Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 3

e3's main mission is church planting by Equipping believers to Evangelize the lost so that we can Establish new churches. We are not a construction ministry or a humanitarian aid ministry, but we will utilize these ways of outreach in specific areas if it helps the main mission of planting a church. On this trip we had no set agenda to provide physically for the Ngobe people, but the Lord showed us the need, and gave us the resources to provide a meal, and a New Year's Celebration party (including pinatas)! This really opened up the hearts of the Ngobe people, especially the parents who saw us taking care of their kids and providing a fun time for them.

One of my team saw first hand how a little compassion can open someone's heart to listen...

"I joined the national leader [Moises Vega] and we wandered off into the village where we encountered a small boy trying to collect sun-drying cocoa beans before it rained. We helped him while unknowingly his mother watched. Impressed by our act of kindness, she invited us to her hut and shared some local cuisine with us. We planted the seed of friendship and invited the family to our main site the next day. She appeared the next day and I had the opportunity to share the EvangeCube [a tool used to share the Gospel] with her. I later saw her name on a tract, indicating a profession of faith in Jesus Christ."

Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 2

What a cool team the Lord provided for this trip! Only one had gone on a e3 trip before! 3 were from my home church, one of those from my personal community group, which was very cool! Two found the trip through the internet after hearing about e3 by word of mouth. The one veteran e3 person recruited two people from her area. It was neat to see how the Lord binded us together as a team! Even the Panamanian translators were from different parts of Panama, but we were all unified in the Body of Christ.

The Lord directed which people should go to which site and which translator should work with which N. American. And even though there were struggles along the way and things did not always go the way we thought they should. He was in control and grew us through our trials, and in our weakness He was strong!

The ground was hard in some of these areas, but seeds were planted. One of the cool stories I heard was of a women that was visited. They talked with her and shared with her about Jesus and they asked her if she wanted to pray to accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior, but the whole time they were talking she was expressionless. She did not respond to them at all and so they left. A short time later after they had headed back to their campsite this lady came to the edge of the campsite and said, "I want to pray to receive Jesus!" You cannot always see the kind of impact the message of Christ is making on someone, but as Isaiah 55:11 says, "...my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

There is also much power in the prayers of God's people as witnessed by one of my team...

"Juselino (Panamanian site leader) called Orluis (Ngobe translator) and I (Andy - N. American) up to put our hands on and pray for a man who was having trouble putting his faith in Jesus for a number of reasons. When we all began praying, the walls came down and he accepted the Lord. Seeing the power of prayer and a man's heart change because of the Holy Spirit and prayer was amazing. God was right there in everyone's heart. The smile on his face showed God was in his heart as well."

Dec/Jan Extreme Panama Praise Report Vol 1

I took a team of 9 North Americans to Panama on Dec 27, 2009 - Jan 4, 2010. We went into the Bocas del Torro region of Panama to work in three different jungle villages of Ngobe people. The three villages, Monte Lirio, Barranquilla, and Guabal, did not have a church. In fact only Monte Lirio had been visited by a team before (a year ago). This was ground breaking work for the Kingdom of God. Although as you know the Lord went before us and paved the way. We found in each village persons of peace to help us establish a new church in their village. Many of the Ngobe people are hungry to know more about God and His Word. Many had never heard about God before. Some responded quickly to the Good News while others will need more time to process this new information before the Lord opens up the eyes of their hearts.

We were able to share the Gospel 210 times to people in their houses, and another 1,001 times to people in group settings (children's meetings and evening meetings)! Praise the Lord! God then opened up the eyes of 93 individuals who prayed to receive Him as their personal Lord and Savior! Thank you Lord for letting us be a part in your plan! Please pray for these people, their follow-up, and discipleship.

In order to give you a glimpse into the people behind these numbers, I would like to share with you over the next few days some stories from the N. Americans on my team. This first story is from a young man. This was his first mission trip, in fact this was his first time even setting foot on an airplane...

" The greatest memory I had was the first time I presented the EvangeCube (a Gospel presentation tool). God allowed me to be calm and think clearly. The man I was talking to seemed like he was really trying to grasp what I was telling him. After I had finished, the man told me he wanted to be saved and I was just amazed at how easy God made it for me to lead him to Christ. It made me start to wonder what had been holding me back from sharing the Gospel earlier in my life."

