Now to Romania

For anyone who is still viewing my old blog, this is for you. Cyndi and I are joining Danny and Kristen Davis and their small children, Sam and Claire, to go on a 6 week Let's Start Talking mission o Constanţa, Romania. We leave on June 17th and will return to the USA on July 31st.

We are in the middle of last minute preparations to leave. The "to do" lists are growing and items are being checked off. We have so uch to do, but I'm so ready for that moment when I'm sitting on the plane flying through the air, knowing that I've done all I can do and rest for the long trans-Atlantic flight. And finally meeting the missionaries who requested for us to come. It will be exhausting and exciting all at the same time.

Here is the blog that our team will be using while we are on the trip: http://www.lstromania.blogspot.com/

Please pray for us and our readers. That is the best gift that you can give us. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible. Praise God that you are faithful to Him and want to do His will.

Buna ziua! (Good day)

Birthday wishes

I want to send out a big ol' "Happy Birthday" to my Dad, Grandma, and niece, Katie. They all have birthdays this week so they are on my mind. It's times like these when I feel a bit isolated from my family and friends. One main reason is that it's unbelievably expensive to send a birthday card from Panama to the U.S. Besides all of the cards we can get here are in the Spanish language.

Last year, I was with my brother, Jeff and his family in Tennessee for Labor Day weekend, and then up to PA for my Dad and Grandmas birthday. That seems like a loooooooong time ago, now. But it was one of the unexpected blessings of our delayed departure for Brazil. Now here we are a year later, looking to come back to the U.S. soon.

If you're interested, here's a quick link to my blog entry that I posted exactly one year ago. Click here.

High School Readers

As many of you may recall, our local church in Panama had been meeting in a house. In mid-May, we were able to move to a more centrally located high school called, Instituto América (IA). We have more room and have made connections with the school administration to use LST with the students from the school. It has been a wonderful exchange and given the church many new opportunities to serve the community. The church meeting at the school is now called the Metropolitan Church of Christ.

In June, a new LST team came to Panama to begin LST work at IA. While Cyndi and I were finishing the semester at the university, they had a three week project which introduced LST to the high school students. At the end of their project, we invited the readers and their families to our worship services on Sunday. I gave a short lesson about why I came to Panama and the importance of LST. Afterward, the readers were awarded certificates of achievement. Cyndi and I were able to meet some of the readers invite them to join us in reading sessions also.

For the last three weeks in July, Cyndi and I have been working at IA. We are really glad to help the church make a connection with the students who are searching for what they believe. All of our readers have been wonderful. They are so eager to learn more about Jesus and our lives. The school has been very accommodating to the LST program. We pray that God will help the relationship between the school and the church to grow.

If you are interested in some photos of our new meeting place and the work at the school — click here to look at them. We took some more photos with our students, but unfortunately our camera was stolen before we could upload them.

Last week, we left Panama to fulfill our visa requirements. Every three months we must leave Panama for 3 days, then we are able to re-enter Panama and are allowed 90 more days. We went to Costa Rica again and enjoyed some much needed down time.

Encouragement Mail

We got a card in the mail yesterday from my childhood church in Pennsylvania. The ladies sent us words of encouragement that are greatly appreciated. Many of you have told us that you are praying for us. That is very comforting to know. Your reminders that you are thinking of us and especially lifting us up to God encourage us a lot. I believe in the power of prayer and have seen results many, many times. Keep it up! :)

Thanks to the ladies of the Church of Christ in Hermitage, PA! And thanks to all of you who have been encouraging us. We appreciate it very much. God bless you all.

More Photos

I added some new photos of some of our readers so that you can get a better picture of what our lives have been like. I hope you enjoy. Click here to see the photos.

A Little Contemplation

I would like to reminisce, a little. Let's look back at a quote from my blog on July 28th, 2008:

"I've been learning that my plan is not important, but God decides when things should happen. When we started the process to go to Natal, we asked God that we would follow His will, not our own. I believe that He is teaching me that even when I think that I am laying out a plan for Him, I may be laying out MY plan and just expecting God to approve my plan and go along with it and bless me."

I wrote this before Cyndi and I ever knew that we were going to be in Panama. We had thought that we would be in Natal, Brazil for one whole year. In ways that we could not control, we were not able to stay in Brazil. Lacy Hefley, our original team mate, has just completed a year in Natal and is headed back home to the US. We thought that we would also follow this plan. But here is another quote from last year:

"We have been praying that God will place roadblocks where He doesn't want us to go... so our plans have kept changing with the roadblocks."

