Event Summary of 2009

In 2009 we set this following targets:

Our target is to plan for 15 events in Panama, 12 events in the United States, and up to 3 events in other countries in Latin Americas (30 events total).

In preparing our annual report for the Presbytery of the James, as well as for PRMI which provides our covering here are some interesting statistics:

Live Events (conferences, sermons, classes): 46

• IPET Classes in Panama/Costa Rica: 16
• Preachings: 13 sermons in 10 churches.
• Live Conference Events: 17

Countries Served: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, United States, Guatemala

Virtual Events (on-line or by telephone): 56

• Virtual Webinars: 11
• Evangelism Coaching: 39 individuals / churches.
• Virtual Sunday School class: 1
• Expert Interviews: 5

Not only did we meet our event goals for 2009, but we far exceeded them.

God has been gracious in opening doors for us, and then providing for us through His people.

First Time here?

Hear directly from Vida Joven Leaders

National Leader Vida Joven Nicaragua Testimonial from Chris Walker

Kevin Suywan shares about the ministry of Presence

Another leader from Vida Joven Guatemala explains how learning about the Holy Spirit has helped her minsitry. She’s been receiving Dunamis teaching from PRMI at Vida Joven Nicaragua’s annual training camp

RSS Readers May need to Click through to see the 3 videos.

Sample Videos from Workshop at Vida Abundante Panama

Sample illustration from the teaching.

I chose to do this in English with translation for sake of clarity.

I still have a hard time composing “on the fly” in spanish, so for sake of time, we did it this way.

RSS Readers: Macaroni Sample

A sermon Illustration

RSS Readers: Sermon Sample in Spanish

You’ve Really Given me Liberty

After teaching on evangelism this weekend Vida Abundante in Calidonia, Maria (not her real name) pulls me aside and tells me

Your teaching has relieved a giant burden I’ve been carrying. . ..

It’s Not Our Job

Maria had heard teaching on evangelism over many years that could be summarized like this

• Here is a script to memorize.
• Share that script with as many people as possible.
• Rejoice with those that pray a prayer.

This is a common teaching paradigm that focuses exclusively on the skills of sharing your faith and in many cases has divorced ongoing discipleship from evangelism.

For years, Maria had faithfully obeyed this teaching. She grew confident in talking to strangers, using gospel tracts, and fine tuning her presentation.

Yet in all her years of energetically “working the program” she hardly ever saw a conversion experience.

In spite of all her confident theology about God working mysteriously, she experienced

• the mounting feelings of disappointment,
• the growing pain of continued personal rejection, and
• the mental energy drained in trying to fight self-criticism.

Her desire to share her faith was diminishing.

She felt totally responsible for all the outcomes.

Evangelism had become a human work.

• If they don’t repent, I’m doing evangelism wrong.
• If they don’t accept Christ, it’s my fault.
• If they don’t repent now, it must be because of some problem in my life.

Evangelism becomes a burden after repeated failures and rejection.

Nobody wants to do that all the time.

There are better ways to enjoy life than experiencing rejection every time you talk about faith.

Finding Freedom

Maria heard me teach on How the How the Holy Spirit draws people to faith.

She saw how God works through a process of bringing people to faith — a conversion to Christ is often at the end of series of key events that God uses.

Watching her respond through the teaching, her face showed evidence of the proverbial “light bulbs” going off.

The emotional burdens that had grown on her from all her rejection experiences in evangelism were fading.

What was building in it’s place was a confidence in God’s sovereignty and a joy that comes with relief from burdens.

She pulled me aside and said

Your teaching has relieved a giant burden I’ve been carrying. . .

She proceeded to tell me how this teaching had

• transformed her view of evangelism,
• helped her to see God’s responsibility
• given her a new fearless freedom to be a vessel in God’s work.

What a joy

There is a profound joy in watching people accept and apply this teaching.

For our ministry partners, this is the fruit of your work — people finding liberty to be more effective witnesses for Christ.  You enable us to fulfill our vision for 2010 of impacting churches in the Americas to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the work of missions and evangelism.

Narcisso goes to Peru

If you remember, one of my students is Narcisso.  He was in one of my classes on evangelism and has regularly contacted me outside of class to talk about his work, his calling, and his dream.

He is self-employed as an ambulante, a salesperson who walks around selling little wares like crackers and posters on the street.  Pictured with him is his box of stuff he was selling that day for .25 to 1.50. 

“Hermano,” he greets me as I answer his phone call after I return from Nicaragua.

“I’m going to Peru to study missions — to take a 6 month course on high speed, down into 60 days – focused on working with indigenous groups.”

Knowing his plans, his dreams, and his diligence in pursuing those dreams of being on the mission field, I’m eager to find out how I can help.  I know he’s been working on this dream for a while.  The time of fulfillment is now.

