Panama Video

Back from Panama

I'm home!  Because I was in the jungles of Panama during this trip I was not able to update you periodically on my trip like I try to do.  But now that I am back I will try to recap the trip for you and share a few stories, pics, and videos over the next few days.

We left Friday for the Darien region of Panama.  This trip was headed up by a couple other e3 staff members Todd and Sheila, but they asked me to join on late because they were going to split the team up into three teams staying in three villages.  Todd, Sheila, and our Panamanian Coordinators (the Vegas) had everything planned out but God had some other plans.  We thought we would be flying into Panama City and sending the night at a hotel before heading out to Darien on Saturday.  Moises Vega thought it would be better to head down the road some on Friday so that the bus and boat ride Saturday would be less.  He had set up a hotel for us down the road that we would arrive at around 1 am.  Well in route we found out that the hotel had given our rooms to others, but we were flexible for the Lord and pressed on driving through the night in our run down school bus and the Vega's van.  Trying to sleep while bumping down poor roads.  At about 4 am we came to a church that Moises Vega knew about and we stopped and slept for 3 hours (allowing our bus and van drivers to get a little bit of sleep).

At 7 am we were back on the road, we arrived at the end of the road at about 11:30, and ate some lunch.  We then loaded up our very large canoe with all our bags, and our whole team of 37!  We thought at first that our boat ride was going to take 3 hours but before we set out we found out the plans had changed and we were heading to a different village that would take 5 hours.  The 5 hrs actually turned into 6.5 hrs!  

Praise God that our team was very flexible.  The verse from James 1:2-4 exemplified our team, "My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect effect, so that you will be perfect and complete, not deficient in anything."

On Sunday we split into our three villages and started the ministry by prayer walking our village.  It was a good way to turn our focus on relying on God's power and not our own.  It was also a good time to get to meet the villagers and create a bond before coming back to share the Gospel with them.  The next few days were spent sharing the Gospel and discipling the villagers through one on one times, children's meetings and adult cell group meetings.  We also had some great times to sit down with the pastor and the church members and encourage them in the Lord.

More to come: Stats, Stories, Videos...