Cooking Now That Mama Aint Around

So I have something to confess to you all. I cooked rice for the first time last week. In these last twenty-four years of my life, I'd never actually cooked rice myself out of my own desire...because Mom always cooked it and I never had to. So last night, I decided to step it up a bit from my usual Campbell's Tomato can of soup or Kraft KD dinner and made myself a spaghetti casserole. I've also got the pictures to prove it! I know this is not a food blog or anything like that, but it tasted good, even though the presentation could use a lot of work. Blessings

Our National Director's Crazy Truck!

So as Wes and I were moving into our new apartment a couple of week ago we made an honest, uninformed and just all out hilarious but unfortunate mistake. We used the National Director's truck. Our National Director over here in Panama is a great man. He's one of the most motivated men I've met (motivated to share the gospel with whomever he can) and was so kind to let us use his truck, but I don't think I could say the same about his truck. When we left with our stuff (that was stored at Lionzo's house by the way) from his house, we were left stranded halfway home in the middle of a busy one way street in front of a bus stop (The buses in Panama are a little scary and intimidating by the way). I couldn't believe what was happening as I tried to start the car over and over again to no avail. I was sweating like a mad man trying to figure out what was wrong with the National Director's truck! After a good ten minutes of blocking traffic and huge buses blowing their fog horns at me (there is no fog in Panama, yet the buses use fog horns, I guess it's to get a message across: get out of the way!) we pushed the truck to the side of the road and all was well in the world, the buses stopped honking and life continued on the street, I was no longer the international public disturbance wreaking havoc in Panama. At least that's how I felt at the time, I was even afraid the police would come after me and take me in for disturbing traffic like that, but no, they just drove by and didn't even take a second look at what was going on with us. So as you can see in the picture above, I'm smiling and having fun even though all this was happening. Below you can see the truck pushed over to the side of the road. We spent the day trying to figure out how to start it again, but we had to call in the mechanic. In the end, we left the truck there overnight, and the mechanic fixed it the next day, but it didn't stop there.

A week later, or maybe even the same week, Wes ran into trouble with the truck again. This time Lionzo was driving, but after a night of eating out with Panamanian students and staff, the truck ran into a hole. It took hours to sort out the situation, but Wes finally got home that night around 3am. It was all good and fun though. Both Wes and I are able to look back on these even and just laugh, but I think we also gained some valuable experience and lessons of: Patience.

Los MACHOS!!

I'm back from Los Machos! In case you don't about my recent whereabouts, I was out in the Province of Cocle in this little little town called Los Machos. I would actually consider it a mountain village. If you look on this little map that we have here, you'll notice a little place called El Cope, which is located at the mid top left of the map. From El Cope, we took a couple of pickup trucks up to Los Machos. And when I say up, I mean UP! We drove for a couple of hours through steep mountain trails to get to the little mountain village where we were to minister. We crossed some pretty deep rivers along the way, and we rode through the rain, all the way to the highest village of the mountain called Los Machos. Our truck couldn't actually make it all the way up to where we wanted to go because it was way too slippery for the truck to get there safely, so we unloaded all our cargo about a 20 minute hike fromo the village. The challenge we faced the very first day was getting all of our cargo to the place where we were to set our sleeping tents. We had to carry film equipment, fourteen water jugs, our backpacks and more belongings all the way up a very very steep hill. It was extremely difficult, but after of couple of hours of carrying stuff, we finally got settled into the small area where we were staying. The land in Los Machos is beautiful. We were literally living in the clouds. We were so high up that it would often get foggy because of the clouds that were passing through our camp. It also rained a lot, but I mean a lot. Everyday was a huge downpour for us, but that didn't stop the Lord from doing his work in the lives of the people there. We initially set out to do actual manual labor type work with the people there and at the same time share the gospel with them. We also planned a little soccer clinic for the kids of the village and in the evening we presented the Jesus film to all the people that wanted to come.

