Outreach report
When Paul was sent out on his missionary journeys he gave a
report of what had happened as an encouragement to the people who sent him and
prayed for him and his team.
Act 14:26 and from
there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God
for the work that they had fulfilled. Act 14:27
And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared
all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the
Gentiles.
Tonight I want to give a little update on some of the things
that happened during our 8 week outreach to
Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
First I want to thank those who faithfully prayed for our
team. Any time you venture out for the
Lord there is always opposition from the enemy. He does not want the gospel
proclaimed, heal the broken hearted, set the captives free or see people healed
and delivered. We face a real enemy and we
must recognize his strategies and attacks so we are prepared to fight against
him.
Our first obstacle thrown in our path was checking in at the
airport. A couple of us got our tickets
but then one of the students was told his tickets would not work to allow him
access to Panama as the immigration policy is you must have a return ticket
from Panama in order to enter the country.
Our return ticket was from Costa Rica.
This came as a surprise to us as we did not know this was the
policy. After talking with the airline people about
our situation they said we could change our ticket for $400 each so we could
return from Panama. After more talking
with them they agreed to change the tickets for no charge. Once we were in Panama I wrote the airlines
to ask if they could change our tickets back to the original plan to leave from
San Jose, Costa Rica to avoid a 17 hour bus ride from San Jose to Panama
City. They agreed to make the change,
again for no charge. This was a huge
answer to prayer and saved us a lot of money as well as travel time.
We worked with the YWAM base in Chilibre for the first week
of the outreach. Their DTS was also on
outreach and they were waiting for money to come in so the students could leave
for their planned trip to Europe. We combined our groups to do ministry in several
schools, girls home, prison, skate park and a church. We performed dramas and gave testimonies and
talked with the different groups of people.
One of the schools was almost all students with Chinese background. Panama has a large population of Chinese who
own businesses. The school had an
evangelistic mission as many of the Chinese are not saved so they use the
school experience to be able to reach the students with the gospel message. When we did the program at the school we had
6 students accept Christ as Savior.
We ministered in a maximum security prison where former
Nicaragua leader, Manuel Ortega was imprisoned.
A pastor from a local church in Gamboa has visited him and he was our
connection to get into the prison. The
prisoners were very grateful for our time with them..
Pastor Bill from the Gamboa church invited us to be a part
of his church service the 2 Sundays we were there. He is recovering from a stroke that happened
6 months ago while he was preaching on a Sunday morning. He has almost fully recovered but still has
some trouble speaking so he has other people fill the pulpit. One of our students, Renzo, who suffered a
severe head injury in an accident shared his testimony how God spared his life
when he was left for dead after the accident.
It was a great encouragement for everyone.
From Chilbre we traveld by bus to northern Panama to the
YWAM base in Chiriqui This is a new base
that this year offered an Indigenous DTS.
While we were in Chilibre the IDTS was there and when we arrived in
Chilbre they were also there but left the day after we arrived. They were a group of 23. They originally planned to go to Guatemala on
their outreach but did not have the funds to do so. In Chiriqui we had a different focus in our
ministry. We went to a reservation in
Tugri where Pastor Rafael, a YWAMer has started 10 churches in the last 7
years. I met him at a YWAM Conference in
Panama last May and made a connection with him and his wife. His testimony of his work there is pretty
amazing. He and his wife felt God was
directing them to evangelize the reservation so they came into the community
not knowing anyone. No one would extend
hospitality to them so the slept under a tree for the first 3 nights. Eventually they made contact with the people
and shared the gospel with them. Over
500 people now attend the churches he has planted. While there we visited homes and prayed for
the families. We had several receive
Christ. Conditions are pretty rustic, no
beds just a dirt floor to sleep on, no electricity at Pastor Rafael’s house and
the bathroom is an outhouse unless you want to walk to the school down the
hill. It was a beautiful area and we
enjoyed staying there for 3 days. We had
the opportunity to do a program at the school the last day we were there. The entire school came out to watch our
presentation and hear the gospel.
While in Chiriqui we went door to door to distribute bibles
to families that did not have one or had a bible that needed to be
replaced. It was a great experience for
us as we met a lot of people and always asked if we could pray for them. The
people were very hospitable and welcomed us into their homes. Another interesting ministry was going to the
indigenous camps where workers in the coffee plantations live, to do ministry
with the children. We showed up
unannounced and asked the leaders of the camp if we could do a program for the
children. They welcomed us and we did it
in 3 different locations. In one location there was a large group of young men
playing soccer so we invited them to come over at the end of our program to
watch a drama. They all came and were
able to hear the gospel proclaimed. We
were also invited to speak in 2 churches, one had a special service on missions
and the other was a weeknight evening service.
At this service one of the ladies that our student invited to come to
the service when they were visiting homes to invite people to come, gave her
life to Christ at the end of the service.
One of our students gave the message and it really spoke to the members
of the church and was a great encouragement to the pastor. He felt that God had sent us there and was so
thankful for what we did.
