I'm delayed in my blog!! Sorry, but I'm back in Vancouver :)

So as many of you know, I'm a bad blogger, so I'm sorry for any of you who may be checking up now and then on my blog to see if it's been updated and see no activity, but with that said, I'm going to make an effort to keep this blog up. Many of you also know that I'm going back to Panama for another year of STINT (Short Term International Internship). I've got to be honest with you, it wasn't the easiest decision of my life. A big part of me wants to stay in Vancouver with my friends and family, great sushi, great mountains and weather, great BUBBLE TEA! Now that I'm back, I'm beginning to realize what a wonderful place Vancouver is ("The Best Place On Earth") and how much I'm going to be missing it the second time around. I know though, that my time in Panama will not be wasted and that there is much need in this country and I know that God will use us to impact this place, even though we're just a couple of Canadian foreigners that don't totally understand the culture, but God will work through us if he chooses to do so. There are so many stories that I would like to share with you about what's going on in Panama. So many lives have been changed and so many things occurred during out time there. I'm sure we, the STINT team, don't fully realize the extent of God's impact in Panama while we were there. One of the reasons I'm going back to Panama is to see and be a part of the great things that God is doing in that country. I know that our work there is not in vain and I know that one day we will see the result of our work there and that result will be a positive and dramatic result.
Right now I'm support raising for my STINT year. So far I'm at about 20% of where I need to be. I need to raise $37,000. It seems like a lot huh? That's a huge sum of money, but I know that we also have a huge God who pretty much looks at that figure as if it were nickles and dimes. So I ask and challenge you to pray for those funds to come in before I head off to Panama. Please pray for my friend Wesley Hynd, who will also be going on this journey with me to Panama. He's almost at 60% of his support! For now that is my most pressing prayer, but I will keep updating this blog for those of you who read it :) And please, leave some comments...It'll motivate me to write more, because it show that people are reading it. Until next time.

You brother in Christ,
Juan Carlos Herrera

Our time in the village of Icandi, Panama continued...

We woke up at 5:30 the next morning to do our morning devotionals and eat breakfast. Our breakfast was not the most appealing. We brought our own food to cook, but most of it consisted of oatmeal style breakfast cream, mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the like. After breakfast, we discussed some topics about our time there in Icandi and what we were doing there. Then came the interactive part. Our team split off into partners and headed off to different huts to see what life what like for a Kuna. I partnered up with Lindsey and we took off with a Kuna missionary to speak with some of the families that lived int he village. We first entered a hut where a woman was smoking fish in preparation of a coming out party for her daughter. We interacted with the woman and her daughter and talked the things that she was doing. We then got non-permanent tattoos from the woman of a Kuna symbol and the name Jesus on our arms. I was awesome. We did this again and again, going from house to house and helping the Kuna women with their daily chores and work. I cut a lawn full of weeds with a machete, lindsey peeled plantains and different foods, we gutted fish, swept floors, ground corn and other things that we never thought we would ever have to do. It all felt very cool and primitive for me because I got to do all these jobs that I would never have to do back in the city. The next day we went out to do more of the same thing, except we had the chance to speak with the villagers this time. We started a spiritual conversation with a Kuna woman in her hut while Pastor Lazarus translated for us. It was so interesting to see this woman's perspective on life. We started out with some simple questions about her life, but soon I asked her the question: What is your purpose in life? Her answer was "Nothing". This shocked me, I thought maybe she would mention her kids or her family or gathering food or something like that, but her answer was that she did not have a purpose in life. That was it and there was no explanation as to why she felt that way, but just decided that she didn't have a purpose in life. This worried me a little bit about the people in the village. I'm sure this lady was not the only one who felt this way about life. I'm worried though, because a life without purpose will result in a life with bad consequences. After speaking with this woman for a little while, her husband showed up and we started speaking to him. We shared the gospel with him and his wife! It was good and even though I couldn't really tell whether they were very receptive to the message, I know that the seed has been planted there. The Kuna missionaries that we were working with also had their own project in hand while we were there. They held a few meetings with the chiefs of the village and got permission to build a church in the village. This was definitely a victory because they had previously gotten denied to start building a church, but it was approved. While we were there, we also showed the Magdalene film, which is basically the Jesus film from the perspective of Mary Magdalene. It was wonderful and attracted a lot of attention from the people in the village, especially the women and children, which the film was geared towards. All in all, as we finished up our three day stay at the village, things were looking good. One of the things that hit me the most were the kids. There were so many kids jumping on us and hugging us and following us everywhere. Pastor Todd who was accompanying us and leading us in this project told us that most of these kids are so hungry for affection, and that is why they were around us all the time. It broke my heart, to see so many kids, hungry for love and as my teammate Raquel put it one day in tears: "All I could really do was just love these children with Christ's love and transmit that to them". The kids touched our hearts and it was awesome just to be there in their lives those three days and bring joy to their faces with just our presence there. We left on that third day with a big group of Kuna kids waving goodbye while we went off in our canoe back to the highway that leads to the city. Looking back now, I realize that there are so many things that happened there that I didn't expect to happen as a result of God using us there. I'm sure that peoples lives were touched there too, and I just never have come to realize that.