Because of intense rain, we spent our first morning at the local elementary school teaching the kids stories from the bible and interacting with some of the adults that were gathered there for the national holiday. That went well, I really don't know what type of impact we made in the lives of those kids there, but I'm sure that they won't forget those times that we spent there with them. In the afternoon, we did a soccer clinic for the kids there. Only three showed up that day, but I could really tell that those kids were having just an awesome time learning from some of our really talented soccer playing university students. In the evening, we showed the Jesus film. Only one family came to the showing because of the intense rain and cold we were experiencing that night. It was a little discouraging to not see very many people show up to these events that we had, but we knew that despite our own plans not working out very well that day, God was working his own plans out, we just didn't know what they were exactly.
The second morning of our trip was not rainy! We actually set out that morning to work with different families around the area. Let me tell you, the people of Los Machos know how to work! The team I led set out to dig dirt out of a little hill and then carry buckets to another hill and we filled that hill with dirt. Pastor Todd Tillinghast and Pastor Correa, the pastors overseeing this project, strategically placed us with some recently converted families to encourage them in their faith. I really encouraged my team members to take the initiative to talk with the family members about the Lord and how good it was to be in his paths. One of the students on my team shared his own testimony with the parents of the house. Later that afternoon, we had the soccer clinic again, but this time, a lot more kids came because it wasn't raining so much. Our two student leaders shared the gospel with the kids in a way that was a little more understandable for them, and they all made decisions to follow Christ. Those kids won't ever be the same again. That night, God really cleared the skies so that people could come to watch the Jesus Film. Many more families came that night to watch the film and many of them made decisions to follow Christ too. It was an amazing night, the sky was beautiful and many of us were praying during the film that God would touch the hearts and lives of these people. At the end, I got to talk to a couple of guys who made a decision to follow Christ. I honestly couldn't get a very deep conversation going with these guys though, but they said that they really liked the message of the gospel and thought that it was good. What amazed me as I talked with some of the other villagers was the fact that some of them had never seen a movie before. It was really cool to know that the first film they had ever watched was about Jesus. Really cool, I'm sure they will never forget the message of the movie and the love of Christ for their lives.
The next morning, we set our for home. It was pouring rain like no other day. This did present us with a little bit of a problem. We had to carry all of our cargo down a long long hill, because the truck couldn't get very far up the hill. We had a lot of slips and falls walking down this hill because it was so slippery. We also got completely soaked! This was super fun for me though, I was having a blast, but the ride down the mountain was a little scary. We had to go down very steep and muddy hills with all of us in the back of a pickup truck on the face of some really high cliffs. The whole time in the back of the truck, I was praying that God would protect us from natural dangers, like mudslides and raging rivers. There was actually a river we had to cross with our truck, but the rain made the river too intense to cross. So we had to cross a small little bridge by foot which was actually another really scary part of the trip. The bridge was so narrow that it scared many of the Panamanian students to actually make it across. We prayed as we crossed the bridge two by two. Below the bridge was a raging river that would have definitely taken our lives had it the chance. But we made it through without problems and the Lord definitely kept us safe the whole way.

Los Machos was an amazing missions trip. It definitely was one of the hardest physically for me, but we also experienced a lot of changes in Plans. Despite our plans changing and things not going the way we wanted them to, we knew that God had his own plans and we learned that we had to trust completely in His will. When our plans would change, we learned not to ask God "why", but to ask Him how we should respond to His changes. I want to thank a lot of you that were praying for our team safety. Those prayers were definitely answered!

First Week on Campus

This week, the week of the 26th of October was our first week on campus doing ministry. We shared the gospel with many students and made some really good contacts with various students. I think the really cool thing about this week has been the response of the students and also that we've finally fully moved into our apartment. Let me tell you about the apartment first.

As I had written on my last post, the hunt for an apartment was a difficult one. We spent a lot of our effort trying to obtain a certain apartment only to find out in the end that the people we wanted to rent from were not totally trustworthy. After making many arrangements with them on how we were going to rent this apartment, they suddenly demanded three months of rent in advance plus a deposit and processing fee, which is not what we had agreed upon at the very beginning of our dealings and there was no way we were going to pay that kind of money, we didn't even have that kind of money! Something cool happened that same day though. Wes and I were both discouraged about the situation and we had a meeting at the office when all of a sudden, my landlord from last year called the office asking for me. I was a little surprised, but he almost begged me to come back to the apartment at $200 less of of the original price. We are now living there and so far it's been great to be back to what was home for me last year. Even the decision to move here was somewhat of a hard decision, since Wes and I didn't totally agree on the same choice, but after going through some more troubles with other apartments and one year minimum contracts, we finally came to decide on this apartment, since the landlord here doesn't care how long we stay, he just cares that we are responsible guys. In the end, it was really funny, because the apartment found us even though we were looking for the apartment. Glory to God