Asia Travels - 2009

July 9-25 I will be traveling to Asia. Please keep me in your prayers as I am heading over to accomplish a few objectives. First I am meeting with new contacts to talk about future ministry possibilities, I will also be setting up a trip for next summer with a current contact, and lastly I will be joining up with another e3 team to minister to the people through training, prayer, evangelism, and discipleship. While working with this team I hope to pick up even more ways to help advance His kingdom in Asia!

I will definitely need your prayers for open doors, soft hearts, the Father's guidance, and protection from the evil one.

I was planning on bringing a team with me for the first week of my trip, but the team was not coming together. I was getting discouraged. Then I received an email from my contact saying that they could not handle a team at this time, and I realized God's hand was at work from the beginning! He did not allow the team to materialize because it was not the right timing (His timing). I do however feel He would have me go and set things up for a team to go next year.

I will email you a prayer calendar before I head out on the 9th.

In other News:

*Sorry for the lack of updates. I need your prayer support but yet if you don't know what is going on you can't be as focused in your prayers. Sorry!

*I have been talking with more people interested in what God is doing among the nations and specifically through my ministry with e3 and inviting them to be a part of my ministry team by praying, giving, and/or going. The Lord has given me a great response so far, Praise Him! Thank you to all the new ministry partners that have joined on recently. With these new funds I am able to continue my ministry and start to be more prepared for what God has in store for me in the future. Pray as I am continuing to raise up new ministry partners. I am at 77% of my new financial goal. I am targeting Thanksgiving as the date I am shooting to hit 100%.

*This blog and the emails that point you to it are the current ways most of you follow me. The email list system I use is sometimes unreliable because of tight spam filters. My ministry is in process of installing new software that will hopefully overcome this issue, and might change the way I communicate with you. In the mean time those that use FaceBook or Twitter you are welcome to look me up and follow me on those (my user name on both is crittertruax or just search for 'Chris Truax'). I will post on those whenever I update this blog.

All glory, honor, power, to our heavenly Father! Who was, and is, and is to come!

Go with me or ask others to...

First, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up workers for His harvest fields. Matthew 9:38

Second, did the Lord impress upon you to go? How about going with me on a trip to East Asia on July 9 - 18?  The cost is $3800, which includes airfare, lodging, in-country transport, food, tools and materials.  We train you in everything you will need to know. 

Third, please talk to or pass on to me any names the Lord placed on your heart while you were praying about workers.  Church Friends, Pastors, Co-workers, etc.

The nationals are getting ready for our team and they are excited.  Now all we need are ordinary people to listen to the Spirit's prompting and say, "Here I am Lord, send me!"

Time is short on this trip, so sign up now by emailing me at chris.truax@e3partners.org.

Stay tuned for information about a Fall or Winter Extreme trip to Panama!

Panama Update 2

Unfortunately the Panama trip that was supposed to be heading out this weekend is not happening.  We had to cancel for a few reasons, but the main one turned out to be a way to help our Panamanian believers.  That's right canceling turned out to be a help to our National Directors because they had 3 trips all coming in about the same time and felt overwhelmed with all that was needed to prepare for them.

The good news is we were able to redirect all the trip participants onto other trips.  So they will still be able to be used by God, and grow in the knowledge of God thru their cross cultural exposure.

I am in the process of reaching out to more friends and sharing the vision of e3 in order to grow my ministry team.  Please keep this in prayer.  I am also planning out my summer trips.  I hope to do two to East Asia (wink, wink), and one to Panama.  If you individually or your church are interested in being used by God internationally, please email me so I can talk to you more about making an international trip an easy reality.

Thanks for your prayers!

Panama Trip Update

Thanks for your prayers for my Extreme Panama Trip!  We will not be able to go in January because not enough signed up, but instead of canceling we are rescheduling for Feb 28 - Mar 7! These dates actually work better for the few we already have signed up and they think some of their friends might be able to join because of the new dates as well.  We need probably 5 more people to sign up, so please keep praying to the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into His harvest fields.

Our Panamanian workers are ready for us to come and partner with them, and are setting things up for us for the new dates.  Please be in prayer for Panama as they have been experiencing lots of rain which has led to flooding and mud slides.  This should not effect where we are going, but it is effecting other churches we have partnered with and could effect travel of some of our translators.