I realize now, that my plans are so limited. God can do anything. Last year we had our final yard sale and we moved out of our house on July 4th weekend. God is continually teaching us to let go of our plans and listen to what He wants to do with us, and for us.

I'm contemplative and reminiscent because we just lost a faithful brother in Panama — Walter Leonard. He was the second person we met when we arrived last December. And from our first meeting, he helped us feel needed and a part of the family. We were honored to sing at his funeral last week and celebrate a full life of service in God's kingdom. I feel really blessed that we had 6 months to witness his example of faith and service. We are so happy for him, but will feel his absence for the rest of our time here.

"How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?" 1 Thessalonians 3:9

Metropolitan Church

One aspect that I've been wanting to blog about is the church here in Panama City. Ever since we've arrived, we have been welcomed and cared for, by the Metropolitan church. It has been a pleasure to meet Raul, Walter and Elio, three evangelists working with this church. They are zealously evangelistic and want nothing, if they can not reach more people with the gospel of Christ. Immediately, they recognized us as co-workers in the kingdom and have been an encouragement to us. (Especially, when we came down with that horrible virus in January!)

From December to May, the church has met in Walter's house.

Here you can see our group on one Sunday in March. Every service is bilingual. Even prayers are translated into English on most occasions, which Cyndi and I appreciate very much. But as you can see in the photo, there isn't much room for growth in Walter's house and it can get pretty warm in there! (Right Crystal and Lacy?) Here's another view of those sitting behind the house.

One of my favorite things about this church is that they love to sing, especially Elio, pictured beside me. They always ask me to lead the songs they are singing in English. We will sing a verse in Spanish then the same verse in English. I like the way that it flows so well, even though many of us don't speak the same language.

Last week, for the first time, the Metropolitan church has moved out of Walter's house and into a school. There is more space for growth and air conditioning! The greatest benefit of our move is that it is more centrally located in the city. Walter's house was on one end of town which made for a really long commute for many folks. It is very difficult to get around in Panama City because of traffic and construction. I'm going to miss the closeness of meeting in a home, but I can see the benefits of our move.

Well, many of you have been asking about our church situation, here in Panama and I hope this answers a lot of curiosity. We look for great things to continue to happen with our family in Panama.

Reading Time

Now that we've really started to meet with readers for a couple of weeks now. I'll tell you how its going. I currently have a dozen readers who I meet with once a week. People sometimes will fail to come to their reading session without telling us. But this is common in Latin America. I'm getting to know all kinds of people, from professors at the university to janitors. Most are university students that have taken several english classes.

Things started off really well, but about 5 or 6 of my readers have missed their sessions. I'm emailing them now to remind them, but I can't force them to come. The rest, who come, are really doing well and understand everything they read about Jesus. Please pray that the ones who aren't coming will come back.

The really cool thing is that we are still getting new people coming in to sign up for the program. The university has offered to pay for our meals while we are on campus. We are being treated very well. One of my readers last week, thanked me for spending my time with him. It made my day, of course, but more than that, he let me know that God is using the time we are spending reading His word to make a difference in someone's life. I hope that I can always remember to get out of the way and let God do His thing.

The Dry and Rainy Seasons

I apologize to all of you who regularly check this blog for updates for my lack of blog time. A couple of weeks ago, Cyndi and I had to leave Panama because our tourist visa expired. Every 90 days, we are required to leave Panama for three days, then we are free to re-enter the country and receive another 90 day visa. We went to the closest country we could travel to... Costa Rica. During this time, Crystal Jones visited us even though she knew that we would be taking Central American transportation! We were so glad to have her experience our latest adventure. We really enjoyed Costa Rica, and Crystal's visit, despite the overnight bus ride through the mountains. Blah!

A week ago, an LST team of five from New York state came to Panama to help us with the opening of UDELAS, the local university where we are finding new readers. Cyndi and Lisa Carter (our missionary contact in Panama) spent the first couple of days going to classes telling university students about the LST program. The word spread and we spent last week signing up lots of readers. And starting reading sessions!!!! We are so glad that people are ready to read with us now! Summer vacation is over and they are ready to get to work.

God has brought to us many college students, and some faculty as well. All five of the folks from New York have lots of readers. They plan to be here for two more weeks. Once they leave, Cyndi, Lisa and I will take all of these readers and continue to have reading sessions with them. We are so excited with the response that we have received. So many souls drinking in the Word of God. Praise God for His work in their lives. Please pray that we will be His instruments as we read the gospel with them.

In Panama, the are two seasons... the Dry Season and the Rainy Season. Their equivalent of summer vacation started the day we arrived in Panama and last week it ended. Also, the rainy season will begin very soon. The same has been true with our work here. We tried and tried to read with people, but had very little response. But now, the response to our work is almost overwhelming. In Panama, when it rains, it pours and I'm not just talking about water. Let it rain.

