Our time in the village of Icandi, Panama

On the 22nd of February, our STINT team went out to the village of Icandi which is situated in a comarca or reserve called Kuna de Madugandí. The reason for our trip was to get us better aware and acquainted with missions into remote or less developed places. To get to Icandi, we took a bus ride that lasted a few hours to a bridge in Vallano. Near the base of that bridge, we got into motor powered canoes and traveled to the island village of Icando. It took us about an hour to get there, but it was a beautiful sunset ride, despite being soaked by the waves :) Once we got there at twilight, we were greeted by mostly Kuna women and children, but some men too. They quietly and quickly helped unload our equipment into the huts that they had arranged for us to stay in. We weren't sure what to expect, so we mostly observed and we never took pictures for some Kuna believe it bad to get their picture taken. As darkness came over the village, we made our way into the huts and got our hammocks quickly set up by the men and women. They were pretty much expert at tying knots and getting hammocks set up. All this had seemed strange to me so far. I was expecting to meet more people that speak Spanish but most of the parents and older people didn't speak Spanish. I almost felt like a stranger intruding into this place for the people didn't try to communicate with us or even break a smile. Everything was set up so fast for us, but it seemed very business like and straight forward. I would eventually come realize that the Kuna people were in fact very welcoming. On Monday, we woke up early at 5:30 am. I was so tired by that time from the rush of preparation and set up the day before, but the trip had just begun and I Knew that we had a long journey ahead of us.

To be continued...

The Power of Prayer

For some reason, I've been noticing that there has been a greater response to the gospel message on the University campus in Panama. More and more students have been accepting Christ into their lives and others have been asking for the Holy Spirit to fill them. Last term, people were not as responsive to the gospel message and I think it was partly due to a lack of prayer on our team's part. Back in December, our team as a whole could feel that prayer was lacking on all our parts and the Lord convicted us of this. There was pretty much an overall group feeling that we needed to pray more, and we expressed this to each other one night. So guess what! We started praying more. Then guess what! We started seeing more results on campus. Right now it's summer semester, so the skeptic in me says "oh yea, students are just more relaxed right now and they have more time to talk to us and make these types of decisions and that's why we are seeing a greater response from the students". I don't think it's the summer though and I don't think that it's all the free time they have. The students that are there right now don't even have free time, because they are taking classes. I think it's God's hand at work and his response to our prayers. There is something more going on here. So I hope that if you are reading this, you can experiment for yourself the power of prayer. Go ahead and try it and see results!

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 1 John 5:14

Last night my old elementary school classmate died.

I was doing a lot of support raising last night, when something happened. I was a little stressed out dealing with student loans and raising financial support for my ministry in Panama when I found out that one of my elementary school classmates was murdered on my street back home in Canada. I didn't know him very well, but I do have memories of him way back in elementary school. He was a tough type of guy, one who would never back out of a fight...He was just fearless, but that made him prone to trouble. I can't figure out why it had hit me so hard last night. I started to think about how short life is and I realized that I'm not invincible. I began to realize that people around me are dying without Christ in their lives. I then began to think what if I had shared with my classmate. I began to have that "what if" type of thinking, which isn't always a good way of thinking, but I did. I remember seeing him on the bus a year or two ago with his girlfriend. He was a dad when he died. My point about all of this though is that last night, I realized that life is a blink of an eye. I don't have time to hesitate about sharing God's word with people around me because the worst that can happen to me in our peaceful country of Canada is be rejected. What an honor it would be anyways to be rejected for the glory of God. I want to make it clear though, that I need to share! I don't need to force it upon anyone or just shout it at them, but present it to them as a gift that God is offering to them. As I was reading my classmate's story on the web last night, I took a long look at his picture. I could still see the little innocent boy in him. That hit me too, but this became a wake up call for me. We all get wake up calls at times, we need them. Life is a blink of an eye and let's not waste one moment. :)

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

2Peter 3:8