Trip coming up in January

I am getting ready for an Extreme trip coming up in January to Panama.  An extreme trip means that we will be hiking into the jungles of Panama, sleeping in tents, and filtering our own water so that the native tribes can hear the Good News.  In many of these areas it is the first time the name of Jesus has been spoken.  I would love it if you would pray for this trip.  I am trying to recruit a full team right now and would love you adventurers to join me.  If you are not an adventurer please point any adventurers you know my way.  The trip is January 10-17, you can get more information by clicking here.

Asia Travels - Video 3

Asia Travels - Video 2

For a higher quality and larger view of the same click here (you can actually see the water polo a lot better)

Asia Travels - Video 1

Safely Home

Thanks so much for being a great cloud of witness covering me and my teams while I was in East Asia! I arrived safely yesterday and was even able to keep myself awake most of the day and sleep through the night. My brain is still functioning so far today, but I will put off updating you too much today knowing that my brain is still not completely out of the jetlag fog.

It was a blessed trip and I felt like we were able to serve the Lord and His church well while we were there. It was a little bit different trip than I am used to but I was expecting that. We were able to tell the Gospel to people in one-on-one settings and during English classes and we saw a few pray with us to receive Christ! Praise the Lord! What I thought was probably the most impactful was being able to train up the Asian believers in the EvangeCube and other things and encourage them to reach out to their countrymen. They will be able to reach many more than we would ever be able to talk to and they do not have to worry about the language and cultural barriers that we would face.


Please continue to pray for East Asia, the people we met and the churches!  More to come including more pics and video.

Estes Park Video

Click Here

Off to Colorado

I wanted to update you all on what is going on with me. I was able to go to all the different leadership trainings that I wrote about a few posts ago. The two most impactful were: the class on Storying, learning to tell the Bible in story form, the form oral learners are used to learning from; and I went to Atlanta with some of my church's children's ministers and learned some great things for my kid's worship ministry. Even though they happened back in April I am still processing some of the material :-).

I head out late this Saturday to Estes Park, CO. My church is having a Family Camp, and I am helping lead worship for the kids and will have 12 Kindergardeners looking to my partner and me for guidance and direction during the week! I will be car-pooling up to CO from TX with 6 other people (one other car) and we will be driving through the night. Please pray for safe driving, great weather, and open hearts (both adult and kid) to what God wants to teach them during the week.

Both of my Romania trips are not going to happen in July unfortunately. We had different churches at various levels of commitment back out or never really connect with the mission. This will be the first year in a number of years that I will not be traveling to Romania. I will be looking into 'what went wrong' for these trips to try and learn for the future. I definitely feel (as I stated in a previous post) that I have let my learning grow stagnant, but have come back to the notion that learning is an ever on-going process. Thanks for supporting me through this process.

I will be starting and leading a Community Group through my church in mid to late June. The group I am currently in is moving on. It has been a great group of learning and growing and I hope to pass that on to some other men. Two of the guys from this group will be joining me and helping me as co-leaders especially when I will be on mission. Please pray for the right men to get connected with us and for the leadership and direction of the group.

I am still going to East Asia in August on two trips. Please pray for open doors and for the team as we are applying for Visas.

1 Corinthians 9:19, "For since I am free from all I can make myself a slave to all, in order to gain even more people."

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...

Prayer Calendar for Panama Trip

click to enlarge

Leadership thoughts, and what's ahead

God is cool!  I know most of you know that already :-), but I was reminded of this recently.  I am in a discipleship group with about 8 other men, and we are discussing leadership right now.  For part of our study we are reading the book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" by John C. Maxwell.  His 3rd law is the Law of Process, where he talks about how it takes time and continual growth to become a great leader.  Then he goes on to ask, "what are you doing right now to better yourself as a leader?"  When I thought about this question I decided I really wasn't doing much.  I had become pretty complacent, but decided I needed to look for opportunities to grow.  No sooner had I decided this I got email after email, call after call from individuals inviting me to events designed for me to grow as a leader in many different facets of my life!  God is cool!

The first event will be a Business Luncheon put on by my church this Friday March 7.  Then in the end of April will be my 'Leadership: Drink from a Fire Hydrant Extravaganza'.  I will be attending (and volunteering at) the CMA (Christian Management Association) conference on April 21-23.  Then on April 24 and 25, one of our staff is doing a training on Chronological Bible Storying (this is great stuff to learn because most people in the world still are oral learners).  To finish out April, I will be flying to Atlanta, GA with Children's staff from my church, Watermark, to attend the Orange Conference on the 27 - 30 to grow in how I serve kids.  This will help me both in my ministry at Watermark and my trips overseas.  Thank you Lord for investing in me!  The 'Process' has been put back into Drive and out of Neutral.