Let my teaching fall on you like rain; let my speech settle like dew. Let my words fall like rain on tender grass, like gentle showers on young plants. I will proclaim the name of the Lord; how glorious is our God! Deuteronomy 32:2-3

"Summer Vacation"

This time of year in Panama (and much of Latin America) is vacation time. It is very similar to our summer vacations where the kids are out of school and folks take time off from work. For the next four days, Carnival (a nation-wide Mardi Gras) will commence. Things are really quiet all around and many people are traveling. School starts in March and will last through to December. We plan to start a full load of reading sessions in the next couple weeks at the local University - UDELAS (an acronym for Universidad Especializada de las Americas). The University incorporates LST into the curriculum even though our services are free and we don't work for the University. It's an amazing opportunity to teach college students about the Bible while they take their regular classes. The University provides space for our reading sessions and we live only about a mile away from the campus. God has really set everything up perfectly and we are ready to start.

But we have been taking advantage of the down time though to settle into our new apartment and I am working for the Bible Study Guide for 40 hours a week to make up for time lost during our travel from Brazil and the Christmas holidays. We have been getting used to our new home and surroundings. Plus we are studying Spanish with a tutor 3 nights a week. It is really difficult to learn the language, but we are giving it our best.

Please pray for our upcoming work. We plan to have a very full schedule soon and will be reading through the book of Luke with as many people as we can handle. I have downloaded pictures to our Picasa web page of our recent work in Chepo and of our new apartment. Click here to visit the photo page.

Settling in Again

Cyndi and I are finished with our work in the little town of Chepo and are back in Panama City where we will remain in residence until we come back to the US. The work in Chepo started off really well, even though there weren't many people with good enough English to read with us. We had lots of people coming to Cyndi's basic English class. I am really proud of the way she tackled teaching because she had never done anything like that before. She and Amada (our God-sent translator) really worked hard to show the students that the church is a welcoming place where everyone is accepted. I had several readers who were doing well. Then we got sick.

I got sick first, then Cyndi three days later. It was a virus that gave us fever and digestive trouble. Once I got the fever, I wanted to come back to Panama City so that we could see an English speaking doctor. The illness lasted for about a week and a half and after feeling up to it we decided to go back to Chepo and finish what we started. But, it appeared that the momentum had been lost and we only had about half of our original students. Chepo had never had LST before and we were kind of a test to see if they were good for an LST team. We've decided that its a little too rural and there are just not enough people with English comprehension. Our goal was to make a contact with the people and the church and I think that God blessed that work.

Now we are back in Panama City and have moved into our apartment! This is the first place to call our own since coming to Panama City in mid-December. We are busy getting all of the things a couple needs to survive. Tonight, we went to the mall and Cyndi got pots and pans for the kitchen and various other things that make a home. I will take pictures soon and post them on our Picasa site for your viewing pleasure.

I will spend February working for the Bible Study Guide full-time to make up for lost time while traveling, the holidays and being sick. Cyndi will try to pick up a handful of readers that have some contact with the church already. We don't start work with the university here until March, so we are filling our time as wisely as possible. We are also continuing or Spanish training and learning more and more. It is really difficult, but we are determined. With God's blessing, we can learn more than we think.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. We are trying o find our place in Panama and it is a bit of a struggle. But we also know that God has brought us here and we are anxious for the university to start so we can meet the ones we came to teach about Jesus. Please pray that God will prepare those readers for the seed.

P.S. I'm sorry that it is so cold in the US.It feels like summer here every day. I know that sounds nice to some of you, but I miss the cold. I know, I'm a crazy polar bear living at the Equator.

Turn of Events

We've run into a bit of a snag concerning our work in Chepo. Read Cyndi's blog to get an update. Click here.

Happy New Year!

We are starting an exciting adventure this weekend to start off our work in Panama. Cyndi and I plan on going to a small town called Chepo. In Chepo, we will start a 3 week project where LST has never been attempted before. The local church of 40-50, has been advertising our free lessons and we will start sessions next Monday, Lord willing.

We had the opportunity to go to visit the church and the town on Monday. The challenge for us will be that we are only beginners in Spanish, but no one at the church speaks English. I have a feeling that our Spanish is about to get a power boost! Necessity is the best teacher, right? So stay tuned to find out how that works out. Ha!

There are a lot of details that need to be worked out. And Cyndi and I are going to be asked to do some things that we have never done before, so please pray that God will make everything fall into place, as He has done so many times before. We will not have much internet access while we are there, so you may have to be patient with our updates.