Our first week on campus was awesome. We were able to do a good amount of sharing with students in the faculties of Architecture and Business and today we have some follow up to do one with some of those students. There were some really receptive people and there were others that very closed off, but I know that God is working. This year, we've decided to focus our efforts on two faculties: Architecture and Business. We really want a movements to happen in these places and so far, we've seen a good response from the students.

This next week coming up will be a Panamanian holiday filled week and that means no school for student, but it doesn't mean we won't be working with students. The Crusade ministry over here has organized a missions trip to the interior of Panama to a place called Los Machos. We will work alongside students in sharing their faith with people who live in what we would consider in Canada to be poverty. We will also be sharing in their work too! We will probably do things such as crop harvesting, washing clothes, cutting weed with machetes and a lot of hiking to get around places. We'll also be sleeping on dusty grounds and sleeping bags. It's going to be an adventure for sure! Please be praying for our safety while we're out there. Hope that you guys all have a great week, Blessings to all of you :)

Your brother in Christ,

The Hunt of the Year

I'm now halfway through my second week of STINT in Panama! This should be exciting right? Well yes, it is exciting! But it hasn't only been exciting, it's also been a bit frustrating amongst other things. I titled this entry "The Hunt of the Year" precisely because since our arrival in Panama we've been on the hunt for a place to live in. Today it is day thirteen of our STINT year and we are still homeless; game-less so to speak in this game of point and shoot where we trudge through the wild jungle of Panamanian cyberspace in our pursuit of rare apartment prices and locations. Timing is everything though, and if you don't get that right you lose the scent of the trail you were following or worse; that scent you followed led you to sick and diseased game, the type you can't take home with you. The clock is ticking for us now and as more time passes by without a hit, the louder the ticking gets in my head. Wes and I both know that we have to bring this one home soon so we can focus on the main task, but we ultimately know that God will bring us home on this one. Rest assured, we are trying our best and we're not flaking out on this strenuous search, but we've unfortunately run into people promising an apartment with uncompromising demands (such as three months pay in advance!). I definitely feel that we're close to finding an apartment, so please pray alongside us as we continue our search for a place where we can rest our minds, our bodies and find time to spend with God in private. The greatest hunt of the year, has turned out to be the greatest times of trusting in the Lord!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3.5-6


Blessings

We Made it to Panama

We landed in Panama on Sunday the fourth of October and since then, my teammate Wes and I have been on the apartment hunt around Panama city. We've actually signed up for one already in an awesome location very close to the University and we ask that you pray alongside us for this apartment to be ours without any big problems. The location we're looking at right now is called Cangrejo and the cost of rent is very reasonable considering the location we are in. At the moment, we are waiting to hear back from the Realtor so that we can get accepted to be tenants for the apartment. It's a very exciting time since we are eager to get settled in so that we can start our ministry on campus as soon as possible.

Our flight over to Panama was a bit of an adventure. We were actually forced to stay an extra night in Toronto because our flight got delayed and our connecting flight was not going to connect on time, so we stayed at the Airport Sheraton Hotel courtesy of Continental Airlines. If you would like to see a video of our wait at the Airport, check it out at: http://juanwherethelightisvideo.blogspot.com/
We are in good health and both Wes and I feel totally blessed to be here. I will keep you updated on how the apartment hunting is going.

Blessings

I fly to Panama tomorrow
the country, the people I know
I'll be flying amongst stars
forgetting long gone scars
I feel great

Two times now I'll be gone
two times now too long
and I'm taking time, I'm learning life
streets and paths undiscovered, no less strife
but I'm coming back to see them unfold

I'll kiss the ground once I'm here
knowing my loved ones are near
but I'll kiss the earth when I'm there
knowing that God is everywhere
even with things familiar, but untold

And now I'm going back to the country of my dreams
where I left my mind and broke apart the seams
to dream dreams untold to any
that will be lived out by many
I feel great