Also I need to update you on my travel schedule, and prayer requests.  I recently added a trip to Panama that leaves the end of this month March 28 - April 5.  One of my fellow staff is heading up this trip and needed a few more warm and capable bodies to make the trip work, so I volunteered.  It is an extreme trip, meaning we will be camping and hiking in the jungles of Panama.  We will be working with churches from Darien, Panama which is near the border with Colombia.  Please keep this trip in your prayers.  I had a trip of my own planned to David, Panama for May but will have to cancel because my main source of recruiting fell through.  I have two trips planned to go to Romania (back-to-back) but they are also in need of more people in order for the trips to go.  Please pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up workers for His harvest field, specifically Romania.  And don't forget that might include you :-)!  God could be calling you to a 1 or 2 week commitment to Romania, are you willing to answer His call?  These trips are tentatively scheduled for July 10-20 and 17-27 (might shift a week earlier depending on the Romanians' schedules).  Right after I get back from that I am leaving for East Asia for two trips August 2-20 that Steve Cretin is leading.  I am going to learn how we do ministry there, so that next year I can lead a trip there.

In June I will be traveling to Estes Park, Colorado with my church for a Family Camp.  I will serve in the Children's area as worship leader and possibly a group leader.  So as you can see my schedule (and specifically [as usual] my summer) is quite full.  Please keep these trips in your prayers, and especially pray for more laborers for Romania.

If your still reading, thanks for letting me ramble on!  Your support is invaluable to me.  You get the benefit of seeing this great picture of me and my family celebrating my Grandmother's 90th birthday.

I Survived!

I survived and completed my first marathon last Sunday! Thanks for your prayers! Sorry for the delay in an update. I was recovering, but I did not post an update because I was waiting to receive some professional pictures that were taken at the race. Unfortunately because of the large number of entrants they are still not available, but I did not want to delay any further. Plus I had a few good friends follow me around the course and they took some good pics that you are seeing here.

A cold front ended up rolling in Saturday night, and race day temp started at 51 degrees and only went down from there. I actually was very happy with the temp, but I was a little worried about the forecast of thunderstorms. The Lord decided to hold off most of the rain and I only got sprinkled on a few times, Thank You Lord!

I am very glad I chose to set the goal of finishing in 5 hours because during the last few miles my legs wanted to stop, but I wouldn't let them :-). It was a great race, I felt good throughout. The cheering fans and many other runners were good distractions to get my mind off of my aches and pains. I kept a pretty steady pace of 11:21 and finished just under my goal at 4:58!
I am not sure if this will become a regular thing for me or not but I am very glad I did it, and I am excited I can share it with all of you. I hope it encourages you to persevere in whatever is going on in your life right now.

Marathon!!!

Yep that's right I am a little wacko! I am going to be running in my first marathon this Sunday, Dec. 9! I am excited about this opportunity to really put my body to the test, and to literally 'run the race that is before me'. For those that do not know too much about marathons, a marathon is 26.2 miles (42.25K) long. I have been training for the past 4 months, and you know from my previous blog back in April that I have run a half-marathon (which led me to believe I could run a marthon, with proper training). So I think I am ready for the Dallas White Rock Marathon! I am not looking to break any records, just finish :-). My goal for the race will be to do it in under 5 hours. That's right, I will be running for 5 hrs!! Please pray!

You can also track me during the race! You can go here and sign up your email, cell phone, or pager to get updates of my time at different mile markers or one update of my finishing time. I will also post my results here with pics of the race once I recover :-).

I also wanted to apologize for still not updating you on my last week in Romania from this summer. It is on my to-do list. Also I wanted to thank all of you who prayed and sent financial gifts toward my new MacBook Pro laptop! I got it and have been enjoying getting to know the Mac world. I feel like a novice with my Mac computer which is a little odd for me since I know my way around a PC pretty well, but it has been a fun learning experience that is continuing.

Hebrews 12:1, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."

Please pray for me as I literally run a race set before me, and please continue to pray for me as I run the race of life and ministry that the Lord has laid before me. And even though that 'cloud of witnesses' refers back to the "Hall of Faith" mentioned in chapter 11, God has placed each of you in my life as part of those witnesses that allow me to throw off everything that hinders me. Thanks for your partnership!