This is the great adventure! Happy 2009!

Panama Pictures

During the holiday free time, we have been exploring our new city. If you would like to see some of our pictures, click here.

Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! If you've been reading Cyndi's blog, you already know that we are in Panama City, Panama. We had an uneventful flight (Praise God!) and are in the process of settling into our new environment. We have met some people who are very important to us already, Raul and Betty Alvarado. He is a local native minister and they have three beautiful children. They are both from Panama and went to Harding, built a ministry in California for several years before moving back to Panama. They have been back here for around ten years. They have been helping us get settled in and showing us around. This isn't easy when you consider that Christmas is so near. The Alvarados have graciously invited us to spend Christmas with them. So we will get the pleasure of experiencing the holiday in another culture. That will be really welcome, because being by ourselves would be difficult since we won't be with our families this year.

We are living in the Carters apartment while they are home in Florida for the holidays. We were able to meet Lisa before she left. While they are in Florida, we are hoping to find a place of our own. No success so far. Please pray that we will find something close to the university where we will be reading with students. Housing is very expensive here and we also want to find something reasonable so we can stay for nine months, like we agreed.

We have a difficult road ahead of us. We started learning Spanish when we arrived, but have A LOT to learn before we can even take care of our own needs, let alone carry on a conversation. So please pray that we will be quick students. I think a genuine miracle will be required for that one, but I believe God can do amazing things as we have already seen.

After the New Year's holiday, we will be moving out to a small town called Cheppo. There we plan on spending two weeks doing LST work with the people there. We may be staying in the church there. We may be out of internet contact while there, but will surely fill you in on all of the details once our time in Cheppo is through. We look forward to this challenge.

Thank you for your interest in our lives and how God is using us. Thank you so much for all of you who have given us support and prayers. Just reading our blogs is a gift to us. A special thanks to everyone who leaves comments, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't know that anyone was reading our blogs. Thanks to our families for giving us up for one year, we miss you, especially now. Thanks to our friends who have offered to do whatever we need them to do. The time to ask for favors may be near.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year! God bless you!

Another Transition

It seems like transitions are becoming a habit for Cyndi and I. But that doesn't make them any easier. We are preparing to leave Natal on Monday, Dec. 15th and the good-byes have already started. Last night we had a farewell party and most of our readers came to wish us well. Cris and Lacy coordinated a great time for us all to share one last time together. It is really hard to let go of people that we have shared so much of ourselves with. From the first day we all met, our goals were to give of ourselves and share the Word. We all have relationships that do not go much deeper than, "Hi, how ya doin?" "Fine." "How are you?" "Fine." But with LST, we spend at least an hour per week talking and studying together. Needless to say, these relationships can really run deep.

So as we leave Brazil and look to Panama, it's a mixture of emotions for me. We are leaving close friends and traveling to a place that we've never been before to work with people we've never met. It's real easy to reject this idea and want nothing more than to stay here in Natal with the people we know. But I know that God is calling us to Panama and we will meet and grow to love more people. At this point, it is difficult, but trusting God's will and plans is what we set out to do a year ago. I'm reminded of the lesson that I blogged about at the very beginning: I'm not to make plans and ask God to bless them, I'm to let God make my plans and follow. So that's what I am trying to do, even when I don't feel like it.

Our plane leaves Natal on the morning of the 15th and arrives in Panama City later that evening. We are planning on making contact with Lisa Carter, one of the missionaries before she leaves for the holidays in the US. We will stay in the Carter's apartment for the holidays learning as much Spanish as possible. I plan on sending more details once we are settled in. God bless you and please keep us in your prayers.

Thanks and More Thanks

We have had A LOT to be thankful for, here in Natal. On Sunday night, two young men gave their lives to Christ in baptism. Both were involved in the LST program. We are so thankful to announce that Talis and Jefferson are brothers in Christ. What an incredible blessing to see both of them grow in their faith and knowledge of Jesus. Talis had been reading with Lacy Hefley. The first time I saw Jefferson was at our costume party at the end of October. He has been studying with John Jewell since then. You can see pictures of their baptisms by clicking here! (For those of you that receive our newsletter, Talis was the young man that we highlighted in the reader profile of our last newsletter.)


We recently celebrated Thanksgiving by having a party with our LST readers. We had a great group and served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to all of them. Our LST team, the missionaries and church members alike pitched in to make it all come together. We got to teach our readers about our culture and really share ourselves with them. Cyndi made some great food that wasn't easy to do in a different culture. But it was a wonderful taste of home... especially the pies. We were really encouraged by the success of the party. Last year Cris Carpenter was the lone American trying to do the same thing. Marisa, a local minister's wife, mentioned how last year they were praying and praying for God to help them reach the community. She said that this year, she can see that God answered their prayers in a great way. (You can see pictures of our party at the same link above.)