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

What I Do On My Free Time in Panama

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are many things to do in Panama. At times I feel that I am being pulled in many directions all at once and the problem is that I want to be in all these places at once, but there is only one of me!
As a saxophonist, I've had the privilege of getting calls to play with many talented musicians over here in Panama. I really like this because the musicians I am playing with want to spread the word of God to people through music. Sometimes we play at the Universities in Panama and at other times we play at churches or big conferences. Popular music in Panama is different than the popular music in Canada and because of this, I get many more opportunties to play my saxophone with groups here, because popular music over here can incorporate the saxophone, unlike the majority of popular music played in Canada which is mostly guitar and keyboard driven. Now I do want to say that I am only speaking of popular music within the christian circles in Canada and Panama. In other words, popular praise and worship music, whether it be christian "artist" music or christian "worship" music for those who like to make that distinction. I did also bring my guitar, to Panama, but I haven't had too many opportunities to play it outside of campus ministry time. I was really hoping I would get more time to play my guitar on my free time, but that just hasn't been the case. The saxophone has taken it's prominent place in my musical endeavors. A big highlight for me this past month was the Coicom conference. I got to play in the opening show with some great musicians here in Panama including David Choy, a great Composer/Pianist who has shared the stage with the likes of Miami Sound Machine, Juan Luis Guerra and many more. This was an amazing opportunity for me because I do not often have the chance to play with such an amazing musician as David. You can check out David's story and see the way God has changed his life at: http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/David_Choy051206.aspx

When I'm not playing my saxophone, I like to connect with my new Panamanian friends. I've made many great friends here in Panama. Abraham, shown in the picture, is one of my good buddies. He plays the electric guitar and performs whenever he can with his screamo band. There is never a dull moment when Abraham is around. He is a super duper high energy guy and he never stops acting in a way that is out of the ordinary. He is one of the students going to the Dominican Republic next week with us on the short term missions project. He has raised all of his support now, so I give thanks to God for that. I know that God will use him and the other students to reach out to other lost students who are in desperate need of a Lord and savior.

One more thing that I do on my free time is Youth Ministry. I am volunteering with a youth group at a church called Crossroads. The youth ministry is called Crossfire and so far it's been an amazing time of building into youth in Panama. There are many Panamanian and American youth at Crossfire, so it's all bilingual teaching, which is something I find to be very awesome, because they are all united there to learn and worship God, despite differences in language and culture. I can definitely see the hand of God moving in the lives of these youths.

If you want to know more about what I am doing on my free time, don't hesitate to ask and just email me at juanqui_dtj@hotmail.com

Blessings

Busy Living

Life in Panama has been surprisingly busy. There are so many opportunities to do things. Music, meetings, events, talks, sharing, evangelizing, making friends and studying are things that you can do here, but there is so much to pick and choose from. At times, it is tough to choose between things and to prioritize them, because help is always needed everywhere.
The last couple of weeks have been really tough because I had to take a systematic theology class. It was required of all the Campus for Christ Panama staff to take this two week intensive course. Lots of people were very tired and stressed out from it all, but the course was awesome. Our Professor's name was Eric Schlottman and he did an amazing job. He is an American, but he taught the whole course in Spanish, and his Spanish was excellent. The course is over now, but I still have to do a lot of assigned reading.
Life with my roommates has been alright. This is really my first time living away from home, so having the opportunity to share a house with other guys has been a very good and helpful experience. It's not always easy living with people you don't know that much, but I thank God for my roommates, who are also my teammates. They are great guys and Christ centered. Living with them hasn't been a problem for me at all so far, so I am grateful for that.
Now that I have more time, I will be writing in my blog more regularly, so if you are reading this, you can check up on this blog at least once a week, and you'll find something new. If you have any questions about anything, don't hesitate to ask me. :)

Blessings