). Both really want to be on the trip and will be sad if they do not get to go, so please pray for the Lord's peace upon them whatever the outcome.


Please also be praying for safe travel and on-time travel tomorrow the first of our group starts flying about 1pm ET and then our whole team will be flying to Panama City together from Atlanta at 5:38 pm ET.


Thanks so much for your prayers for God's will to be done and for His Glory to be shined throughout Panama! Leanne Heise and I are ready to lead the team out into the harvest fields because of God's provision and your prayer coverage.

Still waiting on passports...

It seems that the passport agency is extremely extremely backed up, and not being very helpful to get my team members their passports in time. Please pray for a miracle! I am reworking the budget to see if we can go with out them. Please pray the Lord grants our Panamanian coordinators and me wisdom in how to reorganize if we need to. Thanks!

Panama Trip Prayer Request

One immediate prayer request for my Panama team leaving Friday...because of the large amounts of people applying for passports right now we still have a few team members who have not received their passports yet! We have been in contact with the Passport Agency and they are supposed to be 'putting a rush' on them, but please pray that all team members will get to travel and be part of the trip. I will update you before I leave! Thanks!