Cyndi and I are starting to look to the immediate future. In two weeks, we will leave Brazil and travel to Panama City, Panama. It is difficult to imagine the transition that awaits us. It will be excruciating to leave our coworkers, church family and the readers we have come to know so well. It will be especially hard because we are going to a brand new place that we know little about. All we know is that God wants us there. And I guess that should be enough, shouldn't it? He has taken care of us so well that I am constantly amazed at His grace.

I will send more info about Panama in the next few weeks. Until then, rejoice with us as we celebrate two new lives in Christ.
Visit Cyndi's blog to read more about our Thanksgiving.

Good thoughts

Yesterday, I had a reader who was studying the temptation of Jesus with me. We read through the text and went over any English words that he didn't understand. (He learned English by listening to American music and watching American movies. I was really impressed by his ability to speak only by those means.) Then I had him read and answer the questions written in his workbook. He didn't have much trouble there except for some verbs in the past tense. (In music and movies, most of our speech is in the present tense so this can be a problem.)
After the workbook questions, I always ask additional questions that help them answer for themselves what is really going on in the text. We talked about how the devil was tempting Jesus and I asked him, "What do you think about what the devil is doing here to Jesus?" and he replied, "The devil knew the scriptures really, REALLY well!"
I was really hit by the truth to his statement. It wasn't the first time I had heard someone say that, but it is so true! Then my reader said, "I really need to know the scriptures, too!" then I said, "ME, TOO!" If quoting scripture is Jesus' defense against the devil, it sure had better be mine. I need to be in the Bible daily and so often it gets a low priority. Maybe if I spend more time in the Word, I wouldn't fail to temptation so easily sometimes. If I claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, I need to spend time in the Word.
I included some details of how this lesson went so that you could see the format that we use in our reading sessions. I hope you can see that not only do we show our readers Jesus, but they show us some great insight into scripture as well.

Now that's a good question!

Today I had two reading sessions that were very interesting. I'll call my first reader Timothy. Timothy is a very intelligent 18 year-old who has a good grasp of English as well as general knowledge of the Bible. Timothy rarely has problems understanding the message of each lesson so recently I decided to challenge him with harder questions. Because he learns so easily, I thought he would enjoy studying the deeper questions that we usually don't ask our students. Today, we were talking about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and His ultimate choice to be our sacrifice. We also talked about how His disciples reacted to His arrest. What were they thinking? Then I asked him how he would have reacted, if he were one of the disciples.

Timothy said that he would have wondered why Jesus gave Himself over to the Jewish leaders. That lead us to talk about why God wanted Jesus to die. "Why did Jesus have to be the sacrifice?" Now that is a good question. When that question arose, I realized that this discussion would take longer than the time we had and so I said that I wanted him to think about this all week and that we would talk about it next Wednesday. I can't wait until our reading session next week.

Reader #2, I'll call Gideon. Gideon is a 33-year-old family man. He believes in Jesus and struggles with the understanding of what being a Christian looks like in the real world. In an e-mail, he flat out asked me if it was a sin for a cop to kill a man (inside the law) Uhhhh, I don't hear that question everyday. Then today, we were talking about how Jesus would not drink of the cup again until God's kingdom comes. Then he asked, "When will God's kingdom come?" Now that's a good question!

I'm sure you are curious to hear my answers to these questions, but I've found that the best answers come from the Bible and I can only give a simple man's opinion. And what is that compared to the unfathomable wisdom of God's Word.

Parties and Beaches

By my title it may seem like I'm really living it up, but the party I mention was an LST costume party. We invited all of our readers to come to the church in a costume. We asked them not to dress as anything evil and be creative. We had a great turnout! A few of my readers came and we had fun and games. We taught them about the "Trick or Treat" process and showed them how to go to a door and beg for candy by yelling these familiar words. They had a really good time and learned some American culture at the same time. Cyndi went as the woman at the well and I went as a Roman Emporer.
We were really beat after the party and the next day, on our day off, we went to the beach. We relaxed and enjoyed the waves. I've only been to the beach a couple of times so far and really enjoy the beauty of the ocean. I'm so amazed at the power of these relatively calm waves. It was a nice way to rest after the party.
I've loaded more pictures on our Picasa site. Click here to see them. Remember, we don't have daylight savings time, so we will be three hours ahead of Central time and 2 hours ahead of Eastern time starting this Sunday.