Narcisso is a man of faith and has displayed the character over time that has convinced me of his calling.

He’s raising $400 to finish out some funding issues and needs it in 3 days.  Panama has a hold on issusing passports, so he needs his passport to come through.  His travel visa is set to expire if he doesn’t use it. 

There is a lot of prayer requests in what he tells me — mountains need moving into the sea.

We give him an offering — so many people have invested in our dream to serve in Latin America.  We want to help Narcisso reach his. 

Over the next few days — all the funds come him for Narcisso.   Passports come through.   His visa is clear.  It’s clear that God’s hand is on Narcisso.

He left for Peru. 

I can’t wait for his return to see how he’s grown in his calling.  To watch him grow in his calling is a blessing that we get to see.  Our supporters enable us to invest in the lives of future missionaries such as Narcisso to make an impact around the world.

The Ministry of Presence

In January 2010, our team made a 6th visit to the Vida Joven (Young Life) training camp, high up in the mountains of Nicaragua between the cities of Jinotega and Matagalpa.

While it’s always to good to share about

• the content we taught,
• how many hours we taught,
• The number of students in our classes
• the number of countries that sent young adult leaders, and
• the ongoing effectiveness of our work,

there is an indescribable impact that people kept telling us about this year:

The ministry of presence.

More important than classes

Perhaps more important than the classes are

• the one-to-one conversations that reshape lives
• the individual prayer times for personal healing
• the sounding board

Our team has made a repeated investment in training these leaders over many years.

On this trip in particular, we were repeatedly told that we are the “safe people” outside the Vida Joven structure where national leaders can talk, pray, and ask questions without worrying about who knows what.

A prayer clinic

Our team took one of our breaks and offered a prayer time for those who carried special burdens and wanted to deal with them.

We didn’t advertise it, but for a brief lunch time announcement about 90 minutes beforehand.  People were given the liberty to skip a class if they wanted specialized prayer.

Our team was surprised by the demand.

We had to split up into 4 prayer teams in our small and chilly space.

The living room in our brick cabin became a waiting room, almost like a medical office.

For some, this time of prayer was life changing and future shaping.

For others, it was a time of emotional healing and finding forgiveness.

Leading Prayer Meetings

Our team lead the large plenary sessions a few nights.  Other nights, we were asked to organize the prayer ministry after the teaching of the word.

The leaders we have been training have grown in their ability and skill to do individual prayer ministry.  It is a deep joy to watch them pray for their peers, for their clubs, and for their cities.

This year, we ran 2 different level classes, plus had some plenary sessions with the large group (over 300 students from 7 different nations).  Some team members continued Dunamis ministry in Matagalpa with Ignite 2, and Chris preached in Managua.

What people had to say . .

Omar Picado, one of the National Nicaragua Directors for Young Life, had this to say:

“I remember the first year I experienced the Dunamis project and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then every year that the group has come, I’ve learned some ways to pray for the youth with whom we work.”

Team member Susan Finck-Lockhart added:

“People from all levels of leadership were drawn to our cabin and we were able to minister into the lives of leaders. . . We did lots of prayer ministry, including two “clinics” where our house was just open and we prayed in teams for person after person, sometimes bringing other leaders along side us.”

These leaders work in conditions of extreme poverty.

Many have come out of gangs, labor in high-risk very poor areas, and do so without resources or funding.  Nearly everyone knows someone in the drug trade and the vicious cycle that traps its victims.  Two decades of war have ripped the family structure and fabric of society.

Only Jesus can help people overcome their past, find forgiveness and healing, and discover how to help advance the kingdom of God.

Repeatedly, we were asked to say thanks to PRMI and our donors for continuing to make the investment to come to this training camp every year.  Strategic talks were held to continue this investment.

Thank you all for your support to help us invest there in Nicaragua.

Overflowing in Gratitude

Our prayers for provision of a car for the ministry over the last 2.5 years are answered.

We have been praying for a car to help us accomplish our ministry goals here in Panama.  This will make churches and pastors much more accessible to us and make it easier to respond to the invitations we receive.

Oops, that didn’t work

We were a little naive in thinking that we could use public transportation to accomplish all we needed to do.

After a few months, we discovered that the lack of available transport cost us ministry opportunities that

• were inaccessible by public transportation
• couldn’t cover a weekend car rental

We also had problems networking with pastors because public transportation was inadequate.

I couldn’t get to those pastors, and they couldn’t get to me.  Taxis would refuse to take us places cross town during peak hours, if we could find an available taxi.

Often, after making the effort to get to the meeting point by bus or taxi, the other party simply didn’t show up, often because of their own transportation issues.