From Chiriqui we took a long bus ride to San Jose, Costa
Rica. We stayed at the SJ base for 11
days and were involved in different ministries they conduct as well as doing
open air evangelism and a lot of personal evangelism. We distributed 100 bibles in the community
going door to door. The people were not
as open as what we experienced in Panama but we still had opportunities to pray
with many. The students were able to go
out with Carlos and Sidney who are familiar to us since Carlos was one of our
DTS students. They have a ministry to
the people involved in human trafficking.
I was surprised to learn of how rampant this industry is in Costa
Rica. San Jose has over 300 brothels
operating which are legally registered.
There are many more brothels not registered and children of all ages are
involved. The ministry is one of giving
out coffee and cookies to the workers with the goal of developing a friendship
and eventually helping them get out of their situation. One of the things they do is offer English
classes to them so some of our students were able to participate in this. We also did a lot of open air ministry in the
downtown area. It was awesome to see people stop and watch and listen to the
testimonies. We combined with the
Indigenous DTS students and had a missionary from the USA who did several illusion
tricks work with us. At the end of one of the services a young girl came up to
Kalissa and said she wanted to receive Christ as her Savior. She had attended church for years but had
never understood that she needed to make a personal decision to accept
Christ. She was in tears after understanding
what she needed to do and what Christ had done for her. The students did a lot of personal evangelism
in the park as well and had some great conversations.
Another ministry we enjoyed was visiting with people who
were waiting outside of the ER area of the hospital. We brought coffee and cookies to them and
prayed with them. On one evening we were
running low on coffee and the SJ leader felt ashamed that we did not have more
to give. A couple of our students prayed
over the coffee container which only had about 3 cups of coffee left in
it. The coffee multiplied and they gave
out about 10 more cups and when we returned to the base there was still coffee
in it.
One of the projects YWAM is undertaking is a 10 year plan to
transform a community that until last year was controlled by gangs. You could not enter the community unless they
gave you access. A church is on the edge
of the community and needed a lot of cleaning as it was filled with mold and
dirt. Our group spend a day and a half
cleaning the outside area as well as the inside of the church.
From SJ we moved on to Heredia to the YWAM base. Their DTS was in session but had left for
another base where they were combining classes for the DTS. The base has horses, goats, chickens and cows
that we helped take care of in the morning as this was part of the chores of
the dTS students who were gone. The
students loved being outdoors and enjoyed caring for the animals which also
included yellow lab puppies. We did a
lot of Kids ministry in the parks and again gave out bibles door to door. One home I remember well was one that we gave
a bible to a lady and she began to cry because she wanted one but did not have
money to buy it. We prayed with many
people as we visited door to door. The
Thanksgiving holiday was celebrated with the staff and students at the
base. They went all out for this special
meal and for many of the students it was their first time celebrating it as
well as eating some of the typical foods.
We also did a special children’s program in a camp of coffee plantation
workers who were from Nicaragua. The
children had a great time as did the parents who came to watch. We visited a ministry that is in a slum area
to do a program for the kids and feed them.
Our last day of ministry was helping raise money for the transformation
project of this very area that we fed the children. We had cans that we used to collect money
from people walking in the streets or from people driving cars who were stopped
at the traffic lights.
Our final segment of the outreach was in Yulmacap,
Guatemala. It takes 13 hours to go from
Guatemala City to the village and the last 2 hours are in the back of a Toyota
Land Cruiser as it is the only vehicle that can pass through the roads which
were pretty scary in some parts. We have
been to this area 2 years ago with a DTS class.
No one had ever been to the village to do ministry like we did the first
time and no one had been there in the 2 years between visits. Our living
conditions were again rustic. The
students had to sleep on a cement floor in a cockroach infested building. We had running water to bathe in but it was
very chilly. This village has several
children who have a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to ultraviolet
light. The children with this have to
stay inside during the daylight hours and if they do not they develop cancer
which usually starts in the face. Our
ministry there involved visiting the children with the infirmity to bring food
to them as well as pray for them. One of
the boys I met 2 years ago has tumors on his face and has lost his eyes and
nose to cancer. The cancer has spread to
his brain so he is in a lot of pain and needs morphine to relief the pain at
night to enable him to sleep. He will
celebrate his 11th birthday on Dec. 20 so we bought him a present
and pray he will be able live to celebrate.
Each morning we visited the families and every afternoon we conducted
kids ministry on the basketball court.
We had perfect weather all week which was a blessing since the week
before it had rained every day. We had
about 40 kids everyday but over 100 people sat in the bleachers and around the
court to watch the program. The DTS
students did a great job planning the sessions each day and the children
enjoyed participating. In the evening we
showed Christian movies and always had crowd of over 100 attend. We also did dramas and gave testimonies at
these open air services.
It was an awesome outreach and a great 5 months with these
students whose lives have been changed through the work of the Holy Spirit and
the care of those who have been a part of their experience. Many of you prayed for them an others were
involved through ministry experiences they had with you during the DTS. Thank you for being a part of the journey of
faith for them.