There was a surprise and embarrassment factor as people assumed that we had a car — simply because we were foreigners.  For example, one pastor was embarrassed that I took a bus after leaving his church.   Another person was simply shocked when I said “I’ll take a bus home.”

Finally, it was just the plain inefficiency:

• 2 hours to make a 20-30 minute one-way trip.
• Leave 1.5 hours early to attend a meeting and hope it wasn’t cancelled.
• Once, it took me 5 hours RT to attend a 30 minute meeting.
• We didn’t let our kids participate in evening school events because we couldn’t transport them.

Growing the reach of our ministry

This car will help us expand our reach!

We’ll be able to get to conferences and workshops in the interior of the country.

We’ve got about 10-15 churches to start with that have asked us to come, but we’ve been unable to get there.

We thank God for this generous provision through His people.

Give thanks with us that this car is fully paid for, and the first year’s insurance premium has been paid in full.

Does God Provide for ministry?

In October 2009, I gave a brief talk about God’s provision. 

It was an open discussion night, held in a local restaurant / pub, and open to the general public. 

The theme: "How does God provide?" 

My foundational text was Psalm 23:1 – "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

As a missionary working in a developing country, the definition of want and the experience of provision is entirely different than what I would have described had I still been living in North America. 

1.  Biblical examples

Provision through offerings:

The Apostle Paul writes that he knows what it is like to want, to be in need, and how to live off the partnership offerings of others.  In Philippians 4:10-19, Paul writes "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty." 

The ministry of Jesus was partially supported by women helping out of their own means.  These women had received ministry from Jesus and chose to support his work. Luke 8.3 reads "These women were helping to support them out of their own means."

Further back into the Old Testament, one sees that the priests of the temple received provision for their needs through the offerings of the people.

Nehemiah received provision for materials and supplies through the king he served.

Provision through profession:

In 2 Thess 3:6-13, Paul talks about the value of work and earning money by the labor of your hands.  Sometimes, provision comes through working for someone or for yourself – receiving financial provision in exchange for labor.

Paul was a tentmaker by profession.  In Acts 18, he worked in Corinth for a while as a tentmaker, in partnership with Aquila and Priscilla.  "When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to the preaching" (18.3).  We can speculate that someone still ran his business now that he had sufficient help.

Provision "out of the blue"

I’m not sure how to categorize this one, but two examples may help.

When Jesus was born, three Gentile wise men paid Jesus a visit, bringing expensive gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh.  Imagine being on the receiving end of a strange visit. 

Did the parents of Jesus just win the lottery?  No.  It was the provision of God for their immediate relocation to another country as a political refugee.  I doubt Joseph took his woodworking tools with him –  he likely had to buy them again.  How did they pay for transportation, for food, for lodging.

A second example is from the stories of feeding the multitudes – God multiplied the meager resources to meet a need.  Unexpected provision from unexpected sources.

2.  Testimonies of Others

"Faith like Potatoes" is a biographical movie of a farmer from South Africa.  He had relocated there from another African country and started out completely broke.   Along the way he became a Christian and the film documents some extraordinary examples of God’s provision, particularly about a potato harvest at the films end.

Biographies from Christian missions all have testimonies of God’s generous provision, often through anonymous gifts, or through intentional partnership through offerings, or through working as a tentmaker.

3.  Personal Testimony

As a missionary family ourselves, we have received provision through a variety of means in 2009.

• In three months, we received nearly $30,000 out the blue for some big-ticket needs for our ministry, like a car, health insurance premiums and kids schooling.
• Cancelled bills or reduced bills
• Practical gifts for our ministry, like working laptop computers
• Regular ongoing gifts from our partners
• Offerings from the churches where we give ourselves in ministry.
• Provision from on-line presence and live seminars.

Living on partnership with you:

Pastors receive provision through the offerings from their congregations.

Non-profit ministries like PRMI receive provision through those who have been blessed by their ministry or believe in their cause.

Full-time missionaries like ourselves, are partially supported by the donations of our partners who believe in our work or partially through our own means of self-support.

We’ve known plenty (like when we earned a 6 figure income).  We could generously sow into ministries and spend our money on discretionary needs.  We could be the financial partner. Provision for us came through a steady corporate job before we moved to the mission field.

We’ve known want (like when our offerings for one month was only $750).  We’ve carried the stress of wondering where will the next grocery money come from, how will the kids schooling get paid for, and how will we not default on our bills. 

We can identify with the daily struggle of the poor with whom we work.  We see provision is more ways than just financial.

Does God provide?

Does God provide through out of the blue surprises?  Yes, we’ve have several examples. 

Does God provide through work of our hands?  Yes, we’ve got examples of that.

Does God provide through offerings?  Yes, we have partners who invest in our work.